32 Years After the Reemergence of Magic
Cion Livii was a woman of the sword. She had been since she was four years old and Sir Gellings had placed a wooden replica in her hands.
But in the face of magic, the blade was much less useful.
It had made navigating such a world rather difficult, ruling it even harder.
But with a demi-god at her side and a magic-wielder for a younger sister, she had managed rather well.
After all, she had peacefully brought a bloody war longer than her lifetime to an end and been crowned queen of the realm’s largest kingdom, all at the green age of twenty-two.
It had all made her a rather calm person.
If she could handle a war and the return of the gods, with all the chaos they brought, she could handle most anything.
But today, as Valhamnor circled over a thick forest at the northern end of Mise, she found herself wondering if this was one task she might not be able to conquer.
Two Vemon dragons had been spotted nearby three days ago.
When Ana read the scroll, she had turned pale as a sheet and begged Cion not to make her go.
She insisted it was Cion alone. Ana dealt with the nightmares of the past by moving forward and never looking back.
She had never returned to Arcadia again once magic returned, had only ever spoken of that day in the former god king’s palace once.
Warm air whipped Cion’s braids around as she scanned the horizon and then the tree line. Perhaps the sightings had been a mistake. After all, the war-torn villages in this part of Mise had been abandoned decades ago. Ana wasn’t the only one who ran from ghosts.
But just as she thought it, a pale flash in the trees caught her attention.
Valhamnor?
Her dragon dropped altitude slowly, still circling as he replied. There is someone nearby.
Dragons?
He neared a clearing a few hundred feet away from the flash. You should investigate, princess.
He had never called her queen, insisting she was still the young girl she had been when they had met that day at the Choosing Ceremony. She pretended it didn’t bother her, but she had always known dragons were the wiser race.
His landing was quiet, and she slipped from his back with the ease and stealth of a practiced warrior in their prime, despite her aging mortal body. “Wait here for me.”
Each step through the trees was a battle, perhaps one of the hardest she had ever fought.
“In another life, perhaps we could have been sisters. But in this one, you were simply my captor.”
She smelled woodfire smoke, and the tenor of a man’s voice carried from the clearing as she approached. Her heart was in her throat, her breath audible in the warm, humid summer air. When she heard the screech of a child’s laughter, she nearly turned around, sure she had been wrong.
But then, a small figure darted out of the house, and she nearly stopped breathing.
“Papa! There’s a lady in the trees!” a girl called, her brow creased as she pointed to where Cion stood. The child couldn’t have been older than five, her face a striking mix of Misean and Arenean features, her silver hair pulled back into tiny braids.
Cion didn’t move, simply watching as a ghost wearing the face of Vane Evva hurried out of the house, heading for the child and pulling a long knife from his belt. He didn’t look older than perhaps twenty-five, his dark hair free of gray and his eyes rimmed with silver ether as he scanned the area.
When his gaze landed on Cion, he tucked the knife away and the ether faded. “Nya, love, is that her?” he asked the child gently, pointing.
The girl bobbed her head. “She looks like the queen in the painting but old.”
Vane’s lips curved. “Are you going to just stand there while my four year old daughter insults you, Cion?” he called. “Or will you defend your honor?”
Finally, fingertips tingling and head light, she stepped into the clearing. “My honor is fine. The child is right, and age is nothing to scoff at, not amongst us mortals.”
His smirk softened. “No, it is not. You’ve made quite the name for yourself, my queen.”
“We’re in Mise,” she said, scanning the area. “So I’m afraid you’re wrong, I am no queen here.”
Vane took a step closer, the child clinging to his leg. “She’s on dragonback, Cion. You might have to wait a little while if you wish to see her.”
“And the other dragon?”
He chuckled. “Heles is rather good at hiding—and napping. She won’t wake unless we’re in dire danger, I’m afraid.”
“She snores really loud!” Nya said brightly. “And her breath smells bad, but you get used to it. Does your dragon have smelly breath too? He’s very pretty—for a boy dragon.”
Cion took a deep breath and knelt in front of the child, holding out a jeweled hand. Nya glanced up at her father, and Vane murmured, “It’s alright, little love. She won’t hurt you.”
A spark ran up Cion’s spine when the girl touched her hand, and she tilted her head.
Even though she was not a magic wielder herself, she could still sense it, and this girl was practically spilling over with power.
She ignored the warning bells in her head and instead asked her, “How did you know Valhamnor was a male dragon?”
“The size of his head,” Nya said matter-of-factly. “And the spikes by his ears. Female Fesper dragons don’t have those.”
Cion glanced up at Vane. “You’ve taught her well.”
“I can’t claim credit for that part of her education,” he said, looking at his daughter fondly. “But she does already have a mean left hook thanks to me. Just don’t tell Sora I—”
“Don’t tell Sora what, exactly?”
Cion froze, not daring to look past Nya yet. But as the child tugged her hand free and Vane grinned and turned, she could no longer ignore it.
“Mamma, we have a visitor!” Nya exclaimed, running to—
Soren.
Cion hadn’t even realized she’d said her name aloud, not until Soren replied, “Hello, princess. I thought you might pay us a visit. Thessa was bound to be seen soon, though I suppose that’s my fault for flying so low.”
Cion was still on her knees when she rasped, “How?”
“Ana told you, I presume,” Vane said quietly, offering her a hand.
She took it gratefully—her right knee had been a bother since she turned forty-five.
Then, clearing her throat, she said, “Yes. She only spoke of it once, and when she heard news that Thessilnn was spotted flying, she… Well, I cannot properly communicate her level of shock. She claimed it was impossible, and from what she told me of that day, I agree. It should be.”
“Do you want to come inside?” Soren asked. “Sit down or—”
“No,” Cion cut in sharply. “I want an explanation.”
Vane stepped in front of Soren and Nya. The air warmed with more than the summer heat, and the coals in the firepit flared. “Why do you assume you are owed one?”
“You left me in the mountains with a group of army defects and their dragons,” Cion snapped. “Picking up the pieces of what you did, noble as you might have thought it was, was no easy task. The mortal realm was in disarray for nearly a decade. I thought for a long time another war was imminent.”
“Apologies, my queen,” he snarled. “We were too busy being—”
“Vane.” Soren’s voice was gentle but firm. He turned, his harsh features instantly softening as she searched his gaze. Cion knew they were speaking in the same silent manner she had once seen all those years ago.
“Nya does not know everything, not yet,” he said quietly in explanation. “She’s too young for the burden of it. But Sora will speak to you if you wish to hear an explanation.”
He scooped up a whining Nya, murmuring to her. Almost instantly, she smiled and giggled, throwing her arms around his neck as he stepped into the house.
Cion stood across the yard from Soren, brow raised. “So you took up your old name again?”
She shrugged. “My latest ‘mother’ named me Marine out of stubbornness, but I never used it. Sora is who I’ve always been.”
“And so these women who birthed and raised you in these last two lifetimes, they are nothing to you?”
Soren sighed. “Nyx handpicked them both from the same bloodline. I think they loved me, in a way, but both were aware of what I was since the moment I took my first breath. I was as much of a daughter to them as they were a true mother to me. But I am grateful to them.”
“And Vane?”
“Born two years before me, to a family in your capital city.”
Cion began to pace. Movement had always helped her think. “How did you find each other? Did you remember, or did it take time, like before?”
“My birth mother told me bedtime stories to jog my memory. I knew everything important by the time I was seven and remembered it all clearly by sixteen. Vane’s family didn’t know, and though he said he was aware he didn’t belong there, he only remembered fully when he saw me the first time.”
“Which was?”
“Nine years ago. He came to Mise for work as an apprentice in the village I was raised in—or rather, his birth family sent him. There are more fire wielders here, and apparently, his father was growing tired of him almost burning the house down.”
Cion did not laugh, instead stopping her pacing. Gods, Soren—Sora—looked just the same. Frozen in time, an immortal goddess borrowing a mortal’s body.
“Will you age?”
“No, my body paused at twenty, and Vane’s around twenty-four.”
Cion shook her head, looking around. “Then why remain here? I am sure Arcadia would welcome you with open arms for your heroic liberation.”
Sora’s mouth lifted, but her eyes were heavy with sorrow. Quietly, she asked, “Has Anabeth returned?”
“If you know, why ask? She remains here because Arcadia is a tainted place for her. There is too much pain in that place.”
Sora raised a brow. “Then you know why we remain here to raise our daughter.” She glanced out at the trees.
“Someday, when Nya is grown and armed with the knowledge to weather what lies in Arcadia, perhaps we will go. I haven’t—” She took a quick breath.
“I don’t know, Cion. Even in this lifetime, it haunts me. ”
“Kronos is gone, body and soul,” Cion said, the truth stark even as she whispered it. “Why did you not go with him? Ana was sure you had, both of you.”
Sora met her gaze again. Beyond, in the house, Nya laughed.
“When Thessilnn and Heles hatched, they both chose not just Vane and I separately, but together. The four of us are linked at a soul level. So, when I claimed Kronos and he was burned in their dragonfire along with our bodies, Thessa and Heles held our souls within them until the fates called us to this world once more.”
“No one knows this?”
“I didn’t know, not until it was nearly too late to understand. Are you planning to tell others after today?”
Cion took a slow breath, letting all the anger and hurt flow from her. When she reached the source of it, she found only pain, driven by love for a sister who had never been.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she told Sora. “Just promise me one thing.”
Sora waited, ether swirling in her once-familiar blue eyes. The firepit flared as Vane laughed inside, and Cion reached into her pocket before holding her open palm out. Sora’s eyes widened as she saw the twin gold bands Ana had given wordlessly to Cion just before she departed.
“Live, Sora.”
The End