41 #3
“No, they certainly aren’t. But don’t forget, the people in Niavara are always freshly turned,” she says with a shrug.
“Yeah, but Caryan turned half the city here, too, right? After the witch attack twenty years ago? And somehow, I don’t imagine them as wild as those.”
I can’t help the shudder raking down my spine at the thought that, although they certainly all adore Caryan, the truth is that, technically, they’re all under his control if he wishes it.
I wonder how it doesn’t bother them in the least. If someone could mind-and-body control me with half a thought, I wouldn’t be as relaxed as they are.
But then…maybe, at some point, you just live with it. Definitely better than dying.
“Because they weren’t all that wild. Avandal is a town of culture and education.
These people have been its citizens for centuries, honing its traditions of peace and tolerance.
The people in Niavara are wilder. Some are ruthless soldiers from Palisandre or the north, or even the third continent.
That makes them different, I guess,” Blair says.
Gods, I’m surprised by how much she knows about all that.
“Probably,” I agree as we pass a large fountain hewn from marble—statues of two griffins fighting with a demon, spitting steaming water. People sit on its edge, dangling their feet into the spring while they chat. Horses drink, and children splash through it.
I glance around, trying to orient myself.
We’re at the main square, which looks more like some kind of avenue with its elegant sandstone buildings.
Colonnades and arched walkways provide shade from the midday heat.
The streets are paved with white cobblestones, running along the arms of the seven healing rivers, lined with large trees and artistically cultivated hedges.
There are parks everywhere, filled with cafés, or just white benches where people sit to listen to the warbling birds and watch colorful hummingbirds soaring through the air, drinking from the white and violet flowers that grow on the bushes.
I watch people hand-feed tiny squirrels with nuts, their fur ranging from deep pink to rich burgundy, making them look like living jewels jumping from tree to tree.
We venture toward a beautiful, temple-like sandstone building with massive colonnades offering shade, only to find tiny fountains inside where people are drinking.
“What is this?” I ask in awe when I find a few people kneeling at the feet of a statue depicting a stern-faced, beautiful woman with a crow and an owl perched on her shoulders, a scepter crowned by a crescent moon in her hand, and a huge wolf at her feet.
“It is a temple,” Aris lectures. “This woman is Celuna. She is said to be the first moon witch.”
“The sister of the sun witch?” I ask, my eyes wide—we learned about this in Evanalora’s class.
“Correct.”
“And people still worship her?”
Aris rolls his shoulders. In this form, it could be a shrug. “Some still pray for the return of the moon witches.”
“Why?”
He shoots me a long glance. “The same way they pray for the return of the light elves.”
“But they’re dead, aren’t they? Save for me?” I ask quietly.
He says nothing, and I sigh when I feel the dark coercion limiting his answers to silence.
“Right, he doesn’t want you to talk about it,” I mutter, anger clawing at me on his behalf.
I catch Blair staring up at the witch with a slight wrinkle around her nose. “Gods, I didn’t know they were still worshipping her here,” she drawls.
“Don’t like her?” I ask, wondering whether she can tell me more than Aris.
She only shrugs again.
“I thought they were…the good witches?” I probe.
She scoffs at that, then shakes her head, as if I truly said something funny. “There are no good or bad witches,” she offers, eyes still trained on the statue. “But this one certainly wasn’t only good.”
I lean closer to her. Hells, Blair probably knows so much more about them than we would ever be taught in class. “Why? I thought she was a light fae.”
“And? That means you’re the do-gooders or have a monopoly on altruism?” She sounds amused by my obvious naivety, and I mentally kick myself for it.
“I take it that it doesn’t,” I mutter.
She shakes her head, long hair swishing. “No. What no one teaches you is that this one”—she juts her chin at the statue—“she basically invented dark magic. Thanks to her silver gift, she never lost her soul, but a lot of others without her silver witch-blood did.”
“Did she…know that this would happen to them? When she taught those lesser fae from the story?” I ask.
Blair just shrugs again. “I guess that will remain a mystery to all of us, won’t it?
But before that, some say she never did it to help them, but to raise herself an army of Darkwielders because she fell for a prince of darkness and wanted to help him take over the world,” she says as we stroll on.
“Others say she did it to raise an army against him as an act of vengeance, because he left her. Others again say she just went mad. That she lost her heart to him and her mind because of him. Who knows. But it was for sure the reason they’d all been extinct.
So she brought death upon all of her kind because of that. ”
“And moon witches could channel dark magic without consequences for themselves?” I ask, intrigued.
Blair casts me a sidelong glance, clearly sensing where I’m going with this. “I’m not sure whether they were channeling it. Or whether their silvery magic simply annihilated the dark, devastating effects they wreak on the individual wielding it.”
“Similar to hellborns?”
“No. Their magic is a form of arcana. They usually wield wild magic, which simply defies the rules of the magic in this world. But that doesn’t make them immune to its effects.”
My mind swirls a little from so much information. “But what about silver elves then? Is my magic similar to theirs?”
She smiles, knowing this question had been coming all along. “Look, little one. I would tell you more if I knew more. But the truth is that I don’t. And I certainly won’t suggest you trying to channel dark magic just to see what happens.”
“Do you know how to do it?”
I must sound too eager because she snaps, “Sure I do. But it’s banned for a reason. Didn’t you listen in class? To keep the balance, the universe or whatever wants something back in exchange and this is a piece of your soul. That happens right at the very first time.”
“But where is the harm? You do it once, give a little bit of your soul and see—”
“No! They say that fae become addicted to the rush. That once they channeled, they couldn’t resist the lure to take more and more until they were fully corrupted. Eaten up by the magic.”
“And then you become a Darkwielder?”
She sighs, whirling on me and letting out an exasperated sigh, looking like a mother with a small child that asks too many silly questions. But she knows so much more than anything I’ve found on that topic in the archives, so I just have to keep pushing.
“Yes, once your soul is eaten you practically become a zombie who can wield dark magic. And if you’re so eager to know more about ancient history, why don’t you go down to the archives and dig up some tomes,” she suggests and walks on at a brutal pace.
I fall into a jog beside her. “I’ve found nothing on the moon witches in the archives.”
Her eyes flash and she seems surprised as she casts me a side glance. “So you’ve been looking?”
“Yeah, well, I thought, since I’m already down there…”
“And here I was thinking you were a little lost girl in the big fae world,” she teases, but pride flashes in her aura, and I swallow a sharp retort when I spot it.
“When you are, in truth, a cunning little rebel. What I know comes from my mothers and the other witches, who pass down knowledge by spoken word only. All the books about them have been destroyed. And the moon witches have all been hunted down.”
“By Kirachat and Rhyxun,” I say sharply.
Her head suddenly perks up, and a lash of fear flickers across her aura. “Where do you have those names from? I’m sure you haven’t learned that in class.”
“Well…no. But you know those names too.”
“From childhood tales. Witches used to tell us younglings bloodthirsty, dark stories about Rhyxun. That he was the leader of the Wild Hunt. If we were nasty, they threatened to leave us tied to a pillar outside. Said that maybe Rhyxun would come with his unholy riders, or with his army of the dead and turn us into a death-thrall if we didn’t behave.
Or that Kirachat would come to drink us dry.
We believed them, of course. But where do you know those names from? Those are old witch tales.”
“Someone left a book in the archives, I think.”
I want to walk on, but she blocks my way with her arms, cornering me against a pillar.
“You think ? Who?”
“Why in the hells would I know? It just lay on the floor in the middle of a corridor and I picked it up.”
She squints at me. “You saw no one?”
“No, all I saw was the robe of an acolyte and thought it was Faye, and when I ran after her, she wasn’t there, but that book was.”
Blair frowns. “Was there anything else that’s unusual? Did you find anything else recently?” Her amber eyes bore into mine.
My throat turns dry under her inquisitive stare.
I think about that stone Noxus gave me. I haven’t told Blair about it, nor about Caryan’s murderous twin, for that matter.
Save for Aris, I’ve told no one. But why not?
It’s not as if I believe that Blair would rat me out to Caryan.
It’s more like I haven’t seen her in weeks and when she finds out that I kept that from her, she’ll likely flay the skin off my bones and throw a massive hissy fit, and she’s in a good mood and I really don’t feel like ruining it.
But what if the stone really has something to do with that book? And who else knows that I have the stone?
“No.” I pretend to think, then shake my head.