Chapter Twelve #2
‘Proud?’ Kyra repeated angrily. ‘Being the Earth Warden has nothing to do with you. I may be a wanted criminal but at least I’m finally free of your bullshit.’
‘I begged for your freedom today, need I remind you,’ Lilion said coldly. ‘I offered the Governors more than the Arc is worth for your release. You mean a great deal to me. Realise that and we may be friends once more.’
‘Friends? You made me fight my own brother! You would have had me kill him. What sort of friend does that?’
‘Your brother was a pawn,’ Lilion said cruelly, waving a dismissive hand. ‘I wanted to make you a queen.’
Quick as a flash of lightning, Kyra drew her dagger, its tip pointing straight at Lilion’s heart. ‘Release him from his oath.’
Lilion stepped forward until the blade made contact with her dress, shallowly piercing the bone corset beneath.
‘Ah. So, that is why you are here. Do it, then, little wolf. If I die, his servitude will end. But what then? Do you imagine you will be allowed to simply walk out of the Arc with your dear brother in tow, without any repercussions for my death? You have escaped justice today already… do you truly want to test fate again?’
The blade was perfectly positioned. It would be easy, too easy to drive it through silk, skin and bone and puncture Lilion’s black heart. If it had been just her own life on the line, perhaps she would have done it.
But Oslan deserved his freedom without punishment.
She would give him that. Reluctantly, she lowered the blade. ‘Name your price, then.’
A deranged sort of victory flitted over Lilion’s features. She stared at Kyra, calculating. ‘Your brother is one of my best. He is favoured among women and men alike. To lose him would put me at a disadvantage, especially since I’ve lost you too, little wolf.’
Kyra gritted her teeth. ‘Name. Your. Price.’
Lilion moved away from her now, pacing slowly. ‘There is only one thing in all of Droria that is worth your brother’s freedom.’
‘Just fucking tell me what-’
‘I want the Eye of the Fifth.’ Lilion had stopped pacing, and watched Kyra with the smallest smile on her lips. A smile that showed no kindness, only barely checked malice.
Kyra blinked at her. Surely she had not heard right. ‘The… the Eye of the Fifth?’
Memories of scary stories her father would tell them when they were children surfaced in her mind.
The miraqni, a demon race born from the Fifth Element, the Void, imprisoned in a black crystal by the combined power of the Four Mothers to save Droria from inescapable nothingness.
The dawning of the Age of Mothers, and consequently, the end of the Old Gods reign.
Those creatures feasted on mortals, both flesh and essence alike, leaving no trace their prey had even lived.
As a child, the mere thought of them had been terrifying enough to lay awake at night, imagining the creatures of nothing hiding in the dark corners of her room, waiting for the right moment to strike and kill.
Kyra had not thought about it for a long time. The legend of the Eye had fallen to the banks of history, many in Droria even denying any truth in the tale at all. Very few still lived that had witnessed the Void Ages with their own eyes, after all.
Ancient chronicles cited it had been a time of unending chaos.
Days with no nights, and nights with no days, no order of equilibrium to be found.
There had been no Four Mothers then, no elemental goddesses overseeing balance in the realm, no separate lands pertaining to each element.
Just one Droria united under the mighty Gods, Xados and Xusyn, the omnipotent divines of Night and Day.
Magic had not been used with caution in those days.
Elemental magic could be tapped into, but only by the most powerful of beings.
Dohra, a female with a desire to explore a deeper, darker kind of magic, discovered the powers of the Void.
With her unrivalled power, she reigned the lands as a conduit for the Old Gods, creating the miraqni and plunging the world into a place of darkness and terror.
Thus began the Void Ages.
Dohra’s reign only faltered when four powerful mortals rose to challenge her, charged with the magic of the other four elements.
Roheia, channelling earth; Gallena, channelling air; Corla, channelling water, and Eraura, channelling fire.
Together, they banished Dohra to the Eye with her abominable creations.
In imprisoning Dohra, (who had become too fused to the Void and Xados and Xusyn to simply kill), Roheia, Gallena, Corla and Eraura forfeited their mortality, unwittingly becoming deities.
Their ascension to celestial beings caused the Old Gods to be stripped of their control over Droria, two divines diminished to nothing.
They had lost their conduit, their one link to the mortal world.
Without Dohra, their domination of Droria faltered, and their power soon began to weaken, overshadowed by the Goddesses who now reigned supreme.
The Four Mothers had been inspired by their predecessors, and created Wardens in their place after ascending from the mortal realm.
Beings who could harness their respective powers, to keep in check the balance that had been restored, and ensure Dohra and her miraqni stayed locked away in the Eye of the Fifth.
And it was never seen again.
‘It’s lost,’ said Kyra bluntly. ‘No one has seen it for over a thousand years. What you’re asking is impossible.’
Lilion was unbothered. ‘That is my price.’
‘And I’m telling you, it’s impossible. Name another.’
‘There is no other.’
‘Why do you even want it?’ Kyra demanded.
Smiling, Lilion said, ‘That information is not part of our deal.’ She stepped a little closer. ‘What do you say, Kyra? Do we have an agreement?’
The temptation to just kill her rose tenfold. But Lilion, and it pained her to admit it, was right. She would not get away with murder twice in one day. She’d been backed into a corner with only one escape.
Only one option.
Kyra looked Lilion dead in the eyes. ‘The Eye of the Fifth… for my brother’s freedom?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Your word…’ Kyra sneered, shaking her head. ‘And I’m supposed to just believe that you’ll remain true to it?’
Lilion slowly pulled the satin black glove from her right hand. ‘A blood bargain will hold us both to our word.’
Scars decorated every inch of Lilion’s hand, some almost faded and some as red as blood. It occurred to Kyra that she had never seen the woman without her gloves, and now she knew why.
How many had made a blood bargain with Lady Lilion Perdy and failed to uphold their promise to her, paying the ultimate price with their freedom, or lives? There were too many scars to count.
Kyra’s own palm tingled with anticipation.
‘Do you wish to proceed?’ Lilion pressed.
For Oslan. She had to do it for him. Steeling herself at the prospect of being bound by blood magic to Lilion Perdy, she gave a curt, ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Your dagger,’ Lilion said, holding her hand out expectantly.
Kyra forcefully pressed the hilt of her blade into her left hand. Lilion surveyed her right hand carefully, then after finding a small, clear spot by her thumb knuckle, she dug the pointed tip of the dagger into her skin and sliced down.
Blood swelled and she twisted her hand to allow it to drip and pool in her palm, handing the blade to Kyra as she did. With her own hands a blank canvas, Kyra pulled the blade down the centre of her right, forcing herself not to wince with the pain that accompanied it.
Lilion held out her hand to her, and Kyra placed her hand in hers. As their blood mingled together, magic seared around them like lightning, setting the hairs on Kyra’s arm on edge.
‘Will you, Kyraena Daeiros, bring me the Eye of the Fifth, in exchange for your brother’s freedom?’
Otherworldly power sizzled through her palm and throughout her entire body as she said, ‘I will.’
Lilion gripped her hand tighter. Malice flashed over her pointed face.
Still that lightning sparked. ‘You have six months from this day to fulfil this task-’ Kyra tried to pull her hand away, but the magic held fast, ‘-or your brother remains mine. Let this bargain be sealed with the promise of blood, until it is done.’
Light flared from their grasped hands, and then it was gone. Kyra ripped her hand from Lilion’s. ‘Six months?’
‘A blood-bargain always needs a time frame, little wolf.’
Kyra stared at her palm where a thin, bright red scar now sat in the centre, all traces of blood gone. It looked as if it could have been days old if it weren’t for the colour. There was a pulse there, separate to her heartbeat… like it was already counting the days, the hours she had left.
Lilion was a foul and cheating cunt.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin. ‘Let me see him. Before I leave.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Lilion said, pulling her glove back on.
Kyra was no beggar. But she could feel herself breaking, her anger ebbing into sorrow. She needed to see Oslan. She needed to see her brother.
And so she appealed to the Lilion she’d met at the age of sixteen, the woman who had taken her in, the woman who, at some point, must have cared for her more than the coin she’d produced. ‘Lilion,’ she said sincerely. Quietly. ‘Please.’
For the first time, Lilion held her gaze. As if she saw that helpless sixteen year old now. But then her expression hardened once more, and any trace of that indecision was gone. ‘I will tell him you said goodbye.’
Anger flushed back through her body like a tidal wave. This woman had given her everything once. A home, the ability to fight, coin, purpose. She had been, in her own, fucked up sort of way, a mother figure.
Now she was a cold-hearted stranger. Kyra stepped forward until her face was inches from hers. ‘You’ll pay for this one day. I don’t know how. And I don’t know when. But for what you’ve done to him, what you’ve put him through… you’ll pay. This I promise you.’
She was halfway out the door, desperate to be out of the enclosed space, when Lilion said over her shoulder, ‘Travel safe, won’t you, Kyra? We wouldn’t want another Earth Warden dead before you’ve even begun.’
Kyra’s hand twitched to her dagger again, but she ignored the impulse and stalked out of the Arc, praying the next time she did, Oslan would be by her side.
The whole time she’d been there, the whole time she’d worked for Lilion, her brother had been there too. And she’d never known.
Lilion had deliberately kept them apart. That was her true crime.
And Kyra would hold that promise true. One day, she would make Lilion pay.
But first, she had an Eye to find.