Moirai

It was large circular room, just as freezing as the corridor had been. A big, round red carpet with purple tassels at the edge covered the floor. Other than that the only furniture or ornamentation was a gilt chair – well, really it was a throne – sitting on a raised secant at the far end, and a pair of dark green curtains covering a seemingly flat section of the wall. For a brief instant, I wondered what was behind them, but then my focus was taken up utterly by the figure perched lazily on the throne

“You took your time, Alnya.” Indina droned, her eyes lighting up and a sinister grin growing on her face, though she didn’t look at us. “I was nearly about to send some more Erkings to fetch you to me. You see, I was afraid you had run away, despite all my efforts.”

For a moment, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find my voice, as had happened almost every time in my dreams, but after a few moments I said, “Of course not. You kidnapped Mayran, for one thing.”

“Ah, yes.” Indina purred, sounding delighted. “I had almost forgotten about him.”

A statement which was obviously false, as I knew she had caught him in the first place to use against me.

Indina clapped her hands together twice – for dramatic effect – and the green curtains pulled back. My hands flew to my mouth, though whether it was to stifle a gasp...or a scream...I didn’t know.

He hung at least a metre off the ground; his wrists and ankles were red with blood from where the manacles had cut into his skin. There were bruises all over his face and a shallow but long cut on his arm that looked as though it had been recently inflicted. Blessedly, it seemed as though he was unconscious, so he was not feeling the pain. Beside me, Loni let out a sort of horrified squeak.

“As you can see, I’ve treated him well.”

Indina’s voice tore my eyes away from the terrible sight and back to her. She was watching me now, studying my every reaction and probably loving my distress like the sadistic hag she was.

“Why have you done this to him?” I demanded, taking a step towards her in my anger.

She grinned at me widely. “This is what would always happen whenever dear Mayran was naughty. It’s the only way to teach a lesson after all...and have it stick: with brute force. I agree it is an ugly method, but believe me, I tried everything else.”

Her voice was so light, so dramatically tragic that my fear was burnt away by a startlingly intense wave of white-hot anger. I took a deep breath, knowing that I couldn’t afford to do anything impulsive. She could kill me in a heartbeat if she decided. No, she wasn’t telling the whole truth about why Mayran had been...tortured. It was designed to unhinge me, to unsettle me.

And I couldn’t let her know that it had worked.

Deliberately not looking at Mayran, I said very slowly, “I am going to kill you, Indina. I am going to make sure you can never poison Renenta or its people again.”

She regarded me with an almost child-like curiosity. “Have you ever killed anyone, Alnya? Have you ever really thought about taking someone’s life?”

“No, I haven’t. But that doesn’t matter; you’re not fully alive anyway.” I retorted, trying not to let my uncertainty enter my voice. Indina had just asked me the same question I had been asking myself for weeks, and I still hadn’t come up with an answer. I had reached the point where I thought that if I couldn’t do it when the moment arose, then I would never be able to do it and the whole thing was hopeless anyway.

“Is that what Kasanda told you? Ugh, that stupid Dryad! She just thinks everything is so clear. Black and white. Good and evil. Did she even tell you what I want to do for Renenta?”

“Yes. She told me that you want auraics to be the upper class and all those without auras to be their slaves.”

“’Our’ slaves.” She corrected. “You’re an aurae, too.”

“I know that.” I snapped. “I was making it clear that I am not the same as you. Whenever people who are different from others decide that they are better, things end badly.”

“But we are better than them.” She countered, standing up now and approaching me. I resisted the urge to take a step back. She was a very good actress; her face now was glowing with some sort of sick hope and her eyes were downcast in a humble gesture, but I knew it was all fake. “We were blessed by the Great Aura herself. Part of her lies within us, Alnya. Doesn’t that mean we are meant to rule over those who were not blessed?”

“No! It means we are meant to help and protect them!”

Indina laughed and the innocent look vanished in a blink, to be replaced by one of evil amusement; she was done trying to trick me. “So you’ve finally absorbed what Kasanda and Mayran tried to teach you, have you? Well, you’re too late!”

Before I could even move, she pulled a knife from a hidden pocked in her dress. I flinched, expecting a blow any second and knowing that I wouldn’t have time to use my aura to protect myself.

But she didn’t strike me.

Loni’s scream alerted me first, and I followed the knife with my eyes as it flew handle over blade...

And imbedded itself into Mayran’s chest.

I tasted blood as the skin on the back of my throat burst with the strength of my scream.

My wrists were being gripped, my path to him blocked. Her red eyes were aglow with the foul joy she felt.

We must have both used our auras at the same time, because a few seconds later we were picking ourselves up from opposite sides of the room.

“Loni!” I cried, but she had already made her way to Mayran. Indina wasn’t concerned with her; she had begun the fight, and now that was all she cared about.

“Shall I test you, Alnya?” Indina asked, almost breathless. I felt ill at the thought of how much she was enjoying this. “Would you like three Trials again? Well, we’ve already had our battle of wits, haven’t we? So...”

She closed her eyes briefly and a sword materialised itself in her hand, first the handle and hilt, then the blade. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was a highly ornate blade; rubies in the hilt and the metal shining like a mirror.

I unsheathed my own sword, which looked small and pathetic when compared with hers. But at that moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that she had decades more training than me. That she had a greater aura on her side and would definitely cheat. That she wanted my death to be slow, full of suffering.

All rational thoughts like that had left my head as soon as she had killed Mayran.

We met in the direct centre of the room, the clang of our swords echoing around the walls and coming back to us tauntingly. I had been right; she was good, very good. Far better and quicker than Centurion. However I was fuelled by anger and more focussed than I had ever been. I gave as good as I got.

She didn’t try anything fatal, aiming for my legs and arms rather than my chest or head. Warm blood dripped down my left calf from where, at some point in our mad frenzy, metal had sliced it. I barely even felt the pain.

Then suddenly, the sword was thrown from my hand and I felt myself flying backwards once again to hit the wall, pinned against it by Indina’s aura.

The force of the blow made my head ache and whirl, and I blinked several times to bring the room back into focus. Again, the pain was barely registered; all I thought of was the uncomfortable hindrance to my senses.

“Next we’ll test the strength of your aura, shall we?” Indina asked, her eyes fixed on me, her sword nowhere to be seen.

Breathing heavily, I summoned my aura to the forefront of my mind and threw all my strength behind it into a barrage against Indina’s.

Her auraic power was also far greater than Centurion’s and for the first time in several minutes I felt truly scared; that battle had left me unconscious and weak for over a day...would this one kill me?

If it killed Indina as well, it was worth it. I had failed Mayran anyway, I wouldn’t fail Renenta.

Minutes passed. Sweat beaded on my forehead and started to run in little rivulets down to my temple and still, I couldn’t move, while Indina showed no signs of the invisible struggle going on between us. I could tell that she was using her full aura, and it was massive. I could feel it enveloping my aura and it hurt in a horrifically personal way.

I felt constricted, as though I was being squeezed from every direction at once. It became difficult to breathe; a fact which was not helped by my flagging strength.

“Give up, little girl.” Indina taunted. “I did hope that you would put up more of a fight, considering the amount of fuss everyone has been making about you. But oh well, you entertained me for a little while.”

Her eyes hardened and a sadistic grin grew on her face. The pressure around me and my aura grew and my concentration lapsed as the pain reached a peak. Gasping for breath, I knew that this was it. Loni would be killed also and Renenta would fall into ruin.

After everything...I fail at the finish line.

No, I will not allow it!

The words appeared in my mind, but not in my voice. The voice was definitely female, and commanding. Powerful and firm and...warm.

Something happened.

I didn’t know where it came from, but suddenly I felt a blast of energy flow through me, magnifying my aura even though I had thought I was running on empty. But no...this wasn’t my aura. It was another’s...something’s...coherent thought failed me as the strange aura melded with mine. I floated, losing all sense of individuality.

Our aura wrapped around Indina like a lover’s embrace. We were released from the wall.

Indina was no longer grinning. She had a panicked look on her face; her eyes were wide and slightly mad, her hands tensed into claws, the veins on her neck bulging.

“What is going on? How are you able to do this?” She screeched, her voice raspy.

We slowly walked over to her.

Out hand went to out waist, where we pulled the dagger that the Praesul had given us from its sheath. It glinted in the dull candlelight, as though it knew that its purpose would be fulfilled.

Indina turned to us, now fear rather than panic in her eyes.

“This...this was not supposed to happen. He promised. He promised me! I was the one to carry out the plan!” she screamed, backing away. We followed.

We spoke. “Indina, you have committed more crimes than I care to list. More blood is on your hands than on even your mentor’s, yet at least. You have breathed your last.” At those words, a flash of recognition flew across her expression, followed by terror.

Out arm reached back and plunged the dagger through her heart.

A scream, echoed around the room.

Then the strangest thing happened to Indina.

She began to dissolve, her body decaying before out very eyes to nothing more than a corpse, then a faded skeleton...then even that disintegrated into dust until there was nothing to even suggest that a woman had stood there mere moments ago.

“Alnya!”

Loni’s cry made us turn.

“What is it, Inventrix?”

She gave us a quizzical look. “What?” But then she seemed to forget the strangeness of the situation as she looked back at Mayran. “Can you save him? He is not gone yet...maybe you can...”

Our voice cut her off. “Yes. He cannot die here.”

We strode purposefully over to where Loni had somehow gotten him out of the shackles and onto the ground. He lay on his back, skin pale as snow. The cuts had stopped bleeding; a clear sign of a weak and fading heart. Our own hammered loudly in our chest.

The knife still stuck its hilt out of his skin. Our hand reached down and gripped it, pulling it out in one swift movement then laying our palm over the wound. We felt our aura being used in conjunction with his, healing, mending, fixing.

His breathing started up again, although he remained unconscious. However, we knew that it was just sleep.

Just as suddenly as our merge had occurred, we were two separate beings again.

Goodbye for now, brave one. The same voice as before whispered. You do not remember, but this is not our first meeting, nor will it be our last. Until then...

Then the being was gone and my mind and body were my own again.

Immediately, they gave out on me and I collapsed into warm, inky blackness.