Revelations
When the dust settled, my siblings were unceremoniously ushered out of the room, leaving me alone with our parents in an uncomfortable silence. My earlier outburst still lingered, filling me with shame and causing me to shrink into my bed-covers.
Crying like baby, I silently huffed. How pathetic.
We all had questions.
Answers were on our minds, but no-one seemed willing to speak first. Which I didn’t mind; the silence was somewhat comforting after everything that’d happened. I also wasn’t sure of how much my parents knew of the incident, and wasn’t particularly looking forward to explaining it.
I didn’t even know how to explain it.
Everything seemed as much of a mystery to me as it did them.
Skimming through my memories, I reluctantly recalled the events of the festival. A fellow villager, who had seemed entirely normal earlier that evening, decided to attack me unprovoked. Chased through the woods, bleeding and exhausted, I’d found myself at a literal cliff’s edge.
And then…
What happened after that?
A world of crystal, tumbling from the cliff. Nails and teeth rending my flesh, a stranger’s voice. A stranger who shouldn’t have been there. Had that been real or merely a creation of my fading consciousness? There were too many holes in my memory, as if a dense fog covered everything beyond the cliff’s ridge.
After I finally managed to regain my composure, my parents filled me in on the grim details. It had been two whole days since the spring festival, when I’d gone missing alongside a seemingly ordinary newlywed named Anika Beckett. They set out into the woods and found us together, my miraculously intact body stewing in the housewife’s grisly remains.
Since I’d been unconscious for two days without any signs of waking, my mother was preparing to seek aid from outside of the village. Apparently my body had somehow suffered remarkably few injuries, save for some sort of ‘backlash’. I hadn’t possessed the energy to press the matter, as my body throbbed with the pain of my intense sobbing, leaving me feeling weak and drained.
The whole family had taken turns watching over me in the meantime, and I’d happened to awake during Lara’s shift. My elder sister, confused and terrified for her little brother, was overjoyed upon seeing me awake. On the other hand, Abel hadn’t seem particularly concerned. Whether it be that he didn’t understand the situation’s severity or because he was to selfish to care, he’d continued living his life unabated.
And to my unending shock, it seemed that our family members hadn’t been too fond of that attitude. Though I’d already suspected as much when Lara snapped at him, our parents were also annoyed at his indifference. It was strange to have our roles swapped so suddenly, though immensely satisfying to find Abel at a loss whenever he’d receive so much as a stern look.
Had their concern for me lessened the blessings hold on them? Was that even possible? Perhaps the blessing itself was simply weaker than I’d always thought, and it took some tragedy to make me realize it. I told myself that it didn’t really matter.
There were more important things to worry about.
I chanced a glance over at my parents, the anxiety in my stomach rising to a new height. A woman was dead, and I was the last person to have seen her. They found me wrapped up in her remains, so it wasn’t something that I could run away from. Anika Beckett’s friends and family were looking for closure, and my parents wanted answers.
When I’d dreamed of being the center of attention, this wasn’t really what I had in mind. My father finally broke the silence, letting out a heavy sigh and meeting my eyes.
“Zavis…”
“Father,” I said meekly.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, as if trying to find the right words. My father looked so tired, as if years of his life had been shaved away. Pangs of guilt stabbed at me like many needles.
Mother must have noticed the same, because she took over in his stead. “Walk us through what happened,” she told me.
My eyes widened when I saw her face, all traces of the mother I’d seen earlier having been replaced by a familiar mask. Cold and impassive; the mother I’d grown up with. Her pale gaze was leveled onto me, as if making note of my most subtle movements, interrogating me as if already convinced of my guilt.
Swallowing deeply, I focused on the window in-front of me.
Father apparently interpreted this in his own way, because he placed a hand on my bandaged shoulder. “It’s alright, son. You can take your time.”
I nodded, licking at my dry lips before reciting the events that took place after my conversation with Mother. I told them everything in the greatest detail I could, including Anika Beckett’s strange behavior and those black eyes. From the way she’d thrown that kitchen knife into a tree to when we were both thrown from the cliff.
Mother listened silently, while Father repeatedly interrupted with questions and exclamations, earning him an icy glare each time. By the time I’d finished my story, Father was staring at me slack jawed with a dumbstruck expression. Mother’s inscrutable eyes were locked on the floor.
We remained that way for a while, each trapped within our own thoughts. I was worried they wouldn’t beleive me, that they would call me insane. Yet I’d decided to tell them the whole truth—most of it. At some point while going through the story, I decided to omit the final part with the mysterious voice. Primarily because I wasn’t fully certain that it actually happened.
Hearing voice usually isn’t a good sing, and I needed all of the credibility possible.
“Is that all?” Mother asked, monotone voice splitting through the tension like a knife. Her hawk-like glare was once-again boring into me, as if trying to see into my very soul.
My thoughts went into overdrive. Maybe they know that I spoke to someone? He could have been a villager; maybe he’s the one who showed them where I was. If they’ve caught me in a lie, it could throw everything else into question.
Despite my reservations, I met her eyes and nodded. I wasn’t really sure why, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me that it would be a bad idea to mention that stranger.
Mother’s eyes narrowed. “How did you survive the fall?”
“I don’t know.”
“And the magic?”
I frowned. “…Magic?”
Magic? Is that what she just said?
This time, it was her turn to frown. She glanced over at Father, who met her eyes and shrugged in what was likely a spectacularly unhelpful manner.
Her eyes shifted back to mine as she started to elaborate.
“Someone used magic on that cliff-top,” she said. “A ley-line to the Plane of Frost was opened shortly before our arrival. Are you following?”
I nodded.
The Aspectual Planes were realms beyond the ken of mortals, where the gods were said to reside. Nine in all, one for each member of the pantheon. Legends said that the gods combined their powers to create our world from the Planes’ energies: the nine aspects of creation—frost, flame, earth, wind, water, lightning, shadow, light, and life.
The Planes were connected to one another, as well as to our world, through invisible pathways called ley-lines. It was these very same ley-lines that allowed certain mortals to call upon the aspects.
Recalling the ice-covered cliff-top, an uneasy feeling settled into my gut. “Was Mrs. Beckett a mage?”
“No—”
“Is that how she cut down the tree?” I asked, interrupting her.
“Anika wasn’t a magic-user,” Mother replied. “Until now, there’s only been one magic-user in this village.”
I felt my eyes widen in surprise. There was a mage living in Flykra Village? Who? Perhaps that old crone who liked to talk to her dead cats, or the peddler who claimed that he could smell colors. Magic was known to be part of our world, but it was a distant, faraway concept to the people of Flykra. Though I only knew of it from books, I was probably better informed than most.
Leaning forward slightly, I waited for her next words in anticipation. “Who is it?” I asked.
Mother sighed. “Me.”
The thoughts racing through my head ground to an abrupt halt. I stared up at my mother, frozen, grappling with her answer. What did she say?
‘Me.’
Was there someone called that in the village? Maybe a nickname? I’d never heard of anyone, but mages always had strange names according to my books. Names like Althazagar the Black or Elminzter the Red. Perhaps ‘Me’ was short for something much longer and sophisticated.
“Zavis?”
She called my name, but I didn’t respond, continuing to ruminate over the meaning of her response. There was a magic-user in the village. But surely that would have been the talk of the town? They were keeping their powers a secret, then. A friend who's close enough to Mother for her to know their secret? She didn’t have many friends, though–
Something in-front of my nose caught my attention. I looked down, cross-eyed, and noticed a thin trail of white mist emanating from between my lips.
“Aneira…?” Father addressed her with uncertainty, but I couldn’t look at them.
My body trembled as a biting cold raced down my arms and legs. Scales of diamond began to collect on the flesh of my forearms, along with the bedpost at my side. The blood flowing through my veins felt like it was being frozen, making it a struggle to breathe. Gasping for breath, I brought a hand to my chest in panic.
What’s…happening?
The suffocating cold filled my bedroom, familiar yet alien. It felt like something I’d felt before, already been bitten by it.
“Zavis,” Mother said, her stern voice forcing me to turn my head.
A white ribbon was wrapped around her thin fingers, trailing across the pale flesh of her arm and vanishing beyond the shoulder. It was a steady, flowing stream of mist that appeared solid enough to hold in one’s hands. The pain from within my body seemed to lessen as I stared at my mother in awe. She looked over at me, her eyes glowing a faint blue.
The ribbon unfurled, white mist drifting through the air with enough purpose to constitute a mind of it’s own, coalescing within my mother’s palm.
Father was watching just as I was, though his expression was markedly different. As if he was somewhere else, almost forlorn. The mist started changing shape; folding and stretching and hardening into something new. The light in the room had dimmed at this point, rime crawling across the window like a makeshift curtain.
I briefly wondered if this, too, was her doing.
Turning back to her work, I found that she was finished. A small figurine stood in her palm, made of the clearest glass I’d ever seen.
No, I realized. That’s not glass.
Upon further inspection, I realized that the figure had a face. Clothes, too.
The figure’s features—appearing to be handcrafted by an expert artisan—were somewhat familiar. A soft, round face. Long tousled bangs that hung in-front of two narrow eyes. A slim body covered in a tapestry of bandages.
Oh.
“Do you believe me now?” Mother asked, allowing the figurine to dissipate into flakes of snow.
Though seeing my mother figuratively kill me was a little disturbing, I nodded slowly.
“Good. As you’ve seen, I am a magic-user, and a Blessed one at that.”
Blessings being a difficult topic for me, I couldn’t help but stiffen at the revelation. “Like Abel?”
She shook her head. “No, not like Abel. This blessing has been passed down through my father’s family for generations.”
I gestured for her to continue.
“Blessed bloodlines are a little different from normal ones. The closer a child looks to their parent, the more likely they are to inherit that parent’s blessing. The opposite can also be true, as we’ve seen with your brother and sister.”
“Okay,” I said.
Mother curled an eyebrow. “Are you following me, Zavis?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The Blessing of Frost is passed down through my family, and we knew that your siblings hadn’t inherited it because they took after your father. You, on the other hand…”
“Oh.”
The realization dawned on me, or more accurately, slammed into me like a bunch of bricks. I immediately tried to jump from my bed, but the ensuing pain put a swift stop to that. Instead, I mouthed a thousand questions that all sprung to mind at once. Among those questions were—most prominently—several that went along the lines of: ‘Is this a joke?’.
But I knew that it couldn’t be. I'd just witnessed my own mother use magic. Honest to gods magic, like I’d dreamed about for so many years.
She’d been a mage this entire time? Who else knew? Why had they never told me? Did Abel know? Lara?
Only one question left my lips, perhaps the most important one of all. “Are you saying that I’m a magic-user? That I was born with a blessing like Abel?”
With a heavy sigh, Mother nodded. “Since you’re the only other person in this village who could have used magic on that cliff-top, barring any travelers with the same affinity as myself…”
I stared at my mother vacantly, trying to figure out how to respond. I’d always known that magic existed, but it was never part of my life. The only exception was Abel’s blessing, which was a whole different class of magic and didn’t make him a mage. But now…
My mother and I were both mages.
I can’t be, whispered a voice in my head. There’s nothing special about me.
Zavis Invidia was a spectacularly ordinary person who couldn’t even swing a sword properly. I couldn’t hunt, cook, nor craft. I had no talents that made me an asset to my family or village.
That was how I’d always imagined myself. And though I’d dreamed of things being different, I had also spent years scorning Abel, blaming the world for how unfair it was. But now my mother was telling me that I’d been Blessed this whole time? Didn’t that make me the world’s biggest hypocrite?
“I need you to tell me what happened on the cliff, Zavis.”
Looking up at my mother, who stared at me with concern, I remembered how our conversation took this turn to begin with. “I already told you everything I can remember.”
“So, you don’t remember opening a ley-line? You used enough power to destroy everything around you, and the backlash was severe enough to touch the soul.”
Talk of ley-lines and souls was honestly beyond me. I was still reeling from seeing my mother make a perfect ice sculpture of me. Come to think about it, why hadn’t she participated in the festival’s ice sculpting conversation? Maybe that would be considered cheating.
However, as I thought back to the night on the cliff, I realized that there was more than one part I’d omitted from my retelling. Specifically, I hadn’t told them what happened between Anika exiting the forest and pushing me from the cliff. That was because I had very little memory of that time.
I concentrated on those hazy moments, as if peering through a dense layer of mist. Anika’s arm was swinging back and forth, spewing blood everywhere. We charged toward one another. I chickened out. Then…
Then, what?
Everything after that was a white void. Though I could not remember what occurred in that span of time, I could feel the accompanying emotion. My whole body shivered from brushing against the memories.
“Cold…”
Mother and Father both grimaced, leaning forward in their respective places.
“What was that, Zavis?” Father asked.
“I remember being cold.” I answered. “Very cold.”
Mother simply nodded. “You must have opened a ley-line on pure instinct. If it hadn’t closed when it did, you would have been killed.”
I shivered once more.
“You’ve mentioned backlash a couple of times now,” I said. “What is it?”
“We can turn ourselves into focuses for the aspects; you can think of us as lightning rods. If you draw too much energy from a ley-line, your body suffers for it. If you ignore the warning signs, you can even damage your anima. That’s the lifeforce inside of you.”
“So, is my lifeforce damaged?”
Mother made a pained expression. “I can tell that the backlash brushes against your soul, but not how deep it goes. A mortal soul is made from a careful balance of aspects, and it will require a professional to ascertain how severe the damage is.”
“Professional?”
My mother looked conflicted as she glanced over to Father, who nodded. Flashing a reassuring smile, he smacked the small of my back. I hissed through my teeth, holding back something that a child should never say to his parent.
“Oh, sorry.” Father replied, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “Uh, don’t worry about the backlash. Your mother’s pulled some strings, and an expert’s on his way here.”
“Strings?” I asked, frowning. I looked back at Mother. “An expert?”
“A mage,” Mother said. “He’ll be able to diagnose the state of your backlash and identify whether you’ve awakened my family’s blessing.”
“But you’re a mage, right? Why can’t you do it?”
Mother looked almost offended as she shook her head. “It’s a common misconception, but not every magic-user is a mage. Mages are specifically members of the Magocracy.”
“Oh,” I said, pretending to understand. “You’re not a member?”
Mother shook her head again.
“But you’ve contacted them.”
This time, she looked like she was sucking on something sour. Mother seemed hesitant to answer, and Father must have wanted to repay her for earlier. “Your mother has some friends in the Magocracy,” he told me.
That only raised more questions, but I opted not to press the matter. They’d tell me everything I needed to know eventually. For now, I had to process these revelations.
My mother was a magic-user who possessed a blessing, and I was apparently an inheritor of this power. I’d used magic to survive my fight with Anika but caused harm to my body and soul in the process. Now, a mage would be coming to Flykra in order to ascertain the scope of this damage. It all sounded like a dream, like one of my novels.
But this was real.
And now that the matter of my magic was somewhat settled, the conversation naturally moved toward the next issue. Father cleared his throat, rubbing sweaty palms against his pants. “Now, back to the other night. You mentioned that Anika was acting–”
A soft knock from the bedroom door interrupted his words. He and Mother looked at each other and then back at the bedroom doorway. After a moment of silence, the door creaked open, a girl’s face appearing in the space. Lara wore a strained expression.
"You have a visitor,” she said.
"Who is it?" Father asked, frowning.
Lara bit her lip and sighed. "It's Mister Beckett. Abel let it slip that Zavis is awake..."
He cursed beneath his breath, and the atmosphere in the room shifted. I noticed Mother’s pale brows draw together as she looked back at him.
"The man deserves to know," she said.
"Know what? That his wife went insane and tried to murder our son?"
The ensuing glare caused caued him to scratch at his stubble.
"Alright, alright. Let's get this over with." Father stood up and mosied toward the door, Mother trailing close behind. Stopping in-front of Lara, he looked back at me with a toothy grin. "Let your old man handle this. You focus on getting some rest.”
Mother nodded, meeting my eyes. “We’ll continue this later.”
With those final words, my parents left the room. Lara gave a small wave before closing the bedroom door. And just like that, I was left alone with my thoughts.
Exhaling loudly, I leaned back into my pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
I wondered what was going to happen. How would Anika Beckett’s widower react to my story? With shock and disbelief, I’d imagine. The villagers already didn’t trust me very much.
This incident could very well tip them over the edge. He wouldn’t believe that his wife just suddenly lost her mind based on my account.
Shaking my head, I let the world slip away behind heavy eyelids.. Drowsiness that I’d forgotten about during our conversation overcame me, and I felt the threads of consciousness fraying. My parents would handle this. For now, I would take my father’s advice and rest.
However, just as sleep’s serene hands began to take hold—a voice penetrated the room's peaceful silence.
"Took them long enough."
My eyes shot open, and I practically jumped out of my bandages. Pain tore through my aching body at the movement, but my attention was focused on that voice. More accurately, the source of that voice who stood in the corner of my bedroom.
There, a tall man leaned against the wall, watching me beneath a dark hood. He was tall and slender, covered in tattered black robes made from some velvety fabric. Shadows seemed to congregate within his hood, obscuring his face from view.
"W-Who are you?!" I asked, ready to call for my parents.
The hooded man sighed. "Did you hit your head? Wait, don’t answer that.” He waved a hand and continued, “We just spoke before you went to sleep.”
Realization dawned on me; the reason this voice sounded familiar was because I’d heard it before.
When I’d been lying in agony, bleeding and broken on the forest’s floor.
The stranger continued. “Well, I guess you didn’t do much speaking. Can’t say I blame you though.”
“Who…?” My voice trembled in fear and confusion. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
I shook my head. “Impossible. We would have seen you…”
“The others couldn’t have,” he replied. “You, on the other hand...you just weren’t looking closely enough.”
What?
The stranger’s statement made no sense to me, and I could do nothing but stare at him. He must have expected me to respond, because a tense silence fell between us. I heard him clear his throat under the hood.
“Allow me to formally introduce myself.”
The stranger pushed himself off the wall and bowed dramatically.
“You can call me Zakarot, and you’ll be seeing a lot of me from now on."
Revelations
When the dust settled, my siblings were unceremoniously ushered out of the room, leaving me alone with our parents in an uncomfortable silence. My earlier outburst still lingered, filling me with shame and causing me to shrink into my bed-covers.
Crying like baby, I silently huffed. How pathetic.
We all had questions.
Answers were on our minds, but no-one seemed willing to speak first. Which I didn’t mind; the silence was somewhat comforting after everything that’d happened. I also wasn’t sure of how much my parents knew of the incident, and wasn’t particularly looking forward to explaining it.
I didn’t even know how to explain it.
Everything seemed as much of a mystery to me as it did them.
Skimming through my memories, I reluctantly recalled the events of the festival. A fellow villager, who had seemed entirely normal earlier that evening, decided to attack me unprovoked. Chased through the woods, bleeding and exhausted, I’d found myself at a literal cliff’s edge.
And then…
What happened after that?
A world of crystal, tumbling from the cliff. Nails and teeth rending my flesh, a stranger’s voice. A stranger who shouldn’t have been there. Had that been real or merely a creation of my fading consciousness? There were too many holes in my memory, as if a dense fog covered everything beyond the cliff’s ridge.
After I finally managed to regain my composure, my parents filled me in on the grim details. It had been two whole days since the spring festival, when I’d gone missing alongside a seemingly ordinary newlywed named Anika Beckett. They set out into the woods and found us together, my miraculously intact body stewing in the housewife’s grisly remains.
Since I’d been unconscious for two days without any signs of waking, my mother was preparing to seek aid from outside of the village. Apparently my body had somehow suffered remarkably few injuries, save for some sort of ‘backlash’. I hadn’t possessed the energy to press the matter, as my body throbbed with the pain of my intense sobbing, leaving me feeling weak and drained.
The whole family had taken turns watching over me in the meantime, and I’d happened to awake during Lara’s shift. My elder sister, confused and terrified for her little brother, was overjoyed upon seeing me awake. On the other hand, Abel hadn’t seem particularly concerned. Whether it be that he didn’t understand the situation’s severity or because he was to selfish to care, he’d continued living his life unabated.
And to my unending shock, it seemed that our family members hadn’t been too fond of that attitude. Though I’d already suspected as much when Lara snapped at him, our parents were also annoyed at his indifference. It was strange to have our roles swapped so suddenly, though immensely satisfying to find Abel at a loss whenever he’d receive so much as a stern look.
Had their concern for me lessened the blessings hold on them? Was that even possible? Perhaps the blessing itself was simply weaker than I’d always thought, and it took some tragedy to make me realize it. I told myself that it didn’t really matter.
There were more important things to worry about.
I chanced a glance over at my parents, the anxiety in my stomach rising to a new height. A woman was dead, and I was the last person to have seen her. They found me wrapped up in her remains, so it wasn’t something that I could run away from. Anika Beckett’s friends and family were looking for closure, and my parents wanted answers.
When I’d dreamed of being the center of attention, this wasn’t really what I had in mind. My father finally broke the silence, letting out a heavy sigh and meeting my eyes.
“Zavis…”
“Father,” I said meekly.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, as if trying to find the right words. My father looked so tired, as if years of his life had been shaved away. Pangs of guilt stabbed at me like many needles.
Mother must have noticed the same, because she took over in his stead. “Walk us through what happened,” she told me.
My eyes widened when I saw her face, all traces of the mother I’d seen earlier having been replaced by a familiar mask. Cold and impassive; the mother I’d grown up with. Her pale gaze was leveled onto me, as if making note of my most subtle movements, interrogating me as if already convinced of my guilt.
Swallowing deeply, I focused on the window in-front of me.
Father apparently interpreted this in his own way, because he placed a hand on my bandaged shoulder. “It’s alright, son. You can take your time.”
I nodded, licking at my dry lips before reciting the events that took place after my conversation with Mother. I told them everything in the greatest detail I could, including Anika Beckett’s strange behavior and those black eyes. From the way she’d thrown that kitchen knife into a tree to when we were both thrown from the cliff.
Mother listened silently, while Father repeatedly interrupted with questions and exclamations, earning him an icy glare each time. By the time I’d finished my story, Father was staring at me slack jawed with a dumbstruck expression. Mother’s inscrutable eyes were locked on the floor.
We remained that way for a while, each trapped within our own thoughts. I was worried they wouldn’t beleive me, that they would call me insane. Yet I’d decided to tell them the whole truth—most of it. At some point while going through the story, I decided to omit the final part with the mysterious voice. Primarily because I wasn’t fully certain that it actually happened.
Hearing voice usually isn’t a good sing, and I needed all of the credibility possible.
“Is that all?” Mother asked, monotone voice splitting through the tension like a knife. Her hawk-like glare was once-again boring into me, as if trying to see into my very soul.
My thoughts went into overdrive. Maybe they know that I spoke to someone? He could have been a villager; maybe he’s the one who showed them where I was. If they’ve caught me in a lie, it could throw everything else into question.
Despite my reservations, I met her eyes and nodded. I wasn’t really sure why, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me that it would be a bad idea to mention that stranger.
Mother’s eyes narrowed. “How did you survive the fall?”
“I don’t know.”
“And the magic?”
I frowned. “…Magic?”
Magic? Is that what she just said?
This time, it was her turn to frown. She glanced over at Father, who met her eyes and shrugged in what was likely a spectacularly unhelpful manner.
Her eyes shifted back to mine as she started to elaborate.
“Someone used magic on that cliff-top,” she said. “A ley-line to the Plane of Frost was opened shortly before our arrival. Are you following?”
I nodded.
The Aspectual Planes were realms beyond the ken of mortals, where the gods were said to reside. Nine in all, one for each member of the pantheon. Legends said that the gods combined their powers to create our world from the Planes’ energies: the nine aspects of creation—frost, flame, earth, wind, water, lightning, shadow, light, and life.
The Planes were connected to one another, as well as to our world, through invisible pathways called ley-lines. It was these very same ley-lines that allowed certain mortals to call upon the aspects.
Recalling the ice-covered cliff-top, an uneasy feeling settled into my gut. “Was Mrs. Beckett a mage?”
“No—”
“Is that how she cut down the tree?” I asked, interrupting her.
“Anika wasn’t a magic-user,” Mother replied. “Until now, there’s only been one magic-user in this village.”
I felt my eyes widen in surprise. There was a mage living in Flykra Village? Who? Perhaps that old crone who liked to talk to her dead cats, or the peddler who claimed that he could smell colors. Magic was known to be part of our world, but it was a distant, faraway concept to the people of Flykra. Though I only knew of it from books, I was probably better informed than most.
Leaning forward slightly, I waited for her next words in anticipation. “Who is it?” I asked.
Mother sighed. “Me.”
The thoughts racing through my head ground to an abrupt halt. I stared up at my mother, frozen, grappling with her answer. What did she say?
‘Me.’
Was there someone called that in the village? Maybe a nickname? I’d never heard of anyone, but mages always had strange names according to my books. Names like Althazagar the Black or Elminzter the Red. Perhaps ‘Me’ was short for something much longer and sophisticated.
“Zavis?”
She called my name, but I didn’t respond, continuing to ruminate over the meaning of her response. There was a magic-user in the village. But surely that would have been the talk of the town? They were keeping their powers a secret, then. A friend who's close enough to Mother for her to know their secret? She didn’t have many friends, though–
Something in-front of my nose caught my attention. I looked down, cross-eyed, and noticed a thin trail of white mist emanating from between my lips.
“Aneira…?” Father addressed her with uncertainty, but I couldn’t look at them.
My body trembled as a biting cold raced down my arms and legs. Scales of diamond began to collect on the flesh of my forearms, along with the bedpost at my side. The blood flowing through my veins felt like it was being frozen, making it a struggle to breathe. Gasping for breath, I brought a hand to my chest in panic.
What’s…happening?
The suffocating cold filled my bedroom, familiar yet alien. It felt like something I’d felt before, already been bitten by it.
“Zavis,” Mother said, her stern voice forcing me to turn my head.
A white ribbon was wrapped around her thin fingers, trailing across the pale flesh of her arm and vanishing beyond the shoulder. It was a steady, flowing stream of mist that appeared solid enough to hold in one’s hands. The pain from within my body seemed to lessen as I stared at my mother in awe. She looked over at me, her eyes glowing a faint blue.
The ribbon unfurled, white mist drifting through the air with enough purpose to constitute a mind of it’s own, coalescing within my mother’s palm.
Father was watching just as I was, though his expression was markedly different. As if he was somewhere else, almost forlorn. The mist started changing shape; folding and stretching and hardening into something new. The light in the room had dimmed at this point, rime crawling across the window like a makeshift curtain.
I briefly wondered if this, too, was her doing.
Turning back to her work, I found that she was finished. A small figurine stood in her palm, made of the clearest glass I’d ever seen.
No, I realized. That’s not glass.
Upon further inspection, I realized that the figure had a face. Clothes, too.
The figure’s features—appearing to be handcrafted by an expert artisan—were somewhat familiar. A soft, round face. Long tousled bangs that hung in-front of two narrow eyes. A slim body covered in a tapestry of bandages.
Oh.
“Do you believe me now?” Mother asked, allowing the figurine to dissipate into flakes of snow.
Though seeing my mother figuratively kill me was a little disturbing, I nodded slowly.
“Good. As you’ve seen, I am a magic-user, and a Blessed one at that.”
Blessings being a difficult topic for me, I couldn’t help but stiffen at the revelation. “Like Abel?”
She shook her head. “No, not like Abel. This blessing has been passed down through my father’s family for generations.”
I gestured for her to continue.
“Blessed bloodlines are a little different from normal ones. The closer a child looks to their parent, the more likely they are to inherit that parent’s blessing. The opposite can also be true, as we’ve seen with your brother and sister.”
“Okay,” I said.
Mother curled an eyebrow. “Are you following me, Zavis?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The Blessing of Frost is passed down through my family, and we knew that your siblings hadn’t inherited it because they took after your father. You, on the other hand…”
“Oh.”
The realization dawned on me, or more accurately, slammed into me like a bunch of bricks. I immediately tried to jump from my bed, but the ensuing pain put a swift stop to that. Instead, I mouthed a thousand questions that all sprung to mind at once. Among those questions were—most prominently—several that went along the lines of: ‘Is this a joke?’.
But I knew that it couldn’t be. I'd just witnessed my own mother use magic. Honest to gods magic, like I’d dreamed about for so many years.
She’d been a mage this entire time? Who else knew? Why had they never told me? Did Abel know? Lara?
Only one question left my lips, perhaps the most important one of all. “Are you saying that I’m a magic-user? That I was born with a blessing like Abel?”
With a heavy sigh, Mother nodded. “Since you’re the only other person in this village who could have used magic on that cliff-top, barring any travelers with the same affinity as myself…”
I stared at my mother vacantly, trying to figure out how to respond. I’d always known that magic existed, but it was never part of my life. The only exception was Abel’s blessing, which was a whole different class of magic and didn’t make him a mage. But now…
My mother and I were both mages.
I can’t be, whispered a voice in my head. There’s nothing special about me.
Zavis Invidia was a spectacularly ordinary person who couldn’t even swing a sword properly. I couldn’t hunt, cook, nor craft. I had no talents that made me an asset to my family or village.
That was how I’d always imagined myself. And though I’d dreamed of things being different, I had also spent years scorning Abel, blaming the world for how unfair it was. But now my mother was telling me that I’d been Blessed this whole time? Didn’t that make me the world’s biggest hypocrite?
“I need you to tell me what happened on the cliff, Zavis.”
Looking up at my mother, who stared at me with concern, I remembered how our conversation took this turn to begin with. “I already told you everything I can remember.”
“So, you don’t remember opening a ley-line? You used enough power to destroy everything around you, and the backlash was severe enough to touch the soul.”
Talk of ley-lines and souls was honestly beyond me. I was still reeling from seeing my mother make a perfect ice sculpture of me. Come to think about it, why hadn’t she participated in the festival’s ice sculpting conversation? Maybe that would be considered cheating.
However, as I thought back to the night on the cliff, I realized that there was more than one part I’d omitted from my retelling. Specifically, I hadn’t told them what happened between Anika exiting the forest and pushing me from the cliff. That was because I had very little memory of that time.
I concentrated on those hazy moments, as if peering through a dense layer of mist. Anika’s arm was swinging back and forth, spewing blood everywhere. We charged toward one another. I chickened out. Then…
Then, what?
Everything after that was a white void. Though I could not remember what occurred in that span of time, I could feel the accompanying emotion. My whole body shivered from brushing against the memories.
“Cold…”
Mother and Father both grimaced, leaning forward in their respective places.
“What was that, Zavis?” Father asked.
“I remember being cold.” I answered. “Very cold.”
Mother simply nodded. “You must have opened a ley-line on pure instinct. If it hadn’t closed when it did, you would have been killed.”
I shivered once more.
“You’ve mentioned backlash a couple of times now,” I said. “What is it?”
“We can turn ourselves into focuses for the aspects; you can think of us as lightning rods. If you draw too much energy from a ley-line, your body suffers for it. If you ignore the warning signs, you can even damage your anima. That’s the lifeforce inside of you.”
“So, is my lifeforce damaged?”
Mother made a pained expression. “I can tell that the backlash brushes against your soul, but not how deep it goes. A mortal soul is made from a careful balance of aspects, and it will require a professional to ascertain how severe the damage is.”
“Professional?”
My mother looked conflicted as she glanced over to Father, who nodded. Flashing a reassuring smile, he smacked the small of my back. I hissed through my teeth, holding back something that a child should never say to his parent.
“Oh, sorry.” Father replied, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “Uh, don’t worry about the backlash. Your mother’s pulled some strings, and an expert’s on his way here.”
“Strings?” I asked, frowning. I looked back at Mother. “An expert?”
“A mage,” Mother said. “He’ll be able to diagnose the state of your backlash and identify whether you’ve awakened my family’s blessing.”
“But you’re a mage, right? Why can’t you do it?”
Mother looked almost offended as she shook her head. “It’s a common misconception, but not every magic-user is a mage. Mages are specifically members of the Magocracy.”
“Oh,” I said, pretending to understand. “You’re not a member?”
Mother shook her head again.
“But you’ve contacted them.”
This time, she looked like she was sucking on something sour. Mother seemed hesitant to answer, and Father must have wanted to repay her for earlier. “Your mother has some friends in the Magocracy,” he told me.
That only raised more questions, but I opted not to press the matter. They’d tell me everything I needed to know eventually. For now, I had to process these revelations.
My mother was a magic-user who possessed a blessing, and I was apparently an inheritor of this power. I’d used magic to survive my fight with Anika but caused harm to my body and soul in the process. Now, a mage would be coming to Flykra in order to ascertain the scope of this damage. It all sounded like a dream, like one of my novels.
But this was real.
And now that the matter of my magic was somewhat settled, the conversation naturally moved toward the next issue. Father cleared his throat, rubbing sweaty palms against his pants. “Now, back to the other night. You mentioned that Anika was acting–”
A soft knock from the bedroom door interrupted his words. He and Mother looked at each other and then back at the bedroom doorway. After a moment of silence, the door creaked open, a girl’s face appearing in the space. Lara wore a strained expression.
"You have a visitor,” she said.
"Who is it?" Father asked, frowning.
Lara bit her lip and sighed. "It's Mister Beckett. Abel let it slip that Zavis is awake..."
He cursed beneath his breath, and the atmosphere in the room shifted. I noticed Mother’s pale brows draw together as she looked back at him.
"The man deserves to know," she said.
"Know what? That his wife went insane and tried to murder our son?"
The ensuing glare caused caued him to scratch at his stubble.
"Alright, alright. Let's get this over with." Father stood up and mosied toward the door, Mother trailing close behind. Stopping in-front of Lara, he looked back at me with a toothy grin. "Let your old man handle this. You focus on getting some rest.”
Mother nodded, meeting my eyes. “We’ll continue this later.”
With those final words, my parents left the room. Lara gave a small wave before closing the bedroom door. And just like that, I was left alone with my thoughts.
Exhaling loudly, I leaned back into my pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
I wondered what was going to happen. How would Anika Beckett’s widower react to my story? With shock and disbelief, I’d imagine. The villagers already didn’t trust me very much.
This incident could very well tip them over the edge. He wouldn’t believe that his wife just suddenly lost her mind based on my account.
Shaking my head, I let the world slip away behind heavy eyelids.. Drowsiness that I’d forgotten about during our conversation overcame me, and I felt the threads of consciousness fraying. My parents would handle this. For now, I would take my father’s advice and rest.
However, just as sleep’s serene hands began to take hold—a voice penetrated the room's peaceful silence.
"Took them long enough."
My eyes shot open, and I practically jumped out of my bandages. Pain tore through my aching body at the movement, but my attention was focused on that voice. More accurately, the source of that voice who stood in the corner of my bedroom.
There, a tall man leaned against the wall, watching me beneath a dark hood. He was tall and slender, covered in tattered black robes made from some velvety fabric. Shadows seemed to congregate within his hood, obscuring his face from view.
"W-Who are you?!" I asked, ready to call for my parents.
The hooded man sighed. "Did you hit your head? Wait, don’t answer that.” He waved a hand and continued, “We just spoke before you went to sleep.”
Realization dawned on me; the reason this voice sounded familiar was because I’d heard it before.
When I’d been lying in agony, bleeding and broken on the forest’s floor.
The stranger continued. “Well, I guess you didn’t do much speaking. Can’t say I blame you though.”
“Who…?” My voice trembled in fear and confusion. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
I shook my head. “Impossible. We would have seen you…”
“The others couldn’t have,” he replied. “You, on the other hand...you just weren’t looking closely enough.”
What?
The stranger’s statement made no sense to me, and I could do nothing but stare at him. He must have expected me to respond, because a tense silence fell between us. I heard him clear his throat under the hood.
“Allow me to formally introduce myself.”
The stranger pushed himself off the wall and bowed dramatically.
“You can call me Zakarot, and you’ll be seeing a lot of me from now on."
