Heartworm

I didn’t want to break the silence that fell between us in the temple room. I didn’t even think I could if I wanted to. Once Cecelia had finished her story, it felt like there was nothing that I could say. So the two of us sat. I gently thumbed one of the long strands of her hair that fell down from the buns at the top of her head. I could feel a gentle wetness soaking into the hem of my pants where she had been crying with her head in my lap.

I focused on what I could. I thought that perhaps if I were to unravel the tangles that had worked their way into Cecelia’s hair, that it might somehow translate towards untangling the kinks that had worked their way into her heart. Losing her parents, gaining another, and removing him from her life in such a sudden way. It really begged the question, what had gotten Cecelia to stop her rampage through life, cutting down every Deathless she could? It had to have been something big, but with how much she had clearly put herself through retelling this story, I didn’t dare ask.

‘Are you ready to discuss your reckless blood pact, little morsel?’

Not now, Lilith. Kind of in the middle of something.

‘I just sat and listened to the story of a rampaging 7 year old girl, I’ve been waiting plenty long already.’

Why do we even need to discuss it right now? If what you’re saying is true, then I’ve had a demon’s blood running through my veins for nearly two years and it hasn’t changed a thing.

‘It has changed things, little morsel. We need to discover the entire extent of just how much you have fucked the two of us with your demon friend.’

Not. Now. We’ll talk about it later.

‘You’re impossible.’

You’re obstinate.

‘You’re insufferable.’

“You’re tense.” Cecelia whispered. I felt her hands gently holding mine.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Do you regret it?”

“Every moment of it. The worst part is that it didn’t even take me that long to regret it. But once I had realized the pit I had begun to dig for myself, it felt so much easier to keep digging instead of trying to climb out. Ffenton had been right about every part of it. I messed everything up the moment that I made a deal with Urlial. I was so certain that revenge was what I wanted. Everything I ever did was to further that goal.”

“You’ve clearly changed.”

“My heart? Sure. But my body and mind have spent the past 14 years since my parents died being molded into the express purpose of eradicating Deathless. My change of heart doesn’t pull me out of the deal I made with a God when I was a furious child.”

“We’ll find a way to get you out.”

“We?”

“I-I uh… I mean you’ll find a way out.”

“I wouldn’t mind a ‘we’.”

She had pulled herself up from my lap and turned to sit across from me. A scant few inches separated out legs from being pressed against each other as we sat. I considered her words. Did she mean what I think she meant?

“Like as a team? Or…”

Cecelia looked at me with a quizzical expression. It almost looked like she was disappointed for a moment, before she smiled and responded.

“Sure. As a team, then.”

I could see the pause in her face as she responded. Had I said something wrong? I was trying my very best to not come across too forward with her. She had killed me just over a week ago, I didn’t want to make any assumptions. Though… she had kissed me. A lot. Maybe we could throw a different label on? Teams didn’t really kiss each other regularly, right?

It feels more like something that girlfriends might do. Maybe I should ask if-

“BEAST!”

I heard Lucas’ voice rip through the still air of the courtyard just outside of the temple. Much as I wished to avoid the conversation and remain with Cecelia instead, I could already tell based on the tone of his voice that I had little choice in the matter.

Cecelia looked at me in the same way I looked at her. Frustration.

“Looks like we’re being summoned.”

“It sounds like you’re being summoned. I’m just along for the ride. Team, right?” She smirked as the two of us stood up. Before I left the temple, I looked back to the altar. The image of a little girl smashing a molar out of her teeth to seal away her fate hurt to imagine. I wouldn’t let her reckless decision decide her fate.

‘The altar feels familiar to me…’

I stepped out of the temple with Cecelia to see the furious expression of Lucas, along with the concerned expression of Sebil. What a duo they made.

“Stumbled into it by accident, you animal?” Lucas practically spat his words at me, like if he put enough force into them they might cut into my skin.

“What?”

“You said you accidentally discovered you had blood magic!”

“Yeah, I did!”

“Ripping the life out of a section of the forest is a LITTLE BIT MORE THAN AN ACCIDENT!”

“It was an accident! …I just didn’t say how big of an accident it was.”

Sebil inserted himself into the heated argument between the two of us. “Why wouldn’t you tell us something like that, love?”

“I didn’t want to scare anyone! What would you all think if I came back from my morning hunt and said ‘oh by the way I sucked the life out an acre of the woods no big deal’!”

“You did what, bandit?” Cecelia looked shocked. Lucas looked furious. Sebil looked concerned. Everyone’s got their happy little niche, good for them.

I, on the other hand, was beyond frustrated. I hated how my life had always felt like a series of secrets that I needed to keep tight to my chest, fearing that my life and all I’d built would shatter the moment my secrets came out. It had only gotten worse in the past week. I was hiding my identity of who I wanted to be in fear of being shamed and ridiculed. I was hiding my identity as a Deathless in every town we visited in fear of being cut down on the spot. I was hiding the headmate that occasionally controlled my body from every soul out of fear of what Lilith would do to me. I was hiding new discoveries of blossoming magic out of fear my new capabilities made my allies distrust and fear me. I was so tired of the hiding. When would I be able to escape the suffocation of layers upon layers of lies?

“I’m fucking damned if I do and damned if I don’t! I didn’t want to freak anyone out when I didn’t even know how it happened!”

“Don’t believe it's lies, it’s been hiding the capabilities of its blood magic in order to ensure an advantage later on. It’s all a fucking hunt to this animal.”

“Zip it, cornrows. I’m a few seconds away from letting that ‘animal’ rip you apart.” Cecelia glared at the Marked man. Having just heard her story, and the way that she talked about Deathless as ‘beasts’, ‘animals’, and ‘monsters’, I suddenly realized how hard it must have been for her to change her vocabulary so recently.

The more I thought about it, I was guilty of the same thing. The classes at Varenthell, as well as most education throughout Kistram, labeled Deathless as animals. Describing them almost exclusively with de-humanizing language, without even the care to lend them pronouns beyond it and it's. I’d only been a Deathless for a short time, but the way that Lucas spoke about me hurt on a layer beneath my skin, like it was venturing deeper to cut at my soul. How had Vyra managed to go so long learning at the Academy when she was discussed in those terms? The thought made me wince.

“Oh you’ll want me alive. Especially now.” Lucas let out a laugh, with far more confidence within it that I liked to hear. Especially from a man with magical restraints still latched around his wrists.

“What do you mean, love?”

“Because this monster released a powerful enough surge of blood magic to murder a fucking petting zoo. That amount of blood magic is like a Gods damned solar flare begging for attention for miles around.”

“He’s lying. If that were the case, you would’ve been on my ass first thing in the morning to yap in my ear like a dog.” I spoke coldly, noting the inconsistencies in his story.

“Deathless are clearly only good at wanton violence, because there doesn’t seem to be much else in that head. I’ve got magical restraints on you dolt. It’s the equivalent of taking the glasses off of a blind man.” Had he meant to make a joke there? I couldn’t tell if Lucas was the type to enjoy joking about his own blindness, or if that was simply a poor choice of words. “With the restraints I feel like I’ve got a sack over my head. I can only ‘see’ about 30ft away. Without the restraints, I would have seen your temper tantrum like a bonfire in my eyes.”

Okay… so that wasn’t great news.

“When did you cause that accident, love?” Sebil moved towards me with deep concern, filling the corners of his face like a water tank.

“When I went out to hunt. It was around when everyone was waking up.” I uttered quietly. How was I supposed to know? Had I just jeopardized our entire group? I just wanted to keep from scaring them away!

“Which means Laia has had all day to track us. We need to move.” Cecelia spoke firmly, starting to move towards the rooms that we had our equipment gathered in.

I moved to follow Cecelia, the beginnings of an apology already prepared to leave my mouth. Before the words were able to leave my mouth, however, a resounding cracking of wood hit our ears. I watched in horror as the small form of Phern sailed through the air after smashing through the wall of the interlocking kumiko wall of the leftmost building. Her small form collided against one of the rocks inside of the courtyard, a concerning amount of blood forcing its way out of her throat upon impact.

My eyes followed the path she took in order to find out what had done such a thing to her. The Marked woman, Laia, stood behind the Phern shaped hole in the wall, looking at the four of us with a grin.

“PHERN!” Cecelia had already begun running towards the half-elf that was slumped over and coughing against a rock.

The moment that Cecelia moved, I watched the Marked woman race forward, clearly intent on intercepting Cecelia before she could get to Phern. With a click and a following whir of gears spinning, I turned to see Sebil already draw one of his small hand crossbows from his belt. The bolt struck true into the arm of the Marked, but instead of the usual electricity that followed, the bolt erupted into a detonation of pure force. I was stunned at how efficiently Laia had been thrown to the side, hitting the stone wall of the perimeter of the estate. Every day, Sebil seemed to surprise me with a new invention.

“How the fuck do you come up with that stuff?” I asked.

“Inspiration strikes in the strangest places-”

The end of his sentence never came, instead being replaced with a low and pained grunt. I watched as Laia’s form flickered into existence behind Sebil before planting a vicious kick into his side with a glowing foot. By the expression that flashed across his face, he was just as shocked to see that Laia had made it over here so quickly. The last time that I checked she was-

I looked back to the stone wall around the perimeter to see Laia picking herself up from the impact, rolling her shoulder back into place with a distant snap. I looked back to the Laia that had just sent Sebil flying through the courtyard until he tumbled to a stop near the front gate.

Two Marked women.

“You fucking ass, Lucas! You didn’t tell me you had two sisters!” I yelled in annoyance as the familiar and comfortable shadows began to form around my body to ready myself for the fight.

“I don’t, you animal.”

I meant to retort, but I was stopped by having to raise my hands into the path of the Marked woman’s leaping kick. Her foot landed squarely where my arms had been raised to protect my chest. I felt my forearms crack, and my feet did into the soft earth of the courtyard as I slid back through the ground, barely managing to keep my footing as I did so. I could heal that quickly. But she might be able to attack even quicker than I could heal.

When I looked at the Marked woman, I noticed she looked astonishingly like the other. If they weren’t sisters, then they must have been some sort of magical duplicates. I focused on my sense of smell, trying to center my attention on the two Laias that we fought. To my surprise, their scents were completely identical, with only small differences on the surface layer. I could smell the faint smell of blood and stone on the one that had been thrown into the wall, while the other carried the faint scent of oil that must have rubbed off on her when she kicked Sebil.

More notable than that, however, was how the smells felt empty. It was like I was handling a prop of a smell, where the outside guise existed, but the actual substances within were missing. These had to be artificial in some way, no person I had smelled yet seemed to lack that central smell, the thing that I had identified as the sort of ‘core’ of someone. The more I considered that, the more I became fascinated. Was it possible that a Deathless has such a strong sense of smell that they can identify and sense the kind of magical core within a person?

Putting that aside to focus on the imminent fight, I sidestepped the Marked woman’s attack that she had performed to close the gap between the two of us. The next few strikes came in such rapid succession that I only barely managed to avoid the bulk of her onslaught. A few hits had landed across my body, cracking, breaking, or bruising the places they found purchase.

Gods she was fast. The brief moment of respite I got from her felt like coming up for air in freezing water.

‘We cannot afford the same loss as before. Give me control.’

I hated the idea just as much as I had the first time that Lilith had suggested it. But I couldn’t deny that she was the only reason I had survived the first encounter with Laia.

Fine. Make sure nobody dies, Lilith.

‘Oh someone is dying alright.’

Lilith?

‘Relax, little morsel. I’m talking about that Marked woman.’

I let myself relax at her words, relinquishing control of my body in the same unsettling way that I had done before. I only hope Lilith could handle this fight.