Realm of Monsters

Chapter 591: Divine Magic

  The goddess of death turned to the crowd and then in a flash of blue light she disappeared. The people broke out into shouts of confusion and terror at Melantha’s display of power.

  Calantha Ashe raised her arms for quiet and when that didn’t work she channeled Yellow and cast a wind spell. Her voice suddenly carried through the entire plaza, “The gods have spoken!”

  At the mention of the gods, the crowd’s cacophony stifled to a quiet whisper. Stryg was impressed at how quickly Lady Ashe calmed down the people. Her position as the city’s High Priestess carried more weight than he had realized.

  “The gods have spoken and have carried out their sentence on our enemy’s leader,” Calantha gestured to Marek’s slumped body. Though her words had pacified the crowd’s confusion it had incited their angry fervor in its wake.

  Stryg narrowed his owl-like eyes and stared at Marek. Calantha was right. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain that whatever magic his sister had cast had ripped the soul out of Marek. Melantha the Blue hadn’t touched him but she had killed Marek.

  A knot of anger burned in the pit of Stryg’s stomach. He felt cheated. For more than a year he had trained harder than ever before for a single purpose. Vengeance. He had begrudgingly given up that honor to Tristan on account of the boy’s loss, but if Tristan was going to spare Marek then Stryg would have seized the chance to avenge Clypeus, but now his sister had taken it away.

  Melantha’s flash of magic had blinded the onlookers, but Stryg’s divine sight had seen her just fine. In his world of darkness and silver outlines he saw his sister slip into the crowd. Even now she was still moving away from the execution scaffold.

  “The gods have cast their judgment and we shall oblige!” Calantha gestured for the guards to bring up the next prisoner.

  The mage executions resummoned their shades and to their relief, the shades answered, instead of cowering as they had before in Melantha’s presence.

  “I can’t watch this,” Plum mumbled, wide-eyed. She paled at the sight of the shades and began to tremble uncontrollably.

  Tauri noticed and quickly held up her cloak and wrapped Plum in a hug, obscuring her vision. “You don’t have to. Come on, let’s go.”

  Plum nodded with a whimper and buried her face in Tauri’s shoulder.

  “Stryg, I’m going to take Plum to the manor,” Tauri whispered.

  He nodded distractedly. “Take the carriage, I’ll meet you there in a while.” 

  Tauri gave him an appreciative look and headed down the stairs. Stryg turned away from the balcony and followed after them.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Gale crossed her arms and stared at Stryg pointedly.

  “My sister just killed Marek. I intend to find out why,” he replied.

  “Uh uh, you’re not going off on your own again. I am your Shadow.” Gale grabbed the edge of Blossom and yanked the flower cloak, causing Stryg to stumble back a step. 

  “She is right,” said Gian.

  “Then come with me, Gale. Hurry, before Melantha gets away,” said Stryg. As if sensing his will, Blossom’s petals bristled at Gale’s touch and slipped out of her grasp.

  “Stryg, this execution is important, it is a show of power to the rest of the city and its nobles. A Veres must stay and show their presence, it represents their will and approval of the execution,” explained Gian.

  “Lucky for me I’m not the only Veres here, am I?” Stryg grinned at the old vampire.

  Gian frowned, “I don’t count.”

  “I think we both know you do, uncle. Come on, Gale, let’s go.” Stryg didn’t wait for an answer and hurried down the stairs.

  “That boy is going to get me killed,” Gale grumbled under her breath, before following him anyway.

  Gian sighed, but his lips curled in a slight grin.

~~~

  “Where are we going?” asked Gale.

  Stryg and she had been walking for the past half-hour. They had already left the Central District and were currently making their way through the edge of the Trade and Bourge Districts.

  The beautiful duo attracted attention, particularly Stryg’s unique appearance and his white flower cloak. Gale’s hand hovered over her sword and warded off anyone who drew too close. Stryg didn’t notice, he was too busy searching for his sister.

  Stryg abruptly stopped walking and cocked his head to the side as he had done multiple times already. “Melantha went this way,” he said, then took a turn down the street.

  “How do you know that? We lost sight of her ten minutes ago.”

  “I don’t know. I just do.”

  “Is this like one of those bluffs, where you hope your gut feeling is right? Or is this more like your Traveler senses kicking in?”

  “Traveler—? I don’t even know if that’s a thing. Is it?”

  “Hey, don’t ask me, you’re the demigod, or god. I’m still not quite sure about the nomenclature.”

  “Neither do I. I don’t feel like a god.”

  “Do you feel mortal?”

  “I don’t know, I just feel like— me. I guess.”

  “Okay, not much to go off of.” Gale tapped her chin. “Let’s see, Stjerne is the Traveler, people pray to him to keep them safe and guide them in their travels. Maybe you can do the same?”

  Stryg faltered a step. “I failed to protect the people I traveled with,” he muttered.

  “Clypeus’ death wasn’t your fault.”

  Stryg stopped and smiled back at her, albeit weakly. “...Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.”

  She nodded stiffly and swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “Right, let’s keep going.”

  “Right.”

  “So, the Traveler is supposed to be the ultimate wayfinder, yes? He leads people wherever they need to go.”

  “I guess.”

  “So, can you do that?’

  “I led people to war and we won, does that count?”

  “I don’t think so, you were unconscious for the latter half of that night.”

  “You try and kill a dragonbane and be fine afterwards,” he grumbled.

  She chuckled. “Look, there’s gotta be some other time you’ve guided people, right?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I can’t think of anything. I usually get lost.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This city is huge, several times bigger than Evenfall. It’s easy to get lost in all its streets and corners. Ever since the first day I came to Hollow Shade, I got lost.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, that very first day I escaped a slaver and just ran off into the streets, not really knowing where I was going,” he said absentmindedly.

  “And yet you somehow managed to become a student at the mage academy?”

  “I mean, it wasn’t exactly that simple.”

  “But you did it anyway. Maybe you can navigate through this.”

  “And what is ‘this’ supposed to be in your context?”

  “I don’t know, all of this,” she gestured wildly around herself.

  “Yeah, that definitely clears things up,” he said dryly.

  “Okay, um, what else… Oh! What about the stars? Can you read the stars, read the future?”

  “You know, you seem oddly excited about ‘all of this.’”

  “Why aren’t you? You’re the son of an ancient cataclysmic deity. Tell me you aren’t even a little curious about what sort of powers are running through your veins.”

  “Maybe I’m a little curious,” he admitted quietly.

  She nudged his shoulder, “Alright then. So, can you read the future in the stars or not?”

  “I don’t think anyone can read the future like that, otherwise Caligo wouldn’t have been so interested in capturing Maeve.”

  “Well, can you at least read the stars? I mean not right now, of course. It’s barely noon.”

  “Actually,” Stryg glanced up at the sky, his irises still large enough to cover the whites of his eyes. “I can see the stars.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, everything sort of gets dark when my irises break open wide.”

  “That sounds painful.”

  “It is when it happens, but the pain disappears quickly. My eyes just go back to normal after a few hours if I don’t stare at anything too bright.” He blinked. “Right now everything sort of looks dark and is covered in silver outlines. But the stars… they’re perfectly clear in the sky.”

  “Can you read them?”

  “I’m not a sailor. I’m a Sylvan. We don’t get trained in how to read stars.”

  “But your father is the Navigator in the Azure Realm, right? He is the patron of sailors. That has to count for something.”

  “If that was the case then I’d be able to swim instead of sinking into the water like a rock. I don’t think my father’s blood helps me read some stars either.” 

  “Well, have you ever tried?”

  “They’re stars. What am I supposed to do—?” He furrowed his brow.

  “What? What is it? Can you see something?” she asked excitedly.

  “Not like that. It’s the dragons. They’re flying towards the Sylvan encampment. Actually… my sister is headed that way too.”

  “Wait, you can see them?” Gale squinted up at the sky. What had once been a clear blue sky was now mostly shrouded in cloud cover. “Can you see through the clouds?”

  “There are clouds…?”

  “So your divine magic lets you see through the clouds? That’s… interesting,” Gale mused thoughtfully.

  “It’s elemental chaos magic, actually.”

  “Same thing in this case.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “Come on, let’s hurry. If I’m right, they’re heading to find Lunae.”

  “Ah! Did your divine senses tell you that?”

  “No, it’s just— why else would the dragons and Melantha be heading to the Commoner District? It’s just common sense.”

  Gale smiled and cupped her hands over her mouth, “~Divine magic~”

  He rolled his eyes.

~~~

  Stryg found Lunae in an abandoned temple she had taken residence in. The Sylvan priestesses had cleaned it up and dedicated it to the Mother Moon. The guards had let Stryg and Gale in as they approached and led them to an open-air pavilion.

  As he guessed, Melantha was with Lunae, as was Holo. There were others also in the room. Unfamiliar faces with sharp features, dressed in strange fine garments. They turned and glanced at Stryg’s entrance.

  He noticed their slit pupils and immediately recognized them for what they were; dragons. Like Lunae, they had somehow shapeshifted into humanoid form. Though, as Stryg thought about it, he wasn’t certain which was Lunae’s true form, the towering wolf or the silver woman smiling at him right now.

  “Stryg, come,” she gestured to him.

  He walked over without a word, occasionally glancing at the draconic visitors. He caught Melantha’s eye for a moment but she was more focused on the dragons. He was beginning to realize his talk with her would have to wait.

  Gale didn’t follow him and instead, stepped to the side and walked over to the corner of the room, and joined Arden in keeping watch over the rest. The gruff goblin glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Lord Guardian,” Gale nodded calmly and resumed her watchful post.

  Arden grunted, but said nothing more. 

  “Um, what’s going on?” Stryg whispered to Lunae, which he quickly realized was probably pointless. The dragons probably had sharp ears.

  “Another child of Death?” asked one of the dragon humanoids. His hair was a stark magenta-red and his eyes were a brilliant amber that seemed to burn with an inner fire.

  Lunae wrapped her arm around Stryg and growled deeply. “My child. Mine.”

  The man glanced at the two of them skeptically but nodded in acquiescence. “Of course, my mistake.”

  “Our draconic guests have just arrived,” explained Lunae. “We were exchanging pleasantries before you walked in, Little One. Now, I assume you have come for your sister’s sake, Reldros.”

  “Your sight is as sharp as ever,” the dragon noted. “We hoped to speak to you and the daughters of Death.” He gestured to one of his people who then walked forward, carrying in his arms an unconscious woman. 

  “Zavinti,” Holo whispered in recognition. She hovered over her old friend and stroked her hair. Zavinti breathed softly but showed no signs of waking up. “When I saw Caligo riding her into battle I hoped I had seen wrong… But it really was her, wasn’t it? What did Caligo do to your sister?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” said Reldros.