Vittoria frowned, planting her hand on her hip. She had a sack in one hand, similar to the one she had given Arielle on her mission to infiltrate the demonic sect.
“Nothing?” she asked. “You don't feel anything at all?”
“I don’t feel anything,” Arielle confirmed and glanced back at the unconscious demon. While meditating on him, she had enhanced her senses until she could hear even the subtle stutter of the heart that was not yet done beating, the breaths he struggled to draw. She had felt every twitch and mundane movement of his body fighting to awaken from his deep slumber. She had waited for the next stage, some type of aura or magic exuding from him.
But she had sensed nothing of that sort. All she could sense were the essences around her and her cores. No other magic.
“That’s…odd,” Vittoria said. “I mean, most experienced mages feel something at this point, even if they don't exactly understand what they feel and what to do with it. I had expected you to feel more given your skill.”
Ari dropped her gaze to her hands, a little embarrassed to admit her failure. “Maybe there’s something else I’m missing.”
“Maybe,” she said. “When you first began using magic, how did you sense the essences? Apart from seeing them?”
Ari thought about it. She didn’t know how to answer that because she couldn't remember a time when she didn't see essences. She had seen them before she’d ever developed the cores necessary to sense them. Now she just felt them through their connection to her cores, but prior to that, in the beginning, the sight came first.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I've always seen and heard them. It's hard to sense them separately from that."
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Vittoria murmured. “Maybe because you started off seeing, you never learned how to detect it without sight. It’s like working with a muscle you’ve never trained.” She snorted. “How ironic. The very thing that makes you so skilled at one magic form is going to be your weakness here.”
Arielle did not like having weaknesses. "What do I do?”
“You’re simply going to keep doing what you’re doing. It will just take longer than I imagined.”
"Longer?" Arielle was disappointed. She didn’t have time. Lyra’s birthday was coming up soon, when she would lose access to her cores forever. There were also things in Yseult’s journal that she had to access. She had thought learning soul magic would be more straightforward than learning blood magic, since she had a teacher in Vittoria, but it seemed there was a limitation here too.
“Don’t make that face,” Vittoria said, patting her head the same way Arielle was patting the dragon's. “I know you’re used to everything being easy for you, but challenges like this are normal. This is what the average mage has to go through." Vittoria grinned. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually."
Arielle pouted a little. Nevertheless, she nodded. “Should I continue?’
“Sure, if you want to. Or you can come interrogate the demon with me. You might see something that'll help you."
She thought about it. Since attaining soul sight was going to take time, she wanted to continue working on it, so she could catch up as fast as possible, but she also wanted to hear what the other demon had to say, even if it was just for a second.
"I'll come with you," she decided.
Vittoria snapped her finger and led Arielle and the dragon down the hall to the last cage, where the demon had seemingly managed to regain some of his mobility since he was currently straining against his bonds.
“You might as well stop before you hurt yourself," Vittoria pointed out. “Those are never going to give.”
"Let me out of here, you witch,” he said.
“I might,” she said. “If you cooperate with me.”
“I will not cooperate with human scum.”
“Well then I guess I can just get the truth out of you the hard way. Shame. I was hoping we could at least try the easy way first.” The cage opened, and Vittoria walked in calmly, as a stump materialized from the ground. She sat on it and stared at the demonic being in front of her.
Its dark eyes spat with fury and fear. It glared and postured, but Arielle's [Empath Sense] told her that it was scared.
“I will never betray any of my brothers,” he said, regardless.
“That’s interesting, because I know your brothers would betray you with the snap of a finger. In fact, they barely consider you one of them. Isn’t that right?” She spoke casually, crossing her legs and bobbing one booted foot. “It must be hard to be considered inferior in your own species, forever trying to prove yourself and curry their favor, forever the disposable one. Is that not why they relegated you to keeping a lookout on the forest? Because your death would mean nothing to them. They likely didn't even tell you any important information either, which I can't blame them for, since you did so poorly with the task you were assigned."
“Shut up, you witch,” he hissed.
"Why? I'm simply stating the truth." As Vittoria spoke, there was a slight light emanating from her, a subtle glow. It looked like Luxa orbs, but they were not glowing from within her body, per Arielle's scan.
Maybe it was glowing from her soul, she realized.
Vittoria was doing something to the demon while she talked to him. She wasn’t necessarily using a spell on him, but something was happening.
Emotions were a layer of the soul, and she was triggering very strong emotions in him right now, angering him.
Was she simply using them as an access point to get to the deeper layers, where his magic resided? Was this soul magic?
“It's clever,” Vittoria said. “All the traps they put in your memories. I’m not a truth seeker, so I’m not adept at navigating that aspect of your mind. However, rest assured, I will get what I want out of you.” She held out a hand, and a variety of sharp objects appeared on a tray, all cleaned and shiny. Each of them was laced with Luxa. "One way, or another."
The demon’s eyes flared. His fear became more pungent, and even Arielle's breath caught.
Is she about to torture him? Arielle swallowed and tried to ignore her discomfort.
It was a demon. Their kind had hurt Elric and countless others. They were fundamentally antagonistic and dangerous to humans. She should not feel sorry for it at all.
Besides, Vittoria needed this information. She needed to get it so that she could protect the humans in the village next to the volcano and so they could save the dragon. What they were doing made perfect sense.
Except there was something about it Arielle did not like that made her undeniably uneasy.
Perhaps it was Vittoria's attitude towards the thing. Her eyes were merciless, her face a calm ocean. Almost like she was engaging in a dull pastime. She let a single finger trail a sharp stake as she stared at the demon. "Last chance."
He swallowed several times before steeling himself.
“Do your worst,” he said.
Vittoria did not skip a beat. "Lous."
Arielle flinched. Vittoria's icy tone made her apprehensive even though she only said, "Why don't you leave us alone? It looks like I'll have to complete the rest of the interrogation myself."
“Okay.” Yet, Ari hesitated, the words forcing their way out of her mouth. "Do you have to do it like this?"
"He picked the hard way."
"Yes, but does it have to be...like this?"
Vittoria had been facing the demon, but when she turned back to Arielle, not a single shred of doubt in her eyes. “Yes, it does.”
Arielle swallowed and went back out, with the dragon waddling behind. It was still clingy, although she no longer needed to touch it all the time. She could take longer and longer breaks now without it bothering her. It also yawned, signifying that it was sleepy.
Ari went back to the first demon, reclaiming her position on the floor so she could meditate some more. Her dragon joined her, lying down and putting its heavy head by her thigh.
She closed her eyes and took deep breaths.
Yet, a part of her couldn't focus on the task because she was listening for the other demon's scream.
It never came. Even with her use of [Sensate], she never heard even a single murmur, and she wondered if Vittoria had somehow blocked the sound from escaping. After all, she hadn't heard anything either when Vittoria had gotten information out of the one in front of her.
She wasn't even sure why she was so bothered. She herself had severely injured the demon and paralyzed it only hours earlier. What she had done to the behemoth was even worse. She hadn't felt bad then. It had been necessary.
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And so was this.
Nevertheless, it was hard to focus. She felt unsettled. Maybe because this was a new experience for her. She had known technically that Vittoria had hurt the other demon, but she'd really never lingered on it before, as it wasn't in her face.
Now that she had faced it, it was hard to look away. Did Vittoria do this often to other creatures? Was that how she treated all her experiments?
She took deep breaths again, pushing the thoughts out of her head, and maintaining her focus once more.
Yet, she still felt nothing even remotely like soul magic.
It was nighttime by the time Vittoria finished, and they went back up to the empty living room. She had no blood on her. In fact, her clothes were the same, not an added crease.
She also did not look particularly disturbed by what she did, humming to herself as they walked up.
It was hard for Ari not to see her differently, though, even as they both sat at the table. “Did you feel anything?”
Arielle shook her head.
“Well, that’s a shame. Luckily, you’re going to be spending most of the school break with me so we can figure it out.”
“I don’t have that kind of time,” she admitted. “Lyra needs me to know what’s wrong with her before her sixteenth birthday.”
“Lyra.”
“Yes. She’s my best friend. When she was born, a priestess bound her to a disciple of the Life Tree, and because of that, she can only use Vitae comfortably. She struggles with using any other essence. In just a few weeks, on her sixteenth birthday, she's going to lose the rest of her cores forever. I'm trying to save her from that fate, which I think is caused by an oath spell or some kind of soul bond, so I have to learn soul magic to release it."
Vittoria was stroking her chin in thought as they spoke. “Interesting. Do you know this priestess’s name?’
"No, but I know it's her aunt.”
“What temple does she belong to?”
"I don't know." Arielle pressed her lips together, disapproval dripping from her tone. “Are you going to torture her if you find out?”
Vittoria stopped stroking her chin to give Arielle an arched look. “You think I tortured the demon?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Heavens no,” Vittoria said, looking insulted. “I’m not nearly that crude or sadistic. I don’t have to torture people to get information out of them.”
“So why did you make it seem like you were about to?”
“Because, my little protege, fear is a powerful emotion and one of the best anchor points into a soul. And that was what I utilized. However, I had to make him believe it.”
Oh.” She sighed in relief. “Well, are you going to do that to Lyra’s aunt?”
“No. I save that for the less savory and more powerful threats. So unless she fulfils both criteria, I probably won’t ‘torture’ your best friend's aunt.”
Good. Lyra would appreciate the restraint.
Arielle said, "I don’t know where she lives, but I can find out from Lyra.”
“Alright. And as for your friend’s condition, I'm not sure if it's caused by an oath either, because oaths typically require an agreement between parties to come into effect. Lyra could not have consented to it as a baby. So it has to be more than just that. Unless..."
"A blood oath?"
"Yes. If her entire bloodline was incorporated, then that's a lot harder to solve. However, that suggests very powerful ties to whatever guardian or primordial disciple they serve."
"Could soul magic be used to break it?"
"Maybe. Since they're priestesses, they have more touch points and developed elements in their soul. I'd have to figure out the nature of the problem first, so I'll talk to this aunt."
“Okay.” Arielle thought about it and asked, “When you manipulate someone’s soul, does it hurt?”
“Sometimes. Depends on how much they resist.”
“Oh.” Arielle bit her lip.
“I don't enjoy it, you know."
"You don't?"
"Obviously not."
"You didn't seem fazed at all by what you were doing."
"Do you know how long I've lived, Arielle?" Vittoria said. "A very, very long time. Centuries. Do you know how many battles happen across centuries? How many people die? How many traitors escape? How much is lost because of the wrong information? Do you know what could happen if I don’t get that knowledge in time?"
There was a hush that fell over the room when she stopped, and she tore her gaze away.
"Sometimes there's a choice between something unpleasant and something catastrophic," she said. "I typically choose the unpleasant."
Arielle swallowed. She thought about if she were in Vittoria’s shoes and needed to get information out of the demon in order to save the dragon and the humans. It was easier to swallow because the demon had been trying to kill her, but what if the situation had been different and the demon had not tried to kill her? What if they had merely captured it, while it was defending the ritual circle, or while it was trying to escape? It obviously wasn’t a threat to either of them and couldn’t do them much harm. However, it had information they wanted.
What if they had to hurt it anyway to save others?
Ari didn't know if she had that in her. She didn’t know if she could choose the unpleasant over the catastrophic.
"In the end, I did get quite a bit out of our friend," Vittoria said. "Mordius and his crew are definitely behind this. I think they may have done something to annoy a powerful Archdemon associated with the King of Demons. They are trying to use humans and human guardians to fight their battles."
"Why humans? There are far more powerful creatures."
"Maybe because they're half-human. They're trying to make more of themselves."
"So they were trying to make hybrids with the demonic sect?"
"Yes. We knew that already, but the sect thought they were using those hybrids to gain power over the demons. In actuality, it was the other way round; the demons were going to enslave those hybrids for their own use. Our friend didn't know much about how the ritual was cast, though. Maybe he's pretending. I'll try to get more out of him tomorrow." She yawned, stretching her arms over her head. She glanced at the dragon, who was yawning again, smacking its lips and purring.
"He'll sleep next to you tonight,” she said. “And I'll make a golem of you tomorrow for him. After I take you back to school, I'll put in the evacuation request for the village. Then I'll start working on how to break the ritual."
"And heal the dragon."
"If possible," she said. "I don't know any dragon healers."
"Is there anywhere we can learn about dragon anatomy?"
"No. The closest thing to it on Earth would be a Phoenix, so we would look for some rare bird expert, but I'm not sure where you would find that."
A lightbulb went off for Arielle. "I think I have an idea." Professor Woden knew a lot about birds. He’d also brought a Phoenix to class before.
He might be able to help her. She just had to ensure he didn’t quite know what he was helping her with.
They spoke for a little longer, and then Vittoria told Arielle she could sleep in the living room. She had already settled Inara into a cleared-out large closet that the girl used as her room, but since Ari was only staying a night, that wasn't necessary.
She and the baby dragon slept on a floor mattress Vittoria had conjured. Vittoria had covered them both in the same blanket, which had helped the dragon stop trying to burrow under Ari. First, though, Ari had to roll over the blanket a few times to spread her scent on it, which made the dragon think that the blanket was just another extension of her. Vittoria said she would wrap the blanket around the Ari golem in the morning to see if it would successfully trick the creature.
Vittoria also gave her a pill that would enable her to keep up her disguise throughout the night.
Nevertheless, Ari couldn't sleep. She wanted to keep meditating until she could see the soul elements, but Vittoria told her to take a break, because the last thing they needed was her groggy in the morning.
But she might be groggy anyway because so many thoughts occupied her head that she simply could not get herself to relax.
Being here reminded her of the night she had saved Elric, and everything that had transpired. She had not yet taken time to absorb it. She also felt like she had not had the time to settle down and consider the path her life was taking.
Her first semester at school was almost done, and it had not gone at all how she had thought it would go. She had friends, but also enemies. She had excelled at schoolwork, but her plate was full of side projects that were constantly expanding, and it was getting harder and harder to balance them all without letting something fall by the wayside.
The cure for Lyra. The cure for the dragon. Learning blood magic and soul magic. Extra lessons with the Dean and Graham. Research with Valeria. Centering exercises. Finding the Abyss and the Drift. Saving Plutarch. Learning runes with Telip. Meditating with the Blue Orb.
So many extracurriculars and projects made for a constant balancing act, and she hadn't stopped yet to figure out if she was okay with everything that was happening. If she could truly handle this.
And what about the future? Where did she see herself going with all of this?
A movement behind her had her jerking up and whipping around until she saw Inara frozen behind her.
"I'm sorry," Inara said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's okay," Arielle said. "I wasn't asleep anyway."
"I know. I saw you tossing and turning. I thought maybe you were still hungry." She was holding a plate with a small pink pastry in her hand. "I made this while you two were working. It's very mild in taste."
Arielle considered it. "I thought Vittoria told you not to make me anything."
Inara swallowed, looking nervous but took one step closer.
"Yes, but she also often says I should take ownership of my own mind," she said. “This is my mind.”
Arielle nodded and took it. "Thank you."
"No, it is me who must thank you for rescuing me, twice now. I can't even tell you what it means to me."
"It's okay," Arielle said quietly, scooping some of the pastry into her mouth. It was delicious, admittedly. "How are you doing?"
Ari had never asked her before. Ashamedly, she had barely thought about the girl after she rescued her, which also proved what Lyra had said about her. Self-centered.
“I’m doing better,” Inara said. “Lady Vittoria...I mean, Vittoria is so kind to me. I don’t have many tasks to do here, but she keeps me around anyway. I know that this cannot last and that I must eventually go back to where I came from."
“Why?”
“I’m bound to them. They’re my family. My blood. Whether I like it or not." She said it with a sad, resigned countenance that made Arielle feel bad.
It reminded her of one more thing she had to do.
“I’ll free you,” she said. She mentally added one more thing to her list, and she felt the scales tipping once more, out of balance.
However, she comforted herself by telling herself that most of her goals were interconnected, woven together like a laced tapestry.
The cure for Lyra was linked to soul magic or blood magic, which could also help Inara. The research with Valeria would help her figure out the abyss, which would help her save those who had been trapped by the Drift, including Plutarch. The centering exercises kept the demons away but also helped her meditate deeply enough to find the doorway within. And her Blue Orb exercises...
Arielle suddenly paused. Speaking of the blue orb, it had been created from an oath she’d had with the elves.
Initially, she’d not been able to detect exactly what the orb did, because the oath spell form had been made up of too many foreign essences for her to comprehend.
But now she wondered…
It had been the only thing that buzzed around when it had sensed that foreign strangeness in the cave. It seemed friendly with the other spirit orbs and seemed to welcome Vittoria, recognizing her instinctively.
What if it wasn’t about her elven heritage?
What if it was more about her having more developed soul elements?
Could it be that the oath that the elves placed her under had been attached to her soul?
And the blue orb had been related to that?
She mused on it, chewing slowly even as Inara bowed and retreated, and the dragon snored.
Perhaps, it was time to attempt some experiments to discover the true nature of the blue orb. If it was somehow connected to the soul...then she might have just found a loophole.
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