Page 37 of Bright Soul

Madigan wanted me to become Guardian of Moongrove Library tomorrow morning, when our enemies would be at their weakest after a full night of scavenging. More importantly, they would not have the Hungering Darkness, with Garroway’s weakness to sunlight preventing him from making the trip here.

That left enough time to eat, worry a hole in the floor of the room I lived in with my men, and ignore Ben’s offer to tumble into bed together until I went to retrieve Geo from his post in the shadows of the first floor. A pair of better-rested witches were already standing guard with him and helped me convince him to take the night off.

One round of sharing later, I fell into an uneasy sleep and woke blearily. Someone was going around knocking on doors.

“Sun’s up! Let’s go!” exclaimed a muffled voice that sounded like Orthus.

I headed down to the powercore chamber while everyone else refreshed themselves on battle stations and last-minute planning. Too nervous to eat any rations, I sipped on a bottle of water as the elevator descended. In as little as an hour, I would see Phaeron again…then we would see if he would be mine, Myuna’s, or no one’s.

I’d gotten fully equipped for this fight, wearing the haggard hybrid witch garb I’d since washed after wearing it new to appear before the Crown Council. I had my sword on one hip and my handbook flapping with uncharacteristic silence over my shoulder. My familiars accompanied me as well, ready to lendtheir small contributions to the battle ahead. When the cabin arrived on the correct floor, I picked up Wren’s sun staff from where I’d leaned it against the wall. Its centerpiece and gold paint sparkled from just my touch.

It was a fairly bygone conclusion that Phaeron would appear in the powercore chamber looking for me once Myuna noticed the tether between Braza and me falling into place. Together, we would exude the kind of power the goddess wanted to devour, all light and dimensional might.

“Just like with the ritual…and putting ancestral magic in my book,” I muttered to myself. “Everything that follows this is a gamble and a guess.”

I marched myself into Braza’s inner chamber before I could back out of our agreement. I trusted her and showed it by taking off a layer of clothing and lying down on her bed so she could start to etch magic onto the skin of my bare back.

There was a pinch of pain, then Braza saying, “If you feel drowsy, don’t resist…”

Her memories came flooding in the moment I closed my eyes.

16

BRAZA

My most distant memories of life begin some short time after my birth. Mercifully, not with the death of my parents, but with a hazy recollection of the patterns of whimsical creatures painted on a wall. I was in a holding house, a rare unwanted orphan who took to staring at the illustrations next to the tiny bed where I regularly tucked my legs under my chin and covered myself with my wings.

I was a miserable child. All orphans of my kind are, especially those too young to realize they were cut off from the embrace of theanimarisof their birth parents.

But I was probably the worst example of what went wrong when separated from that essence too early. I was an animal who would bite the hands of adults who wanted to treat me kindly. My claws would come out, strange, overlong, and black against the blush red of my skin. The magic that’d saved me from the same fate as my parents had a parade of adults leaving the holding house with disgust, calling me “unnatural.”

All that changed when a different-looking person visited. She didn’t immediately try to pick me up like I was one of the brightly colored toys piled up against the far wall.

Instead, she’d sat a tail-length from my bed, with me hunched on it. “Hello, little one,” she’d said gently. I didn’t reply, only inspecting her with a child’s curiosity over the line of my knees.

She was from the Moihan tribe, the first one I’d ever seen, with feminine features exaggerated by a dusting of silver on her cheekbones and eyelids, above eyes that glowed crimson from within. Her glossy black hair was neatly pinned to stop just behind the thin curves of her spiraled horns.

She was dressed really nicely. The fall of red and silver fabric complimented her gray skin and stopped just short of her ankles and small, pointed shoes. Gems glittered on her fingers. That kind of finery didn’t belong in this holding house, on the floor where so many adults had already stood and gone.

When I didn’t reply or move, she smiled and pulled a book from the folds of her skirts. “I have a daughter your age and brought a book of her favorite stories. Perhaps you would like to hear one?” she offered.

I gave her the barest of nods and listened as she cracked open the first page and began to read the words to me. Her voice was its own magic, luring me to her when no one else had managed to get more from me than animal shrieking and “No!” plus the biting and clawing to get them to go away. I watched the pictures seem to dance on the pages when I sat next to her leg, on the soft textured fabric of her dress.

When the story was over and the title of the next stood out as she flipped the page, my eyes widened as I realized where I’d moved to. I froze, but she did not do more than turn her red gaze my way.

“Did you like the story?” she asked. I nodded mutely. “Would you like me to read the next one?”

Shyly, I shook my head no. I didn’t trust this pretty Moihan woman. She accepted my answer and told me her name, Keshora et Sudaira, and smiled wide in motherly amusement as I whispered mine back. “Bwaza.”

“I’ll visit you tomorrow, Braza.”

I’d learn later that her title meant Keshora, mate of the second prince. My backwater town had never seen a noble Moihan before. They viewed the shadowy gray peoples of their tribe and the chilly blue Vrassorm with heavy suspicion.

In retrospect, I recognized I was caught under the same web of scorn with my barely restrained shadow powers. Those claws of mine, contrasted with my Iorsio heritage, were why none of the red-skinned townsfolk wanted anything else to do with me.

They were also part of the reason why Keshora returned the next day, this time with her daughter. Her kindly presence was overshadowed by Ravai, who, in that time, always wore her hair in a high tail with a bow of red fabric that matched her eyes. The immediacy of our friendship started at first sight. It was an anam cara bond all the way in another world, when two lonely girls became immediate best friends.

Ravai and I sat and played the day away while Keshora bargained with the bitter matron who ran the holding houses for orphans and the sick in our town. The perfect day ended with Keshora seizing Ravai’s arm and leaving in a whirlwind, with the matron muttering about “Moihan scum” once the door closed behind them.

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