Page 15 of At the Mercy of Midnight
The junior scholars had traversed the outskirts of the ruins, searching for any signs of the lost civilisation, returning with some more weathered glyphs to translate. They were two days in to their seven-day excavation, and in the eyes of the group at large, there was nothing to show for it quite yet.
What they didn’t know was that in Silas’ tent, lay two daggers forged from the powerful Monoliths, a first in history that they knew of. They also didn’t know that both of their lead scholars had been injured by the daggers.
It set her teeth on edge, being dishonest, especially to someone she respected as much as Halpert.
Dinner was a stilted affair, the air tinged with anxiety at the approaching nightfall, the threat of midnight looming. The wind picked up, buffeting at their clothes, whipping Amelia’s hair around her.
Somara produced a notebook and started to converse with Tully, a fellow junior scholar, about the runes they had discovered.
“I’ve translated a few, I think,” she said in a hushed voice.
Tully lay her plate down and said something in response that Amelia didn’t quite catch.
Reynolds chimed in, his voice carrying more clearly over towards where Amelia sat. “I agree, they’re definitely depicting the skin-runing of their people.”
Amelia stopped chewing, eyes widening as she stared at the junior scholars across the fire.
“What did you just say?” she asked.
They all looked to her.
“Oh, Dr. Winslow,” Somara said, biting at her lip anxiously and holding up her notebook. “We’ve been trying to transcribe the glyphs we discovered today, and we think they’re signifying that the Gemino tribe possibly used runes on their subjects to imbue them with magic.”
“Sick,” Tully said, her eyes wide not with disgust, but with fascination.
Amelia swallowed, face scrunching into a small scowl.
It was Silas who spoke next. “Well, that certainly tells us a lot about this tribe.”
She turned to him. “What do you mean?”
He glanced at her, fork pausing to hover above his plate. “Perhaps their morals were a tad misplaced, if they’re willing to do something so heinous.”
“They were testing the limits of magic…” Somara said, trailing off uncertainly when everyone looked to her, “…I think. One of the final glyphs possibly depicted trials and limitations. They might not have understood the ramifications at the time.”
“They did live thousands of years ago,” Reynolds chimed in. “A long time before using magical runes on humans was outlawed.”
“Perhaps they led the way,” Silas said with a little laugh that held no real humour, “so we could know better.”
Amelia forced her gaze back to her plate, uncertain what to say.
“Don’t mages still do it?” asked Somara, tone curious.
It was Halpert who responded, a wariness in his tone that kept Amelia’s eyes glued downwards, unable to look up. “Mages are part of the very few born with the ability to wield magic. No one knows why, they simply are. Runing others who are not born to take in and manipulate magic is reckless and inhumane. The magic can destroy them, and the carved skin will never heal. The lingering wounds themselves have killed many.”
Amelia set her plate down, a hollowness in her stomach.
The cut on her palm burned and she closed her eyes, feeling suddenly ill. Her whole body began to itch with the discomfort. She stood abruptly and left the others to seek refuge inside her tent.
She was feeling panicked, wondering at what she had gotten herself into.
After a few moments of restless pacing, she sat alone in her tent and stared down at the clean slice on her palm.
There were many fanatics across the land that sought out any unusual signs or sources of magic. Once word of the daggers got out, it would garner a lot of interest, and not all of it would be positive.
Should there be any lingering magical impact within Amelia or Silas…well they, too, would become an oddity of interest, and she could only imagine what some of those fanatics might want from them.
If it didn’t kill her first, that is.
