Page 38 of Of Serpents and Ruins
"That…that makes the magic stronger?" It sounded idiotic once I said it aloud, and I cringed.
Auntie Runa nodded slowly. "It seems to be working for now, but also it means that the focus is on defense rather than fighting. Nothing can get in unless I permit it, except in a few places that might be a drop or so weaker."
"Or something breaches the barrier," Kine said gently.
Auntie Runa’s thick white eyebrow arched, but she nodded nonetheless. "Yes, well, we'll keep the breach points secure. I assume you want to train Stella in all the old ways," she said.
"Will that weaken the spells?" Kine asked it as calmly as if he were inquiring as to the weather. "You did require that we leave all magically infused items in the lead box."
"I still have the training rings in the Scrying Chamber below. It's the most secure with the wards and the safest so long as the lid to the well remains on after dusk. You may use those to teach her until she is familiar with shifting once again. By that point, I may have another solution. She must be trained if she is to have any chance against the Gola Resh and what is to come. And who knows how fast the memories and skills will return," Auntie Runa responded. Her shoulders sagged for half a breath, but her eyes remained bright and fixed on me. A small smile broke over her face. "It is so good to see you again, Stella."
I smiled at her as well, feeling that same swell of emotion as before. "Can I ask… Who are you to me?"
It felt rude to straight out ask if she was family, but the way she looked at me…it was the way I'd always imagined the grandma I'd never met looking at me.
"I'm the Master of Sight, the seer of seers, and when you were very young, you came to study with me." She pressed her finger to her cheek, smiling. "I knew you before Brandt but not before Kine. Kine came with you. There's quite a lot to tell you, but let's start with the important bits. You, my dear, are a water serpent shifter and a seer, and you got on the wrong side of a powerful pair who were deeply in love and intent on destruction and vengeance. In fact, you were part of the reason their love was destroyed. Do you remember them?"
STELLA
Iswallowed hard. Had I destroyed someone’s love? "Yes. I…I don't really remember the specifics. Anything you can tell me would be helpful."
The Gola Resh were part of that magical couple unless there was another pair I'd pissed off somehow. Ihlkit, I hoped not. But if I’d destroyed her bond with her beloved, then maybe that was why she hated me.
Crossing my legs beneath myself, I situated myself on the dark-blue cushion.
Kine looked at Auntie Runa expectantly. He cradled the teacup in his palm rather than holding the handle. Elias appeared almost bored, his gaze fixed on the circular window above as the sunlight slanted through in a golden shaft.
Auntie Runa tapped her fingers against the handle of her cane. Her mouth went a little crooked as her gaze softened. "It started decades ago. The Babadon and the Gola Resh are ancient entities unlike any we have ever encountered. They came to our world seeking a way to strengthen their power. To accomplish this, they placed a curse upon our islands and the seas that surround them to drain them of all their life and magic. They did not intend to stop until they siphoned everything fromeverything in this place. That curse is still present to this day. And if it ever resumes its countdown, then all who live in Sepeazia will be destroyed."
"I take it we can't flee? We can't run to one of the other continents?" I shifted my weight, uncomfortable. An unsettled feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. Surely we had friends. We couldn't be all alone out here. Could we?
Auntie Runa shook her head. She stroked the baby triceratops that nudged her leg. "Afraid not, dearie. Our people are tied to the magic of this land. The curse the Babadon and the Gola Resh enacted against the two kingdoms of our united Sepeazia is such that it would take all the life from everyone and everything. Every creature. Every plant. Even the bacteria and plankton. Even if we ran, we'd drop dead in our tracks when they completed this curse. We have friends in the other nations who have tried their best to help however they can, but none have succeeded in breaking it. They set this curse upon us approximately fifty-three years ago. We all fought it as best we could. Times grew desperate. The countdown to the destruction of Taivren, our capital, and then of all of Sepeazia. Taivren fell. Then, when there were forty days left of the curse’s countdown to destroy Sepeazia, you had a vision that gave the answer." She gave me a knowing look.
My shoulders stiffened. Whispers nudged at the edges of my mind. Brandt had called me a seer. I had just passed over it earlier when Auntie Runa had mentioned it, but now it settled over me. I was a seer.
Auntie Runa stroked the baby triceratops, her voice soft. "Because of your vision and the combined might of our warriors and the killing blow of your beloved, the Babadon was slain and the Gola Resh was captured. To undo the magic of the Gola Resh and the Babadon, at least one needed to be killed in a particular way to end the power of their curses. Ideally, we needed tokill both in that fashion. They needed to be eradicated and consumed. With the Babadon dead and the Gola Resh swearing even crueler vengeance, our people had to find a way to undo her magic. A tall order even for sages, scribes, and scholars as gifted as ours. Not even we seers could fully see the path forward. All that we knew for certain was not all hope was lost."
Buttercup huffed and nudged my arm. With a quick glance to confirm how indignant my triceratops was, I started to stroke her snout. "Hope sounds good."
"It usually does," Elias said grimly, and Kine gave a somber nod.
Auntie Runa chuckled. "Well, in this case, the hope was not entirely gone, but it also was not fully in the right place. The Gola Resh gave herself a critical wound to free herself to her mortal form and enacted one final curse, the curse that now hangs over our dear Brandt and you. She even gave him a charmed necklace to show the countdown. The one you saw around his neck, I’m sure. For every period he has not killed you, he goes mad for a time, desperate to end you and willing to destroy anyone who gets in his way. It started off happening every eighteen hours, but little by little, it has shortened, though not so badly as this last time. This last time, it leaped forward several hours, as if they didn't exist at all."
"The charm turning yellow…" I whispered, covering my mouth. The plate nearly slipped out of my hand.
Auntie Runa nodded. "Now, going back to that fateful night, she claimed that if Brandt killed you, she would consider ending the curse against Sepeazia. Brandt responded with rage and slew her. Or so we thought. It would seem she has escaped that. But it also seems that she shed the physical body, if what you described is accurate. Something has happened to change her form."
My shoulders dropped, and a weight pressed in upon me. "To end the curse against Sepeazia…he has to kill me."
"Ah, ah, ah, child. That’s not what the Gola Resh said, now is it?" Auntie Runa's sharp white eyebrow of hers arched again. "People keep twisting it around, insisting that the Gola Resh meant it as an even trade, but she was quite clear. She would only consider it. It’s all rather classic, I suppose, slaughter the queen and the monster relents, but the curse she placed was for vengeance. She set it upon Brandt and you because of her rage. The people have been trying to make sense of all of this, and things change over time, especially decades." She tapped one long, wrinkled finger against the stone tile. "You’ll have to stay in hiding, my dear. Some are convinced that all the Gola Resh wants is your death and that magically it will undo the curse."
"But if she said she’d consider it, how do we know for certain she won't? What if there’s some mechanism in the curse that would make that happen automatically?" I asked.
My stomach clenched. It wasn't that I wanted to die, but it seemed a fair and vital question to ask. Already feelings of something I could only describe as concern and patriotism were rousing within me. This was my home. These were my people. My people. My creatures. I had been a queen. I was a queen!
Auntie Runa’s eyes narrowed. They seemed to grow even darker and murkier for a second. "When the curse was first enacted, my dear, you and Brandt came to me, hand in hand, terrified but prepared. On that day, Brandt showed great wisdom. He was actually the one to insist you seek the seers rather than flying half-nocked into death and destruction. You forgot that as a seer, you should not look ahead to your own fate in that manner, and you had already given up hope. You believed that it was the only way. Were it not for the fact the Gola Resh had said plainly that it had to be by Brandt’s hand that you died, I suspect you might have taken matters upon yourself. Thank the Creator you did not. Brandt asked me to look into the futureagain and seek the truth of the Gola Resh’s promise. It was exceptionally difficult, but eventually, I succeeded."
I leaned forward, my breath catching in my throat. I could practically feel Brandt's hand wrapped around mine, his warmth and strength wrapped around my palm and fingers. Sparks of an old argument flared back into my thoughts. My grip on the teacup tightened. "And what did you see?"
