Page 70 of Wrath's Call

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion, my emotions a jumble of surprise, uncertainty, and a flicker of something I couldn't quite place.

“I came to help you,” he said, and I could tell her was trying to soften his voice as much as possible for me. But softness did not go well with the six-and-a-half-foot tall pile of flaming demon before me.

The hole in my chest began to ache again, pulling at my psyche once more. Brie’s face, once healthy and full of life now gaunt and hollow.

Thanks to me.

“You can’t help me.” I said, ducking my head into my knees again, she pain threatening to leave me as vacant of a shell as Sister Brie now was. “No one can.”

“Why not?” he asked tentatively, sitting down beside me on the Earthen floor. The blackness had given way as the memory began to play once again. But this time I was not my twelve-year-old self - this time I watched her.

“Can you turn back the clock so my stupid ass didn’t go outside the keep that day?” as much as I tried, I couldn’t keep the anguish from my voice.

Marik didn’t bother to answer my question - we both knew it had been rhetorical. Nothing could erase what I had done that day, the weight of it heavy on my conscience.

“You were a child,” he repeated, his voice reassuring.

“I was twelve,” I snapped back, a bitter edge to my words. “I knew better.”

He didn’t say anything, allowing my words to hang in the air, and I continued, frustration and self-reproach lacing my tone. “What was it you kept saying? I needed to learn to stay in the keep?” I let out a humorless laugh, the sound tinged with irony. “Well, apparently that’s never going to happen. If I didn’t learn it after this, I certainly wouldn’t now.” The mixture of emotions churned within me, a blend of regret, resignation, and a touch of bitterness. I wanted to lower my head back to my knees, to block out what happened next. But some invisible string tied to my forehead kept my vision upright and staring.

“You were twelve.” He reiterated, a hit of condescension lacing his tone, but I ignored him.

“Twelve is old enough.” I said as the scene ended, my self-directed reproachful tirade was still in full force. “I knew better.”

“You’re right, twelve is old enough for much.” a haunted quality came to his voice, the kind that only came when memories better left forgotten resurfaced. As I watched his face took on a far-off look. We sat there in silence as the moments stretched on, the reprieve welcome from the endless repetition of my nightmare.

“Did you know twelve is an important age for demons?” Marik's voice pierced the stillness that surrounded us. I looked at him, intrigued, and shook my head in response, encouraging him to go on. He continued, his tone carrying a mix of explanation and reminiscence. “Our powers develop on the sixes, a new surge of power coming every six years. It's one of the few things that humans get right about us: the fear of the 6-6-6. But, it should actually be 6-6-6-6.”

“Why the extra 6?” I asked, my curiosity evident.

“Because we get a burst of power every six years until we’re twenty-four. Six, twelve, eighteen, twenty-four. After that our power can continue to expand with further development, but our growth is done. And before you ask - yes, angels follow the same pattern.” He paused for a moment before continuing, his face pinching in contemplation. “It's one of the reasons the academies hold casters until they’re twenty-four.”

“Why does that have anything to do with casters?”

“Demonic and angelic children are very much like casters when they’re young. It’s actually pretty difficult to tell them apart. It’s not until their demon or angel fully develops when they’re twenty-four does it become clear they’re not the same. Casters of old were particularly terrified of demons being in their midst. And in fairness, it did happen a time or two.”

“How?” I asked, my interest piqued at his story time.

“Mainly well-meaning casters who find a child who can control a sin or a virtue somewhere in the world. Demons and angels can be orphaned as well, and if the child didn’t fully understand what they were they could be convinced that they were casters.”

Something connected, a long-standing question I’d always wondered about being answered. “That’s why guilds require all caster children to be put into academies at birth - and outlaw any wildlings from being trained there later.” It never made sense why babies couldn’t stay with their parents for the first few years of their lives, as they did not start manifesting powers until they were at least three or four. And as for wildling children found later in life – it wasn’t their fault their parents had kept them away. I’d always felt down to my very core that wildlings should have been allowed to join academies at whatever age they were found.

“Exactly,” Marik replied. “Easy to not accidentally allow a demon into your midst if you only accept those whose births you witnessed.”

Marik stopped speaking briefly, and I could almost see the internal monologue behind his eyes. Before long, he shrugged in a very ‘nothing else to it’ kind of way before continuing.

“The academies have been so successful in preventing infiltration this way it's a wonder how you somehow came to be there.”

“Me?” I asked, incredulity stamped on my features. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” he asked, raising a skeptical brow. “And here I was thinking you were bright.”

I gasped in mock horror before shoving him. “Figured what out?”

Marik ignored my question, dancing around it with one of his own. “Have you ever felt something else inside you? Maybe another voice, or even just another set of feelings?”

The entity inside me rumbled, reminding me that it was there. I didn’t say anything.

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