Aiasthlyn

˚

“So, we’re from different realms?”

“Yes.”

“And a realm is really just a fancy word for… universe?”

“Yes.”

“And only elves live in your fancy realm?”

A chuckle slips past my lips without warning. “That is correct.”

Kalem’s fingers still through the bars where he manoeuvres three tresses of my hair in a mock braid. “Why? Don’t you want to make friends?”

“There are more than enough elves with whom we can form bonds within our realm. There is no need to expand ourselves,” I explain before continuing my own braid. I move slowly so that Kalem doesn’t lose his way, and he quickly follows, linking and looping the hair as he learns to plait. “And from what I have surmised thus far, we are too different from those here. It is not worth the trouble.”

“But we’re friends,” Kalem mumbles carefully, “…right?”

Funny how he is so miserable to think that we would be anything but, when only a nerha ago, when I first named us as such, he had been insistent that we could not ever be. Slaves were not allowed to have ‘things’, and to Kalem, that included friends.

I ripped that reasoning at its root with the reminder that neither he nor I was a slave, and that I could claim any I wanted as a friend. As I professed him to be just that, he had no choice in the matter.

Kalem had beamed at me that day, even while he declared otherwise.

“Yes, we are,” I confirm, absolving him of the worry and restoring his shine. He grins at me, and I am hard-pressed not to return some measure of his kindness. “But you are a rare exception, Kalem.”

I resume my braiding, and with a smile, Kalem quietly follows along— this time, without forming knots.

“Oh, I have a question,” he says after a moment, squirming with his excitement. “Can I ask it?”

“You never have to request my permission to ask me questions, Kalem,” I remind him, and he at least looks a little guilty for forgetting.

It was not his fault. Unravelling what these monstrous creatures had done to his mind would take much time, more than we had spent together as of yet. But I possessed much patience, especially for him.

“What’s your realm like?”

I take my time answering. It is not because I struggle for the words. They come quickly and in an abundance, but protecting my realm was paramount.

My magic remained strong and faithful in obscuring Kalem and my conversation, but they knew by now that we had developed a bond of some sort. Kalem alone garnered a reaction from me, and they had attempted to exploit that until I killed every vampire who stood on the other side of those steel doors the moment they opened.

They had been too scared to test me since then, too scared to approach as well.

But there was still the chance that Kalem himself might share tales meant only for him. Not purposefully. I did not think Kalem would ever purposefully betray me, even to his precious trainers, but they knew how to abuse Kalem’s innocence and his warped mind.

They need only to assert that a ‘good slave’ would tell them all I had about my realm, and Kalem would spill.

But I can not leave him with nothing. His imagination grows with my stories, his mind as well. If I expect to ever free him from their manacles, as I intend to, then I must not only stir his curiosity, but nurture it as well.

“Vast,” I begin as I ponder my realm in all its glory. “There are many planets, and many species that occupy them. We are different, and yet all elven.” I stare at my hair, the white colouring, and think of the same shine within our crystal-lit waters. “There is much life— people, plants, animals, food… and so much colour.”

“Colour,” Kalem echoes with interest.

“Our realm is a never-ending palette,” I tell him, and he frowns slightly until I explain what a palette is, and then his amber eyes are back to sparkling with fascination. “Greens, blues, pinks, purples— rich in pigment, and there are shades and mixes that don’t appear here.” A memory of greyed eyes tinted with my realm’s unique hues flashes in my mind. “Or they rarely do.”

I scrub the fragments of the canvas away as Kalem’s brows crumple and hastily carry on. “The lands are rich in colour, and so are our skies. They are purple—”

“Purple skies?!” Kalem exclaims. He discards my hair, no longer interested in the braid, only my storytelling.

“Purple skies,” I confirm with a short laugh. “They pinken at times, most commonly at the start of a fresh luhe when the air is warm.”

“And a ‘luhe’ means a year, right?” He confirms with sudden seriousness.

“That is right,” I share my smile with him as I lay myself down, combing my hair over my shoulder so not all of it dirties. “You are learning quickly, young one.”

Kalem’s gaze shies away from mine as he grins down at his empty fingers, revelling in the praise as he has done each time I have imparted it.

Kalem responded to kindness and attention like a jorel did to the skies— with open glee.

“Your skies are different. They are blue,” I inform, and at a moment’s notice, he resumes his gawking with amber eyes illuminated like fire opal. “You have not seen them?” Kalem shakes his head, the light sputtering for a moment before I add, “I will make sure you see both.”

Kalem holds his breath, not daring to hope, even as hope itself rests within his grasp.

“You will see the clouds that drift across your skies, and mine,” I declare. “They are white, and some look so full, you would think you could sit upon them, while others are as thin as a secret,” I whisper, painting a picture I hope he can envision as clearly as I do. “You will see them both.”

“I will?” Kalem asks as he presses himself against the bars. He clutches them in his hands, clinging to them the very way he clings to my words.

“You will,” I swear, sealing the vow by rubbing my thumb over my forehead.

Kalem can not see the seal or feel the thread that the vow ties from me to him, but I do.

Kalem would see the skies of this realm and the skies of mine. I would have to make it so, otherwise my life, like my word, would be made forfeit.

“But if elves don’t like other people, would they like me?” He asks. I smile. “What?”

I shake my head. His mind is as quick as a whip, but if I were to say as much, he would think I’m lying or claim that he was at risk of exploding from the praise.

Kalem had such strange phrases. Kalem had such a unique relationship with words.

“If I like you, then that is all that matters, Kalem,” I assure while I fold my arms underneath my head.

There was the age-old decree that forbade travel between realms to overcome, but a former Protector had been the one to establish it. Surely as my realm’s current Protector, an amendment could be made.

One just had to do so wisely, and with a careful hand, for elven politics, while civil, were still politics. But I would dirty my hands and make any concessions I had to to see my will enacted, no matter how long it took, because there was simply no reality in which I left Kalem at the mercy of this place.

I would save many before I left, and steal the lives from even more, but Kalem… Kalem, I would protect for the rest of my days, and I would not be able to do so if I left him in this hellscape.

What had started as a plea for interaction had evolved into a bond unlike any I had ever known. It was what kept me sane, what helped me make it through each fin that turned into feens, and then… nerhas… months.

Months in this hole in the Earth, beaten, abused, and starved. All in the name of ‘training’. Foolish.

I was not trained,and never would be.

Any and every attempt to teach me anything concluded like all the rest. With a ball of mucus in their faces, or broken bones in my grasp.

They could torture me all they liked, they would never stop me from reminding them of my name, never scare me with their dirty tricks, their vapid hunger. They were nothing but scum in this realm whom I allowed to draw air for a season.

But this season, like all seasons, would end, and when it did, I would leave behind ash and fire, but not Kalem.

“Can I ask another question?” Kalem queries as he swipes his wild hair out of his face. It is longer than I have known it to be, but at least, not as dirty. They took out the hose yesterday.

“What did I just say?”

Supple skin warms as Kalem ducks his head again. “I-If your realm is so wonderful and nice, then why did you come here?” When I don’t respond immediately, Kalem glances at me and hastily adds, “You always say everyone here is terrible—”

“All but you,” I confirm.

He grins quietly, though he tries to fight it. “So, then why are you here?”

Not for the first time, I watch Kalem.

I do not think he is anything other than what he has shown himself to be, that he has ever spoken lies through these bars, but there is a part of me that encompasses the corners of the back of my mind that questions.

It questions why, of all the varied, shackled creatures in this space, Kalem is the one who with free ankles and wrists. Why he alone has been here for what seems to be his entire life— why he somehow does not know the sky in this world is blue, but can name every species that exists within it.

Most of all, it questions why Ythene chose him, and for what purpose.

“I do not know.” It is the truth. “I only know that one day, soon, we will both be gone from this place, and you will see this sky and mine for yourself.”

Kalem smiles quietly, allowing himself to bask in the promise as he lies down to sleep.

I hope that as he sleeps, he dreams of the skies.

˚

“Tell the story again, Wona,” Virion begs from his cot, and even though it is on the other side of the room, his wailing is loud enough for us all to hear him.

“Not tonight,” Wona whispers gently while she tucks in an already sleeping Meira. Irros snores beside her, not moving even when Meira immediately tugs their sheet entirely over her.

“Why not?” Ciradyl wails, joining in on Virion’s antics.

“Hush, you two,” Wona hisses with a warning glare. “You are two of five; the others wish to sleep. So be quiet.”

Immediately, Meira and Virion look to me, the pleas fixed in their eyes, as well as the threats. If I did not join their team, I would find myself frozen beneath the pavilion with no one to hear my cries.

It is a scary thought, but one not needed, because I wish to hear our favourite night story again too.

“Please, Wona,” I beg, without the wailing and screaming.

Wona sighs, but that is her ‘yes’, so we all cheer quietly as we snuggle into the folds of our cots and listen closely. Seating herself in her favourite chair, Wona faces us all with a sweet smile that makes me think maybe she wanted to tell this story too.

“Long ago,” she begins as she does every night, “before we were a faction, before Colony was Colony, when all of elven folk were spread out across the realm, there was once a single people who led us all.” She pauses, her eyes sparkling as she glances over us. “Can you help me, and remind me of their name?”

A pleasurable warmth spreads through the room as Ciradyl, Virion, and I all share a glance before we say the name waiting on our tongues.

“The Nyphilims!”

I wake on the hard floor instead of the soft folds of my childling cot. My Wona is nowhere to be found, neither Ciradyl nor Virion.

Instead of warmth and light, there is only frigid darkness.

Emptying my lungs, I push the fallen hair from my face as I try to settle my heart. I had no night terror, and yet it races as if frightened.

I slide a hand over my chest, trying to calm myself, but it is harder now with the taste of home so fresh and close. My fingers tighten over my chest as an ache gathers there.

I did not let myself think of home often, not like this. Not intimately.

I knew I would miss it, and could not afford to pretend otherwise when I already forced myself to ignore so much, but it had come without warning, and in the form of a long-forgotten memory.

I did not even know that I retained it, but it lingers now. It was as if I were really there, in that quiet corner of the castle we had all shared for a time, my siblings and I. Home.

… I could not be further from it.

As I compose my breaths, my gaze drifts to where it always does, to the only person I care for in this place, only Kalem does not rest against the bars as he always does, because he is not there at all.

I sit up, forgetting my upset as a fresh one sets in. I search the cell as if he hides within it, but it is empty without a sign of him. My stomach plummets.

It is not the first time they have taken Kalem from his cells. It is, however, the first time they have done so without my notice.

I never let myself sleep through it, never let my mind and magic wander from him, even while I remained here, so that he was protected, but this time— somehow— they had taken him, and I had slept through it.

I stand, hands twitching while my magic ventures ahead for me, locating him without an issue, but that is not the problem.Idid not notice, and Ythene only knows what they have done to him in that time.

“They won’t hurt him,” a voice drawls in the quiet space just as my alarm crests, “not this close to the auction.”

I settle my gaze onto the source, the woman who fills the cage across from mine— the one who I had fed in the beginning. Kalem has informed me that she is a siren, but not fully. The show of her scales suggests that her parentage is a mix of something else, which explains why she has lived so long down here with sparsely any water.

She has healed much since that awful day that still returns in the night to remind me of what I had done, but she is still too pale, like the rest of them. Her long black hair hides her features where the darkness doesn’t, but through it, her purple eyes stare back at me.

They are sharp— cunning, and chillingly focused.

“You do not fear speaking,” I muse first, stripping my magic from my words now that she has inflicted the punishment on the others.

“As I have said, the auction is close,” her words swim to me, melodic and enticing.

I step forward. “The auction?”

“You do not think they intend to keep us here forever,” she states, not asking, even though I had suspected that there were a number here that were placed for just that. “No. No. We’re a special batch, you see. Rarities.”

She points a finger at the human beside her, “A human with two different coloured eyes and golden blood.” The human shudders while the woman’s slim finger drifts to the only witch in our company. “An earth magic witch that can only siphon life to gain power.” She points the finger at me. “An elf.”

“And you?” I prompt, and an empty laugh escapes from beneath her hair.

“Sirens and merfolk usually do not crossbreed.”

It is all she says, but the tone she uses in pronouncing that last word says enough for now.

I tilt my chin towards the empty cell beside me, “And him?”

The siren moves for the first time, and as she does so, it is like watching a snake shed its skin. With her back kept low, she crawls forth on her hands first, and then her legs follow until she is as close to the bars as she will allow.

She is only slightly clearer to me now, but the minute’s stretch is enough to ensnare me with her beauty. I had not seen it before, with the dirt and the blood, and before, I had not looked when she had so heartily consumed rotted flesh, but the hose cleared her of all of that.

“Nothing,” she whispers with strange glee. “Absolutely nothing.”

My insides turn uncomfortably. “Nothing different about him?”

“Not a thing, except that he has been here the longest, and maybe that has been forever for him, but surely others have done that before with humans, and more than once,” she coos, and as she peers at me, her eyes warm until her irises shine like the morning sun. “Surely that is not all that makes him… rare.”

I stare at her, not daring to speak or look away. Her smile widens.

“It is odd,” she fills in for me. “Odd. Odd. Odd.”

“What is the auction?” I ask, desperate for a change, if only to rid myself of the strange sensation that infests my gut the longer she speaks about Kalem.

I can imagine it if I were to try, but no. This place and its horrors are vile enough as it is. They will present themselves without my input.

“We must go to make room for more,” she explains in a song, her tone gentle despite her harsh eyes. “They sell us, to the highest bidder, like cattle. Masters.”

I laugh, because I must. There is nothing humorous about it, not a thing, except… “We will kill them.”

The woman laughs as well. “You and I,” she corrects, “we will succeed. One more might try, maybe the witch, but most will not dare. The buyers know that. The ones who choose us want a challenge, to prove themselves, or to make themselves feel alive. One of those two or… an excuse to die.”

“And then what?” I ask dumbly, but I am at a near loss for words, and this is the first time any other than Kalem has spoken to me, and ever so boldly.

“And then, they start again,” she says objectively. She watches me with a frown, as if I am thickheaded, before she blinks quickly and the smile returns. “Or, no. They will not come for us again. No, they have their money, and that will be enough. They will not waste time hunting us…” She pauses, “hunting me… maybe you… You are different— too different.”

“And him?” I say, gesturing to the empty cell once more.

“What do you think?” She asks, depriving me of an answer to my first question.

“He will not dare,” I reply, and she hums, “or—” she holds her breath, nails digging into the dirt, “—he is the one other… who just might succeed.”

Kalem would not hurt a fly, let alone take a life. He was too gentle for such things, too sweet, but Kalem was odd.

Everything about him and all that surrounded his very existence was odd. And while this realm may be different from my own, it followed the same laws of nature.

All living things eventually repelled an anomaly in their systems. Kalem would be no different.

The question was, how would he react when the pressures of this world outside of this place weighed on him.

The woman seizes onto the bars and tilts her chin, forcing the hair to sweep from her face. Every inch of it is clear, and she is a stunning woman, but there are tears steaming down her face.

I take a step back.

“I hope it is the latter,” she sings, her voice a real siren’s call. “I hope he kills them all.”

A shiver runs down my spine as my magic stirs protectively. Everything about her upsets my spirit, but her words have been nothing but truthful, if not perfectly aligned with mine.

There was only one place we diverged.

“If he does not, then I will.”

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I loveeeeee the lore that’s building behind Kalem!!! like kajwerfa;w4iog rg

AND GUYS!!!! IT’S ALMOST TIME FOR MALCOLM AND AIAS TO MEET!!!!!

Thoughts????????

How are we feeling? What are we thinking???? Thoughts on the dream????

Also, the Nyphilim mention!??!?! AHHHHH

The next chapter I hope is out this week, if not, look out for it next Monday! Remember to vote and comment if you’ve enjoyed!!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeeeee Humanssssssss