Girl of Myth and Legend (18 page)

I’m part of something unfathomable, something ancient and endless. I feel all those who’ve touched this magic and even those who’ve yet to. I feel their loneliness, their happiness, their burdens and their joy. The Chosen that have known this starlight—or will know it as I know it now—we all belong to one another, we
are
each other.

Then it changes.

I’m still part of the flow of magic, still within it, drifting. However, I can’t help but turn my head back, and when I do, I see. It isn’t the starlight I know is before me, and it isn’t the soft voice that told me it would be all right. No, it’s my memories, and they have come to drag me back. I feel the magic trying to balance my thoughts, to help me fight the fear, but I’m panicking. The memories are tendrils of darkness come to claim me, and they snake themselves around me, chanting, cursing, reminding me of everything I’ve been running from.

It’s all right. It’s all right.
That comforting voice, full of love and compassion, becomes distant and faded. I’m falling away from it, back into the darkness. I put my hands over my ears as the memories come at me, screaming for me to listen to them. These are my earthly ties that prevent me from grasping magic, that hold me back, and there is nothing I can do to stop them. I cry out. I cry and cry and cry.

And my eyes open.

The sky is darkening under the heavy clouds. I sit up and my gaze falls onto Korren. He’s looking at me with a curious expression. I wonder what he saw as I was meditating. Though I screamed, I don’t think I did it out loud; I’m sure he’d have a different expression on his face if I had. I look over to O’Sah, who is grinning widely, waiting for my response.

‘Wh-what the hell
was that?’ I shout, standing up with a slight struggle.

‘Meditation, my Lady,’ says O’Sah.

‘I’ve seen people meditate before on TV and never once have they done
that
.’

‘You are Chosen; we work so differently to the powerless. Our inner peace is essential to our survival in a world that presents many dangers. As Chosen, the magic within us is something unruly. We need to calm it, control it, and meditation is the way to do so. The powerless, well, of course they have their own dangers to contend with, but it matters not if they’re in balance with their soul. To us it is the difference between life and death.’

‘I hardly feel balanced,’ I say. ‘More like leaning to one side.’ Which I kind of am.

He smiles. ‘It’s your first try, my Lady. You did especially well.’

‘It took me over four hours. Four hours. And that’s not including the breaks!’

‘Your case is different. You haven’t had training—most practice at a young age.’

‘So all Chosen do this?’

‘No, not all,’ he replies. ‘It’s essential that Pulsar and Thrones meditate often, but others aren’t as strongly recommended to do so.’

The cold bites. ‘H-how long do I have to do this f-for?’

‘Every day for the rest of your life, of course.’

My jaw drops. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Kidding?’

‘Joking. Teasing. Jesting.’

‘No, my Lady. Why would I?’

I stare at the ground. ‘It’s just… this doesn’t bring me any kind of peace.’

O’Sah looks at me as if he’s lost where the conversation has gone, but Korren looks at me with that same curiosity, that same intensity he had a moment ago. I feel naked when he looks at me like that, as if my soul is on display. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be read. I don’t want to be analysed.

Thankfully, O’Sah decides to disregard me, and says, ‘Once your magic has developed, you’ll be able to commence a different sort of training—much more exciting, I assure you. But for now we must train your mind so that you can find your—’

‘Inner peace. Yeah, I know,’ I mutter. Pah. Inner peace—who needs it anyway? God, just imagining being chirpy all the time makes me want to gag. I like being tired and angry and melancholy sometimes; it makes me feel like I’m really living.

‘Hey, O’Sah, I want to try something,’ I say.

‘What would that entail?’

‘As a Pulsar,’ I say, with a somewhat forced authoritative voice, ‘I ask you to please train me in combat.’

He hesitates. He would say no—that’s obvious—but if it’s a direct command, he couldn’t refuse ‘his Lady.’

‘I don’t recommend that we—’ he begins.

‘I just want to try.’

‘Such an exercise is pointless.’

The wind comes at me again. ‘OK, you leave me no ch-ch-choice. I demand you train me in combat, ju-just this once.’

With obvious reluctance, he says, ‘As you wish.’ He turns towards his kytaen. The kytaen bends down, standing on her hands and feet, and stems of grass grow from beneath the snow and attach to her. Her skin becomes darker, solid like the bark of a tree, and the vines that were covering her indecent areas extend across her body. Thick antlers protrude from her head, and she looks like she did when I first saw her.

I rub my hands together. ‘All right! Let’s do this.’

The kytaen looks to her keeper and O’Sah nods. The kytaen then stomps her foreleg against the ground and, before I can even move, thick stems of grass have entangled me.

‘Hey, come on! I wasn’t ready,’ I protest.

O’Sah steps towards me. ‘Do you know how to free yourself, my Lady?’

I struggle, ripping the grass holding me. It regrows, holding me in place. ‘Evidently not,’ I mutter.

‘Strength is required for a lot of quandaries we Chosen find ourselves in, but our magic is our one ally. Currently, there’s no way you can release yourself from this trap conceived by a mere kytaen.’ He snaps his fingers and the kytaen shrinks the grass back into the ground. ‘I recommend focusing on meditation for now, until your magic has manifested.’ I can tell he’s trying to restrain a smile at the sight of my defeat. When my magic does manifest, I’ll make sure he knows what defeat really means.

O’Sah orders Korren to return me to the temple so that I don’t get my feet cold—bit too late for that—and, with evident unwillingness, Korren lets me climb onto his back, lifting me up off the ground. ‘I’ve never had a piggyback before,’ I say, causing him to frown… well, frown
more
. I shout goodbye to O’Sah, who will be going back to the other Thrones, no doubt to report my session.

‘You did terribly today,’ Korren says.

‘I didn’t ask for the pep talk,’ I grumble.

‘It’s as O’Sah said: when your abilities do
manifest you’ll need to learn how to control them. Meditation, finding your “inner peace” is crucial to doing that.’

‘You sound more Chosen than I do, Korren.’

He stiffens, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve used his name in a sentence.

He says in a firm voice, ‘I just know how things work.’

‘And d’you really believe mediation works?’ I ask.

‘I do, actually.’

‘I don’t,’ I say, tightening my grip around him. ‘I think it’s far from peaceful.’

‘…Because of your past?’

I hesitate before I nod. ‘How can you find inner peace when… when you don’t have any to begin with, when you’ve never known what it was like?’

He scoffs as he places me on the steps of the temple. ‘My
Lady
Pulsar, I guarantee you’ve only ever known the bright colours of life.’

A moment passes before I turn to him. ‘I know the colours of sorrow, Korren.’

My words have surprised him, because he looks at me curiously again, curiously, but something else, too—with empathy. The presence that stirred between us when we first met kindles, and I understand a little of what it is now: both he and I have faced an unwavering sorrow, but what his sorrow is, I’ll probably never know.

_________________

At night, I sneak to Korren’s shed. He looks at me as if I’m something dirty and rotting, and I give him a big ol’ grin that seems to irritate him more. We briefly discuss my meditation experience. I say
discuss
, but it’s just me who does the talking. He sits looking out of the small window, probably trying to tune me out. The wind pushes against the shed so harshly that for a moment I wonder if it will tumble down. I sit on the edge of his bench and Korren shuffles to the other end.

‘What’s with your father?’ he asks me.

‘Oh, he’s always been protective to the point you want to commit murder.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Why is he the only one with you?’

‘Ah… don’t know much about it, but when I was real young my mum bailed on us.’

‘Was she Chosen?’

‘No, or at least Dad says that. I always feel like he’s keeping secrets from me.’

‘He probably is.’

‘He can see the future,’ I say, staring up at the small, swinging light.

‘Then why did he never tell you what you are, what you’d become?’ he asks.

‘Huh? Oh. I don’t know for sure; he hasn’t answered me properly yet, but he said something along the lines of him wanting me to enjoy life while I could, pretending I was normal or whatever. Not much else I know but that.’

‘And you just accepted that?’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘No, but I can’t force it out of him, and it’s not that important. I’m here now, right?’ The wind begins stirring outside again. ‘Dad, he showed me his abilities once. He put his hands on my head like this, and then I was standing before a whole shining city—beautiful, futuristic almost, with complex skyscrapers and metal wonders—being consumed by
fire
. The sky was red like it had been cut, the world folding in on itself.’ My hands begin to tremble. ‘I… I saw myself standing there in the middle of all that chaos, but I was different somehow. I was very different to how I am now.’ I remember the lifelessness I saw, the sheer despair I felt, and the will to end it all, everything. Dad couldn’t explain why I was there. Neither of us talked about it much; he said only that there are many paths, and that the one I saw isn’t necessarily significant. I know it is, though, and despite not speaking of the vision after that, both Dad and I are aware that there is one path in my destiny where I no longer harbour faith in this world, and where I have the power to destroy it.

‘You said a “shining city”,’ Korren says.

‘Yeah.’

‘It sounds as if the place you’re talking about is…’

‘The Imperium.’

‘Was it?’

‘I’ve never been there, but my dad saw the vision, too. He said it was the Imperium.’

His face pales.

‘You OK?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’ He says it too quickly.

‘Don’t let it worry you. Dad said destiny has many paths, or some philosophical mumbo-jumbo like that. I mean, I hardly think I’d be there if some sort of disaster happened.’ Unless, you know, I’m causing it. I don’t say that to him. Not that it would matter: he’s not listening—he’s staring at the floor.

‘Um, daydreamer, you sure you’re OK?’ I ask.

He says nothing.

‘Hey, don’t, like, worry your head over it or anything.’

Still nothing.

‘So, it’s getting a bit cold now; I’m going to go back to my room.’ When he doesn’t reply I sigh and leave the shed, but as I walk back to the temple, I realise maybe it’s not a matter of his worrying over the Imperium’s destruction but rather his
hope
.

Well, looking at the vision I saw with some optimism, at least there’ll be one person who’ll be happy with my obliterate-the-world tantrum.

I hear snow crunching behind me and swirl round. There’s no one there, but I’ve learnt from my horror movies that there’s
always
someone there. I wait for a moment, looking around, then head towards the temple entrance.

My eyes widen. Standing at the top of the steps of the temple facing towards me is a man wearing a black cloak, his face concealed.
Rebel
is my first thought, and I find myself unable to move from fear.
He was the one before,
I remember,
the man who was stood staring up at the fake stars when I snuck out for the first time.

I take a step back, preparing to run to Korren. The wind gently billows the man’s cloak, and he turns his back on me, vanishing into the temple.

It takes me a few moments to move towards the temple. Inside, though, all I see is Magen, heads bowed in silent prayer, either walking around or knelt before a statue of a stargod. I glance around, but with so much black around me, I can’t distinguish the man from the Magen.
Maybe he is a Magen, I
think. But everything about him screamed
not
-Magen.

I go to my room and find Pegasus sprawled out on my bed. I cuddle up next to him, trying not to think of the ominous stare of the stranger.

KORREN

FALLING SPIRES AND CRYING GODS

My dream begins in a war zone.

‘…I was standing before a whole shining city…’

Melted silver oozes through the crumbled streets, circling around my feet.

‘…being consumed by fire.’

Bright orange flames dance around me, blossoming out as they eat away the majesty that was once the Imperium.

‘The sky was red like it had been cut…’

This is a dream, words brought to life by the girl’s words, but if Orin Woodville’s prediction is right, then it’s not just a dream, it’s the
future
. I know there are many paths we can take, but the fact that one of them, one of those long, dwindling paths, leads to the Imperium’s destruction, is far too surreal, improbable—
tantalising
. My dreams are intoxicated by the girl’s revelation, each word she uttered bursting into a beautiful, distorted image of falling spires and crying gods. Even the sky is crying blood. I find myself watching the Imperial Founder, a large statue in the centre of the Imperium, crumbling and dispersing into bits of ash.