Seed 18

June 24th, 2032.

I fidgeted nervously, legs crossed as I sat across from Ultima. Her expression was utterly bereft of emotion. I suppressed a gulp. She had said she wanted a talk after I had come back so incredibly late.

“So you’ve made a truce with the heir to Caudalann,” Ultima didn't ask, only stating the truth. “And had an encounter with an Other that you barely walked away from. Then spent the night with that princess and came home at about noon? Is that correct?”

I flushed. “It might be… completely and utterly true, yes.” I was not good at lying, not really. Not mentioning the truth, yes. But directly and overtly making something up to someone’s face was stressful.

Ultima gave me a look that made me want to hide in my cloak. “Well, I can't say I didn't expect you to make a lot of noise. A human in the Woven Realm is a rare thing indeed. But it does mean there's more we need to talk about. About witches, about magic, and the elements and how that shapes the world. Especially since your encounter with that Other was more exciting than my own.”

She sounded apologetic, rubbing the back of her neck.

I frowned. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

Ultima shook her head. “No little raven, but I didn't take into account a few factors of life around here. One's so deeply embedded into our society that they felt too obvious for everyone not to know.”

I had a bad feeling about this.

“Go on.”

“Elements are the substances that make up and shape the world, that includes people Celia. Witches make this more obvious with our connection to our magic and the spirits.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Dinah said Fire was loyal, is that related?”

Her eyes widened. “She told you that? Without it needing to be pried out of her?”

I nodded. “Is that important?”

“More than you realize Celia, magic is said to be a gift of the Titans and their first Children, those spiritual beings that lived in a time of living gods and infinite potential, agents of the Titans. The Titans shared their gift of magic with us through the spirits.”

I crossed my arms over my chest with a quirked eyebrow. “Your point?”

Ultima chuckled. “My point is that magic affects the very soul of a person, you know of the nodes of the soul. The seven princely mendicants, The Tyrant Encephalon, the Luminous Judge Pineal, the Dark Preacher Collum, the Burning Lord Kardia, the Sky Lord Jecur, the Pelagic Chief Gaster and the Earthen Champion Sacral. The energy flowing through them determines who we are as people, vain or humble, kind or miserly.” Their names for organs are so melodramatic.

She pointed right at my forehead with a claw, ears flicking in a playful manner.

“Elements aren't just substances… they're areas of focus, are you saying they change how people think?”

Ultima shrugged. “It could be said that we mirror each other, they take in what we give them and they give back just as well. The first witches used their energy to wield the Elements, shaping our culture, our ways of life, and our being. They're the first things we learned of the sources of the Craft. What we found most important, what we would live and kill for.”

“Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.” I clarified as they were the most important elements.

“Violet, Blue, Green, Red.” She added and I blinked. That's… new? What about the other two?

Light and Dark were… two sides of the same coin, opposite but connected forces. More yin and yang swirling within the flow of spiritual energy. They were elements of a sort, yes, but they were part of everything else, like the shades of a color wheel. Lightning was a part of the element of fire. Blood and ice were water.

Ultima nodded. “Thousands of years ago, the first witches were divided. Air, water, earth, and fire. Each a people of their own, each of them different from each other in many ways. Each element and their source has its own bind and definition, with its own people sharing their own definition.” She breathed in deeply, and it steamed and simmered with heat. “What do you know about marhala, about phases?”

“You’ve told me about them when it comes to battle strategies, and didn't pay as much attention as I should.” I replied with a shameful shrug, I'll do better.

“A phase is about how one directs their energy, both internally and externally. It's key to the elements and how they change the expression of our Craft. There are four core ones, though only three are relevant.”

“I think it's wise that you tell me what they are.” Please teach your idiot student.

“It would be wise,” Ultima observed. “There are four phases, positive, negative, neutral, and balance. Advancing and attacking, retreating and evading, waiting and listening. Balance is the center of the triangle of marhala, equally dividing between attacking, defending, and waiting. Air is negative, water balances positive and negative, earth is neutral, and fire is positive.”

“Expressions of khi, of the energy passing through their soul.” I was starting to get the idea… “You want me to understand where the people of Calafia are coming from so I don't run into confusing things like the truce with Dinah.”

She clapped my shoulder with a smirk. “Got it in one. A truce between those of Fire… of the Red is usually done between enemies dealing with a bigger threat, and once the threat is done. The truce ends or becomes the basis for a deeper friendship. So what threat is here in Caudalann?”

My mouth went dry. “She called her grandmother a dark dragon.”

Ultima sighed. “And she’d be right, she killed her clan. And not because they betrayed her first or for her people. That's… wrong in a way I can't explain.” I could feel the keen horror there, in her eyes, the ways her ears were pinned back.

“Fire is Loyalty…” I whispered, and started to understand why Dinah looked so haunted.

Ultima straightened her posture. “There’s a reason Calafia is structured as it is, we had to learn to work together, to understand one another to become balanced. Bands of Air, tribes of Water, houses of Earth, and clans of Fire. Each has a spiritual bond peculiar to their people and you need to understand that. Because it's important for every aspect of the Craft, to understand the greater sources and gifts of our power.

“Tell me about them?”

Ultima sighed but acceded to my demand. “Air or Violet is bound by Teachings. Water or Blue is bound by Family. Earth or Green is bound by Contracts. Fire or Red is bound by Loyalty.”

Oh.

“When I first met Dinah, she felt like a bonfire that was drawing me in but…” I trailed off, before advancing. “I pulled at the vacuum between, and pushed it back from us.”

My teacher gaped. “You stopped a dragon-child in her tracks. Hel’s bells you've got a strong soul in there.” I blushed bright at her brilliant proud smile. “Being able to push back the power of a dragon is damned impressive.”

Another question rose up. “I met someone named Amadeus yesterday, who warned me about the clerics.”

Ultims flinched “He did, did he…?” She whispered quietly, before focusing back on me. “Good, the clerics might seem like the nicest of the bunch but they're the most dangerous. Especially when it comes to binding people into the Pale King’s system. They've perverted the practice of Covens for centuries now, turning it into a parasitic shackle.”

“I know covens are meant to be organized gatherings of witches but not much else…”

Ultima nodded. “Like I said there's a reason we’re structured the way we are. A coven is how we learned to bind witches of every element, kith and kin. Teachings, Family, Contracts and Loyalty. So that no child of our peoples would ever be left out. A coven is meant to give us strength, protection, and connection. We share our burdens, holding our binds safely within those we trust. The Circles of the Chantry are not that.” There was pain in her voice and I placed a hand on her wrist.

“What did they do?” I asked, feeling an odd catch in my throat.

“When a witchling reaches eighteen summers, they are bound by the clerics to one of the Circles, and their magic is… chained, suppressed for the good of us all. No strength, no protection, no connection. Their pool is restricted to guard against evil magic, and only unshackled as they rise through the ranks. And nobody knows the truth about that.”

I felt a full-body shiver at the idea of someone reaching into your soul and inflicting something so awful. What kind of damage would that do to someone?

“That’s beyond horrifying,” I said with faint dread.

Ultima squeezed my shoulder. “Clerics are dangerous. But you've got a good head on your shoulders and you've got my protection. Though I do worry with that strength of yours.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

Her smile made me want to run into a corner and hide. “People follow those with strong souls, and strong convictions. So… be very careful to not pick up too many strays. At least not before I teach you the rituals and the workings of a coven first.”

Was… was she joking?

…

Oh God, she was serious.

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I stared at the landscape covered in thin tears in the fabric of reality. The Day of Mirrors indeed…

I could see glimpses of home through the thin spots in existence. Buildings and flashes of people and animals, and familiar streets and parks and sections of home. I suppose that did explain where the terrifying myths about mirrors and reflective surfaces came from back home.

Though most of the portals were one-way mirrors, with only a tiny fraction of them being two-way apparently. Which was why I had been invited out by Hakim who was curious about what he could see of the Human Realm.

“Hello, Celia!” I winced at Hakim’s loudness as he seemed to vibrate from place to place. Like a wacky waving inflatable tube guy, he was utterly adorable. Despite the fact, joints shouldn't bend like that. “How did you get here without your mom?”

I turned bright red, but managed an unsteady smirk. “I… had some help.”

Hakim let out a squeak when Reyna landed in a boom of air, folding her wings back with a smug gleam in her sky-gray eyes. She had refused to set up a roost elsewhere, so I decided why not politely ask her for rides in exchange for a warm meal and shelter?

She was a sweet girl, and fiercely intelligent, and made it way easier to hunt and forage for food.

Hakim gasped in awe. “A nightscreamer griffin, I've only seen them in books about the griffin riders of old. They're among the fastest griffins in the world, able to cruise at five hundred twenty kilometers an hour, reach over a thousand in short spurts, and dive greater than the speed of sound.”

The otherkind animals of this world were utter bullshit. Anything with feathers being able to keep up with airplanes was a nightmarish concept. And I knew beings like dragons could reach immense proportions, merely from finding a skull that was the length of a small school bus.

“She helped save us from a hunting pack of screaming ires, and taught me a new glyph. Reyna followed me home, and in exchange she allowed me to ride her and learn from her.”

Learning the element of air from her was fascinating, learning the feel of the wind, of the eternal blue sky. Blue and not red, because behind the tint of red life was always the color blue. A truth people could see, when the swarms were parted and devoured by their rightful predators.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I really need to be less dramatic.

Hakim grinned. “She can't be fully grown yet. I would say she's four or five years old.” He walked forward, a shifting, flowing motion steadied by a solid stance. Like someone balancing on sand. “They reach this size at about two years, and have another growth spurt around this age where they triple in size.”

“So about seven meters in length, and six hundred kilograms,” I remember looking through the texts on griffins. They could be as small as chickens to as large as two elephants.

Four-legged flyers could get much larger than bipeds, even those without wings like the sky mison, who purely manipulated air currents to fly. Gigantic ten-ton herbivores that looked like a mix between a hamster, a bison and an elephant, and could fly.

Hakim nodded, bringing out one of his tools, a large knife infused with the essence of a ghost. Apparently, it was a vestige of Ultima that involved a memory of her piercing the veil between worlds.

A rare find, as she was good at hiding her tracks or keeping them out of greedy hands. But Hakim had come to her anyway, making a deal with the witch. She'd let him use her echo to make a tool, and I’d get to help make it better.

The knife had an array of four void glyphs, which upon activation provided direction and weight to the echo within, along with fine inscriptions of cyfrinic to seal, protect and strengthen the echo.

The tool had a single ability, the ability to veil-rip, able to open verges or thinnies with a stab. Originally tested with the help of Ultima using the verge, her domain controlled. The void glyphs gave it the needed power, and had given me so many ideas. Void spirits had clearly collected around the portals Ultima made… I should have realized it back then.

“Celia, have you ever thought of making more complex magic tools using glyphs? I know you're pretty good at tinkering.” Hakim smiled at my confused expression. “You've got that fire knife, and our veil-ripper but what about devices that can activate glyphs automatically?”

I blinked. “That would be pretty useful, but without a witch to command them they'll be limited to a specific function.” But then again, specialization was well regarded as a tactic in any world. “Hmm. You might have a point, I've been tinkering since I was a kid. Building doorbell ringers and fans at eight, got a chemistry set at ten, all those explosives…” I muttered to myself, counting on my fingers the times I burnt off my eyebrows. “The rockets, that tesla coil… Ultima really did knock some sense into me.”

I had almost blown myself up three or four times while learning Potioneering, and Ultima was no-nonsense when it came to safety. She was a very cool person, but she wanted me alive and healthy. I just hadn't… cared enough about my own safety.

Hakim started. “Tesla coils?”

“Machines that shoot out lightning, electricity really. They do more than that, but I don't want to get into theory right now.” It wasn't super complicated but I had other things to do.

“Is it a secret?” Hakim said with a curious look, almost calculating. Coming from a guy who was scatterbrained.

“No. Just want to do other stuff for… but I can see you have something in mind in that brain of yours.”

Hakim offered a sharp grin. “You’re one of the few people that take my Craft seriously outside my father. I thought, maybe if you were willing, we could work together more often? Bring together your expertise in human sciences and mine in witch sciences.”

I lifted a brow in intrigue. “Oh? Are you saying you want some kind of… mutually beneficial sharing of knowledge?”

He smiled like the sun. “Yep!”

“Well we’re already starting that with the veil-ripper, speaking of we should probably get back to that.”

Hakim gave me the blade and I blinked. “You’re human, if you fall in it’ll be less conspicuous.”

“True.” I glanced at one mirror, a crackly one that led to… San Diego proper?

I tapped a glyph, clenching the blade tightly as it lit up with void energy, like silver dust scattered under sunlight. I prepared to stab the portal to open it, and then…

The verge cracked like glass, and I tripped face-first as reality parted before I had even used the knife.

I fell straight into an alleyway, and before I could step back the portal closed with Hakim’s shocked face disappearing.

…

Goddamn it all.

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“I am so glad I didn't bring my cloak… bracers might be a strange choice but boots, a nice shirt and a belt with little pouches aren't too bad.”

I stared wistfully at Balboa Park which still looked fairly nice after all these years. I still had a modestly good sense of direction, so getting out of the alleyway was a piece of cake. The museums, gardens, and attractions were the same as they had always been since… a long time ago.

I had already gotten a call from Ultima, saying she was going to pick me up once she was done dealing with the gremlin problem back home.

So I was going to stay put on a bench and people-watch for a bit. I breathed out, keeping my hands from clenching into fists. It was interesting to note how my sense of the spirits was still with me.

The sensory overload was far less nice, as hundreds of auras flickered with emotions and twisting patterns I couldn’t quite comprehend. Each aura was unique, shrinking, shameful balls of fire, metallic trees with spreading branches, waxing and waning pools of water.

My aura sight was useful, even if humans had much fainter auras than witches. If a human was a torch, a witch was a bonfire. Ultima had made the same comparisons, but had also noted my aura had grown in leaps and bounds over the last month or so.

Mama had a stronger aura than normal too. I wondered if living in a place where the veil between worlds was so thin had side effects. Regardless, I knew she was tougher than normal. I had seen her toss people a few meters with casual ease, break chains with her kicks, and lift people one handed.

Sadly I didn’t have any access to magic outside of some enchanted items, and glyphs needed ambient magic to feed on. I had only just started practicing how to cut gems and stones to store magic to serve as batteries… and had stupidly left the ones I did have from Ultima at home.

I still hadn’t succeeded in finding a glyph that could serve as a direct power source, now I could certainly seal a glyph spell inside a prepared battery, but my research into glyphs told me they were versatile.

A glyph of fire wasn’t just fire, it was every aspect of Fire. Heat, consumption, entropy, fuels, and energy transfer. It was a general aspect of the Craft, every spell had an alignment to the elements, a conceptual representation of magic.

I had used fire glyphs to instantly combust hydrocarbons, reaching out to the fire that could be. I could then transfer that energy, that khi, into other spells. It was like weaving a tapestry… or like color, with fire as red, water as blue, earth as green, air as violet, and void as… a tarnished silver.

I could mix the colors manually, blending them like paint or merging them like visible light. Or I could use glyph arrays to do it for me, making it easier on my brain, soul, magical self?

I huffed. “Whatever.” I watched the auras dance and twist and whirl wildly. Each of them taking colors and hues of their own. One woman walking her dog had an aura of red with hints of violet sparking at the edges, whirling winds fanning brilliant flames.

A dad with his kids had an aura steady as stone, verdant green with clefts of brown and faint pinks.

I glanced away at the sight with bitter resentment, and… noticed someone approaching?

It was someone in uniform, a girl around my age from the looks of things. She wore a black sweater with white cuffs over a white dress shirt. Which were paired with a blue skirt, black leggings and white high-tops. She had olive skin, short shiny black hair, a round face and angled sharp eyebrows.

I would say she was… of Japanese-descent? But that was mostly because some of mama’s coworkers were Japanese, and because of my classmates back in High School.

Her aura was strange, far too large for a human and yet… way too small for a witch. She was utterly saturated with black graduating to blue, a twisting darkness clinging and rippling like the ocean, yet bubbly and peppy and warm.

She sat down with a sigh next to me. My neck cracked painfully as I looked away. Really hope she didn’t notice me staring.

“Hey.”

I jumped when she spoke, a lilt of something decidedly… smug in her voice. I looked up into dark gray eyes with flecks of gold and brown.

“Hey?” I greeted her with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I had a bad track record with humans my age.

She had very expressive eyebrows, arching one up in a way I could never manage. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before, but San Diego is a big city. So I have to ask, are you a local?”

I fidgeted, folding one leg over the other. “Umm… no, I’m from Puerta Springs, so I’m just visiting. Why are you wearing a school uniform?”

“Fair reason. Also I’m wearing my uniform because the rest of my clothes are in the wash.” She pointed to a little logo that read ‘Center Lane Institute’. “So you decided to take a trip a hundred miles down to the finest city in America?”

I snorted. “Something like that, I’m going to be picked up pretty soon. So I don’t think we’ll get to chat much.” I wasn’t going to kick her off the bench but… I didn’t know her.

She pouted. “Can I at least know your name, stranger?” The liquid darkness flooded outwards, and gently recoiled from the walls I had built around myself.

I frowned. “You first,” I said as I inspected the behavior of her energies. Human or something else? The liquid dark prodded and poked, and my khi felt itchy for lack of better words.

It didn't seem intentional, an almost unconscious expression of energy.

The girl grinned, revealing oddly sharp teeth. “Names Maddie Tsukino, now spill.”

I sighed. “Celia Esteban.” Her aura rippled smoothly but didn't do anything else. “Center Lane Institute… I think my parents considered sending me there years ago but the plans fell through. It's an ECHS isn't it? A mixture of high school and college classes?”

It was actually the school my parents all attended before I was born. Among their first alumni when the institute opened in 2006. I instead ended up attending a more conventional school after… they left me. I was in high school by the time I was eleven, and had graduated by fifteen.

It had just cost me a good chunk of my childhood, no big deal.

Maddie nodded. “That’s right, it's a good school but it can be hard to handle.” She placed her hand on her neck with a grin. “But it doesn't answer the question of why you're here.” Her eyes were flinty, dark gray piercing into my soul.

“I got lost.” That was my dry reply. “I haven't been here in years, so I got turned around a bit.”

Her shadow pushed itself around me. I swore I heard the air hissing as darkness whorled around me like a winter storm. She was not normal. But Maddie didn't seem to be a danger either.

“What's that?” She pointed out with a manicured nail.

I looked down and plucked a marble I had kept in one of my utility pouches. It had been changed by the passage between worlds, a golden light shining within the glass curio. In my sense of magic, the gold shifted to a warm white like the sun with hints of gray at the flickering edges.

“Just a marble I bought somewhere, can’t remember where or why.” I was not lying as I sincerely didn't remember I had this thing on me.

Maddie narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth—

“Celia!”

Then Ultima called out to me, and I cringed back in shock as my mentor popped up from a corner. Her white hair had a distinct sheen that made it look dyed and her silver eyes were faded to blue.

“Hey!” I leaped from the bench like a normal person, stiffly marching over before I could make a fool of myself.

“Wait!”

I stopped in my tracks at the odd pleading tone of Maddie. “Yes?” I tilted my head.

Maddie blinked. “Would it be okay to exchange numbers?”

“You want my phone number?”

She nodded, gesturing to her phone. “Yes, I do. You seem interesting, and getting a pretty girl’s number is always sweet.”

I flushed. “I… sure?” We exchanged phone numbers in a second, and Maddie just grinned.

“Making friends, little raven?” Ultima spoke up with a bemused cackle,

I shrugged. “I guess?” I let my eyes dart to Maddie’s dark aura. My mentor winked, and I slid my marble back into my pouches. “So I'm guessing we’ll be seeing each other.”

Maddie just smirked, trying to look mysterious. “I imagine we will.”

I snorted, and her grin fell. “Bye then. I've got things to do.”

Ultima rolled her eyes, and tugged me away from the mysterious probably not human girl.

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Maddie watched the odd girl walk away with her guardian to the best of her knowledge. She licked her lips, drinking in the scent of the human and the witch in her sights.

Celia smelled of a dense fruity fragrance. Smoke and bitter gunpowder, her blood running with a strange… gray source and hints of other powers. Her mentor though… utterly filled the air with her power, spreading across the entire park in seconds. Her blood boiled with the acrid ache of Red twisted darkly by the chemical bergamot and formaldehyde of true Black.

She had never felt such a powerful Gift before, of such a refined and dense connection to the power and essence of the Making. Her dad had said as much, there were very few with their gifts in this world they had fled to generations ago.

So she came from elsewhere, was Maddie’s thought as she let the Black run down into her shadows, curling wildly into blades and claws and teeth and raking horns.

She froze when the witch turned back, blue eyes flashing to brilliant silver with a toothy fanged grin. Maddie offered a toothless grin, doing her best not to appear like a threat to her kid.

Which she wasn't, she was a teenage upyri not some type of dark lord of a bloodsucker out to devour all life. And she was only half one at that, what was that called again, a dhampir?

The witch simply lifted an eyebrow, and turned her head away with a fearless abandon. Maddie swallowed a scream as she felt the radiating plasma of Red dragging against the fabric of existence, curling prominences of power promising retribution… and protection.

Okay, terrified now.

“And yet…”

The witch had been kind with her kid, and had made it obvious that she would reciprocate kindness as long as Maddie did the same. It wasn't a bad deal, she felt like accepting it was a good answer. And there was a chance she could learn more about her Gift.

And Celia was very cute, and her own power was nothing to sneeze at. It was something strange, and new and she was curious.

I was already planning on being her friend…

So it changed nothing at all.

Maddie smiled, and her shadow danced.