The felinid man wept, his ears falling and tail going slack as he poured out his soul. Liam dismissed the orbs of magic, and placed a hand upon the man’s shoulder.
‘Don’t give up hope.’ Is what he wanted to say, but there seemed to be a lump in his own throat that prevented him from speaking.
Man and felinid remained there for several moments, not speaking. Until Liam turned back towards the elves and coughed.
“Ahem, Leandry, I may need the other collar, send someone to fetch it–” Began Liam, only for a familiar sabertoothed serval to hop onto his shoulders.
The aforementioned collar clinking as it hung from her neck.
“Thanks furball.” Said Liam, giving Nekohiro a head scratch as he pulled off the collar.
The man’s sister was thrice marked. First she was the only one who was passed out, secondly she looked similar to him, like fraternal twins. Now that he looked at them, he noticed their eyes were heterochromatic –different colors– and in an inverted pattern from the other, as if two pairs of eyes had been mixed up and given to siblings in the incorrect order. Thirdly, she was wearing a collar with similarly inverted markings, and when Liam placed the collars side by side he realized they had been forged as one piece of metal, engraved, and then split apart. Implausibly complex for this world’s level of technology.
Maybe this wasn’t Aldric’s design. Some mage went through a lot of trouble to get these engravings perfect. I wonder, if there is a gene laboratory here, could there be some kind of manufactorum? Or an automated refinery?
It would have fascinated him for days, if the woman wasn’t on the verge of death. Her life was more important than his curiosity. There were no intravenous drips in this world, if you couldn’t drink of your own free will then dehydration would likely kill you inside of a few days. Some magi and doctors had experimental procedures that could lengthen that timeframe, but only for the extraordinarily wealthy, and not for two former slaves.
Liam knelt at her side, taking his time to probe the collar thoroughly. He’d already cocked this up once, and did not want to cause innocents more grief. Not when he could see the scars creeping over the woman’s shoulders, marks from a whip.
The collar’s patterns lined up and he moved it around until he could place both collars on the woman’s neck, lining up the two patterns until he was absolutely certain it aligned. He even removed it and attempted different placements, all to ensure he found the closest match. An examination that revealed dark affinity mana, visible only to his seventh sense. Flowing from the collar into the woman.
“Hey, Nekohiro, don’t you dark elves have a ton of dark affinity magi?” Said Liam, wondering how this could be a problem.
“Meow.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I should have expected that from a teenager. Thought Liam, pursing his lips.
“My lord, we are not ‘dark elves’. That is only how the immature races or our northern kin refer to us as. Nor do we possess any dark affinity magi, the spiritual element is ours, and no others.” Said Leandry, keeping her voice low.
Liam pinched his brow. Spiritual element? She meant the wind affinity but Liam had never heard it be called spiritual. Kinseeker had spoken very high-mindedly about the affinity, but he was an ambassador, aware of both cultures.
“Do you have any kind of school for the umbraquins? Somewhere they can practice on collars and learn their tradecraft?” Asked Liam.
Nekohiro shook her head, and Leandry clarified again.
“My lord, we do not speak of them in public!” She hissed, leaning in to whisper into his ear. “They leave upon the awakening of magic.”
He nodded, of course the infiltrators left as soon as Taloc’s call awakened. No matter. He reached into the collar with his own dark affinity, using it like a key to unlock the woman’s curse. Dark energy flowed into the collar, taking a half hour to flow in reverse at Liam’s command. He watched it with inscrutable rigor, following each tendril of the curse and retracting it manually, leaving none of the strands within the woman. It was easy really, of the twelve strands, each of them linked to an organ, brain, eyes, heart, lungs, bladder, liver, esophagus, stomach, and the gonads. That was just like the humans of this world, they had no idea how anatomy worked, so it was best to link everything to a curse, that way if one was cured then another of the twelve curses would kill the slave. But Liam had been blessed with the summed knowledge of four thousand years of continuous medical advancement. Compared to college, this wasn’t even a game of Jenga. With the dark energy withdrawn, Liam swept the collar with light affinity, finding that form of magic only within the collar itself.
“Well, here we go.” Muttered Liam, hoping there wasn’t another trap laid for him, and plucked the remaining mana out of the enslavement collar.
It broke, falling open.
“Lets move her somewhere more private, like one of those Aelorn trees.” Suggested Liam, holding both collars in his hands.
“You plan to take her away so we can’t see her die?” Said someone in the crowd of felinids.
Liam hadn’t even realized they were still present, he’d been so focused on the woman that he was blind to the century of cats in front of him and score of elves behind, including Queen Raina. Whose presence had made all kneel.
“I was thinking it would be weird to wake up with everyone looking at you sleeping…” Said Liam, only to remember the slaves of Khereshetal.
They slept together, in mountains of cat people. Sleeping together was natural to them, while sleeping apart was strange.
“You know what. Do what you want. Let me know when she wakes up.” Said Liam, rising and stretching his back.
“But, how will she wake up when you’ve removed her collar?” said the brother, his eyes puffy from crying.
“Uh, what? I get you don’t have dark magi, but… collars don’t kill people when they’re removed.” Liam glanced at Riana for confirmation, “Right?”
She winced, nothing more than a hairline flutter of the eyes.
“The human lands between Vere and our own pair the felinid collars. If one escapes, then the other dies a slow death. None have ever awoken.”
Liam’s mind raced, accidentally activating his [split mind] talent to run a dozen simultaneous trains into the same station. If slaves were paired, then they would have to escape in pairs to prevent either of them dying. Which would lead to a huge portion of the ‘Free Pantherian’s’ being entirely enslaved. This wasn’t a sanctuary of rebels, it was a refugee camp for the impotent.