“Primary Nix?” a young man called through the security door. “Allyssia, are you all right? There was a loud noise, and I ….”

Allyssia sat up in a daze from where she lay on the cold tile floor and tore off her safety goggles. Dust filled the air when she moved, and she coughed. A high pitched squeal rang in her ears.

Ignoring the man’s rambling, she rushed to the mirror, smearing it clear of dust with her hand. After a quick self examination by candle light, she determined that other than a blackened horn and singed hairs, she was still in one piece. She wet a cloth in one of the lab’s sinks to wipe dust from her face and goggles.

“Allyssia!”

She gave the lab a hasty scan. None of the display cases or vials littering the various counter tops that lined the room had broken, but everything would need a good cleaning, and half of the candles had gone out. The observation window would also need to be cleaned before she taught class later that day.

“I’m fine, Zan,” she finally answered while patting dust from her lab coat. “It is safe to enter.”

Lights on the keypad next to the door lit up red, then turned green, and the pressure lock hissed. The door inched open with a deep, ticking creak. Once the gap was wide enough for him to squeeze his exoskeleton through, the young cimex man rushed inside carrying his own candle, shielding it with his three empty hands.

“Are you sure you are OK?” he asked, clacking his mandibles anxiously. He reached toward her in concern, but stopped short.

“I said I’m fine.” She waved him off. “Just another failed attempt at aspect anchoring. I’d swear the gods themselves were preventing me from succeeding.”

“How can you be sure they aren’t? Some do say it is forbidden to dabble with life energy.”

Allyssia scoffed loudly. “Superstitions. I questioned Taeus himself for advice, and he never mentioned having a problem with it.”

“The Taeus? The eidolon of life, Taeus? Whoa.”

“Why is that so surprising? You’ve seen the gods around here.”

“Well, yes. I mean, I knew they visited Pyrem on business, but I didn’t know that the Primary had personal connections.”

“Of course we do.”

The glimmer in the man’s eyes annoyed Allyssia. He had gained his scholarship with her for his skills with biological magic. He was useful; his intuition had helped her with her work on more than one occasion, but he had followed on her heels too closely since she had accepted him. He admired her more than an apprentice should, possibly bordering on affection. It was not prohibited for a Primary to date eligible students, but she was at least twice his age. She would have to stomp out any interest before it got out of hand, although she suspected it already had in his head.

Remembering her failure in the center of the lab, she sighed and crossed the room to her computer. The side facing the center was blackened and the keyboard and screen were covered in soot, an indication that she should be performing her experiments behind safety glass.

Allyssia placed her hands on the device, cleared her thoughts, and began composing magic. A small, buzzing sensation, full of energy and color all bundled into a single, ever-present point, sat in the back of her mind. She reached for a single strand. As if opening a floodgate, the point expanded and world’s magical energy rushed into her like water from every direction, sloshing, oscillating and pulsing through her whole being. Her body ached with power, her skin tingling as the energy pushed against it. The tone of its frequency resonated in her ears, so loud that she was sometimes surprised that only she could hear it. What seemed like an hour had only occurred in a moment.

When she determined that she had enough, she did not compose the magic further, but kept it in its raw energy state and directed it into the computer’s converter. The tone changed into a melody, shifting within a short range of notes while she conducted it.

She waited patiently until the device came back to life. Keeping one hand on the computer, she used the other to navigate the operating system. Allyssia sighed again when she found what she was looking for; very little data had been obtained before the experiment went out of control. An error marked the event in the information logs.

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I wasn’t able to obtain any useful data.” She pointed to her screen where an error in the information logs marked where the experiment went out of control. “Help me set it back up.”

“Won’t it just explode again?”

“We’ll try byrenite inhibitors this time to limit the flow of magic.”

The computer shut off again when she let go.

She entered into a ring of robotic tool arms that encompassed a dais, which held a clear box and a bowl. Only dust remained from her previous attempt.

Zan grabbed his own goggles and coat from a hook on the wall, then fetched a rat from a cage in the corner. He placed it in the box on the dais. Allyssia pulled a marble from a bag on a counter and set it in a clear bowl next to the rat. While her apprentice replaced some of the tools attached to the robotic arms with byrenite panels, she adjusted others to aim at the rat and the marble. Allyssia repositioned her goggles and gave the whole setup a final look. Satisfied with the arrangement, she walked back to the computer.

“Gods, these things take so long to start up every time,” she said as she fed it magic once more. “I miss pyruta cores.”

Allyssia assumed that Zan had opened his mouth to tell her that any remaining cores were only to be used in emergency, which was common knowledge. They had burned through their supply of working cores when she was a girl, shortly after what many were now calling the War of Absolution. It had been a war between the gods after years of discord, during which pyruta core factories and installed cores were sabotaged to minimize the production and use of combat machines. Without cores to provide power, the result was an eventual loss of the majority of technology. What remained was what could be converted and powered manually.

She held up her hand to stop him. The computer lost power.

“What just happened?” she gasped.

“You took your hand off of it.”

“No,” she insisted with irritation. “My other hand was still on the side.”

“Weird.”

Allyssia tapped the computer before placing both hands on it once more. Nothing happened. She frowned. Clearing her thoughts, she reached for the point in the back of her mind again. It wasn’t there. The sensation was gone. “What is going on here? I can’t seem to compose any magic at all.”

“Maybe the byrenite is causing it?”

“Unlikely at this distance. You try it for me. Maybe I am just tired.”

Zan smirked. “It is the early morning. I keep telling you to sleep more …. Odd.”

“Not working for you either?”

“No.”

Sighing, Allyssia conceded. “All right. Take the byrenite back off.”

Removing the byrenite did not make a difference. Whatever attempts they made to compose had no affect. Not being able to use magic at all made Allyssia’s skin crawl.

“Let’s go out into the hall. Maybe this is a result of the experiment.”

Zan gave her a sheepish look. “Good thing I forgot to close the security door.”

She wanted to scold him, but he was right. Without magic to power it, they would have had a hard time opening the mechanical door.

The hallway was dark, lit by wall lanterns with long gaps in between; the ceiling lights had not been lit in decades. They tried to use magic just outside of the lab with no luck. They moved farther down the hall, through the common room and into the library, all the while waiting for something to happen, but they failed every time.

Allyssia felt panic inching its way up her throat. She inhaled several deep breaths to steady herself.

Zan was unnerved enough for the both of them. He had all four of his hands on his head. “W-what do we do? How do we fix this? What exactly did you do in there? I can’t live without magic!” he shrieked.

She threw a hand over his mouth. “Be quiet. Yes you can. You will be fine. I’m sure nothing I did caused this. Something else is going on around here. I will look into it, but I need you to stay quiet and go to your room. Everyone else should be asleep, but do not talk to anyone if you do see someone, you hear me?”

But she was not actually sure of anything. She had no idea what the cause was. Life was one of the major elements of magic, which were fickle. Tampering with the higher elements could bring about unprecedented results.

She held up a finger, glaring at him, when he pulled back and opened his mouth. “Don’t argue. Just do as I say.”

With wide eyes and short, rapid breaths, he nodded, then wandered down the hall toward the student dormitories. She felt bad for leaving him in a panicked state, but she did not have time to deal with him. She had to determine what was preventing them from using magic before she herself became unhinged.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Robert,” Allyssia called, rapping on the gilded door to her fellow Primary’s quarters. The candle in her hand created moving shadows in the dark hallway when the flame flickered. The wall torches in this section of the institution were not lit at this time of night, and she could not remember the last time she required a candle in the halls; the reality of a life without magic was starting to dawn on her. “Robert, are you awake?”

The door creaked open and a fit, middle-aged liange man wavered from darkness into the light. The smell of alcohol wafted with him from his quarters. The shadows hid the fact that he was missing half of a wing on his back, the only liange with black feathers that she knew existed.

Allyssia felt her cheeks flush. Even in that same darkness, it was quite obvious that he was wearing only his boxers. She was often envious of how the years had been better to him than they had to her; at almost twice her age, he appeared to be only half. She put out a hand to obstruct his indecency. “Gods, man. Put some clothes on.”

With eyes half open, his head dropped. “Oh. I-I’m sorry,” he slurred. “Let me get some pants on.”

Robert tossed the door open the rest of the way and retreated into his bedroom. Entering his living room, which was one of the finer quarters of the facility, Allyssia waited in one of his recliners. Empty bottles littered his coffee table. She raised her hand to light the candles in his room using magic, then frowned. She ground her jaw. He returned wearing pants, though still shirtless, as she was in the middle of using her candle to light some of his.

“What are you doing? Why didn’t you just ….” His brows furrowed. He clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. His head started to twist as if he was in pain, then he gave her a look of bewilderment.

“Before you say anything, I don’t think it was anything I did,” Allyssia rattled off.

He relaxed, his expression changing to consideration. “I didn’t think you did, but now that you said something, what makes you say that you didn’t?”

“I just figured you might blame my experiments, considering their nature.”

“Should I?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.” She paused, avoiding his gaze. “All right. Maybe. But I still don’t think so.”

Robert gave her a warm smile. “We can consider all other avenues first before putting the blame on your work. When did you notice this happened?”

“Several minutes ago. I was in the middle of powering up my computer, and it just stopped. I could not compose any magic after that.”

“So not immediately following an experiment attempt, one of which I assume explains why your tail is covered in dust. Who else knows about this?”

Grabbing at her tail in confusion, she raised it up to the light. The tuft at the end of it was white instead of blue.

“Only my apprentice, Zan. I sent him to bed with instructions to speak to no one. Other than that, I can’t be sure. As far as I know, everyone else is asleep.”

Robert scratched his head. “I will wake the other Primary. You go check with our special guest.”

“You think she could have caused this?”

“Who knows,” he said with a sigh. She could feel his irritation rising. No one liked being cut off from magic, and Robert was already in a dark place if the alcohol was any indication. “But we don’t know exactly what she is capable of, even after all these years.”

Allyssia nodded in agreement.

He opened the door for her to leave, but she held out her arm when he moved to follow her.

“Shirt, Robert.”

“Oh, right.” He chuckled.

“And you have been drinking again,” she said with concern.

The glee slid off of his face, and his eyes went to the floor. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m not going to scold you. Are you all right?”

“Same old.” He nodded and motioned to his damaged wing. “It still gets to me sometimes.”

“I did the best I could—”

He grabbed her hand. “I don’t blame you. I blame the damn goddess Lianandra. She is the one who cursed us as we fled, and it was her Carrion Guard that attacked Pyrem and took my wing.” His grip tightened. “I just feel like I have all this magic, yet I’m still powerless. You can’t know what it is like … to not be able to fly.”

She placed her other hand on top of his. “You know you can always come to me to talk, no matter the hour. You may have started as my father’s friend, but you are mine now. I want you to remember that.”

“Of course.” He nodded again, a light smile returning to his face.

The walk from the Primary’s residence to the detention center took her to the opposite side of Pyrem, away from the main building and toward the island’s edge. The sun peeked over the horizon, early morning rays streaking across the land amid a blazing orange sky. Without her magic, Allyssia felt increasingly vulnerable in Pyrem’s shadowed walkways of ancient stone. The House of Pyrem was an age old institution for advanced magic, and after the war, a safe haven for the cursed, but Robert’s words had her imagination reeling. She kept thinking that she was going to be attacked at any moment. Lianandra’s soldiers had done it before, they could do it again. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and marched past the silhouette of a soldier against a stone column that she knew was just a decorative suit of armor.

“Miss?”

Allyssia jumped from the small voice behind her, barely containing a scream. Whipping around, she paused with her finger in the air, half ready to compose, half ready to scold the child for being up so late, when she saw tears on the girl’s face illuminated by the early morning light. The child sat behind the column holding a gaming device up for Allyssia to see.

“It won’t turn back on. My magic won’t work,” the girl whined.

“Is that why you are crying?” Allyssia said with a grimace. “You are probably just tired. Go back to your bed, right now, and don’t let me catch you up again or I will tell the matron.”

The child’s eyes grew wide, and she bolted down the hall in the direction Allyssia had come from.

Putting her hand on her chest, Allyssia took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart. She could not wait for this all to be sorted so she could get her magic back and stop fretting like the child. Although, that girl seemed less afraid of the dark than Allyssia, and that caused her to frown deeper.

Allyssia was relieved to find the Brig well-lit. She did her best not to run through the front doors, though once inside, she took another deep breath to calm herself and drive away the irrational fears. Then she paused and frowned. The small detention center’s cells were often empty, only intended for short-term stay when students or teachers alike got out of control, but a guard was always stationed at the desk regardless. It was empty. When she called out, the only answer was echoed snoring coming from one of the cells. She rushed through the single hall to the stairwell that led to the lower level, but froze at the first step.

A soldier lay at the bottom of the stairs. Blood covered his uniform from a wound in his throat, pooling on the floor and streaking around the corner below.

Whatever had happened here was not imaginary. The vulnerability that Allyssia had felt returned to her in full. Her heart beat against her ribs, her knees wobbled, and she struggled to catch her breath. She grabbed the railing to prevent herself from falling down the steps. Inching past the dead man, she peeked around the corner.

An empty hall was lined with large security doors that lead to isolation cells. The lower floor of the Brig was designed to hold criminals with unique strengths in magic that normal prisons could not contain, but one of the doors was open, the soldier’s blood streaking into it. Allyssia gathered up her willpower and forced herself to move toward it.

Within, the missing guards surrounded a sopping wet woman with long black hair heavily chained to the floor. Spears were poised at her as if she might break free at any moment. Allyssia forgot about a small set of stairs just inside the door and stumbled into the dimly lit room. Water covered the floor to her ankles.

“Primary Allyssia? What are you doing down here?” a man said from beside a control table in the corner.

“Captain Jonns, what happened here?” Allyssia asked after a deep breath. She took another in a futile attempt to calm her nerves. “Why is Vephni out of the tank?”

“She broke out.” He motioned to the back of the room where a giant glass holding tank, the source of the water, had been shattered. A mangled mess of metal bars in front of the tank bent out toward the door.

“How? Who was on controls?”

“Farns. He started screaming that he was having trouble with his magic, and by the time we got the door open, she had broken out and killed him. The strange thing is that she didn’t even attempt to attack anyone else.”

“I’m spent,” the woman in the chair said. Her voice was raspy and deep. “Used most of my energy just getting out. Besides, you wouldn’t taste any good.”

Allyssia locked eyes with the captain. He appeared to be as confused as she was. Breaking away, she stepped toward Vephni.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” the captain said.

“What do you mean?” Allyssia asked the woman, ignoring him.

The woman sniffed the air and frowned. “None of you smell good. But Farns did.” She smelled the air again. “It was such a nice smell, barely any taste though. What happened to your magic, Allyssia? You used to smell very sweet.”

“So it wasn’t you?”

Vephni’s dark eyes thinned. “What wasn’t me?”

“Everyone in this room should smell good to you.”

Confused looks passed around the room between the soldiers and the woman.

“What are you saying, Allyssia?” the captain asked. “It isn’t just us?”

“No. As far as I know, it is all of Pyrem. I came here because I thought it might be her doing.”

“Are you saying everyone has lost their magic?” Vephni scoffed. “Why would I do something like that? I want to eat your magic, not make it disappear. I would have eaten this whole world by now if it weren’t for this damn water.”

“Wait. You said you wouldn’t have attacked Farns if he had lost his magic.”

“I would have still tried to escape of course, killed him if he got in the way. None of you smell delicious. I won’t hurt any of you if you just let me go.”

“But she escaped because Farns was having trouble with his magic,” the captain added.

“Yes, but maybe whatever caused this only weakened his magic. This means Farns still had magic, and that means others might as well!” Allyssia’s heart began to race once more. If others still had magic, there was a chance that this could be reversed and she could get her magic back.

“Oh, really,” Vephni said. The ravenous look in her eyes made Allyssia sick to her stomach.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Ideas are all I am allowed around here,” Vephni whimpered.

Allyssia turned back to the captain. “If she wasn’t the cause of this, then I have no reason to be here.”

“What should we do with her now that she is awake?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Until we get things sorted, keep her wet, chained and under guard … ones that can’t use magic. Water only weakens her so much. If it comes down to it, seal the door. That should hold her for a while, at least. We will have to figure something out if we can’t find someone who can power the devices to keep her asleep. Gods, I miss pyruta cores.”

“Why don’t you just kill me if you aren’t going to let me go?” Vephni shouted.

“Mercadeus gave us specific instructions,” Allyssia said and started for the door. “He still needs you alive. Something about helping him find the others.”

“No! This isn’t fair. I have the right to live too! You can’t just keep me in here forever!”