It was a bad idea, letting Joan tag along with Roza and Vanya, for the next hour or so involved Joan looking angry at the fact that they were running across the shores, climbing over the giant rocks shimmering in ash gray at the side of the beach, and slipping on wet seaweed scattered across while trying to avoid the pricky edges of the earth beneath jutting out.
“Come on, girls! Keep up!” Roza shouted from a distance making Joan huff in annoyance.
“What is she even doing? Why are we even following her?” Joan whispered through her teeth.
“I’m sorry, Joan. I…I promised her I would help,” Vanya whispered back while helping Joan, who was limping harder than usual, up the side of a slippery rock leading down to an opening of a cave.
“Promised to help? Why? Why would you do that?” Joan asked bitterly.
But Vanya had no chance to reply for Roza was nagging them to hurry up wanting them to climb down the path faster.
They made their way into the cave. The scarce amount of light left before the sun was about to set made the cave shine in orange as they descended into it. It was made of dark rock, almost as if someone carved a cave out of one. The surface below their feet was rough, yet the walls were smooth as if someone intentionally softened their edges out.
As they walked deeper into the cave, the shadows took over. Roza was far ahead and was encouraging them to keep up. Her voice echoed, making a slight rattling noise vibrating the elements.
Vanya was holding onto Joan as they carefully stepped through hoping they were not stepping on anything sharp when they came upon an opening in the shape of a small circle at the end of the cave with the sea and its water pouring in through it. The setting sun was displaying its ball of fire aligning perfectly with the aperture giving a beautiful display while heading out for the day.
With the spectacular view in front stealing their attention, they almost missed Roza setting something up on the ground. She had laid a cloth covering the rock below and had set up a plate with a large collection of crystals neatly placed on it. The crystals twinkled as Vanya and Joan approached Roza. Their emerald, lavender, and lemon colors held a circle of glow surrounding them.
“What is all this?” Joan blurted out. Roza looked up at them with her mouth stuffed and a slight drool of a reddish liquid drooping down her lips.
“Are you eating the berries?” Joan asked, partly disgusted at how animalistic Roza looked then.
“Oh yes! It helps with the…” she replied, flailing her hand around as if that meant anything to Vanya and Joan, “...the energy, you know. Ah! Let’s see, it’s about time now. Jade, would mind turning to page forty here,” she handed a thick book with a hefty burgundy cover to Vanya.
Vanya turned to the page right away, not a question thrown Roza’s way.
Roza turned to face the opening, the sun had almost fallen through the horizon. The sea was trickling into the cave. They heard the waves crashing onto the outside walls much harder than when they first stepped in.
They waited, listening to Roza breathe heavily a few times before turning to them. Her eyes narrowed in concentration. She signaled Vanya to come closer to her. Vanya scurried over with the book, turned to page forty, and held it up so Roza could see.
“Behold, ladies. You are about to experience something extraordinary,” Roza whispered right before the darkness flooded in.
“Aremous arcanious sensalave…” Roza’s voice started small. After a moment the crystals at the center began to glow brighter lighting the cave from within. Vanya did not know what was happening until she saw Joan’s face clearly in the faint light, equally terrified.
“...palatun tera…” Roza continued, her voice growing louder.
It’s magic, isn’t it? She’s performing a spell…
Vanya thought, her hands beginning to shake realizing it was a grimoire she was holding in her very palms. Grimoires that Master Aren told her were destroyed by her father.
“...yavalous muhudhu lamas yen salva!”
Vanya probably only glanced at Joan when suddenly they heard the waves crash the hardest on the outside walls of the cave, shaking the ground beneath. The water started rushing in through the opening and into the cave almost immediately after. They barely had any time to think before the water was already their knee level, the crystals disappeared with only their faint glow visible underwater.
“Roza, we must leave!” Vanya shouted hoping her voice carried over with the deafening sound of the rough sea pouring in. But Roza did not hear her as if she was in a trance of her own. She got to Roza and shook her. With no luck getting Roza’s attention, Vanya hurried her way to Joan, who was panicking losing her balance and falling into the gushing sea water. She pulled Joan up, their gowns drenched in the sea.
“What do we do?!” she shouted.
“We must leave. If not we will drown! You must convince her now!--” Joan shouted back yet stopped immediately as Roza bellowed back at them.
“Do not move! Trust me!”
And almost as if Roza knew she had everything under control, the water gushing in stopped at once. There was no longer the unbearable sound taking over their being. Instead, almost like a whisper, the water started to rise along the inner walls of the cave, gliding over them and around, forming a globe of water enveloping the girls within.
Joan gasped, her hands shaking in fear. Vanya, with the grimoire in one hand, and Joan on the other, gulped. There was a reason behind those smoothed walls of the cave. The reason was Roza.
Roza had her hands in the air, her posture confident controlling the elements, and her eyes suddenly began shining in bright gold almost blinding the girls staring at her in awe.
Vanya did not know the true extent of power she was seeing that night. She did not know that Roza’s display of incredible control over the flow of water, especially the sea which held a stubborn mind of its own, meant she was witnessing a great witch in action. Only if she had prodded Master Aren further and learned of the old ways, the ways of the tribes that were gifted, she would have been truly terrified of ever being this close to Roza.
Roza chuckled as she played with the water forming a sphere around the girls. They huddled at the center staring at Roza, who made the water spin faster than a top and then as slow as the moon walking over the in the night sky. They spotted a few fish swimming in the water, even a jellyfish or two.
Vanya tucked the grimoire under her arm to hold onto Joan, who was unable to keep her balance whilst overly excited over the strange view they were seeing before their eyes. It was as if they dove into the sea and were walking among the sea creatures, getting a glimpse of the world covered by the waves.
The crystals that were once drowning were now dry and illuminating the water globe from within. Their light started to fade before Roza warned the girls and made them take a step back.
Roza gave it her all. She made the water glide back down with the help of the inner walls of the cave only halfway before her concentration slipped and it all came crashing down making the girls get washed in a sudden shower of seawater before it hit the ground and naturally flowed back into the sea.
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The crystals were no longer shiny. They were dull and gone. And so were Roza’s eyes, which glowed in gold before, dimming to gray like the crystals.
“That was incredible,” Joan whispered making Roza look towards her, surprised. Joan was so grumpy on the way to the cave, she was the last person Roza thought would actually be impressed.
“It truly was. I have never witnessed anything as marvelous as that before,” Vanya too agreed, her voice trailing off to a whisper. She was still too shocked that Roza was not only breaking the rules of the village by sneaking out at night but was breaking the law of the land. Vanya was conflicted, yet her mind was in awe of everything.
“Now, girls, you know what you saw was…magic, don’t you?” Roza asked directly. It was very much Roza. She never shied away from getting to the point.
Joan glanced over at Vanya and paused but seeing Vanya nod she nodded going along with her.
“Well then, you must also know that there’s no magic allowed in the Nothern Kingdom, don’t you?”
“We won’t tell on you. We won’t tell anyone,” Joan blurted out with no hesitation.
Roza only smiled.
“Your family, are they all gifted as you are?” Vanya, to her own surprise, asked.
Roza thought for a second, packing the crystals back into her satchel.
“Yes, we are all born gifted, our entire tribe. Our tribe is one of the oldest amongst the ones still surviving.”
“Then the others, the other villagers, do they also practice…magic?” Vanya pressed on, her mind flooding with questioning sensing Roza’s openness.
“No, unfortunately, we gave up our age-old traditions two decades ago after it was banned by the then-new King…” Roza said making Vanya gulp thinking of how Roza would react if she knew Vanya was the daughter of that King, “...It was made a rule, an order, by the council that for us to stay protected as one tribe, we were to give up on our literature and our practices. We were stripped of everything that made us who we are to go into hiding…forever.”
“I’m sorry,” Vanya whispered almost immediately.
“No, don’t be, please. I did not personally witness the mass burning of grimoires. I was only born a year later. I grew up with no knowledge of magic until Timmie, that idiot, sneaked me in with him one night to listen to a council meeting. We were only six and we fit perfectly under the tables,” Roza reminisced with a hint of joy taking over her, “It was the first time I heard of magic. After that, it was all curiosity on my part. The knowledge I have and practice now was all self-taught,” Roza finished with a proud smile crossing her face.
Vanya smiled back then held up the book, the grimoire in her hand, in question, “This one is a grimoire too, isn’t it? If they burnt every last one of them, where did you find this?”
Roza throwing her heavy satchel over her shoulder smirked at Vanya, “I didn’t say they burnt every last one of them now, did I?”
Roza gently took the book from Vanya’s hand and tucked it into her satchel which was already overflowing. She then went ahead leading the girls out of the cave. Joan, holding tightly onto Vanya, tried her best not to show the sudden pain rippling through her body.
“So, where did you find this one then?” Vanya pressed on as both Vanya and Roza held onto Joan, who was struggling to find a grip over the tall spiky rock they were climbing.
“Hmmm…how should I put it? It was a year-long expedition on my part. I only stumbled upon a few clues before I had to just go ahead and start exploring all the other villages, towns, and cities, heck I may have even made my way to the outskirts of Esmeth before I found this. But I should say, finding it was the easy part. Learning to read it, practice it, and keep practicing it is the hardest of them all. Those berries I found today were supposed to help with circulation of blood hence making my chances of actually casting the spell powerfully and finishing as elegantly as possible the best. Although, I should say I still have to practice. I almost drowned you two.”
“So it worked? The berries?” Vanya asked while noticing Joan groan louder unable to pull herself up.
“Not much. But I have to say, I do not feel as tired as I normally do especially after this one.”
“What about the crystals? Are they supposed to help you with the magic part?”
Roza smirked at Vanya then pulled struggling Joan up with a harder try making Joan finally land on the higher surface.
“Curious one, aren’t you? The crystals help with channeling our energy. Most accomplished practitioners of magic do not need any crystals at all. Most smaller spells such as warming your morning cup of tea or drying your clothes require no help from any crystals. But controlling a large volume of water, now that requires a lot of them!” Roza tapped her satchel which was about to explode.
“The reason I brought you here today was not so you could hold my book for me. It was to check if you’d be afraid and run away. But seeing you so interested in what I am doing I might as well have you help me with the rest of my plan. Are you still willing to help, Jade?”
Vanya, still not used to anyone calling her by Joan’s sister’s name, answered right away, “Of course, I don’t scare easily.”
Roza laughed out in triumph finding Vanya to be a pleasant surprise to her dull and often taxing days.
“I do have to say, I am not one that was naturally born with an open eye, therefore I might need a bit more practicing before I show you anything truly extraordinary.”
“What do you mean? You’ve already shown us an unbelievable sight,” Vanya asked, watching Joan give up standing to check on her leg from the corner of her eye.
“To have an open eye is to have been truly blessed by the Gods, in our case, the Gods of the seas, to have no human energy blocking the flow of spirit, in simpler terms magic, directly from the Gods. But they say children with open eyes suffer the most growing up. Some hallucinate in broad daylight and some shut themselves from the world completely.”
“That’s fascinating. I never knew there were differences between tribes or even within one’s own tribe.”
“I would have loved to enlighten you on it. But I have very limited knowledge on even my own.”
“I noticed your eyes…” Vanya started to ask something that had been stuck in her mind ever since. She withheld herself from asking it for so long, hoping to inject it into a natural flowing conversation, not wanting to alert Roza, who was quite gifted in catching anything out of place,”...They glowed in gold. Does that…does that usually happen when you–”
“Cast a spell?” Roza finished her sentence for her, “...Not usually. I never knew my eyes did that until very recently when I saw myself in the reflection of a few crystals. They usually don’t light up when I cast little ones, especially ones that I don’t need to sound out. But the bigger ones, like the one today, they would definitely do that.”
Vanya gulped remembering Rhohaz the previous night with his hands clasping her cheeks and his eyes burning in bright gold.
He was casting a spell…He was using magic…on me?
She thought unable to figure out what he had done for all she remembered was feeling physically better as his eyes rimmed in gold and his palms warmed her cheeks.
“Joan, are you alright?” Roza's question broke Vanya’s train of thought and made her focus on her maidservant, who had taken off her bandage letting her wounded leg out in the open.
Roza gasped taking an immediate seat next to Joan. Her leg, which Vanya thought was merely a few bruises with some wounds as Joan had explained to her previously, had turned dark blue with hints of black in the center where it seemed like faint bite markings of teeth were seen.
Roza immediately began to observe them closer poking them making Joan hiss in pain.
“How long has this been like that?!” Roza sounded troubled.
“Umm…not that long. It was doing fine all this time.”
“Are those teeth marks?” Vanya asked sitting and bending over Joan’s shoulder.
“They weren’t like that yesterday. They were only bruises,” Joan, her voice shaking, cried.
Roza looking at Vanya answered, “Yes, they are teeth marks. I don’t remember seeing them the first time we treated your sister in the infirmary. This is bad, terrible. These are the markings of the Ombrah. They may have already gotten to you before we found you two in the wooden chest by the shore that night.”
Vanya shook her head unable to follow, “Ombrah?”
Roza gulped looking at her, “There are many things you do not know of this village but one thing you should know is that we are outcasts of society in hiding. And to ensure we don’t cross paths with outsiders potentially posing a threat to us we have systems in place. And one of them is the Ombrah. They protect us from others during the night.”
“What…what are they?” Joan whimpered seeing the state of her limb and almost immediately a loud growl from afar was heard making the girls shiver realizing that they were in the dark with barely any moonlight to even see the fear in each others’ faces.
Roza pressed on, “We must leave now. They don’t hurt the villagers, especially anyone from the Yelhi tribe, but they can sure hurt you.”
***
That night was a mess. Joan screamed as Roza tried poking harder at the teeth marks that oozed out pus. Vanya desperately held onto Joan as she bit into a wrapped cloth hoping to hold her screams in not wanting to have the entire village awake.
“It’s so strange,” Roza kept whispering to herself as she cleaned Joan’s wounds and started rubbing an herbal paste on them.
“What is it?” Vanya asked hoping it was not more bad news about Joan’s injury.
“Well, I don’t want to bore you with facts but just know that no one has survived for so long with an Ombrah’s bite this deep. It’s almost as if the effects of the bites are slower, taking longer to spread throughout the leg and the body.”
Joan groaned and let herself lay, tired of hearing that she should have been in a worse condition right now.
Once Roza freshly bandaged Joan’s leg, she pulled Vanya away to speak separately in the living room.
“Have you seen grandma around?”
“Not since this morning. Why?” Vanya asked seeing Roza contemplate.
“I’m not sure if she can help but even if we tell her she can only do so much before we all come to the same conclusion.”
“And what’s that? I don’t want Joan hurting anymore. She’s endured enough. I’ll do anything to help,” Vanya pleaded seeing that Roza was holding herself back from saying anything.
“An Ombrah is created from what we call, in simpler terms, dark magic. These are creatures that are literal shadows,” Roza paused seeing that it did not seem like news to Vanya.
“Well then, I should say I’ve seen one lurking beneath the infirmary grounds.”
Roza's eyes widened in shock, “Why did you not tell us?”
“I was told– I thought it was one of you,” Vanya did not want to accuse Rhohaz in front of his sister and instead lied, “What should we do? What can we do?”
“Most who were bitten by an Ombrah would have already passed on by the time we would have found them in the wild. Their skin was wrinkled and their bodies ice cold. It is said we need a speck of the Ombrah's skin to heal a wound caused by them,” Roza’s words puzzled Vanya.
“Skin? Their skin? How would we–”
“That is for me to figure out. Don’t worry. You should take care of Joan while I figure out the rest. Give me some time. I promise you, I will help you,” Roza held Vanya’s hands in assurance.
“Please, involve me as necessary. I will do anything that is needed.”
Vanya felt it then, the gut-wrenching feeling that Joan could have died. Her friend, her only friend could have been ashes floating away in the sea by now. She remembered the daffodils Joan gave her the first time they met. To think that that innocent face would have to go through being stranded and possibly dead all because of her made Vanya feel the guilt even heavier. She secretly thanked whatever was making Joan survive. Joan could have no longer been breathing if it wasn’t for the odd reason mysteriously slowing her progress.