Chapter 10 – Priestess.

Tears streaming down her face, Chris resting in her lap, Rachael poured healing magic into his damaged body. It couldn’t end this way. It just couldn’t. She screamed in anguish, and pulled on all of the reserves that she had, willing his body to knit and mend. Her clothes were drenched in blood, her knuckles and arm a mess, but it mattered naught. He had to pull through. She had never had to heal anything this serious before, but there was no reason she couldn’t do it, being the youngest initiated, and probably the strongest, of the Priestesses of the Core.

Or at least she had been.

But then she had run away from all of that six years ago.

Her early childhood had been nothing special. She’d grown up in the small town of Allensbrook, part of the greater Bastion region, half the country over from New Elderpass. It was a picturesque town, quarter acre properties, trees lining all of the streets, and a huge garden in the centre of town. It was home to the Bastion Arts Centre, and the steady stream of visitors managed to keep its economy afloat as well as providing a decent portion of the jobs. It was a peaceful place, the local constable there mostly for show, and to remind drivers not to drive while intoxicated. As a single child to a middle income family, she was loved, and well looked after. She was best friends with Millie, the girl next door, and they spent a lot of time playing together as children, and then just hanging out together and doing, you know, girl things, and talking about other girls, as they got older. It was a nice, comfortable, safe life. The kind that most people would wish for.

But it wasn’t the life that Rachael yearned for. She was different, and she yearned for more, for the freedom to be herself, and freely express that. And no, it wasn’t the normal kind of different, like when you tell your parents at eight that you like both boys and girls in that way (which did not go down so well at the time), but the different that you have to hide from everyone, else something very bad will end up happening to you. She’d first discovered it when she was five, that she could make light glow at the end of her fingertips. Millie had thought the trick was cool, her parents had thought that it was absurdly dangerous, and that she ran a real risk of burning the house down with the lighter that she was playing with, and told not to do it again. Her parents were furious when at seven she summoned a flame at the tip of her finger, being the second and last time that she showed them her abilities, and she was forbidden from ever doing tricks like that again. Parlour magic was cool and all, but leave it to the professionals. Except that it wasn’t a trick. It was real.

So, like she had been, she continued to practice when no one was around, in one of many secret locations that she founds. At first she’d invited Millie along, but the games weren’t quite to her tastes, especially as Millie grew up, and so she found herself alone. Her abilities grew, in both potency and control. She may have been responsible for the large scrub fire that threatened to burn the western side of the town when she was ten, but how was she to know that the flame would have been that big and go that far. She did of course, make sure that she wasn’t off practising all the time. She spent plenty of time studying, and playing/being with her friends, especially Millie, so that her parents didn’t become suspicious.

But she wasn’t careful enough, and two weeks after the scrub fire incident she was approached by a lady. A strange lady, dressed in a flowing white dress like all the priestesses you read about in fantasy novels. A lady who knew about Rachael’s abilities. A lady who had been sent with a message.

She had been selected to become a Priestess of the Core.

Rachael of course refused. You don’t accept candy from strangers, and this was on a whole other level. Not to mention that she had no idea what this ‘Core’ was.

She was told that if she became a Priestess she’d receive training on how to use her powers, and be granted even more by the Core. She’d also have the freedom to use them, well within the bound of the role, and she’d be able to meet others like her.

That candy however was too hard to resist, so she accepted, not sure at all how it would work out. The Priestess lady just said that it would, and left. Just like that.

Two weeks later her family won a lottery trip to a hot springs resort in a foreign country. The kind of of lottery that you don’t actually remember entering. Her parents had been cautious, but she had known instantly what it meant, and encouraged her parents to accept. Which they did. The trip turned out to be legitimate and a lot of fun, and they were even allowed to take Millie along. The hot spring was lovely and one that she wouldn’t mind visiting again, but the highlight of the trip was being whisked away in the middle of the night and being presented to the Core. Rachael was surprised when she first laid eyes on it, as it was exactly as it sounded. A massive floating ball of energy. Kneeling before it she had felt it talk to her, welcoming her and taking her as one of her own, to serve in secrecy with her sisters to maintain the balance of the world, etc. The usual spiel. Magic was not a part of their world, and those touched by it were destined to serve the Core, to keep the darkness at bay. Don’t try talking about world scale responsibilities to a ten year old – it doesn’t sink in.

Then came the touch, and the flood of power with it. She could feel it entering her, merging with her own, so much more than she had ever known. More than anyone before her had ever received she had been told, and the power was hers. It made her feel giddy. It made her feel invincible. And it cemented the stark difference between her reality and everyone else’s. She also discovered that she was the youngest one there, buy a significant number of years. The Core assured them all however that it would work out. She was special.

The trip was far too short, and soon enough they were back home, Rachael with all this additional power, but still unable to use it. The Core though had plans for her. She would be needed as a Watcher and Guardian, given the power that she had, but she was still too young and inexperienced to be of use to the Core, with most Priestesses being chosen in their early twenties. She was at least a decade too young. So, until she was old enough, she would be trained. One of the older Priestesses, Trish, transferred to her school as a teacher (Maths and Biology), and each day she would also get private tutoring from her, under the guise of a scholarship. Every Priestess had a different aspect and potency, and Rachael’s was the Sun, a subset of one of the Core’s primal aspects. While learning new powers was easy, mastering control over them was a lot more difficult and the training taxing, and not necessarily suited to private tutoring. While no one knew what was really going on, the training was going too slow for Rachael’s tastes.

Her frustration eventually allowed her to accompany Trish on some of her Watcher duties, the excuse still being the scholarship (as to how Trish managed to swing that one she still had no idea). She was told that the Core had hidden itself away so that those who covet it’s power could not find it, and to stop any leakage into the world, but it still had to maintain connections to the world. Those connections were called Anchor Points (and less common were Anchor Temples), and as a Watcher they needed to maintain the integrity of those points. Rachael was taught where the local ones were, and the rituals to do at each if there was an issue. Trish was responsible for a quarter of the country, which was a lot of travelling, but given her role as a teacher to Rachael, she was only able to check on them during the school breaks. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but it allowed her the freedom to use her magic a lot more. However, also not wanting to lose her friendship with Millie, given that they now spent even less time together than they used to, she did choose to stay behind for some of the trips, to spend time with her.

It was from one of these trips that she didn’t go on, when Rachael was around fourteen, when things began to change, and the responsibility started to kick in. Trish came back sick and in a foul mood, her classes skipped for a full month, before Rachael was eventually able to find out what happened. One of the anchor points at the northern edge of Trish’s region had been destroyed, and she wasn’t sure how it was done, nor had she been able to repair it. It wasn’t done by mundane means, but by something a lot more sinister, and Trish hadn’t been able to work out what. She had poured her all into it, but had been left drained without any gain as a result. Something was afoot, and training was over. Trish needed to go back to full Priestess duties, and Rachael would be left to train by herself until she was of age to take over, or the Core instructed otherwise. Power-wise, she was ready, Trish stating that she was probably the strongest of the current era of Priestesses, she just needed to master control. Leaving her with some study instructions, and a handful of skills to try her hand at, as well as the promise that she would come back and check on her when able, Trish left.

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That left Rachael feeling a bit at a loose end. She was eager to get out there and be a full time Priestess, face whatever the enemy may be, and just be able to use her powers as she knew they could be. But she also knew that she had to wait. She studied, trained, spent time with her friends (but tried her best to ignore Millie’s advances, as she knew that relationships weren’t feasible for Priestesses, though was only moderately successful there), learnt how to drive, and waited. For two years to be exact. She had expected it to be a lot longer, truth be told, but she was informed by the Core that Trish had died in an accident, and she was required to take over. Taking the money that had been transferred to her, and informing her family and friends that she had a job that required an immediate start, she left. No fuss, nor tears, no other explanations.

Rachael wasn’t quite sure what she expected life as a full time Priestess to be like, but it certainly wasn’t at all like what it ended up being. No mysteries, no adventure, no battles (well, okay maybe a few, but only against some mutated animals that she ran across on the odd occasion, as well as a few thugs who thought they could take advantage of a beautiful girl travelling alone), no evils to thwart, no sign of the catastrophe that had forced Trish to leave. Just a lot of driving, checking up on things that didn’t change at all, and training. Lots of training, always in secluded locations. She learnt a lot about her powers, and about other possible applications of it. But then there was the boredom and loneliness. The funds that the Core somehow provided meant that she was comfortable, but she missed her friends. She missed company. She hadn’t realized it before, but she hated being alone. Sure, she had often gone off by herself, but she had always had people and a place to return to. Now she didn’t. Just massive stretches of road between her and everything else.

So, before the hate overcame her, she decided that she had had enough. After two years, she threw in the towel per say, and ran away from her responsibilities as a Priestess. The Core called to her, but she did not respond to its calls, and avoided the other Priestesses that came looking for her. Eventually they went quiet, leaving her to herself.

She also mostly stopped using her magic, only using it for some minor modification and creation magic, to keep her life comfortable (which in turn allowed her to save a lot of money on things like clothes, so that her remaining funds and later student allowance went a whole lot further). It’s great when you can modify any item of clothes to fit you perfectly, or better than perfect, or modify it from something mundane or average into something that much better. She’d probably visited the thrift stores more than Chris had, though she was a lot less picky in what she picked up, cause it didn’t really matter, as long as the general form was there. Sometimes though she had to buy quality, just to avoid too many questions and keep up appearances. Ditto for her job hunt. While she had actually applied for some positions, it was a half hearted attempt meant as a distraction, and the failure with them was the expected result.

Returning home to find that Millie had gone to study, she did the like, applying and successfully getting into the same university in New Elderpass. She wasn’t sure why Millie had chosen to study there, but she wasn’t complaining, as it was about as far away from her region of responsibility as she could get without having to leave the country. She caught back up with Millie, and their friendship resumed just as they had left it, Millie glad to have her back in her life, and Rachael glad to be back.

That is of course where she met Chris. She got on really well with him the first time she met him at the convention, and regretting not having gotten contact details off him at that point, invited him to join their group when she next ran into him. She knew that they would, her magic manifesting unbidden to confirm as such, that their fates were intertwined. She didn’t really want to know that last part, trying to ignore any magical parts of her life, but it was kind of reassuring, and easier not to worry about as the years passed and the Core left her alone.

As part of her desperation to not be alone again, she started dating other people, mostly boys because that was what was expected of her, and the occasional girl (that she was certain that most people were never aware of, but somehow Chris would always find out, not that he never made any mention of it, or treat her any differently because of it). While she always brought the boys into the group, none of the relationships lasted very long, usually finishing up within a couple of months. She slept with some, and not with others, but her heart really wasn’t in it). She just couldn’t bond with them. Nobody knew the real her, as she would not, could not, reveal it to anyone, and as a result the relationships just failed. You couldn’t build on a foundation of lies. Millie was her respite, always welcoming her affections, though she was very careful about doing so, as she knew Millie wanted more than she was able to give, and again she was always careful to hide any such actions from the others. Millie knew that she was hiding something, but she never asked. Peter was just an excuse to avoid Paul and Damian, and even Peter was aware that there was nothing between them, which he kept to himself for her sake, though she had slept with him a couple of times when she was really feeling it.

She liked Chris. He was nice, he accepted her irrespective of everything, and she saw in him part of what she was looking for. The feeling was compounded when she had started seeing visions of her future self, it resonating with her. The most recent time had been when she had ‘caught’ him cross-dressing in the hallway (was it really cross dressing if that was part of who they really were?), but it hadn’t been the first. It was part of the reason she had dressed the way she had that day – not even Peter had seen her like that. She was pretty sure she had cottoned on to his plan well before he had realised that he was going to himself, as she had seen him browsing the clothes in town on a number of occasions by accident before the pieces fell into place. The gifted ruby necklace was her doing, one that she had created herself out of raw magic, and arranged to be given to him. His stress on the day had meant that he had missed seeing her entirely.

She had thought at times of trying a relationship with him, but she hadn’t wanted to risk ruining their friendship should it not work out, so had never gone there. She realized now that it would have probably worked out, given the events of the last few days, but now it was too late. Chris lay there in her lap, dying, and her healing magic wasn’t enough. She screamed out in anguish again.

Rachael was certain that she had killed the creature when she had confronted it the previous night, though thinking back, it seemed weaker that time. She had sensed it in the neighbourhood, the first time she had sensed one since she had run away from her duties, and concerned for the safety of her flatmates, Chris in particular who was still out, she had sought it out. While she had managed to take it down, she had had to expend more magic than she was comfortable using, and it had managed to land a hit on her arm. She had healed the wound, but spooked (which was unusual for her), and also sensing that something was amiss with her other flatmates (she still wasn’t sure what was up with that yet either, the events with Chris having taken precedence), she had instinctually retreated to Chris’s room, sensing some safety within. Millie hadn’t been an option that day, caught up in her own worries. Locks were never an issue for her. She had however forgotten to deal with the tear in her top, which Chris had spotted.

Perhaps there had been more than one of them. Something was definitely off. This was after all an Anchor Temple that had been pulled back into the world, albeit a decade ago, and even then they should normally be out of reach. That would have been the cause of the quake that created Old Town, the ambient magic of the anchor keeping all normal people away and monsters away afterwards. Not that it mattered right at this point in time.

Tears were rolling down her face. Chris’ life-signs were fading quickly, blood pooling on the ground around them and his body growing cold. Dammit, why wasn’t her magic working.

The destiny was originally just yours, but you have dragged her into it as well. Do you accept the responsibility and the price for having done so child?

“Yes!” she screamed out loud, though she knew the Core would be able to hear her thoughts just fine. “Just save him. Please!”

Even though it had been silent, it had been keeping tabs on her after all. Typical.

You must share your life-force with her. Anchor your souls together, and intertwine your fates.

“That’s fine. Whatever. Just do it before it’s too late.” Rachael could feel the desperation clawing at her. She didn’t want him to die. She would not face that outcome.

As you wish. The price will follow after that.

The ground underneath them lit up in a bright white light, runes, sigils and circles forming in intricate patterns around them, a form of powerful magic that she had never witnessed before, before they were both enveloped in the warm light. It was warm and comforting, but also radiated immense power. Rachael felt a sharp tug on her very soul as she was dragged down on top of Chris, as if a part of her had been taken. Then suddenly she could sense Chris’s life-force, hear his heart beating strongly again, and see his wounds healing. She knew, just knew, within her very being, that he was going to be alright. She also knew that he had been given a portion of the magic that she had been granted by the Core, integrated into his very essence as it was for her. Easily given, easily taken.

It is done. Now, runaway Priestess, you must deal with the consequences, and then settle your debt.

Rachael nodded, before intense fatigue overtook her body and she collapsed to the ground beside Chris, the world fading from view.