Cecelia
Bandit. He was gone. We couldn’t just leave him! Every part of me screamed to run out of the back of the building and follow the tracks until I found him. But Phern and Sebil kept telling me that we needed to address the present before we looked to the future.
The present did not look good.
“YOU LED THAT BEAST INTO MY TOWN?!” The sheriff had been yelling this sort of sentiment for the past minute.
“As we just told you, that ‘beast’ is the only reason that you didn’t kill your own son!” I was too exhausted to yell at the volume that he had been talking at, but it certainly didn’t mean I was calm.
“Dad, please! H-He saved me!”
“THAT IS A MONSTER!”
It seemed that even Danil was struggling to get through to him. We didn’t have time to deal with this. The Marked woman was most likely incapacitated, if what Lucas told us was correct, but we couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Especially when our Deathless was on the run.
“Look, I don’t give a shit about your complaints. I just need you to know that the person who did this to you is a Marked sanctioned by the Empire.”
The sheriff looked furious, something which I was certain he would have to process on his own time, where I didn’t have to listen to his questions.
Our group moved towards the back entrance to leave, half to pursue the tracks that were left, and the other half to avoid the chaos that was taking place near the front of the stable where mass confusion roared. I let everyone else leave before me, making sure that Lucas was close to Sebil to prevent him running. Before I could leave through the ruined wall, I felt a hand wrap around my arm.
It was Danil.
“You’ll find him, right? The beas- the adventurer? Tell him thank you.” The kid had tears carving wet paths down his cheeks in a wavy rhythm.
“Yeah, we’ll find him. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”
I turned to leave, trying my best not to turn to face the kid. Of course we weren’t going to meet again. But it didn’t hurt to give the boy the hope that he might run into us again at a later time. I could only hope this occasion would inspire him to keep his heart of gold instead of turning sour like his father seemed to.
No one in our group spoke up for the first 10 minutes of our walk. Eventually, I decided I had enough of the silence, it only served to set me more on edge.
“You could have at least tried to appeal to them, no?” I looked to cornrows, asking the question that I’m sure all of us had chewed in our minds.
“To say what? If I told them I’m a Marked after everything that just happened there I would be torn apart.”
True. If I were standing in that crowd, the last thing I would want to be is a Marked.
“Guess that means you're still coming with us. What was that about us dying before the sun rises?”
“The sun has yet to fall, let alone rise once more in the morning. There is plenty of time for you all to die and for me to escape.” Lucas spoke like it was the most sensible observation someone could make in the moment.
“It’s about time we had an optimist around here.”
“What about me? I’m as optimistic as a felding spald!” Phern grinned at me, and I responded with a kind smile. I had grown used to just rolling with her strange references. Nobody ever seemed to understand what she was talking about when she threw out odd names, but it only made things more complicated to ask her to explain.
“That you are, love” Sebil laughed.
“What I would give for the lot of you to run into a skullthreader tonight.” Lucas sighed.
Meat. Meat! I could smell a fierce animal in the distance. It reeked of danger, the thrill of the hunt, and the satisfaction of a full meal. It would be mine.
I stalked through the thin forest that I had recently entered, prowling across the earth like I was one with it. My form slithered along the darkness that wreathed the forest ever since the sun went down. Anywhere that darkness lived was MY territory. This animal made a mistake by being in my home.
I tracked the scent until I could see the beast with my haunting red eyes. A skullthreader. Delicious. It was a brown, lanky, and muscly animal that blended into the leaves of the forest. But for me, I could see it’s heart beating clear as day, the entrancing pulsing of a meal yet to be had.
I could hardly contain my hunger and my excitement, racing towards the beast with a drawn out growl. The skullthreader twisted and hissed at me as I approached, but it wouldn’t get the chance to do too much more than warn me. I slashed my claws along its face, causing the animal to screech out in fear. A beast such as this was used to being the predator, and not the prey. I relished in its surprise. It didn’t last much longer, however, as my teeth latched around its neck before it even began to run.
I enjoyed my meal in the silence of the forest, gorging myself on the meal and feeling the rush of a full stomach. Once I had my fill, I curled up next to the body of the skullthreader, leeching the remaining warmth in its veins. No one would dare steal food from a predator such as me.
I stirred awake to the stench of decay.
‘You’re awake, little morsel.’
I pushed myself away from the body of a skullthreader that rested next to me, feeling an intense dread about the fact that I had no recollection of getting here. The last thing I remember was protecting Danil in the stable. Where was I?
‘Can you hear me now, darling?’
Oh. Yes, Lilith.
‘You went feral, my little morsel.’
Feral?
‘You starved yourself for so long that you were consumed by hunger.’
But you weren’t? How does that work if we control the same body.
‘When you went feral, you had a vice grip on our body. I couldn’t have traded with you even if I wanted to. You’re lucky that your friends are capable enough to handle you.’
Handle me? Did I?
My heart sunk in my chest. I told Cecelia that she needed to stop me! But if I had left Thrum, then she clearly hadn’t been able to contain me.
Please don’t tell me I hurt them.
‘No, not especially. But you certainly tried, darling. Might I remind you of what I said in the stable?’
I felt a wave of embarrassment flush my face.
‘Operate under the assumption that Lilith is always right, morsel. You were lucky this time, this skullthreader was a lucky break between you and killing someone.’
I wouldn’t give Lilith the satisfaction of telling her she was right. However, she had warned me about the possibility of being unable to control my hunger. I would need to keep better track of food sources and the ability to eat regularly.
‘I know you’re thinking I’m right, darling.’
Ugh, right. I rolled my eyes, thinking about how strange it must feel to be watching me roll my eyes from the back of my mind.
Lilith, where is everyone else?
‘Excellent question, fledgling. You ran from Thrum the moment the barrier dropped. Which means we wait for them to find us, or we try to find them.’
I was certain that running from the scene in my shadow form did not look good, but hopefully if I never went back to Thrum I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences. I was confident in the group's ability to track me through the forest, so the smartest choice would be to backtrack my own path to meet them along the way. That is, if they were even trying to find me in the first place.
If I had just attacked them I wouldn’t blame them if they decided to cut their losses and return to whatever their normal day to day activities were. Which begged the question, what was normal for those people? I suppose Sebil would continue to invent, but Phern and Cecelia were only known for being Life Hunters, something which it seemed like was behind them. Did they have anything else to return to after all of this? Maybe they were just as lost as I was.
‘Fuck me, fledgling, do you ever stop stressing? It feels like my thoughts are in a blender with yours when you start panicking like that.’
Oh, sorry. I just, I guess it’s natural for me is all. If we’re thinking about futures though-
‘You were thinking about futures-’
Sure, fine. Regardless, I realized I’ve never even asked you. Why were you at the academy in the first place? You speak of it like its your own personal hell, yet you were there slaughtering professors in a weird secret basement.
‘It is my personal hell. Everyone in that academy has had their minds addled and rotten away by hatred and prejudice.’
That feels a lot like you have your own prejudice towards them. I know not everyone was like that.
‘Don’t try to lecture me, morsel. I’ve glimpsed your memories enough to know the people there are a vile sort.’
Not all of them. The memories of Vyra weighed upon my heart like I was carrying the weight of another through the woods.
‘Ah, of course. The girl that I see fragments of when your mind rests.’
You see my memories when I sleep?
‘Only pieces, like I’m watching and listening behind a door. Though the more time that passes the clearer the image. Perhaps soon I will have front row seats into your heart.’
Ew. You never answered my question earlier though. Why were you there?
‘...I don’t see why I should tell you.’
That hesitation had a tone of uncertainty to it that was very unlike Lilith. It spelled out a rare doubt that flavored her pause.
‘I can hear you trying to dissect me, morsel. It is not polite to speculate on someone where they can hear.’
It's not polite to listen to someone’s thoughts either, but here we are. Do you not remember?
‘Of course I remember, fledgling.’
Oh my Gods, you don’t remember why you were at the academy? Lilith, why didn’t you tell me? How much did you forget?
‘Do not speak to me like we are friends! I do not have to tell you how many of my memories I have retained.’
I opted not to push any further. Perhaps it was because I was currently retracing my steps of a night I could not remember, but I had a great deal of sympathy for her at this moment. To not remember what you did, or why you did it was frightening, especially if the result was your death, and subsequent stay inside of some random person’s head.
“...Bandit?”
The nickname barely reached my ears as I pushed branches out of my face to pass the thick foliage that blocked my path. At first, I thought I had simply imagined the sound, but when it repeated a second time soon after I realized it was real. That, or I was frightfully delusional.
I moved towards the noise, shuffling through the incline of the hill that I descended. I wanted to curse myself for climbing up a steep hill the previous night. Next time find some food on lower elevation, yeah bandit?
‘Are you calling yourself bandit now? What, are you ashamed of your name or something?’
Lilith laughed at her own joke, but I could almost feel her readjust her thoughts when I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to possibly explain to her my feelings surrounding my name. Was it a shame I felt? It was hard to place, but I knew that bandit offered me a way to address myself without needing to use my own name.
It didn’t take long for me to find my group, all four of them. A part of me was sad to see that the Marked was just as injured as I had last seen him. We can’t always get what we want, huh?
“There’s your beast.” Lucas seemed to know I was there before anyone else despite not turning to face me.
“Teeth!” Phern had lept towards me with a bright smile, wrapping her arms around me so forcefully I nearly lost my footing and tumbled to the ground. I wasn’t sure exactly how to respond to such a display, so I simply patted her back with one of my hands. I suddenly felt very foolish for considering that these people would have left me in the woods.
“Oh-! Uh, thanks Phern. I-Is everyone okay? I don’t remember what happened at the end. I was worried I might have hurt some of you.”
Cecelia and Sebil slightly cocked their heads to the side as they looked at me. Was something wrong? I suppose when I thought about it my voice did sound a little higher than it had yesterday. Was that what they were confused about?
“I-Is everything okay?”
“You look a little… different, that’s all.”
That was wonderfully vague. I shrugged off their comments in order to ask my previous question once more. I was far more concerned with the prospect of having hurt them last night.
“...you didn’t get hurt, did you?” I asked.
Cecelia and Sebil looked uncomfortable for a moment. I could almost see the two of them communicating nonverbally, like they had prepared for what to say in advance.
“We’re all fine, love. You gave us a bit of a scare, but we managed to, uh, ‘handle’ you, for lack of a better term.” Sebil shot me a half-smile.
“So I didn’t hurt anyone? Thank the Gods.”
“Well… you didn’t hurt us. You took a pretty good chunk out of the sheriff’s arm back there. He wasn’t too pleased about that.” Cecelia gave a soft laugh as she reminisced about the man’s complaints. “He’ll live.”
I felt a pang of guilt gouge into my heart. I set Phern back down on the ground once she had gotten her fill of hugging me. I could see Lucas standing towards the back of the group, looking grim as ever. He still had the magical restraints on his wrists, but notably lacked the magical disguise that I had conjured.
“No more bandit disguise for cornrows?” I asked, adopting the nickname Cecelia had started in hopes that it annoyed the man.
“It wore off in the middle of the night. But you try it again on me and we’ll find out how many ways I can kill someone with these cuffs.”
I rolled my eyes, choosing to ignore his verbal jabs. Something told me he had an endless repository of hate to fuel insults all day long. We might have to return to the rope gag if he kept it up.
“We can catch up while we walk, but we really should make as much distance between us and that Marked. I know a place near here that we can stay for a while. It’s out of the way of any main roads, so we should be safe from her.” Cecelia was quick to set the next goal for us. She was always planning our next move, something she must have gotten used to during her days as a Life Hunter. Sometimes it scared me how ‘on’ she was all the time. When did she take a break?
“Laia.”
“Did you just call me a liar? The place is hidden, it’ll take plenty of time for her to find us.”
“No. Laia is her name. The other Marked.”
“Well she seems like a real femme fatale. Congrats on bagging yourself a razor blade wearing a human’s skin, cornrows.” Cecelia scoffed.
“She’s my sister.”
Cecelia choked on her words for a moment, before regaining her composure.
“Right. Scratch what I just said then. Doesn’t change the fact that your sister is batshit insane, and we need a safe place to hide from her while we pick your brain.”
To my surprise, Lucas didn’t seem incredibly eager to defend his own sister when Cecelia talked about her. Then again, it was always difficult to read his face in the first place. For all I knew he could be imagining all of our painful deaths.
“If you’ve got a place that’s safe, love, we should try to make it there before she begins tracking us.”
Cecelia gave us a weak smile, an air of hesitation floating around her before she turned and started to walk. “We won’t be able to make it there today, but if we move fast enough, we’ll make it there by tomorrow night.”
“Ugh, two days of walking?!” Phern whined as she followed behind Cecelia.
“I can carry you for some of our walk if you need, love.” Sebil gave a heartfelt smile to the half-elf. How come Phern gets that offer? I’d sure like to get a break from walking for two days straight.
“We’ll see about that, sparkplug. I might just take you up on it.”
‘Seems the name sparkplug follows him even now.’
We began our long winded journey through the woods. Our walk was made significantly more uncomfortable by the fact that we seemed to constantly walk up and down small hills that began to shift into full on mountain. Eventually, I decided to speak up to voice my complaints about our course setting.
“Is there a reason we haven’t gone down the mountain towards the main road? Walking up and down all of this elevation is exhausting.”
“Do you always complain so much?” Lucas snarked.
“If you’re tired of hearing it, I can peel your ears off for a nutritional snack.” I hissed back. I had been keeping a much closer eye on my hunger today. I knew that once the sun started to set in the sky I would need to take a break somewhere to hunt. It shouldn’t be hard considering the amount of animal scents that threatened to pull me off the trail during our walk. My sense of smell seemed to be evolving into a much more subconscious trait. Where I used to have to focus, was now a meandering and lingering sixth sense. Or… still five senses I suppose, but an enhanced one nonetheless.
“Our destination is in the mountains. It wouldn’t make any sense to go back down only to walk back up later.” Cecelia responded shortly.
“Our destination is in the mountains? Where the fuck are you taking us? I’ve read enough maps of the Empire to know there are no settlements within this mountain range.”
“It isn’t a settlement.”
I waited for her to continue, before realizing with mild frustration that she wasn’t planning on following up with any kind of answer. I suppose we would find out sooner or later.
The path we followed was one we carved anew through the inclined woods. It didn’t seem like many people had been out this way. It meant that we were only accompanied by the sounds of the surrounding wildlife on our uneventful walk up the mountains. I spent some of the journey occupying myself by keeping a conversation going with Lilith. She had been indignant about the suggestion that we trade places so that she could do some of the walking herself.
‘Darling, if you give me control of the body I will go straight for Sebil’s throat and nothing else. You will not be utilizing me to take a break.’
Oh please, you just don’t want to have to do this walk.
‘That is a substantial part of the equation, sure.’
Is there a reason you haven’t been trying to rip control from me forcefully? Don’t get me wrong, I prefer not to have to fight for my own body, but it strikes me as odd.
‘If I took control while you were near your friends, I would most likely be discovered in a matter of a single conversation. I doubt I could accurately play the part of a pathetic anxiety riddled bag of meat such as yourself. They would most likely feel my superiority radiating off of me and know something is wrong with you.’
Well aren’t you just the humblest demon there is. Why are you so concerned with staying hidden?
‘You are already a liability, fledgling. If they knew a demon lived in your head on top of everything else, they would certainly leave us alone with no assistance on our journey.’
Fine. I’ve no reason to out you to all of them, so you can stay hidden.
‘Do not pretend to be gracious. I would not allow you to reveal me.’
Lilith loved to make threats. The more I heard them the more I began to consider just how many of them were empty threats to force people into doing what she wanted. It was like blunt manipulation was the very air she breathed.
“Okay, let’s call it here for today.” Cecelia stopped our group around an hour after the sun had fully set. We traveled by the light of Phern’s glowing blob of goo that she had stuck to the tip of Cecelia's baton.
Phern quickly began to set up her tent with the help of Sebil. I was stopped when I moved towards the two of them to offer my help. “Ah ah. You’re getting yourself some food. I’m not risking something like that happening again. Go find yourself some dinner and meet us back here. Everything’ll be ready by the time you get back.”
I expected Cecelia to say as much once we stopped for the night. I had been expecting to be dismissed to find dinner for the past thirty minutes in fact. I had the lingering scent of a caritune stewing in my senses for the past few minutes. Once I had been told to hunt, I wasted no time moving towards where I felt the pull.
It was becoming more natural to me to have shadows slither themselves across my body when it was time to hunt. I couldn’t tell if it was because my instincts as a Deathless were getting stronger, or if it was because I had been utilizing my form more and more. Regardless, it was becoming comfortable to run on all fours with the bristling wind rustling the strange shadow pseudo-fur that covered my body.
‘You’re growing at an impressive rate, fledgling. Soon it might not make much sense to call you fledgling anymore.’
I had noticed that she dropped calling me ‘human’ already. It seemed like fledgling might be the next to go if I kept growing at this rate. I felt a wave of pride rush through me at the idea that I was learning quickly. Was that normal? I idly wondered if Xavier just a week ago would be okay with the idea that I was happy to adjust to this new nature.
‘Soon enough I might start to teach you my own techniques.’
Which was?
‘Blood magic.’
The thought was simultaneously concerning and exciting. Blood magic had always been referred to as some of the darkest magic to ever exist in Kistram. Everything I attempted to learn while in the academy was redacted and restricted so heavily that only passages detailing how horrible it was were left behind. But if I wanted to survive, it might not be the worst idea to learn from Lilith.
When I had returned to our camp after hunting, I noticed a particularly stern face posted outside. Lucas.
“Enjoy your hunt, animal?”
I sighed. “What do you want to hear, Marked? That I enjoy it? Yeah, not starving is pretty nice. Eating food has got to be in the top 3 of bodily functions just below breathing and sleeping.”
The blind man paused, before walking towards and away from the tent to whisper. “I know what you are, Baehevar. What I don’t know is why you’re keeping up this act.”
“I’m not Baehevar, but if you’re paying for autographs maybe I’ll change my mind. I don’t know what act you think I’m keeping up.”
“This whole thing.” Lucas gestured clumsily with his hands stuck together. “You act like you care for these people. You feigned concern for the boy in the stable. You might have fooled the others, but it will not change my opinion of you. I know the evil that you are.”
I watched his scowl grow, an unbridled fury held just behind his lips. I remained calm as I responded. “I don’t care what you think, Lucas. I can tell you who I am, just a sheltered student of Varenthell academy that messed around where he didn’t belong. But I don’t think you will ever believe me.”
“I won’t believe the sob stories that you spin in your sinister web.”
“Fine, then don’t believe me.” I began to walk past him towards the tent before he pressed the restraints into my chest to stop me.
“Is there someone else in there?”
“What?” Had he seen some indication of Lilith? I felt my chest tighten in fear.
“Is there an innocent student in there hiding under the vicious hands of Baehevar? If you can hear me in there, know that I can help you if you resist his influence. I watched you save that boy in the stable. That was a selflessness that an animal could never display. If you let me help you-”
“That’s what you think? I saved Danil because I couldn’t live with another innocent life being taken that day! A life put at risk because of your own fucking sister! I think you need to do some serious re-evaluation of who the real monsters are, Lucas.” I pushed past him with more force than I probably should have used. I stormed back into the tent with shaking hands. I couldn't believe he was so absorbed in the lies of the Empire. He was so convinced I was a monster incapable of caring for others that he thinks there’s a helpless student trapped inside me instead of acknowledging I saved the boy willingly.
“Cornrows is sulking outside, one of you should grab him.” I didn’t make eye contact with any of those in the tent, walking straight into my own private room to lay on my bedroll. Lucas viewed things in a nauseatingly simple black and white. It was hard to believe that not so long ago I might have had the same views as him.
I suppose I really was growing into my new nature.