Elena flinched.
Work for the next three days: search Thornwood’s perimeter, efficiently and stealthily.
Each morning, warm, fresh bread lightly dusted with cryptic etchings from a fingertip with a genetic predisposition towards pattern identification, so it seemed, to the point where it was engrained into her very nature.
Jumps—the sound of a toppling body signified a dropping past loose tiling into the kitchens below.
Sylas could run around practicing his sword strikes till the final resonance dissipated, and Lyra had vanished without a trace.
She had, for the third time since her introduction to the residence of Thornwood, discovered Kael in such a compromising condition that it, combined with an utter display of disbelief and self-contempt, only revealed why a subconsciously restrained terror she craved to understand was rooted in this very locale.
“Where…” The single, solitary remaining syllable choked within Elena’s throat as her eyes fixed upon the comely adolescent, his perfectly controlled head tilted, then an untouched hand pointing towards an unseemly, grimy corner of the kitchen where Lyra was meticulously scrubbing still-unused plates, her tiny hands covered with faint symbols, her body still as stone-hard yet perfectly smooth.
However, Elena refused to wallow in self-pity and, as if magically, every new day brought fresh, warm bread and the young girl, still hidden and unknown to the household.
Lyra repaid her hosts for their apparent charity with a benevolent invisibility, as Elena’s days were spent touring Thornwood’s lands and checking its borders.
This morning, though, was different.
Down on the floor, up to her knees as she scraped with her hands at the dark, damp soil in the garden, her lips twitched in a noiseless prayer as delicate concentric circles and radiating lines expanded like an insect’s web.
As other tiny, new symbols were burgeoning around her amongst a forest of weeds, the serpentine growth of the flora slithered around her and twined about her voiceless incantations.
“You are talking to them,” Elena accused.
Lyra shrieked and quickly brought her tiny hands together, palms pressed firm against her mouth, preventing an incrimination for her insolent indiscretions, just in time for Elena to immediately clamp her small, white hand around her slender wrist and whisper against her softly quivering lips, “It is alright.” Her hand slid from her grasp, and the guest’s tiny hand closed gently around Elena’s as she spoke, “Come with me.
I have something to show you.” She guided Lyra through the house and out into the courtyard, where discarded training targets of various forms lay strewn about.
Sylas sat in the center of the chaos, the tip of his arm in a bandage.
Lucien lunged gracefully and kick-boxed across the open space.
Kael perched lazily upon the battlements.
“Watch me,” commanded Elena.
The girl turned, and as her shaking stopped, Elena lowered her voice, addressing a completely unnerved Lyra, whose small frame trembled uncontrollably.
“Have I not laid my hands on you before?” Elena asked, her voice now at an even more intimidating level.
“It will be a bit…
odd.
“Heat may come from places you have not yet discovered that are supposed to remain entirely inert, but I promise you, I swear I will never hurt you.
“Please, you must trust me, Lyra.” She firmly rested her hands on each of Lyra’s shoulder blades, and the power of the Golden Touch was driven deeper into the girl’s body than it had ever traveled before.
[ASSET DETECTED] [NAME: LYRA] [STATUS: KITCHEN SERVANT/SQUATTER] [CONDITION: MALNOURISHED, TRAUMA-INDUCED MUTISM, DRAGONBLOODLINE 0.01% ACTIVE] [HIDDEN POTENTIAL: ARCHMAGE ANCIENT DRAGONBLOODLINE] [POTENTIAL RATING: UNKNOWN SSS CEILING] [ESTIMATED RETURN: INCALCULABLE] The power did not flow from Elena’s hands into Lyra, but seemed to burst outwards like a silent wave of energy from the central nexus of the courtyard.
A piercing shriek echoed upwards, and Elena herself arched backward, her spine straining until the skin on her back stretched tight, revealing alien patterns written across the surface of her body, while her mouth snapped open in a soundless yelp as a flood of scintillatingly bright frost surged outwards from Lyra’s feet to form fractured plains of ice across the ground, which rapidly rose to form exquisite, glittering fractals all around the edges of the girl’s slender calves.
Her stride faltered and stopped just one foot shy of Elena, sending a spray of minuscule ice crystals swirling like snow in the air.
“Lyra!” Elena croaked, her voice thick with a sudden spike of excitement.
“Control yourself!” At Elena’s words, Lyra’s pale, silver-brown eyes seemed to flash with an immediate glint as she focused on Elena’s silver training boots, as if they peered back with a deadly stare, a stark silver matching the startling silver of her gaze, her once normal, mundane brown eye color a thing of the past.
“Did…
Did I perform well enough, miss?” Elena felt an involuntary shiver pass from the tip of her toes up to the top of her head.
“Good ROI,” she smirked back at Lyra as the frost underfoot began to melt and warm.
“We will practice aiming at some point later on.” The exhausted child leaned weakly against Elena, and after a brief and intense moment of her gaze settling once again on the toes of her trainer’s boots, followed by another slight narrowing of her vision, her eyes slowly resumed their normal color.
A faint hint of a smile creased her lips.
Elena swooped down and gently laid her in the small, plain bed that sat in the room adjoining her own bedroom.
The explanations, and probably a variety of questions, would inevitably come when the child awakened—questions no doubt tainted with an accusatory undercurrent, a question of basic survival.
But until then, Elena merely watched her sleep.
“Asset #4 acquired,” she whispered, touching the smooth, glowing surface of the wrist-mounted monitor.
[DRAGONBLOODLINE: 0.01% -> 0.05%] [FIRST SPELL: FROST DOMAIN (UNCONTROLLED)] [LOYALTY: 5/100] [NEW FACTION BONUS: ELEMENTAL SYNERGY DETECTED] Four assets.
Four lives snatched from The End’s insatiable greed.
A small, self-amused smile touched Elena’s lips.
“Compound interest.” [TICK: Asset #4 invested.
Dragon bloodline activated.
First words spoken.
Faction synergy emergent.]