(Starla)
(Two years later)
"Starla! Starla!" My younger sister’s frantic voice had me dropping my violin and rushing outside. Doodles followed me with a mewl.
She came running, pale as a sheet and wide-eyed as if she had seen a ghost.
"What’s wrong?" I asked, gathering her in my arms and rubbing her back.
"...The system matched me with them. They are coming..." she hysterically cried, clinging to me and thrusting the paper into my hand.
I knew her Guide compatibility results were due today. She had turned 18.
With dread, I read.
| Compatibility Report for Guide Sirela Argastine |
•Calming Energy: 81.4 %
•Matching Affinity: 88 %
•Neural Match: 85 %
•Type: Tether (Rare)
•Rank: S
|Potential Suitor|
|•Rank: SSS-Ranked Dragon Beastmen
•Type: Mythical
•Potential Matched Partners: Aksel Wilder and Azkan Wilder |
Wilder, that name rang like a doomsday bell in my mind. I have heard of beastmen, the horror stories from beyond the wall. No one going beyond the wall survived. The Beastmen hated us.
The wall between the Beastworld and the human world was constructed five hundred years ago. The reasons being.
Human kingdoms had discovered that Beastman blood, scales, and organs held immense power. Consuming them could extend human lifespans, cure diseases, and even grant temporary abilities.
This led to a systematic slaughter of Beastmen for their body parts. Thousands were killed. Entire clans were wiped out. Beast children were stolen from their homes and sold.
Human magic and the growing industry had begun to poison the natural world. Rivers were polluted. Forests withered and cut down.
The Beastmen, deeply connected to nature, felt this corruption like a physical wound. Their connection to the earth, the source of much of their power, had begun to weaken.
The Wall wasn’t just a physical barrier. It was a magical one, designed to stop the spread of human corruption into the Beastworld and separating the two species entirely. But recently something had changed, and Beastmen had begun to take guides from the human world.
This was bad; no, this was catastrophic.
"Save me, please. I don’t want to go with them. Please, Starla." My sister hysterically cried.
Elder sister instincts kicked in, and I made a spontaneous decision.
"I am not going to let you. No one is going to lay a hand on you."
We had to speak to our father first.
"Come with me." I took her hand, and we rushed towards my father in his home office.
We burst inside with me in the lead and Sirela behind me.
In confusion, he looked up from the paperwork he was buried in. Our brother stood beside him.
"You can’t send her. She can’t be their guide."
My father placed the pen down. "She matched them, and this month it’s our Clan’s turn to provide a guide. They are coming tomorrow to claim her."
Sirela trembled in my arms; her cries intensified.
"She is only 18. You can’t hand her over to Beastmen. Have you forgotten they hate us?" I countered, trying to keep the anger from my voice.
Worries clouded my father’s face.
"Then what do you suggest we do? Face their wrath? Do you even know who they are? They are the Wardens of the Damn Wall, Starla," my brother angrily interjected.
"They will lay dust to our lands. The attacks in the past years have only stopped because we started to offer Guides," my father tried to calmly answer, but I could sense the shake in his voice.
Then and there I made up my mind. I knew what I needed to do. I was already dying; this was the last act of kindness I could do for my sister.
My free hand fisted by my side and I dragged in a breath before answering. "I will take her place."
My father silently sighed, but my brother burst out laughing as if I had cracked a joke.
"An E-ranked healer with less than 10 per cent healer energy. You’ve got to be joking. They will know in an instant and will burn you alive. Not even your fiancé wanted you."
I knew what I was. The lowest-ranked in my whole clan. Even my fiancé rejected me after learning about my results. The betrayal still stung after two years, while he was happily married.
"They won’t know. We will swap the test results. Just put my name instead of Sirela."
"Wow! What a brilliant plan. How do you plan on healing them, tethering them, calming them when needed?" My brother questioned.
"He is right, Starla. They will know."
"They won’t. Beastmen have their own system to check compatibility. My results will be different there," I countered.
My father and brother exchanged glances.
"Please, she deserves better. She won’t survive with them."
"You can’t do that, Starla. They will hurt you," Sirela sniffled in my arms.
"They won’t. I know how to take care of myself."
"Whatever, I guess we can always send Sirela later and say the results got mixed up." Samian shrugged his shoulders.
My father took a minute to think this through. He had to put the lives of both his daughters on the line.
"Change the names on the reports. You will take Sirela’s place. They have only been informed that a match is found. They don’t know which of my daughters it is. We will do it quietly. Get your things in order," he finally spoke. But I could detect the guilt in his voice.
Thankfully, I nodded and took Sirela back to my room. Doodles anxiously mewed the whole time I packed a small bag. What to even put inside? Except my violin and what to leave?
Sirela hysterically cried, blaming herself. I was numb. I had known I was dying for two years, and nothing really affected me, except the grief of my sister and leaving her behind with my brother. And yet, an unknown fear was crawling into my heart. My nightmares had worsened. Those dragons wouldn’t leave me alone, and now there was even a faceless man I kept seeing.
I held her face. "Sirela, promise me that you will take care of yourself and not share your test results with anyone. You will live your life fully." I wiped away her tears.
"Promise me."
"I promise," she hiccuped, hugging me.
My father entered the room, looking older than his usual self.
He came to hold both of us. "Don’t think, I don’t know the sacrifices you have made, Starla. And what you are doing for your sister and the clan."
I closed my eyes; a few tears spilt out. "I love you, my child. Forgive me, for I am bound to do this to keep our people safe."
"I understand." After a long, long time, I cried again in my father’s embrace. These were my last moments with my family. I was never going to see them again, because I would be dead in a year and they didn’t know it.