RE: Monarch

Chapter 9. Everwood IV

The infernal squirmed out from under me as I released my hands and slowly sat up. She bolted to the furthest end of the room behind Barion, hacking and coughing pathetically. It was only when I saw both of them side by side that I noticed how small she was. The terrifying demon from my dreams looked like nothing more than a child. My hands and arms stung where she scratched me.

Sir Barion removed the point of his rapier from my neck, still holding it at his side, watching me warily.

It wasnt a dream. It was real. I clenched my fists and unclenched them, over and over, nothing to do with my seething hatred. "What in the hells is that thing doing here?"

The infernal glared at me, her breathing normalizing, hand still held to her bruising throat.

"Now now," Sir Barion clucked his tongue. "This is my assistant, Maya."

"Shes a killer." I said immediately.

"Child, I understand there might not be many infernals where you come from, but they are not all monsters. Maya here is one of the good ones." Barion patted her head. The infernal looked away, tight-lipped. "Maya, this is Cairn." He said, trying to introduce us and diffuse the tension.

I couldnt bring myself to be polite. It was her. It was absolutely her. The memory ran on a savage loop through my mind. She might have been smaller and younger, but this was the same person. Even if I wasnt completely sure of the facewhich I wasthe dark hair, spiral horns, and light facial marks were all identical, minus a few scars.

Barions head swiveled between us and he sighed. "Very well. I apologize to the both of you. This was my fault." We broke off the staring match to look at him. "Maya," Barion continued in the voice adults use to distract children, "Cairn is able to summon demon-fire."

"Impossible," Maya croaked. She studied me more carefully. "He doesnt have a drop of infernal blood."Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.𝘤𝑜𝓂 for the best novel reading experience

"Yet you have quite a few drops of mine," I snapped at her, knowing the statement was irrational. What was she supposed to do, let me strangle her?

"My thoughts as well." Barion cut in quickly before Maya could respond. "Still, I saw the fire myself. Purple as an overripe eggplant and hotter than a forge fire. Cairn has understandably been a bit cagey with the details but given the nature of our research I could not resist. I was curious how my new young friend would react to you."

"Not well." Maya said, eyes cast downward.

I was furious. Furious at Barion for screwing with me at the earliest possible opportunity and furious at the girl for looking so damn pathetic. She was monstrous, I tried to remind myself, but Maya looked less and less like a monster the longer I looked. She looked like a child. A terrified child.

"To be fair, had I thought your reaction would be so explosive, I would have warned you yesterday," Barion said, angering me further. He reminded me of my stepmother in that moment, always finding a way to blame her mistakes on me.

"Sir Barion," I said, voice suffused with fury, "with your permission, I would like to begin scouting around your home for the ingredients we need."

So I can get the hells away from here as soon as possible. Barion made a sweeping gesture and stepped aside.

I stormed out, not sparing a glance for the girl who still coughed weakly, despising what I felt.

There was nothing to feel guilty about.

In something of a callback, I ate mushrooms for breakfast. It hadnt occurred to me until after I stormed out of the house that I had not eaten, and by then my pride wouldnt let me return. My shoestring defiance might have been more satisfying if I was not being followed. An hour ago, I would have thought it impossible that someone was clumsier in the wood than me. Yet, Maya managed to step on every twig as if they were drawn to her feet. At first, I was alarmed. Then it became obvious she was somehow more scared of me than I was of her.

I scraped some arrow wart fungus off a slumped willow stump, adding it to my bag. I checked the contents. It was over three-quarters full. At some point Id need to go back to the house and drop it off.

Snap. Another twig.

"What exactly are you doing?" I asked coldly.

"Master Barion asked me to accompany you." Maya said, her accented voice muffled from behind a nearby oak. "I was told to write down everything you said."

"Go jump off a cliff," I snapped out, despite myself. There was a scribbling noise of pencil on paper.

"Really?" I groaned.

More scribbling. Aggressive scribbling.

"Fine! If you must follow, then follow. Stop skulking behind trees." I waited for the scribbling again, my teeth set. It didnt come. Maya stepped out into the open, body language pulled inward, head down. From beneath her jaw, I saw traces of my handprint beginning to purple into a nasty bruise.

No. I would not be taken in by this game, whatever it was, I would not feel guilty for a cold-blooded murderer.

But what if thats not who she is yet?

The unwanted thought plied at me. I hesitated.

"What is it?" Maya asked. The "what" sounded like "vat." Her tail twitched from side to side nervously, low to the ground.

"As long as you dont set me on fire, were good."

A snorting noise. Maya held a hand to her mouth. She was laughing.

"Thats not concerning at all," I said, grumpily.

"I am sorry. It is a misunderstanding, I think."

"Its pretty straightforward, really. Fire bad."

"No. It is your misunderstanding." Maya looked away when I tried to meet her eye. "Though we are known for it, most of my folk cannot use the dantalion flame. We have an affinity towards fire, this much is true. But what you call demon-fire is very rare, even amongst my people. Such blessings were not bestowed upon me."

"I see." If it was true, it made no sense. If Maya was the infernal from my memorieswhich I was certain she was, there was no way Id misremember a face like hersthen I knew for a fact she had the ability.

Perhaps she has yet to awaken.

"If I might ask, what is the purpose of this expedition?" Maya asked.

I gave her a sideways glance. "Sir Barion didnt tell you?"

The infernal shook her head. "No. Only that you will be teaching, and I will be learning."

So, I wasnt the only one he played his little games with. I mentally retraced my steps, making sure to get my story correct. "Im an apothecarys apprentice." I grunted, pulling a plant out by the root. "Sir Barion asked me to instruct him in making medicine as well as to help him stockpile supplies, since shopping in town is difficult."

I happened to look back only to see Maya clutching her papers to her chest, her violet skin pale.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No!" She blurted, shaking her head vehemently. A moment of thought later, she spoke again. "No. How long will it take?"

I considered the question. "It depends on how thorough Sir Barion wants me to be."

"Thorough." Maya said immediately.

"Then one to two weeks, tops."

That was the only conversation we had. My answers seemed to have aggravated Maya, though I had no idea why. Still, she stayed at my heel and was attentive as I started explaining what the various ingredients were and how they functioned. She soaked in information like a sponge. But she was also strangely tense. The infernal had a habit of neurotically tugging at a lock of her hair. Her thin, pointed tail often wandered upward to wrap around her wrist, giving a vague impression of a person holding their own hand.

The next few days went without incident. Without a clear enemy, I relaxed quickly. Outside of our daily foraging and occasional evening alchemy prep, Maya stayed away from me. I lost my fear towards herit was obvious, whoever this person might become in the future, she wasnt a threat now. Barion was appropriately apologetic and continued to make excellent food. For three people living in the same quaint house, we didnt see much of each other. Barion and Maya went into the lab through the night and into the next morning. He would come out sometime around noon and go straight to bed. She would follow sometime after, dark bags under her eyes. The only time I really spent with Barion was after hed woken up from his midday sleep and Id typically returned from foraging.

We were lounging in front of the fireplace on a particularly cold night when Barion finally asked the question Id thought would come much earlier.

"Might I ask a favor, child?" Barion shifted his chair towards me. His manner was almost forcefully relaxed, the way one approaches a skittish animal.

"Of course." I replied.

"May I see it? The demon-fire."

Somewhere deep down, an alarm bell went off. "Well-"

Barion held up a hand. "You need not comply if that is too much. I understand that ones magic is a deeply personal thing. Getting you to the capital is contingent on our original deal, nothing more, nothing less."

I looked for a reason to say no and couldnt find it. The man had done so much for me already, and more than that, I liked him. He was a bit of a snob and could be bossy, but as a person of means who thought me nothing more than a lost commoner child, he treated me incredibly well, early missteps aside.

"I can try. But you may be setting yourself up for disappointment." I said, and leaned forward to look at my hands.

"Just a moment, young sir, just a moment." Barion stood quickly, with barely concealed enthusiasm, and went out the front door in nearly a run. I shifted uncomfortably. Was I even able to do it in a controlled environment like this? Every time I summoned the flame before, my life was in some varying degree of danger. Even though this man was a stranger I feared disappointing him.

The door swung back open and Barion returned, clutching a jade bowl with a piece of wood. He placed it on the table before me. Did he mean for me to light it?

"Im not confident in my ability," I confided nervously, "and it spreads quickly. I had to use twice as much firewood as I would a normal fire. I do not want to burn your home down."

Barion batted his hands, as if to slap my concerns away. "Pish-posh. From everything Ive read, jade contains demon-fire."

That sounded alarmingly untested to me. "Still."

"I can always build another home, young sir. Homes are a sliver a dozen over the course of a lifetime. The chance to study demon-fire up close, though?" Excitement shown through his face. "That is a much rarer opportunity."

Well, he had essentially just assuaged me of any responsibility.

"As you wish."

I fell into myself, looking for the pieces of emotion I would need. It was easier in the forest, under constant threat, because so many elements of it were bubbling under the surface. Fear and desperation were easily in reach, the darker elements beyond all I had to manufacture. Now I needed to construct all of them simultaneously.

A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead. It never took this long before. But Barion was an excellent audience. He did not prod or goad me, simply watched, his light blue eyes detached and analytical.

It took another five minutes before I found it. The claw clutched at my soul once more, threatening to crumple it to dust. I reached out with my hand palm up, fingers aligned in a triangle. The purple spark manifested, immediately radiating warmth.

"Spectacular." Barion breathed in sharply. "Without uttering a single word or incantation. Youve had no instruction, then?" His statement confused me. The only other magic user I had seennever chanted or even spoke when she used her magic. It simply manifested.

"No. It usually doesnt take that long," I mused. Barion started at that, looking away from the violet spark for the first time to stare at me. I explained the difference between casting in the safety of the house and the Everwood. He blinked, then ran somewhere out of view and returned with a notebook that was more of a tome, and set it down with a heavy thump. He wrote furiously into it for a few moments. "I knew it. Those bastards laughed at me. I knew there had to be an emotional component. Whos wasting their time now? Bastards," He muttered to himself.

"I take it your research is related to magic."

"And the manifestation of it, yes," he said, his attention still entirely on his notes.

I noticed, idly, that I still easily held the purple spark. This was by far the longest I had maintained it. The spark was steady, floating between my fingers, not seeming to flicker or dim or brighten. A thought occurred.

"Why dont I get tired? I met a spell caster beforemy father did some work for a traveling elementalist," I interjected the lie quickly, naming the garden variety line of magicians that even a supposed commoner like me might have met before he could ask where Id met someone so rare, "And she ordered a pharmacy worth of potions to help with endurance."

"It depends-" Barion finished jotting a sentence and placed a period with a self-satisfied flourish before setting the pen down, "-on the magic in question. Amongst the many varieties of magicians, a traveling elementalist is a bad example, essentially the ugly plough horse of the lot." His lip curled, letting me know exactly how well he thought of them. "It takes a particularly talented person to make magic seem boring. Their magic is strictly related to earth or water elements with no crossover between. Building levees and purifying water sources involve low sophistication magic in massive quantities, so the mana involved is actually very low. The physical stamina required, however, is probably massive. Just throwing a number out, perhaps ten percent of what it would take to physically do the work. Theyre simply inefficient."

"I take it you dont like them much.

"I dont dislike them, rather, I simply prefer not to entertain the idea of their existence. You though, child," He indicated the spark in my hand, "Have been holding a catalyst in your hands with massive destructive potential, capable of burning this cottage and half the forest down. What does that tell you?" Barion asked, in the sort of tone my tutors often used.

"Its efficient?" I guessed lamely, then put more thought into it. "Or theres some differentiator between initial power and potential power." In other words, the demon fire was powerful because its form was powerful, not because I was particularly talented.

"Correct." Barion sounded pleased. "You do not have to pay for what the spell could be, only what it is."

"I see." With some trepidation, I reached forward and placed my spark against the wood in the bowl. There was a shimmering reflectiveness to the wood, as if it was soaked in something. It caught fire, raising the immediate temperature in the room by a few degrees, but was not consumed in seconds as Id expected.

"Beautiful." Barion gazed into the flame.

Since we were sharing, I figured it couldnt hurt to ask. "Are you a practitioner yourself, Sir Barion?"

Barion shook his head. "Despite my many, many attempts to rectify that particular shortcoming, my expertise is purely academic. I have no talent for it myself. Though its my field of study, youre actually only the second person with some ability that Ive met."

"Who is the first?" I asked, thinking I might know the answer already.

"Maya," Barion said. My hands clenched into fists. Of course.

He continued. "She has some talent for healing magic, but like your talent, it is limited and untrained."

Strange. So, she hadnt lied to me. Or was just keeping her cards extremely close to the chest.

"How did you slow the burn?" I asked.

"Oh." Barion raised a playful eyebrow, "Do I have the rare opportunity to teach the master alchemist something he does not know?"

"Apothecary," I grumbled. My knowledge extended to healing and curatives for ailments. Alchemists knew everything about everything. And they were smug about it too. "Apprentice, for that matter."

"Dont sulk." Barion held his hand above the flame for a moment only to yank it back, wringing it painfully. "Its not dissimilar to rosewater, but with oil as the base. Rosewater itself being the one thing that could put out demon flame, other than simply starving it of oxygen and praying you kill it before it kills you. When you use oil, it allows the fire to still burn due to the oxidization"

The rest of his words faded away into a dull murmur. I stared into the fire, my mind fixated on the earlier statement. Rosewater extinguishes demon-flame. If only I had known back then. But even if I had, would it have made a difference? It wasnt exactly something we kept around the castle. What was I supposed to do? Carry around a jug, like the one I brought in from the river and could barely lift, filled with rosewater instead? How could I possibly prepare for every possibility when a monster from the pit of the deepest hell could show up at any time and start slaughtering people I care about. I stared at the flame. I hated it. Hated everything about it. I wanted it gone.

The flame disappeared. It didnt die out, didnt fade away. It disappeared.

What?

There was a shuffling as Barion stood to his feet and hurried over to the jade cup, studying it in confusion. Slowly, his head turned to me. Out of my peripheral vision I saw someone looking through the window. Maya. A range of emotions warred across her face. Most prominent, though, was anger. Then she disappeared.

"How?" He asked. There was a forced neutrality to his voice I wasnt sure I liked.

I said the only thing I could think of. The truth.

"I dont know."