KYMALIN IARO cannot give up. With her brother running out of time and their mother powerless, Kymalin embarks on a journey to find a cure. So when a powerful organization becomes her only hope, she has to prove she belongs to it, even if it means ge...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
2406 Rab 19, Reshpe
Kymalin wanted to knock her forehead against a wall. Or a desk. Something. Somewhere. Each and every spirit she summoned and asked about the rare diseases all pointed towards the same thing. It had been more than three weeks and she still hasn't gotten any closer to anything she was looking for. Well, at least she was getting the hang of this summoning thing. She no longer needed the tome to guide her through the incantation. She rarely got the projection of images part wrong. The spirits who came through the gate were the perfect descriptions of the ones she was looking for.
That didn't mean they gave the perfect information she wanted out of them.
Almost half of them were from after the Human-Fairy War and they all referenced the organizations called Cardovia and Synketros. To Kymalin, those were just a bunch of jumbled words. Might as well be made up and passed around.
Still, she couldn't ignore the fact that these people didn't know each other when they were alive. They didn't know each other existed in their lifetime or even beyond or before. Yet, they all said the same thing, pointed to the same set of people. That was the weirdest of all.
Perhaps, these organizations were the real deal. That's why Kymalin had to see for herself.
That's also how she ended up stalking the rest of the Third of the Upper, looking for what the Serzhakis called priestal artifacts. When she asked around about the summoning art, she had encountered a lot of apprehensive stares seeing as she was still quite a child in their eyes. Well, they didn't have brothers they have to find a cure for. They wouldn't understand.
Over the weeks, she had learned that priestal artifacts existed to make banshee lives easier when it comes to summoning. They wouldn't have to recite the spell at all since the artifact takes care of that and, what's more, they could summon more than one spirit at an instance. How cool was that?
Kymalin has to get one if she was to survive in the world outside the Temple. She stopped in her tracks. The library's floor squeaked underneath her soles. The thought of leaving home to venture into the great unknown hasn't fully sank in until now. She...she would have to leave behind the safe walls of the Temple and risk her neck out there. No one would watch over her brother like she did.
Or was it the case?
She looked at the floor of the library. Perhaps, it's blessed land as well? Her magic ripped to the surface, warming her chilled bones. It has been unwittingly cold lately. Another monsoon might hit soon. Without a word, she cast her magic into the air, opening the gate with ease. After gruelling weeks of summoning, she could perform a ritual in a span of a few minutes. She closed her eyes and thought about a person who also had to protect a brother in their previous life. They should be caring but capable of fighting, too.
The thread pulled taut. Kymalin reeled the spirit in. Without wasting a breath, she cast another spell she had learned in the next pages of the tome about summoning. Magic washed over the faint outline of the spirit, binding his soul to Kymalin's until she sever it.
By the time the spirit fully solidified into its jelly-form, he looked at Kymalin like he was waiting for an order. "What's your name?" Kymalin said.
"Veril, young Master," the spirit said. His greenish hair, which once might have been brown, flopped against his forehead when he withdrew his ducked head. "What is my next mission?"
Kymalin coughed. "Enough with the 'master' thing," she waved her hand in front of her face. "Call me Kym from now on."
The spirit's face remained passive. "As you wish, Kym."
"I have a job for you," she continued. "Watch over my brother, Vaeri. He's in this Temple. Look for a boy in a bed. He kind of looks like me but a bit more...male. And definitely younger. Guard him with your life and report his condition to me every two weeks."
"As you wish, Kym," the spirit bowed partially before puffing in a huff of green smoke. Kymalin blinked. That...that should be good, right?
Without anyone to confirm or deny, Kymalin shrugged. Time to move. Onward to her next goal.
The halls of the Third of the Upper whizzed past her as she walked briskly. Ornate doors leading to other parts of the library peppered both walls. Portraits of random High Priestesses and past Rekshais went by unnoticed. Kymalin kept her eyes on the single podium she had been targeting for the past few days.
A single ring without any embellishments sat atop a velvet pillow. Thick glass coated the air around the ring and any attempt to lift it would alert the High Priestess and the Necrom in this building. From what she could gather from the Serzhakis who loved to gossip, once a person was caught anywhere near the preistal artifacts, they could spend a lifetime in prison or even face execution. One should not desecrate the Temple by stealing a priestal artifact.
Exactly what Kymalin was doing right now.
A similar but bigger glass case sat in the opposite side of the ring. It contained some musty old tome that nobody would want to read. What in Rudik's name was that, anyway? It must be important. Also, if it's a tome, why wasn't it in the library? Shouldn't it be read and appreciated for its contents?
Well, whatever. How the space was furnished was the least of Kymalin's problems. Right now, it's getting a ring cleanly off a pillow and escaping the Temple without a hitch in the plan. She clenched her fingers before straightened her woolly coat. The fur lining the collar of her coat tickled her neck but she tried to ignore it. She felt silly, being clad to the ankle in travel clothes over her usual knee-length tunic belted at the waist. But it was necessary.
Her fingers crept to the soul port slung around her neck. Of course, they could track her and where she went. That's why she has to part with it the moment she makes it out of the Temple. She heard soul ports were on demand in the black market. Without taking too much time, she twisted the knobs in the device, aligning several symbols to meet in an array under the metal bar in the middle of the circle. A flash of light caught her eye in the corner of the corridor. The soul door was activated. That'd be her escape.
Taking a deep breath, she stalked towards the glass case covering the ring. She grasped it with two hands and lifted. Bells wailed in the corridors, no doubt waking the whole Temple in the dead of night. She swiped the ring off the pillow and shoved it into the pocket of her coat. Her legs dashed towards the glowing soul door. It would only be a few seconds before they shut all portals out of the Temple.
Kymalin gritted her teeth. She could make it.
She pumped her legs to go faster. Her breath hitched and her side began to hurt. Faster. She burst through the corridor, the rugs covering the floor muffling most of her footfalls. The glow in the soul door became fainter. No time to hesitate now. She was in this too deep.
WIth a cry, she launched herself into the soul door, fingers flicking the knob in her soul port one last time, setting her destination to a different place the last second.
She was also told to not do it if she wanted to emerge whole on the other side.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
