Hidden Souls

Part 1

My sixth birthday. The day I was bound to a another soul in a soul binding. That is, if I could survive and beat the beast inside. I wasn't confident. My spirit and I were in balance in all but our genders. I had been born male, but with a female spirit and soul. My spirit dragon, Shilla, had even been born early, her power thought to be tremendous. And maybe it would have been, had she been born to a female caster. Instead she was born within a young male, me. I was weak and small, but my power was strong for a male. Most males couldn't even see their spirits, much less connect with them. I, on the other hand, could merge with my spirit for as long as my strength was up and use her unique powers. Merging with Shilla was both strange and exhilarating at the same time. The thoughts and emotions of a dragon as well as the pain and wonder of the feel of a body that was both male and female, two in one. And now we would be facing our greatest battle so far, the fight between two spirits and their other halves. No one knew that counter spirit of a dragon. A tiger or panther were easy. The tiger would be bound by a water beast like a whale or dolphin. The panther would be matched by an air beast, like a sparrow or other winged animal. But a fierce and unpredictable dragon, a beast that wasn't even supposed to be a spirit except to the emperor..no one knew. Even I had no idea, and I was Shilla's other half, the living and breathing part! Many had argued that since I had a dragon spirit, I was also heir to my father's throne. But as second son, I was behind my elder brother who had a dragon as well, his being the same gender as his own of course. I had even seen brother's spirit, a huge beast, covered in dazzling dark green scales flecked with gold. Shilla was more than half his size, with beautiful sky blue scales also flecked with gold. Her tallens were longer than the male's, and her snout bigger. Yet she had lost when the two fought, brother Scian's dragon able to defeat her with his earth magic. Our magic wasn't limited to one field, but we prefered to stick to water magic because it was the easiest for us to control. Earth was the hardest, with soul magic coming in a close second. But the reason we had trouble with soul magic was probably because we weren't matched yet. Brother would never be matched for as the heir, he would be emperor someday. The emperor was never matched for his spirit was always a dragon. That's why everyone was confused when both Scian and I had flightless dragons as our other halves. A dragon had never been paired before. Till me, of course. There always was the possibility I wouldn't be able to be matched naturally. After all, not only was my spirit a dragon, but I was male. Males were never matched, unless they were chosen to be candidates for a royal mach. In other words, if the heir had any brothers or sisters, they would be matched to a spirit of a villager, usually female, ensuring loyalty. Ironically, I was the first royal second born male in hundreds of years. Usually the second born was female, and even if the second born was male, that usually meant the first born was female then causing the firstborn and second born to be switched, so that the heir was almost always male. But this time the firstborn and second born were both male and to top it all off, both had dragons as their other halves. People didn't think I heard the whispers of anger when they saw my brother, muttering he stole my crown. They believed that Scian beat me unfairly, since he was five years my senior. The truth was, I adored my older brother and hated the thought of becoming heir. I didn't want the crown for I sincerely believed it was Scian's. He was the first born, he had the dragon who was a match of himself. Shilla wasn't a match of me. She was a girl, and while I enjoyed more ladylike activities, my biological sex was definitely male. There were of course the whispers of "demon" whenever I passed certain people, but I paid no mind to them. I wasn't a demon and neither was Shilla. Few believed that the fact Shilla and I were opposite genders was a sign that I was a demon, and my brother had anyone who said so in front of him severely whipped and beaten. I think he saw me as a little child, a person tossed and used by those around him for he always protected me. It was only at our parents and his councils urgings that he fought us. Even so, he had howled in horror when he had dealt the finishing blow, a rock that knocked Shilla out cold. I didn't miss the fact that his dragon stayed as far away from me as possible and dealt the smallest and weakest blows possible to Shilla. But Shilla and I weren't offended. The opposite, it had kindled a deep love and admiration for Scian and his dragon. We have been close ever since. Now, Scian was eleven and I was finally six. When a villager was six years old, he or she was old enough to be paired with another, usually female. The males were matched every three years or so, the rest being put to work doing the hard labor that unmatched females couldn't do. Depending on what their spirit was and how prescient it was in the other half, they were given jobs benefiting their gifts like silversmiths being earth and boat masters being water. And if they couldn't even tell what gift your spirit was, you were put into whatever job was needed at the time. A week after my sixth birthday, I was taken to a large room where I was told my competitors would enter from the opposite door, and things would go from there. Whether their spirits were dominated by Shilla was completely up to them, for no one knew what a dragon's partner spirit would be. My guess? A earth or fire gift, like a tiger or cougar. I doubted a air gift could stand up to Shilla, seeing as water doesn't pair with air. And i knew that if Shilla's gift was anything, it was water. When I faced my first opponent, I could immediately tell what she was and that we weren't matched. She was a dark gift, her spirit a cat. Shilla dominated them in ten seconds. The next was a water gift, and the one after that another dark gift. After ten opponents, we came up against a girl and her piggen. No luck. At the second to last fight, we faced our opponents to see a fire beast, a magnificent phoenix. Something stirred in me, a recollection, a fierce and powerful emotion I was unfamiliar with. And to my even greater surprise, I saw that the other half was a boy just like me. A male caster.  One or two every three years and this boy's spirit was a powerful fire phoenix.  Phoenix, the symbol for the fire gift. And Shilla, the symbol for the emperor, he who rules over all spirits and their other halves.