(Book 5) Hayden Mackay and The Pride of Haima-Endira

7.2 The Lion and the Beast

My heart skipped a beat. "Cornelian users?"

"Yes."

He stayed mum, looking sideways as if in deep thoughts reminiscing things from the past. That raised curiosity and desire to peep into his mind and see what was in there. "And?" I asked. "What about them? Tell me in detail."

His shoulder muscles tightened. "We were acquainted with the Authentic Universe for the very first time, only after the Firsts became our masters. Never before had we transported ourselves to this universe. But it became a necessity and a compulsion only when Lady Chandrika converted the twelve gemstones into sources of conveyance. Right from the early stages of bonding with our masters, there had always been a tension circulating around the country. This man, Almourah, was already a huge troublemaker. I was inexperienced, alright? I was too young to understand the humanly magic and commotions surrounding the origination of these leeches."

"How young are we talking about?"

"About a hundred."

I bit my cheek from burst out laughing. "So the gist is, these beasts were troublesome since then and even the Firsts were trying to take them down?"

He again fell silent for an awful amount of time. His muscles around his eyes twitched as if he was restraining himself from letting out an angry roar.

"What happened next?" I asked, trying to force things out of him. "Singh, your silence is creeping me out."

Singh released a steaming breathe. "The First cornelian user was blamed for their origination."

Nerves frazzled. "What? What did you say?"

Singh replied in a louder tone. "The First Cornelian user was blamed..."

"I heard that. Tell me what do you mean by that?"

"This is all because of the dark magic, Yajna."

I creased my brow in slight trepidation. "There's more to it?"

"Oh, you have no idea."

Yajna, the one ambitious dark magic the First had started a thousand years ago had been waiting to become absolute. It was the reason why I was called the Fire of Vengeance. I had been under the impression that with Shaytan's death, things were resolved. One of the three immortals of Paramarashtra was down. But not that Singh had brought that up...even in this temperature, I felt sweat springing out all over my body.

"Care to give me one?" I asked.

Another steaming breathe out. "First might be the one to start this complicated dark magic and accomplished developing it further with the help of his mother Lady Chandrika. Though unfortunately, rumors flew high that the idea actually belonged to Almourah, who was in the beginning stage of learning magic. In those days trading or borrowing ideas were strictly prohibited. Not following this basic rule, the First robbed the idea and pretended to be his own. Wars, commotions, arguments and whatnot. Everything only because of the pretentious act of the First. Almourah, on the other hand, in order to become stronger than the First, initiated advanced deadliest dark magic in the country. Most of them are directly related to the soul of the human."

"First and Almourah, how well they did they know each other?"

Singh once again stayed quite. His eyes turned shinier and distant. His silence was becoming unbearable, seemingly an initiation of a storm. "Singh, why does it feel like you're unable to decide whether or not to tell me?"

"You said you didn't want to know anything about the First."

True, I was the one to make a promise with Singh after our challenge ended in Parallel universe. I honestly had no interest in learning about the First and the second, and then deliberately wanting to be nothing like them. It was my decision to create this new, fresh bond with my Constellia being my own person.