Abbernathy and Magick's End |Trilogy Now Complete!

(12) - The Sea Rider's Daughter -

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THE ARCHMAGE left the mouse wizardess on her bed, tangled between bedsheets, comfortably snoring. She hoped she would dream - of cheese, of her home, of the mongrel king her heart clearly favored. A good dream, of the things she had, the things she loved, the things she was willing to live for.

It had been many moon cycles since Calleighdia had dreams that weren't of a never-ending darkness and a cold so severe it cracked her bones and left her writhing in agony.

"Sleep well," she whispered. "My life for yours, Margoliesse Browntail. The debt repaid."

That day Calleighdia kidnapped Margo from the Dawn Temple, she had merely been curious. How would a ratta mage, a subpar one at that, and those mongrel kits and hemma child possibly save all magick? It would be impossible, and they would struggle in vain until every last stone of every realm had crumbled. She supposed it would be a nice distraction, a pleasant waste of what little time she had left, watching them fail.

She waited for Margo to escape, eager to watch the ratta's expression fall after realizing Calleighdia had allowed it to be so. But for as much as Calleighdia had planned, she had not expected the gods to come for her so soon. To ask she pay the blood debt she'd accrued over the years as Nocturnis's Archmage, and Gravious's loyal servant. The convulsions, the gods' anger, tore through her. The markings of the Un, along her arms, chest and legs, twisted and constricted, threatening to unmake her.

Her lungs had hemorrhaged air, blood poured from her mouth, and in her last moments, Calleighdia had thought of her siblings - Kirin. Ni'ah and Nima. Her father, cut down for his loyalty to the Crescent Moon Queen, during Octurine's brutal siege of Darkmoore.

Her voice came as a surprised whimper as she called for the gods to deny her passage to the y'mestria, so she could live.

But live for what?

She had taken everything she ever had. Curdled the blood of her siblings, stole their souls, used their life force to prolong her own. She'd watched whole villages burned. Calleighdia recruited thousands to the Shadow King's cause. She'd indulged Feign, letting him play with his corpses and have his fun.

What had there been for Calleighdia to live for? And why, in that moment of her death, had she craved life?

Then Margo had forced that vile potion down her throat and Calleighdia's pain lessened, and her coughs were no longer blood laden. The ratta had saved her life, unprompted, and a blood debt had been forged between them.

Blood for blood. Life for a life. So was the way of the Un. It was law, and to break it, was to usher one's own undoing.

She glanced down at Margo, drool slipping down the Cloudian's chin, blankets crushed in her hands. "Have yourself another sunrise."

Calleighdia herself had never liked the sun. In the shadows, Aelurus was beautiful - dark and warm and endless. It was only during the day, Aelurus was shown in earnest- as a grim, rocky place. Empty and cold, with a hungry, temperamental sea that sank its fangs further into the coastline. All the blood the Moonborns spilled was in stark relief then, splashed across the great trees, puddled in the alleyways. The water she had always drank, she'd realized, had been brown all her life, from mud and murk and death.

A life for a life. Aelurus's most basic truth, and one only the magi of the Un seemed to accept.

She turned away from Margo, the realm's magick bowing at her feet. With a quick slice of her palm, she made an offering of blood. Droplets gathered like jewels on her fur, a river of red rushing between her claws.