Uncertain Fate Pt. 1

The doorway to the pocket dimension Lady Venna had banished us to emitted an eerie violet glow around its edges that made the hair on my arms prickle. I had never heard of a purple portal before; traditionally they were goldish-yellow. Much like how Remmi’s ice spells were limited to the natural colors of ice, portal’s color was determined by the Aethik energy used to cast it. Portals were created using light magic and while they weren’t too difficult to cast, they took a considerable amount of energy and focus to create. It was a limitation I often griped about to Yssa and Remmi; while they could travel to places freely, I could only manage a portal large enough to blindly reach through.

Taking the initiative, Yssa stepped through before me alleviating some of the anxiety I felt and I followed a step behind her (being trapped alone was more terrifying than whatever what-ifs my anxiety was worried about anyways). Upon our arrival, Lady Venna removed her foot from Remmi’s face and floated to her desk assuming a sagely cross legged position above her expensive looking office chair. Then, with a wave of her hand, her office rearranged itself, repairing any damage and cleansing all evidence of our defeat.

“Mi- Remmi,” I whispered, kneeling down to help her up. “Are you hurt?”

“First, my compliments Remmi,” Lady Venna said, sitting cross legged in the air like some mystical sage from a fable. “You performed better than I predicted.”

“Thank you, Headmistress,” Remmi mumbled in response, refusing to look at Lady Venna and squeezing my hand. “I have much room for improvement.”

“As do we all, though one of your entourage needs more than the others.” Lady Venna’s eyes fixated on me and I fought the urge to shrink behind Remmi and Yssa. “While I wholly believe the bonds between us all give us strength, the three of you must also remember that the slightest crack can reduce even the most impregnable walls to dust.”

“That’s… We’ll take the wisdom to heart,” Yssa replied, realizing that she would have to take the role of our group’s representative. “Though I do have a question.”Lady Venna nodded, her gaze scrutinizing Remmi and me.

“What was the purpose of our… confrontation? We were hardly at our best after slaying the dragon and—“

“Slaying the dragon?” A fire lit in Lady Venna’s dark beady eyes and I stepped in front of Remmi to shield her. Her gaze hadn’t left the floor and for the first time since we were children, her confidence was gone.

“I will have you know, Miss Alucant, that I have cut down swathes of dragons five times that size of the juvenile you barely bested. What you did was at best survival, at worst a failure of your duty as the second most powerful mages at this academy.”

“How did we fail?” Yssa asked, her lips pursed and her cheeks glowing red. “We prevented the dragon from causing more mayhem, saving the rest of our peers from certain death. Remmi was eaten! Not to mention the absence of the faculty. Yet you have the gall—“

A bolt of invisible magic laid Yssa out onto the floor and the temperature of the room spiked as purple flames erupted around us, rattling the bottles of alchemical ingredients and jars of preserved creature parts on the magically protected shelves.

“Gall? Miss Alucant, you may be a member of the aristocracy, but in this school I am the ultimate authority. My will is law and if I say your performance was a failure, then it damn well was!”

The office shook as the Headmistress’s voice raised and despite the heat of the room, my blood ran cold. I’d always loved Yssa’s confidence, but I’d never seen her question someone with authority, let alone someone of Lady Venna’s standing. Even when correcting her professors she remained respectful, coaxing them to the right conclusion rather than confronting them directly and undermining them.

Groaning and returning to her feet, Yssa glared at Lady Venna. Her blue eyes seethed and her hair started to glow faintly. Exhaustion and pride had won over reason.

“Yssa, calm down,” I whispered, taking her hand with my free one. “We just wanted to understand your reasoning.”

“Fine.” The temperature of the room settled and the quakes stopped. “Perhaps I am being a bit harsh. But that is only because I know the two of you are not ready for the task before you.”

“Task?” Yssa’s expression softened, turning to curiosity.

“I’ll spare you the details for now, but to summarize, you and Remmi will be going on a journey as representatives of his Majesty.”

“Just the two of us?” Remmi’s voice trembled, barely audible. “What about Alva?”

“Alva will remain here. As it stands, she is nothing more than a liability that will almost certainly die or kill both of you while you try and protect her.”

“That’s not true!” Yssa interjected. “If it weren’t for Alva’s help, we wouldn’t have been able to slay the dragon.”

“Help? If you call trying to infect your friend with a magically altered parasitic slime and turning the other into the gods only know what, then I suppose you can call her helpful. But… That is a conversation I will have in private with Miss Alucant. First I want Alva to escort Remmi to her room. She looks like, excuse my language, griffin scat.”

Not wanting to risk my chance to escape, I gave Yssa’s hand a final squeeze before turning with Remmi to leave without responding. Whatever conversation Lady Venna was about to have with Yssa seemed unpleasant and it seemed that I was responsible.

“Into the gods only know what”? What did she mean by that? It obviously has something to do with the seed Yssa ate, but if it’s a problem, we can just remove it… Right? And what about Remmi? I may have toyed with the slime a bit, but since she didn’t ingest it, it’s essentially just a high maintenance pet.

I shook my head, closing the office door behind me and leaning against it with Remmi as I considered where to go. Part of me wanted to wait for Yssa, but I had no idea how long she would be and Remmi’s condition was deteriorating. Even leaning against the door she was hunched over and looked ready to curl up into a ball on the floor.

Her room would be the best, but it’s across campus and she’s in no condition to make a portal. My room is a cramped mess, but it’s just a building away.

“I guess we’ll head to my room.”

***

The office was silent, save for the sound of the Headmistress’s slightly labored breathing, for several minutes after the heavy wooden door had clicked shut. Yssa wanted to say something, anything to break the silence, though she hesitated in fear of agitating the old woman more. Instead, she took inventory of herself only to be horrified at her appearance. She was a mess; her robes were filthy. There wasn’t a single patch of fabric that wasn’t singed, dusty, or bloody, and her left sleeve was still missing. Mortified, she reached into her pocket for her wand only to draw it back when she was poked by the sharp splinters that remained. It would cost a fortune to mend, if it was even possible and the sooner, the better. Catalysts were easier to repair the sooner they were tended to.

“Lady Venna, you mentioned there was something you wished to discuss?”The old woman nodded, rubbing the top of the bridge of her nose with her fingers. She eyed Yssa up and down and scoffed before snapping her fingers and magically scrubbing and repairing Yssa’s uniform.

“There is, though I worry how you will feel after our conversation.”

“It’s fine,” Yssa replied, clenching and relaxing her fists at her side. The suspense made her want to scream, to grab the Headmistress by the collar and shake her until she gave a clear answer.

“Let me ask you: what do you know about golden seeds?”

Yssa bit the corner of her bottom lip trying to recall. “I know that they’re used to increase the efficiency of Aethik conversion in catalysts, not only lowering magical consumption but also multiplying the effectiveness of spells.”

“A layperson’s answer, though sufficient enough to make me wonder why you would consume one knowing that. Your wand is damaged, correct?”

“Correct.” Yssa pulled her snapped wand from her pocket. “It’s still holding together, though barely. I’m hoping to see if it could be repaired after you dismiss me.”“If that is your intention, you should have embedded the seed into it. Doing so would have repaired your wand on the spot. Did Alva not tell you that?”

“I…” Yssa hesitated, unsure of how to answer without condemning Alva. “There wasn’t much time for us to converse and I thought it was one of the pills she makes that helps recover Aethik.”

“That girl,” Lady Venna scoffed. “Her flippant demeanor and laziness will kill you someday. I tolerate her because she keeps your rivalry with Remmi in check, though the irony that she is the cause is not lost on me.”

Yssa’s cheeks flushed deep red and her face tightened. She could accept criticism for her own inadequacies, but insulting Alva, who wasn’t even present, irked her. “You call her flippant and lazy, yet you yourself have praised her research in the past.”

“One praise for every ten condemnations. You seem to be under a misconception: I only tolerate that girl because I worry expelling her would mean the loss of you and Remmi.” Lady Venna’s shoulders sagged and she let out a stressed sigh. “If I had my way, she’d be back in that backwoods village of hers.”

“Backwoods village?” The rest of Yssa’s face flushed red like her cheeks. Her ears burned at the slight and she felt light headed. “I’ll have you remember that though I am a noble, I am also from an area people call ‘backwoods’.”

“It only takes the slightest provocation… Look at yourself.”

Still fuming, Yssa looked down at her hands only to be taken aback when she saw them glowing. In fact, the entirety of both her arms were wrapped in radiant light and she could only assume the rest of her was as well.

“I didn’t mean to…”

Lady Venna shrugged her small shoulders and walked around her desk to stand in front of Yssa. She took Yssa’s hands in hers and locked her dark eyes with Yssa’s. “Whether you meant to or not, this is your reality. The fact of the matter is, no one has ever consumed a golden seed and survived. You were lucky. Just thank the gods that the seed spared your core and you did not transform like other poor souls into a cursed tree.”

***

“C’mon, MiMi, talk to me.”

Silence. She hadn’t said anything beyond yes and no the entire walk to my room and completely ignored every attempt I made to lighten the mood. Even now that we were laying in my bed her thoughts seemed elsewhere.

“Is that really how you see it?” Remmi finally said. “A game?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that everything is fine now. Or are you mad that I played the same trick you played on me?” I rolled onto my side, propping my head up on my arm with a teasing smile. Teasing and taunting Remmi had always been a quick and easy way to pull Remmi from her thoughts.

“Knock it off.”

“I’ll stop when you start talking.”

She shook her head, rolling away from me and after a moment I could hear quiet sniffles. Her body tensed and she shirked away, curling her body up and hugging her knees.

She didn’t say anything, but I felt her nod.

“We barely knew one another back then and suddenly I was living with you, sharing a room with you and crying non-stop. You were so annoyed, but you tried to hide it so you didn’t upset your parents.”

“I was pretty annoying, right? I’d keep you up all night, sobbing into my pillow, begging my parents to come take me home after I’d cried myself to sleep. Then, one night, snapped. Do you remember what you did?”