From the Library to the Prison

After collecting myself after my encounter with Shemman, I pushed myself to my feet and walked back to the main common area. I didn’t have a destination in mind, but I eventually ended up in the library.

I hadn’t been in this musty, book-filled room in ages. The room wasn’t big, but the towering bookshelves and books turned the library into a confusing maze. I picked my way through until I reached the little table Bekah used as a desk. Sure enough, she sat at the desk, pouring over some dusty manuscript. “Hey sis,” she said without turning around.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Not much. Bored.”

Bekah grunted. “Not going to hang out with Shemman?”

“I was just talking to him. And no, we did not have a fight, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” She kept reading the scroll, occasionally taking notes on a separate piece of paper.

I asked “what are you reading?”

Bekah finally put down her pen and turned to look at me. “Liah asked me to look for anything related to how and why Aijalon disrupt magic. Plus a way to counter it, if possible.”

Huh. That actually sounded like useful information. “Let me know too if you find anything.” A thought occurred to me. “Wait—I thought these were all written in an ancient tongue. How can you read it?” A quick glance at the scroll confirmed that they weren’t in the common language, and so far as I knew, nobody spoke the ancient tongue anymore.

“I’ve pieced together enough of the old language to comprehend a bit,” Bekah said off-handedly.

I blinked. So far as I knew, there weren’t any mages left who knew the ancient magical language. “Bekah, that’s amazing!

Bekah perceptibly beamed at the praise. “It was nothing. Anyone could have done it.” Despite her words, she was practically glowing.

“So what have you discovered in here?” I made a sweeping gesture to the library of ancient books and scrolls. “Surely the mages who built a place like the Pocket left some pretty amazing stuff.”

Bekah said “a lot of it is super complex spell formulae that I can’t even begin to understand with the bit of language I get. Then there are some things like inventory lists, tables of names, other boring stuff. Sorry, nothing on Aijalon yet.”

I was a bit crestfallen. “Anything useful?”

Bekah leaned in, looking more excited than I had seen her in ages. “There is one interesting document!”

“Well?”

She grinned. “It’s a secret.” When I protested, she elaborated “at least, until I can read a bit more of the ancient language. Right now, I only kinda get it. But I’ll figure it out. I promise.”

“Keep at it!” I glanced around at the library. I had only been in here for a few minutes, but I was already getting claustrophobic. How in the world did Bekah stay in here for so long? Bookworms were scary. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” I waved goodbye and began picking my way to the exit.

“Oh yeah, I just remembered,” Bekah said, already burying her nose back in a book. “Liah told me to tell you not to worry about our guest.”

I looked back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Dunno. You should ask her yourself.”

“Maybe I will,” I muttered to myself. Our guest? She must be referring to Rubia. I hadn’t seen the female Aijalon since she entered the Pocket. Shemman and Jepha brought her meals, but I never saw them stay long enough to chat.

I walked the familiar route to the stairway that led to the jail cell. As I arrived, Liah emerged from the stairwell, a satisfied grin on her face.

“Hey, Liah,” I said as we came face to face. “Were you talking to Rubia?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “Do I really need a reason to talk to someone?” Affecting a pompous voice, she said “perhaps I merely desired a stimulating conversation.” I glared flatly at her. She raised her hands and dropped the voice. “Fine, fine. I’m working on breaking her.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think? By the Golden Monarchs, you really are dumb. What Shemman sees in you I’ll never know.”

I recoiled from the unexpected personal attack, but I took a breath. Liah was Liah. I couldn’t get upset every time we talked.

I could tell Liah was disappointed at my lack of reaction. She shrugged and pointed down the stairs. “It’s easier for you to see for yourself. Bye.” Liah strode off.

I debated following her, but my curiosity won out. I descended the familiar stairs. I didn’t see anyone in the cell at first glance, causing me to slightly panic that the Aijalon had escaped. But upon further inspection, I realized that Rubia was there, just curled up into a ball in the corner of her cell. It took me a moment to realize that she was quivering in an attempt to hold back tears.

I stood in shock. The difference between the proud and dangerous warrior who had nearly killed me and this wreck of a girl was stunning. I timidly asked if she was all right, but if she heard me, she gave no sign.

I understood. Liah had used her magic on Rubia. Despite everything Rubia had done to me, I felt sorry for her.

I was very familiar with Liah’s single spell. She used her Mind magic to instinctually understand exactly what to say to hurt someone the most. Growing up, she had used it on me and Bekah plenty of times to bully us. But she had never gone so far as to emotionally incapacitate us like this. I had always assumed her magic wasn’t strong enough to do that. But looking at what she had done to Rubia…maybe Liah had held back from using her full power on us.

I turned and sprinted back up the stairs. It didn’t take me long to catch up to Liah. She was saying “what do you think of my handiwork” when I grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What did you do?!” I spoke.

“I used Mind magic on the Aijalon girl. Good thing I spent so long practicing on Shemman. I’ve gotten the hang of bypassing the Aijalon defense.”

“That’s not what’s important,” I said, my anger rising. Almost without meaning to, I embraced the Expanse. “What did you do to her?”

“Like I told you, I broke her. Or, to be more precise, I’ve been in the process of breaking her over the last few days. Fanatics have their guilt buried away deep inside, so it takes multiple conversations to get through to someone like her.”

I was speechless. All I could muster was “why?”

Liah rolled her eyes. “Please, Rakel, don’t try for this moral high ground thing. Remember how she literally tried to kill us? Why are you upset about me taking steps to ensure she doesn’t do that again?”

“Shemman tried to kill us, but he mellowed out,” I growled.

“I could tell from talking to Rubia. She’s not a softie like your boyfriend. She 100% buys the ‘mages are all devils’ stuff.” She squirmed in my grasp. “Look. If left to her own devices, she would spend her whole time here figuring out how to break out of prison and murder every single mage in this Pocket. The only way to be totally safe would be for us to kill her. So I figure it’s a mercy to her to just psychologically break her down. After that, you can go in with kindness to gradually turn her to our side.”

I took a deep breath. “Liah, we are not devils. We’re mages, but more importantly, we are people. Just like everyone in the empire, just like Shemman, and just like Rubia. We don’t use magic against other people unless there’s a good reason to.”

Unexpectedly, Liah let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, the hypocrisy! If you’re going to take the moral high ground, you’re going to have to give up the magical one, kiddo.”

It took me a moment to understand what she meant, but when I looked down, I realized that both Liah and I were floating several feet above the floor. Now that I was paying attention to my own body rather than focused all in on Liah, I realized I had unconsciously channeled the Expanse flowing through me into a crude Space spell that lifted us both off the ground. Chagrined, I stopped the spell, causing both of us to descend to the earth. I then released Liah from my hands and took a step back. I said “don’t do it again.” I hesitated a moment before saying “that’s an order. From the new leader of our community.”

Liah shook her head and pushed past me. “You don’t know how lucky you are,” she muttered. “You can use more spells than you can remember, while I’ve got just the one.” Raising her voice, she said “let me be clear. I do not respect you, and I do not accept your authority. But, despite that, I am going to do my best to stop this assassin girl from killing all of us. Nobody else is strong enough to do what needs to be done.”

“This does not need to be done!” I hotly replied, but she had already left the room.

I sagged to the ground. I was way too emotionally drained from that encounter to talk to anyone for a while. But as I thought about my argument with Liah, I realized something. Whenever she used her magic to emotionally hurt people, her voice always took on a slightly unreal cadence, like she was reading lines from a script. But during that whole argument, her voice had remained normal. I wasn’t so stupid as to not realize that by using her spell, Liah could win any argument. And yet, she hadn’t done it during our fight. Was she so confident that she didn’t feel the need for magic to enhance her argumentative prowess? Or did she hold back because she genuinely thought she was in the right?