Storytime Blog Hop - Awakening (2 of 3)

Happy almost-halloween from New Orleans!!!

For all the folks I met at the Rougarou festival this weekend, THANK YOU! It was so much fun to meet you all! I highly suggest this festival if you’re in the area - it was a BLAST! So fun, so quirky, so worth the drive out!

We’ve got free stories for you again… don’t forget to read to the end and look for the links from other writers. And this is part 2 of 3 so if you need to read part 1, it is here.

Awakening (Part 2)

A certain clarity comes with being imprisoned, rightfully accused of cheating by the man you loved.

Contrary to my expectations, my room is bright and airy, with hot and cold running water, decent, simple meals, and the appropriate supplies to keep it and myself clean. They can afford to be generous now, with my bruises healing and the shackles stealing the little magics I have.

At one point, the king’s son visits me. I ignore him and continue to strip my bed. The blankets and sheets go into a basket for the wash. The new sheet snaps out, settles down. My accuser stares for a long time, his eyes bright gold, then murmurs, “I hope you learn your lesson,” and leaves.

It’s not until much later, after I’ve calmed myself, that I find the book he’s somehow tucked inside the clean blankets, and not until the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months that boredom and worry force me to open it.

I can’t do anything for my people. I don’t even know what the king has done to them. No one will tell me. The mages don’t speak to me. Servants aren’t allowed in my room— as if the simple chores of keeping it and myself clean would break a child of the North.

The book the king’s son left behind is a treatise on the shackles I wear on my wrists. How they work. The mage power that inspired their creation.

The mage power that inspired their creation.

Three hundred years ago, a woman with the power to steal magic from others threatened to take the throne from the king.

Steal magic.

I’ve never heard of such a power, but this book describes the woman’s confession— and torture— in detail. And despite the comfort of my pretty cell, my stomach drops and my skin chills, because this book also describes the process in which the king created the first shackles, bound the woman’s soul inside them, and learned how to use her power to keep himself alive.

And how he waited for his first son, born hundreds of years ago, to come of age and come into his full power, then shackled him, and lived on.

I stand and pace.

Why did this king’s son betray me? Why, after that, did he make such an effort to give me this book? I have yet to turn the last page, but I’m frightened of what I’ll find.

The king has as many secrets as I did, and this is one that has not even been whispered.

Is the king’s son afraid of what his father will do to him?

Sunset streams through my windows. I go to the dresser and light a candle, use that to light the rest until my room, in the coming gloom, is nearly as bright as day. Then I turn the last page.

It is likely, the writer cautions, other siphons will be born. They must not be shackled! Should the two siphons connect— the soul inside and the prisoner bound— it is possible the spell will be broken by their combined power.

The king’s son thinks I’m a siphon.

He thinks I will break free and save him from his father.

All of this— the manipulation and the lies— are to depose a three hundred year old king who committed the worst of the magical sins.

For the first time, I stop believing what others have always told me about my magic and look inside myself.

Empty, with the shackles draining me, and dark. So dark.

In a trance, I cross the room and blow out a candle.

Something inside me cracks.

I blow out another and another.

The crack widens.

The last—

Boom.

In the darkness, I break wide open.

Bits of memory—

My father, blanching, reaching for me, whispering, “Don’t take too much.” My mother, petting my hair, “Just a little bit. We don’t hurt the ones we love.” My best childhood friend, hands wrapping around mine, breath faltering, “Miriah, stop. You’re killing me—”

How many lives did I take before I learned control? Before I learned to sip instead of gulp?

More than one. A murderer, shoved between me and my friend, just in time. A rapist, when I had a fever and needed more—

Connection, soul to soul. A wail of agony on my own lips, a wail from the shackles. Three hundred years a prisoner, siphoning power from the condemned only to have it stolen by the king.

My fate too— if he could do it once to her, he could do it again to me.

The soul wails again, bitter and broken.

I will avenge you, sister.

Her memories sink inside me, bright as if I lived them, then softened. She’s trying to protect me, even now.

The shackles break open and fall.

The soul inside caresses my face, then shatters into a million pieces.

She is free.

And so am I.

Awakening will finish at the next blog hop - see you then!