Chapter 45
When Illusion Breathes
I remember when the city of Avinnois used to
shine. The high towers, crafted from gleaming marble and silver, would catch
the first light of the sunrise, scattering its glow like a thousand stars
across the sky. The air was thick with the scent of magic—rich, earthy, and
electric, as if every breath carried the pulse of the arcane.
Five years have passed since that day—the day
Enoux made me promise. It feels like a lifetime ago, yet the weight of that
promise still lingers, sharp and unyielding, as relentless as the curiosity
that once drove me.
Back then, I didn’t grasp the full weight of her
words—not truly. I was too consumed by the need to understand, to peel back the
layers of the world around me. Too absorbed in my search for answers, for
truths that had always danced just beyond my reach. Enoux had asked me to keep
Selene safe, to end the experiments before they could pull me into something
unrecognizable, something she feared I might not come back from.
I kept half of that promise. I stopped the
experiments on my little sister, but I didn’t abandon my pursuit entirely.
Instead, I turned my focus to others—strangers, mostly. Less spectacle, more
simplicity. After all, if someone happened to brush against me by accident, who
could say whether my powers didn’t simply reveal themselves?
What good was it to stop completely when there
was so much more I had yet to understand? The failures weren’t due to any lack
of ability—they stemmed from my own ignorance. I had to learn more about the
Soul-Bound and the Soul-Touched. Only then could I hope to comprehend the
elusive force that was Soul Magic.
As the years passed, I found myself maturing more
quickly than I had anticipated. I began to bloom into a young woman, though at
the time, I remained blissfully unaware of what that truly meant. It wasn’t
until boys, some twice my age, began to… flatter me, that I truly understood.
"Twice your age?" The dragon''s voice
carries a note of amusement. "That would make them..."
"Yes," I reply, wincing. "Ugh...
don''t remind me."
The dragon snorts, his laughter soft and knowing.
Believe it or not, thanks to Enoux''s sponsorship,
leaving behind a small fox-kin child—one who had been an endless whirl of
energy and curiosity—was a blessing in disguise. The moment the nanny stepped
out the door, I bolted out the window.
The dragon laughs heartily.
"What?" I raise an eyebrow, feeling a
spark of mischief. "Too soon?"
"So soon?" He chuckles. "You were
just saying how inseparable you two were."
"She was a five-year-old wrecking
ball," I sigh, shaking my head. "Always asking questions, squirming
with the energy of ten youths, and tugging at my sleeves every moment. And
don’t even get me started on her obsession with food."
The dragon chuckles again, the sound light and
warm.
It’s not that I didn’t care—how could I not? But
my life was shifting too rapidly. Something beyond magic had stirred within me,
and I could not for the life of me figure out how to control it. I had to focus
on that—that strange pull inside me, the way the air crackled with an energy I
couldn’t explain, as though the world itself was alive in ways I’ve never felt
before.
The dragon laughs again.
Perhaps… I should’ve kept that part to myself.
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It was a bright afternoon when Selene tugged at
my sleeve, her tiny hand warm against my skin. She was brimming with
excitement, chattering about something that had caught her eye, her words
tumbling out in a joyful stream. But I wasn’t really listening—not fully. The
market around us was a blur of color and sound, the air thick with the scents
of spiced meats, ripe fruit, and the ever-present hum of magic. I had no time
to be lost in such distractions, not today.
But then, something strange cut through the
clamor. A ripple in the air. It was subtle at first—just a faint shiver of
heat, enough to make the hairs on my neck prickle. I paused, my senses
sharpening, scanning the crowd. My heart skipped a beat. Something was amiss.
Selene tugged at my sleeve again, her wide eyes
drawn to a small gathering at the edge of the market square. A group of
adventurers—rough-looking men and women, their armor worn from days on the
road—huddled around something, speaking in hushed tones. The closer I drew, the
clearer it became. In the arms of one of the adventurers, a child lay still.
At first glance, she seemed like any other
infant, swaddled in furs with a fragile, quiet innocence. But there was
something unmistakably otherworldly about her—an ethereal shimmer to her skin,
faintly glowing, as though moonlight itself had been woven into her very
essence. Her ears were long and sharp, unmistakably elven, yet her
features—soft, delicate—spoke of something far more fragile, too fragile for a
typical elven child. The air around her hummed with an energy, like the first
spark of a flame that could never be fully tamed.
Whispers trailed in her wake, murmurs of
disbelief. A failed experiment. A homunculus, some claimed. A creation of rogue
mages who had dared to play gods, twisting life into something forbidden,
something unnatural.
Then… something extraordinary happened. Selene’s
inner Leyline stirred to life. She tugged at my sleeve again, her small hand
persistent, insistent. Frustration boiled over, and I snapped at her, but when
she met my gaze, she gave me a look—one that froze me in place. I blinked,
confused. Her eyes weren’t green anymore. No, they were violet—deep, radiant
violet. It wasn’t just a faint hue, nor was it a mere shade of blue. It was the
raw, untamed glow of aether, pulsing with an energy all its own.
“Big sister…” she whispered, her voice soft yet
laden with something I couldn’t place. “Those men… there’s something wrong with
them?”
I furrowed my brow, still trying to grasp what
was happening. “What do you mean?”
She gazed up at me, her expression serious,
almost troubled. “There’s… a wavy, fuzzy thingy around them.”
“A… what?” I asked, struggling to understand.
“Everyone has one,” she continued, her voice
trembling slightly. “Some big, some small, some bright… but theirs… it’s dark.”
I paused, trying to make sense of her words. “And
what about the baby?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
Selene shook her head, her small fingers gripping
my sleeve tighter, her urgency palpable. “Like… you, she does not.”
I didn’t understand why I felt so drawn to the
elven child—perhaps it was the strange tug in my chest, or the way the air
itself seemed to shift when I looked at her. Perhaps it was the nagging thought
that, like Selene and me, she too could be Soul-Touched. But something about
her felt… important, as though she held the key to a mystery I wasn’t yet ready
to unravel.
I don’t know what possessed me to steal an infant
from a grown man’s arms. Perhaps it was the way she barely made a sound, barely
even breathed, as if she had already resigned herself to whatever fate the
world had written for her. Or maybe it was the way the man held her—like
something less than human. Like something broken.
Or maybe—just maybe—it was the moment my bare
fingers brushed against her skin.
The heat of the crowded market had made my gloves
suffocating, and I had pulled one off without thinking. It should have been
inconsequential. But the instant my skin met hers, my magic stirred—unbidden,
undeniable. The truth seared through me.
She was one of us.
Not just an abandoned child. Not just some failed
experiment.
Her essence pulsed beneath my fingertips, ancient
and untamed, like the heartbeat of forgotten forests. Druidic magic—wild, raw,
and impossible to fabricate. A homunculus, perhaps, but something more.
Something real.
The realization struck like a spark to dry
leaves, and before I could second-guess myself, I was moving. One breath, one
heartbeat, and she was in my arms.
Then came the shouting. The curses. The chase.
Selene shrieked with laughter as we tore through
the market streets, the infant clutched tightly to my chest. I barely
registered the pained yelp behind me—Selene, sinking her tiny fangs into a
grasping hand. Then we were running, weaving through startled merchants and
overturned stalls, dodging through the tangled veins of Avinnois.
And when we were finally cornered, when I turned
to face our pursuers, the illusion shattered.
They weren’t men.
They were gnolls.