Mortal Magic: Broken

My recuperation was the last thing I had in mind as I saw the sun rising from the barred window in the cell. I had no chance of getting in proper shape in just a few hours and everyone knew that. What kept finding its way to the front of my thoughts was the same thing I thought on all my birthdays for the past five years, the fact that I had failed. For five years I failed to escape and do what I promised, just like I failed to protect my sister from that monster. What big brother was I if I was unable to take care of my younger sister? Yes I made sure to provide her with everything she needed after we were abandoned in the middle of nowhere while we were sleeping. We found a village after many days of wandering in the forest and there no one even bothered to help us. For many moons we were homeless as I worked wherever I could to bring food and I learned magic to help me do it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the best I could do with it was to hunt which wasn’t that profitable there since many did the same. Who would buy hunt from a kid when they could trust a grown man to bring them the best?

I did manage to fare better though after a professional hunter decided to take me under his wing and train me. He took us in and taught me how to use my abilities and make a name for myself with him. Soon I had no problem making what little money I could, and that was when the hunter died while hunting a wild lion with unusual size. I was near when the beast forced him on the ground and with its huge teeth he gripped his throat and killed him. I was lucky that I wasn’t the next victim but I didn’t run away. I actually used my projections to kill the beast like any other hunt. I never told her what happened to the man exactly, just that he was dead when I found him and buried him. Despite learning the hunter’s death many people from the village and butchers still wanted whatever I could bring from my expeditions in the big forest around us so I could still make enough to keep us from being homeless again.

It was hard for me to bring the dead bodies of the animals back on my own so I often had some help from a few of the villagers who came with me. Two whole years had passed since we had made our home there and some of the villagers never even looked us in the eyes when they saw us. I always thought they still despised us, until the matter was brought up by an old friend of the hunter that helped us more often than others. He told me that most of them felt guilty for not taking us in in the first place or at least helping us find a home and instead left us there to die. Little did they imagine that we’d never give up and manage to survive on our own like that until the hunter took us in. He also told me that he wanted to do it a long time ago but he wasn’t ready to do so because his house was barely big enough for him.

Even then we were mostly alone as everyone avoided us still. But alone together was still better than if she had died. She always made me feel happy when she smiled and rushed to hug me beaming with joy whenever I came home or she told me how she was getting better with magic. That was her favorite thing, to be able to manipulate the world around her with mana like it was her plaything. She made sure to take care of the house in my absence and make it interesting with new wooden decorations she made from the excess firewood or the big rocks I brought back she so liked to shape into small animals. She even wanted to help me by selling her toys as she called them, but I told her that they were hers alone. I didn’t want her to see it as a task or work. She was too young to lose her childhood days when I knew what it felt like to be in the world of men from my seven years of age. I wanted her to be a child for as long as she could.

Instead of selling them though she found a way to trick me, and she gave them away to the village kids saying she lost them. I had to admit though the way she got me to bring her more materials without me ever knowing her intentions was brilliant. Even then she was more resourceful than I and she was proud of it, I was proud of it. When I found out though I was about to lecture her when she convinced me to give her a pass provided she would never sell any of what she made, there was nothing wrong with giving something to someone.

Then she did something that I would forever be grateful to her for. I never celebrated my birthday in the years we lived here but I did make hers as eventful as I could, and she noticed every single time. The day I turned thirteen I was determined to act like it was another normal day but when I returned home my sister was not there, and she was always waiting for me to come back. Fearing for the worst I bolted out of the house and started searching for her everywhere. Around the house, in the village, in every street and all her friend’s houses and lastly in the forest I knew like the back of my hand. I was just coming to realize that she was gone and my fear was taking me over when I heard footsteps behind me and turned around to find her smiling like nothing had happened before raising to my feet and buried her in my arms. That was the first time I remember crying for years and I didn’t like it. It made me feel vulnerable and too young to be leading this life.

Seeing me in this state her smile faded and she hugged me like my life depended on it. After all the fear and agony her arms around me were the only thing that mattered, and it felt good to be the one inside a comforting hug for a change. She kept me there as best as she could since she was 3 years younger than me and barely reaching my neck, wrapping her small arms around me ever so tight.

When I calmed down and she let me go she wouldn’t stop apologizing for worrying me but I was glad that she was just safe and with me now. So instead of making her feel bad I smiled at her and patted her head to which she blushed profoundly and just turned her back on me saying that I was embarrassing her. Finally deciding to make me stop laughing she grabbed my hand and led me to an isolated part of the forest half an hour away from our home.

Before doing anything else she told me to close my eyes and I, trusting her completely did just that. Still leading me I had no idea where she was taking us, but soon we stopped and as she ordered me I opened my eyes. In front of us was a stone sculpture I was sure was made by her, but it was bigger than anything she made thus far. It stood on my height and it was a thin pole like object I could just barely wrap my hand around it. Its texture was funny, like it had scales attached to it and it was decorated with markings that reminded me of small vine like plants wrapping it. Both ends were pointy and they looked very sharp for a stone creation, with small circles etched on the flat surface of the blade. The weapon itself was a masterpiece, a spear that looked divine in that white marble-like color. Smiling she told me that this was her birthday gift for me. I always seemed to make hers special with my gifts so she wanted to do the same for me.

The weapons I used to hunt were mostly her ideas, she would carve them in physical size from stone and then I would project the weapon to claim it as my own forever. And this was the best she had made, just so that I could have a gift for a change from someone who cared about me. But I was not ready to take this one; I wanted to save it for when it would be the only choice. To destroy such a work of art just to save the image was cruel and it deserved more for its elegance.

That same day that I felt like I didn’t need anyone’s fake love was also the day that I lost the one person I loved the most. It was that night that the army from the central continent came to the village, burning the houses and killing the villagers like they were flies or ants, mere pests that only made their life less enjoyable. They came to our home with the night turning to day from the light of the fires, and the piercing sound of the screams getting louder with every death. The pleas of the still living men to spare the lives of their families, the cries of the women for the children they lost to the slaughter, and the questions of the kids who knew nothing of what was happening, just the sight of death, was forever etched in my memory as I tried to hide my sister.

But I was not fast enough. They found as and even though I tried to stop them, they grabbed us and took us to a man sitting on the back of a black horse dressed in silk garments in the colors of the high magi, black and gold. Grinning he waved in confirmation and the soldiers took her away while I was struggling to get free. Looking back at me his eyes filled with disgust he ordered them to take me to the arena, saying that I may at least provide some entertainment. I don’t remember how I got in this place since they knocked me out, but when I woke up I was alone in this cell, dry blood on my head and bruises on my body. I screamed like a crazy man for them to let me go, and when the guards came for the first time, smirking and making jokes that I would last barely a few minutes fear gripped me like a vice. They led me to the arena and there I was confronted by a woman, surely a decade older than me. She was scared and so was I when they announced that we would fight to the death or they would bring in someone who would kill us both.

Of course we refused and one threat later the door on her side opened to reveal a huge man, bare from the waist and up. With one swift movement of his hand the ground started shaking and before my eyes a stone spike came out from the stone floor and impaled the woman who died a slow agonizing death on the blood-dyed spike. Now trembling in fear I watched as the burly man came closer and closer to me with a pleased grin on his lips. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest as I was facing my death. When I closed my eyes accepting that this was going to be my end, the smiling face of my sister came to my mind, and then the image changed to her pained and fearful expression when she was torn from my arms to be taken by that man. Remembering that moment rage blinded me as the name of the man came to my mind, most likely escaping the mouth of one of the soldiers. Lars.

I was so angry at him that when the man used his power to attack me something inside me was brought into place. My instincts took control and before I knew what I had done I found myself rolling on the floor to the side successfully evading the giant spike that came from the floor. The man was sporting a full smile from this unexpected turn of events and was coming at me again. Feeling my hatred taking over my senses I knew not what I was doing, nor had I any idea what I was about to do. The crime I was about to commit. I closed my eyes and imagined the stone spear in the forest of the burned down village. I made myself see it in my mind like it was right in front of me, seeing every detail, feeling every inch of its surface on the skin of my palm, feeling its weight and imagined the way it felt as I moved it. Then I used all the mana I had stored in my body for this single projection, all of my power for a spear so beautiful that deserved to siphon away all of my power to use as its own. I imagined the sculpture I saw in the forest that day shatter to countless pieces as the image of the spear appeared in my hand, taking form from thin air, glowing in that slight purple light, transparent like glass yet so much stronger than it. In a matter of moments the weapon was complete in my hand and ready to be used, ready to do what it was created for.

Having used all my mana to make this projection I had no more choice but to attack him myself instead of throwing the spear. I had no experience with holding the weapons I made, I only threw them so far, but my body seemed familiar with the motions, like I was born to use it like a master of the spear. Or to put it better, as a master of all weaponry. I made my charge towards him and his smile faded when he saw me coming. I had no idea how I did it, but every time he used his power to create a spike I cut it with the spear that seemed to be unstoppable. Closing the distance between us I saw his face twist in fear, and without a second thought I plunged the spear in his chest and raised his body to the air. As the life was drained from his body I looked in his eyes as they resembled glass and I saw the way I looked. I was devoid of the emotions I once harbored and I found no mercy inside me. No matter how hard I searched I found only anger and hatred in my eyes, and that scared me more than anything.

And that was when realization hit me like punch in the gut, only a million times stronger. As the spear was coated in the blood of the dead man the question was already haunting me. What had I done? I just killed someone. I killed another person like I was a mindless beast. Trembling I dropped the spear with the man that I was surely incapable of lifting to the air and fell to the ground. My eyes where darting from the dead man to my bloodied hands, stained by the blood of another person this time. I had killed many animals in my short life, but killing a human broke something inside me. I was not sure that I was human anymore. I saw the spear shine still lodged inside the man and the blood fused with the projection turning its purple color into a bright crimson red like blood.

When the pool of blood was only a few inches away from me I stumbled to move back only to find myself in another pool, born from the blood of the woman. The same guards that brought me here came to drag me back to the cell I was in and I was not responding to anything in the meantime. Only when I was left alone in the confines of my cell did the fear and regret finally allow themselves to the surface. I fell to my knees and put my hands on my face not caring if they were still a bloody mark on my soul. I felt the heat of my tears as they flowed on my face mingling with the blood and I started screaming, the weight of what I had done and what I should have done before waking in this place too much for me.

Hours later, the blood dry on my skin and clothes, I made a promise to myself. No matter what, I would become stronger. I would escape even if I have to kill again and again and again until my soul is blackened by my guilt forever. And I would find the man who took my sister and make him pay. And if she was still alive when I found him, I would take her home, and do whatever it takes to keep her safe with these bloodied hands of mine.