A week passed by. Karsyn had not come out of her room, Shalom couldn't get out of the house fast enough, Kyan was huddled up in his labs, Cadence attended cabinet meetings with his father for no reason, Trystan was off patrolling with Shalom and Twyll had become a ghost.
Bren rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. The Tem attacks had increased over the last couple of days. The raids were contained to the gates of the slums. The areas where there was no patrolling. The areas filled with prostitutes and drunken hordes. Citizens were not allowed into the slums, too much of a threat to our immune systems. It was the reason why Trystan and Shalom couldn't finish those vermin off.
Something really strange was happening, had been happening, for many years and she was no closer to solving it. Every attack had become more frequent, more vicious than the last and always in the slum sector of the city. Staklovia was a great city, but corruption had crept in, in the last few years. It was creeping in slowly for the last twenty years since The Dictator came into power after the "mysterious" disappearance of The Crystal Heir.
Bren remembered those times when she was just a young immortal in love. Adrian his name was. they were so in love. Their days were filled with unfulfilled promises and careful touches. She had barely turned fifty and he was at least 70. Of course, they looked about 17 and 20. Aiden was everything she had wanted in a companion. He was it for her. The day he disappeared he had been patrolling in the slum regions. The Dictator had sent him there. Bren had been a soldier at that time. She was rapidly climbing up the ranks while Aiden was slowly becoming a trusted confidante of the new Dictator.
The last few months before his death, he had been quiet. Hadn't talked to her much, barely been around. Bren's last words to him were, "If you can't love me as much as I love you don't bother coming back." She had yelled it on the porch of their small house. And he hadn't. Hadn't come back.
That had all been two years ago. After a lot of investigation on her part, she knew that something was off about those slums. The whole continent was powered and replenished by Crystal energies of the Core Crystals. They were amplifier crystals which were illegal to use for the common folk. They say that if a wielder tries to wield with that crystal the vigour of the power would damage their brain forever. The Crystals fed energies to the slums as well, except the slums wouldn't need it if they comprise mainly of non-wielders.
Bren massaged her temples with her fingers as she went over her notes all over again. Everything yet nothing seemed to be connecting. Adrian's death and recent Tem attacks seemed to be concentrated in those regions yet no bodies were recovered in either case. Jenny's attack was an isolated one and also still on the borders of the slums. There is also the fact that these attacks had only been recorded for the last twenty years or so. Bren had been across the sea twenty years ago so she had no clue as to what could have lead to the displacement of records or why these attacks started just then. There was also the assassination of the former Crystal Heir who The Dictator all but confessed to murdering.
He was a cruel man. Someone who was corrupted and corrupted everyone else around him. Trystan and Cadence were lucky enough to escape his clutches. She wasn't so sure about Twyll though. Her power was great and threatened to consume her. Her wielding came at the price of her losing her sanity. The energies could overpower her senses and confuse brain signals and damage brain chemistry. It was complicated and harmful in so many ways.
The Tem could be easily destroyed only if someone had the power to wield an amplifier. They were made of dark, impure rock. Not of the sacred, refined crystals. The crystals used for wielding were marred by the wielding of other elements. They were shaped into something the wielder needed to wield the elements. The core crystal was pure and the wielder who could execute all forms of wielding was the only one who could not distort the Crystals, they were also the only ones who could be manipulated and twisted and be controlled like puppets because of their vulnerability that is caused by the immense power. It was this, necessary that they gained Twyll's trust and be her friends and family. Twill was wonderful and strong, but right now she was just a little girl who had lost the only family she had known.
She needed all the help she could get and she had learnt first hand how grief could overwhelm and consume until there was nothing but shells left behind.
...
Kyan had almost finished the antidote and was ready to ship it off to the apothecaries and private healing practices. Usually, healers or health wielders could cure cases of flu and such but sometimes it was too parasitic and hard to contain. It was the reason why Stoechìa required chemists and doctors.
He had finished bottling the last phial of the antidote when a knock sounded. He walked over to come face to face to face with Twyll Merrick.
Surprised he asked," What are you doing here?"
"I know a little bit about helping in a lab and have a fair knowledge of Chemistry and Alchemy. I would like it if I could maybe help out if you don't mind," she replied neutrally.
Kyan was shocked and a little uneasy.
"You want to help me?"
"Yes, I believe that's what I just said."
"Even after how I behaved towards you at the dinner?"
"I don't care about your opinion of me. What I care about is being busy since I have nothing to do other than to just not around brooding so I would like it if you could give me something to DO!" She yelled at the end.
"Ok, alright." He said raising his hands in mock surrender. "You can help me with the bottling."
He grabbed a carton from under his worktable, glass clinking inside. The medicine was a colourless liquid and thick as honey.
For the first time, Twyll looked around the room and Kyan wondered what she saw. If she noticed the stained ceilings from past mishaps or the scarred tabletops from acid calamities. If she noticed the fluorescent lights that put out a harsh glare.
The room was fairly small considering the other chambers in the house, this one was a closet. It was as neat as you could expect it to be. His two tabletops were covered with residues of past experiments, half-filled flasks of liquids, a few chemistry equipments. Usually, everything was clean and tidy, but the last few days had been a blur.
"So, why do you hate me so much?" She asked him.
He huffed out a laugh at her nerve. "I don't hate you. I was just really tired and... Upset."
"Hmmm..." She hummed slowly.
"What?"
"Tell me more about bratrství."
"There isn't much to tell. The science or theory about it is very obscure. This and that. There is no other justification other than a platonic connection that is formed."
"Ok... How did all of you meet then?"
"This is a long story."
"I have nothing better to do."
He sighed. "Fine."
...
I and Karsyn were born three years apart. We are actually half-siblings. Her father was a Víla descendant and therefore born into slavery. My father was little more than a drunkard. We lived in a little shed that was mostly built of tarps and dry grass just near the gates of The Slums.
...
"The slums are gated?" Twyll interrupted.
"They are."
He didn't provide more insight and Twyll didn't ask.
...
When Karsyn turned 4, it had become obvious from her pink hair and eyes that she wasn't stoechían. The Slavers came and kidnapped her to sell her to the highest bidder. I was only 7 at that time and already out on the streets begging for scraps and stealing. That day when I returned home my mother was lying on the floor, bruised and beaten and my father was muttering incoherently about being "glad that the Víla bitch was gone" then he passed out. I remember promising myself that day that I would never become him- pathetic and drunk. He had been a handsome man in his youth before his addictions won against his genes. The next week my mother died due to internal bleeding and I ran away since I had nothing left to stay for. Both my mother and sister were gone and I never really cared for my father. I searched for Karsyn relentlessly, walking through every street and alley teeming with brothels and slave houses. She was nowhere to be found. By this time I had found my uncanny ability to make remedies and medicines with herbs and roots. 5 years had passed by now. I had been rummaging around in a back alley of the more fortunate part of the city with working-class people. I had been searching for little herbs between some weeds when Shalom's mother- Aria found me. Her income was small as an accountant, but she took me in. She said she saw 'potential' in me. This is when I met Shalom and Trystan. I soon learned that Shalom was an Asymptote.
Seeing her puzzled expression he explained, "It means he has unlimited power, almost yet never reaching its full power."
She nodded as he continued...
...
His crystal affinity was to the mind, but his hand-to-hand fighting skills were just as phenomenal. Trystan had already mastered shape-shifting and two elements, close to mastering the third. It had been easy to bond with them and train. Become intuitive to each other's attacks and defences. We were also close in age with me being 12, Shalom at 11 and Trystan being the oldest at 13. We trained at the arena almost every evening and had our formal schooling in the mornings under Bren who had been the tutor Aria had hired. Bren had been a soldier moving up in ranks but tutored for the extra money. She was the one who brought Cadence into our group. Even though she was decades older she had looked like a teenager and so it had been easy to also make Bren part of the group. Her husband was also a frequent presence at our dinner table. She was also the one who got me a better tutor to teach me basic alchemy and chemistry before I could join a university and she was the one who taught us how to fight and wield with focus and precision. A few weeks later we found out Cadence was Trystan's half-brother. He was wary at first but soon opened up to us. It was around my seventeenth year when rumours of a group Víla girls were said to be bought by an ill-reputed brothel.
...
"I didn't know there were any reputable brothels."
Kyan smiled at the obvious manoeuvre to stall whatever horrible revelation of the past that he was going to recite.
...
When I asked Shalom and Trystan to accompany me to the brothel that night to check if I could find my sister they immediately had my back. Cadence had been too young to come of course.
We were greeted by a middle-aged lady with gold teeth. We asked if there was a Víla girl with pink hair and eyes. The lady confirmed that there was a girl with those features named Karolin, but she was occupied at the moment if we knew what she meant. It was then that my entire body froze when I understood what she was implying. Trystan pinned her against the wall and demanded to know which room my sister was in. The lady was scared out of her mind and pointed to a door covered by a beaded curtain. We kicked the door down and burst into the room just as the f*cker inside lowered his pants. My sister was kneeling in front of him. She was naked and covered in bruises and healing scars. There was blood between her legs and... fluids on her body. I immediately averted my eyes, my gaze going right to the man's head. Shalom just stared at my sister before carefully walking towards her as she scrambled backwards still sitting. She was screaming at us and tears were rolling down her cheeks. She had been so skinny Twyll, her arms were just bones covered in skin and her ribs were protruding from her waist. Shalom walked towards her with his eyes away from her and his cloak up. She stopped screaming. Trystan already had the man face down on the ground with a knee digging into his back and his arm twisted at a painful angle. I asked Karsyn to look at me. She did. Looked right into my eyes. Right into the face, I shared with her, our mother's face. Her face crumpled and she flung herself into my arms. I held her close and tight to me. Trystan teleported with the man somewhere and I followed them soon after I promised Karsyn that I would be back and to trust Shalom, That he would take her to a safe place. She nodded as if in a trance and looked towards Shalom. They stared deep into each other's eyes and I knew that I had done the right thing in sending her with Shalom as they disappeared as well.
...
"What happened next?" Twyll asked, her eyes blurry with tears.
"Nothing that you need to know," Kyan replied smoothly, his breath a little shaky at having to recall it all again.
Twyll couldn't stop her tears.
"How was Trystan found?"
"That's his story to tell Twyll. I've given you the bare bones. We are a family that hasn't been together forever, but part of forever." He explained.
Twyll nodded.
"So tell me Twyll, what happened between you and Cadence during that week of sea travel."
Twyll feigned nonchalance as she shrugged her shoulders as if she didn't know what he was talking about.
"Spill Twyll." His eyes twinkled at the deliberate rhyme.
"Nothing happened. We exchanged our failed attempts at love and then kissed as an experiment.
Kyan raised his brows.
"So, How was it?"
"It was nice."
"Ah, so no sparks then?"
Twyll sighed at his nosiness. "Yes Kyan, no sparks."
He smiled a secret smile and asked, "Is there anyone else with whom you feel sparks?"
Unbidden, her mind goes to those few hot minutes with Trystan in his room with him naked and his tattoos on display.
Twyll felt her cheeks heat.
Kyan's jade eyes sparkled with delight and glee, but he didn't probe and neither did Twyll reveal.
They continued to work together in silence.