Sera stopped us to talk under an overhang outside the inn, raising her voice above the dull roar of rain against the roof. "Keep an ear open for rumors, and we'll decide what to do about this in the morning." With that, we were dismissed.
Sera and Helia placed Millie back in the stable while Azure, Aeolus, Sky, and I went about our semi-routine of picking up Ani and heading to the bathhouse, shoving dry clothes into a leather backpack for us to change into after our baths. As we exercised, we, or I, kept an ear out for more rumors. We heard grumbles of a "cure for all ills," but when asked, no one spoke. I let the warm bath water erase the rain's chill from my body and thought about what we learned today.
It only reinforced Aquila's words. I'd seen the mushrooms in those closed-mouth farmers' houses growing near the chimera's cave. Trading explained both the mushrooms and the farmer's reluctance to talk. Unapproved supply raids could explain the screams. Everything seemed to back her story.
But then, why hadn't this chimera group been mentioned in the novel Sky read? Sky had been convinced chimeras were mindless beasts, and I sincerely doubted his or my presence impacted their communication skills.
Or did it? Aquila had mentioned that Servius had a method of controlling them, of turning them into mindless puppets. Sky had previously mentioned a timeline discrepancy, stating that Servius was defeated far earlier this time. This meant that, in the original timeline, few, if any, of the chimeras had ever been free of mind control.
Or maybe the novel he read and this world were simply different?
….I needed to speak to Sky. There were too many 'what ifs' floating in my head.
I thought of Sera and Aeolus hunting down chimeras, of the newborn chimera, and I shivered. What had happened to her? Had she even been born?
That evening, I had another dream.
A woman opened her arms wide and spun through the trees, laughing freely. The animals of the forest went silent. SNAP. A branch broke off to the side, and she stopped, halting herself. "Hello? Is someone there?"
No one replied, and the woman looked uneasily through the woods. Finding nothing, she continued her forest trek, treading softly where she'd been spinning freely earlier.
SNAP.
SNAP.
More branches broke around her. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, sending frightened glances in the direction of the snaps. Certain someone was following her, she exploded into a sprint. Leaves rustled frantically behind her, branches snapping as whatever was chasing her began running as well.
The noises passed her on the trail, moving until it was right in front of her, and she came abruptly to a cold stop. "Hello?" She called again.
Silence.
She trembled, terrified. A shadowed figure burst out from the trees, a dragon-chimera reaching its claws out to snatch her. She stumbled back, screaming. She tripped over a root, falling onto her back. The chimera loomed over her, bringing a scaled elbow down on her head.
-
The scenery shifted. The human woman was now lying on a bed, screaming as two men stood over her, uncaring. Red light crackled around her in a maelstrom of power as scales slithered up her neck and down her hands, her eyes turning gold, fingernails lengthening. When the light faded, the human had become a human-dragon chimera…Mariana's mother.
_
Mariana's mother gazed blankly ahead, eyes devoid of life as she marched forward. A great ocean of similarly dead-looking human chimeras surrounded her, uncaring as they were shot full of arrows and executed on their path.
A fire-coated arrow dropped down from the sky, striking her mother dead in the heart. Her expression didn't change as she fell on her side, twitching as she tried over, and over, and over to continue her march. With one final breath, life left her body.
-
A young man–a soldier, stumbled through the trees. Behind him lay the bodies of his fallen comrades, torn to shreds by attacking chimeras. The young man stumbled as quickly as he could, limping his way.
It wasn't fast enough.
One of the chimeras glided over him from behind, landing on top of him and knocking the young man unconscious.
-
The man was now lying on the same bed as Mariana's mother had been, screaming. The two men watched impassively through the crackling silver light as he, too, was painfully transformed into a human-dragon chimera. When the light faded, Mariana's father was lying on the table.
-
He sliced his way through the army, mindlessly clawing the throats out of any who stood in his path. A human soldier came up behind him, piercing his heart with a sword. The soldier ripped the blade free, yanking it out. Mariana's father fell forward, landing like a boneless doll.
His body stilled.
The light in his eyes never faded; it was never there.
The broken and blood-splattered bodies of Mariana's parents engraved themselves on my eyelids, refusing to leave even after waking. My head ached and pounded, my heartbeat deafening in my ears.
Once again faced with the reality that this was reality, I pressed the heels of my hands to my swollen eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. The events may have been written in a novel, but our actions had real consequences for characters–people–who'd probably been summed up in the single sentence of their death.
I'd been wondering how the humanity of the chimeras had gotten overlooked, and now I'd just been given a sneak peek. A peek at what had happened when the chimeras were blamed, not their creators.
I wanted to hate everyone involved with their deaths in that vision, but my own previously blase attitude towards those I had deemed as simple characters stopped me. What, I wondered, would I have done if Sky hadn't gotten through to me that afternoon?
What would anyone have done if they'd only ever seen chimeras with those empty eyes?
I took another shuddering breath, then buried those thoughts. What-ifs were a worthless pastime. All that mattered was the present. Thanks to Aquila, everyone was on the right path to realizing chimeras were people who hadn't had any choice in their actions. Aquila had believed change would start with Sera, and I would, too. Mariana would continue to exist. I would make sure of it.
I groaned, pressing my hand against my forehead in a useless attempt to shove the pain right out of my head. Exhaustion threatened to drown me, and I let it drag me under.
The next time I opened my eyes, it was to banging at the door and the sun shining through. My head still ached, and with the morning came slight nausea, my room swirling and spinning. Unwilling or unable to gather the strength to get up and open the door, I permitted the irritant to enter.
It took two attempts for my "Come in." to come out as more than a croak past my dry throat.
There was the click of the doorknob and a slight squeak as the door swung open on its hinges.
"Hayden? Are you okay? It's time for breakfast," Sky said, treading lightly across the floor to stand next to my bed.
The word breakfast made my stomach flip, and I wanted to say some choice words to him for waking me up. I didn't, though. "Headache."
He was silent momentarily, then said, "Move your arm. I need to check something."
I did as I was told, cracking an eye open to peek past the blinding morning light at him as he placed a hand on my forehead. I would have knocked the awkward hand away if I had been in the right mind, but I couldn't bring myself to.
Something in the air shifted, and he mumbled, "I thought so," but didn't explain. My eyes slipped back closed, and his footsteps carried across the floor and through the door to a whispered conversation I couldn't make out on the other side. I drifted off a little, waking when a rancid-smelling drink was pressed to my lips.
"Drink this," Sera instructed. I groaned and forced my aching body to sit up. The smell made my stomach toss and turn, but I choked back the thick and disgusting substance, forcing myself to swallow. I willed myself not to vomit, barely managing to succeed.
Nearly instantly, my awareness returned, and my headache and body aches vanished. I sat up fully in bed, looking around at Sky and Sera standing above me, Helia by the door. My scratchy shirt itched against my chest. I blinked as my eyes fully adjusted to the sunlight.
Seeing the glass bottle still hovering by my face, I shoved it aside, the recollection of the bad taste alone making me salivate, and not in a good way. "What was that?"
Sera shifted back, wiping down the top of the bottle and packing it away to her belt as Sky moved to explain. "You overused your mana, and your magic drained from your body instead."
"No not that–" I'd really meant to ask what that disgusting bright red liquid was– "wait, what? That can happen?"
"Yes, although it's pretty rare. You had another dream again last night?"
Absently, I nodded. "It was about what would have happened to Mariana's parents. If Servius hadn't been defeated."
They all flinched.
"Why hasn't this happened before?" I wondered.
Sera answered with more questions, "Perhaps it has? Or was it different this time?"
I thought about it, running an absent hand through my hair. This dream had differed in that it was a peek into the events of the original novel, and wasn't a hint towards the future.
"I suppose," I answered. Recalling my limited experience playing video games as a kid and what my sister had attempted to drill into my head, I asked, "What I drank…was that a Mana potion?"
"Yes, Sera keeps a few around for emergencies. You've heard of them?"
"Sort of," I answered.
Sky seemed to understand what I meant and thankfully elaborated, "It's a medicine made by the mages in the Mage's guilds to help with the symptoms of Mana overuse."
That was about what I had expected. "Are there other potions?"
"Not the kind you're thinking of," he answered, then began listing them off, "There's just the mana potion and a few resistance potions."
The resistance potions were interesting, but I was disappointed there wasn't a healing potion. I slid myself out of the comfort of the bed and shooed Sky and Sera out as I dressed in fresh clothes for the day.