Curselock

Chapter 133: Left Behind

Leland felt… weird. There was something not right about the scene before him. It wasn’t King Harlen, in all his ghostly glory, talking to Diana and Roy. It wasn’t his parents’ hushed question about the Huntress. It wasn’t Carmon’s sudden disappearance and Glenny looking at Aunty P. like she’d grown a second head.

No, there was something nagging at him. Something that he should be able to put together. That his mind… no, that his perceptions should account for. Slowly, like the game he played with his parents the night before, Leland started counting objects.

The answer jumped out at him like a frog hidden in the dark waters of a lake at night. It was hard to see, impossible to see, but he did see, nonetheless. Well, that wasn’t true. Leland saw what wasn’t there, what his instincts told him was real but what his mind told him was nothing but an empty chair.

He was told not to think about the chair, which twisted in his gut. He scraped past the sludge and mildew, pushing his mind to see the chair. The real chair. The person sitting in it.

The power created by Sybil’s mask burned in the back of Leland’s throat as he peered past its glamor and at the young princess. Veins bulged in his forehead, his foot began to thump. Sweat cooled him partially, but the brunt of the mask drilled past all of his mental defenses.

Something snapped in his mind, and the world went dark. The last thing he saw was Sybil sitting across from him, her mask peering at him in blank contempt.

A spike of pain met his cheek and up across his lip. Leland opened his eyes, finding his mom having aged ten years. There was a worry across her face, like seeing a candle light a silk curtain on fire and being powerless to stop its spread.

“W-what happened?” he asked, finding his chest wet with his drink and his place at the table covered in broken porcelain.

“You strained your brain,” Lucia said with a lacking whisper.

Spencer filled in the rest. “You can’t force yourself to see something behind a divine artifact. They are too powerful for someone as young as you.”

But Leland did see past it. It was only for a moment, a short, pain filled moment, but a moment, nonetheless. He didn’t press that, however, his pride already crushed enough bythe room’s atmosphere.

All of the adults, stave Aunty P. and Harlen, were on their feet either returning to their seats or caught midway to Leland. Whether or not he needed their help, he wasn’t sure, but the fact of the matter was, he was going to receive the aid of five incredibly powerful Inquisitors because he tried to look at something he wasn’t supposed to.

Like a child staring into the sun.

Like a child drowning in a puddle.

Like a—

Leland cut off his train of thought. His pride was crushed, yes, but it was over. “Can you see her?” Leland asked his dad.

“Well yes,” Spencer said. “But that’s only because I’m accustomed to the mask’s effects and have much better senses than you.”

Leland wondered about that, especially what it meant to be accustomed to a divine artifact. In a way, he knew he was far and away the person in the room with the most experience with Lords and their divinity. Well, except maybe Harlen. Leland didn’t know too many ghost-people, after all.

He didn’t raise his thoughts, nor argue when his mom pushed him to go change. Leland accepted the walk of shame, exiting into a cracked stone and gravel pathway leading up a hill. The campus was huge, far larger than he originally anticipated, remembering the correct way to where he, Jude, and Glenny were staying was a bit of a mental exercise in and of itself.

“Lost?” a voice called.

Leland spun, finding… nothing. Actually, he found something incredibly interesting about a tree in the distance while forgetting that someone had spoken to him. He continued to his room, still dripping.

“Lost?” the voice asked again, causing Leland to spin again. This time, however, he found Sybil looking at him without her mask on.

She held it in hand, her arms crossed before her waist like a prisoner in shackles. The noon sun was bright yet unthreatening, the winter air had yet to fully clear, putting the princess in an odd spot. It was too warm to wear full winter garb but too cold to wear much more than a coat. Yet, as a royal, there was an example to set. One that preferred form over function.

Her current set of clothes didn’t sway from this pattern. If it wasn’t for the enchanted scarf she had twisted around her neck, she’d be sweating through her white and red fleece shirt and coat much like Leland was. She fidgeted, especially around her chest and shoulders, the stitching just small enough to be uncomfortable.

“Maybe a bit,” Leland replied hesitantly. “Are you fine to be walking alone out here?”

Sybil rolled her eyes, the scar bisecting her face moving a bit with the gesture. “I have you, a hardened adventurer, to protect me. Right?”

Leland felt the question was a trap. “I wouldn’t put your life in my hands if I were you. Protecting someone isn’t my specialty.”

She smiled at that. “Ah, I trust you,” she stepped beside him, “and I’ve got miss broody back there in case you fail.”

Leland followed her gaze, finding the Huntress staring intently from across the way. From the Huntress’ hook-like posture and her ever charming frown, he was able to deduce she was not happy to be following them around.

“Now come on, let’s go.”

Leland turned to her. “You know I’m going to change?” He pinched his shirt, peeling its wetness off his bare skin. “See?”

“Oh I know. I watched you slam your face into the table, remember?”

“Not really,” he grumbled, “that was all a blur.”

Sybil giggled. “All a blur, huh? But no, I’ve found lunches with important people like Harlen to be… constricting.”

“Constricting?”

She nodded, and they continued through the courtyards and around manicured shrubbery. “Harlen is the King of a dead kingdom. He literally holds every single one of his citizens in his ghost-body because he was a powerful Void Priest when he was alive. How am I supposed to talk to someone like him? Aunty P. doesn’t seem to have a problem.”

Leland did not know that, but kept it to himself. “You're living in the shadows while you're supposed to be in the limelight, huh?”

“Exactly,” Sybil said before she subconsciously touched her face. “It wasn’t that big of a deal until after the kidnapping.”

The word was said like just speaking of it would break a taboo and summon a vile fiend to recapture her. Tortured or not, the remembrance of being forcibly taken chilled her spine and made her jittery.

“Sorry,” Leland said, lifting up his shirt a bit. “I know about scars myself.”

Two vertical slits ran parallel with his bellybutton, the base of the lines crossing just enough to make a deformed “X.” They were faint, the regrowing power of his Touch of Regeneration and the Huntress’ high quality healing potion almost enough to fade them away. But scars like that didn’t just vanish, no they lingered, they stayed just long enough to remind of pain, of failure.

Of being alive.

Because she was trained not to reveal her emotions, Sybil’s face remained neutral as she looked at Leland’s scars. She was surprised, very much so in fact. To her, living the same boring day at the castle, talking to the same suck-up fake friends, and never being allowed to live, created a rift in her mind.

The repetitive and monotonous was on one side of the chasm, while everything to do with a proper life remained isolated on the other side. One such isolated memory was of her and Leland playing in a fountain.

It had been some time since they last saw each other, but Sybil still remembered the kid struggling in the arms of whatever attendant found them. She remembered his ferocity to not go willingly, she remembered him being scolded by his parents, she remembered his promise of marriage even if he didn’t truly know what marriage meant.

But now? Sybil saw scars, she saw sweat, she saw him straining his brain to the point of passing out. In some ways, he was the same Leland she remembered, but in others… he was impossibly different.

“You know, it was your dad who found me,” the words came out before Sybil could think them over.

She hadn’t told anyone other than the few who needed to know like Aunty P. and the High Inquisitor, about what happened during her kidnapping. She had kept the events well and close to her heart, even from Spencer, who retrieved her, and Lucia who had spent every day since then watching over her.

“Portals, I presume?” Leland said, leading the way despite not knowing where he was going.

Sybil nodded. “The one who took me was a Legacy of the Pathways. A Witch. While his magic isn’t quite the same, Spencer was able to trace the pathway and find me.”

“And the Witch?”

“Still out there. Her partner, a vile Lord’s Legacy, saved her when half the Royal Guard invaded their lair.”

Leland nodded slowly. “Harbingers.”

“What’s that?”

“The Legacy of vile Lords are called Harbingers.”

“Ah, yes, well. You have experience with them?”

“Somewhat,” Leland said hesitantly. He didn’t look, but he could feel the Huntress still staring. “One gave me my scars.”

Sybil looked at him wide eyed. “Same with me,” she whispered.

“Hmm, there must be some rule that states Harbingers have to leave scars wherever they go…” Leland regretted the joke the moment he said it, although she didn’t seem to mind.

“Your Harbinger, the one that attacked you, is it dead?”

“Yeah, the Huntress took care of him.”

“Good.”

“Yeah…”

“When mine attacks again, he’ll die as well,” Sybil said, something deep within her glowing.

“Uh, you’re glowing,” Leland promptly said.

And she was, literally. Beneath her dark skin, her bones were illuminated with a pale gray glow that bled through her winter coat. The glow waved and fluxed, shifting brightness wherever Sybil looked. She raised her arm with an impatient grunt, the light fluttering into something more. She became a lamp, one that might have created heat or leaked mana… until the glowing cut off.

She panted, her scarf soaking up the sweat that would have formed along her brow.

“Are… you okay?” Leland asked, not exactly sure what just happened.

Sybil waved her hand, sucking in breath like a post-race horse. “It’s alright.”

Leland glanced at the Huntress and he wasn’t sure if he should be glad that she was now staring at Sybil rather than himself. For some reason that felt wrong, and he stepped between them.

“Come on, I have water in my room.”

“This her?” Aunty P. asked Carmon while looking at a young woman bound in runic etched chains.

Glenny’s dad nodded, the blades on his shoulders shifting with bloodlust. “She tried to fight.”

He nodded at his arm, where a gash in his shirt lay. The wound had already healed over, but the fact of the matter was, she did hurt him. Which meant they now housed a dangerous individual.

Aunty P. saw this and calculated, one of her Legacy abilities activating. For a moment she stayed silent, hundreds of thoughts occurring to her at once. She filtered the lame or exaggerated, finding the ones that stuck.

“Did she attack on sight, or when you tried to take her in?” Aunty P. already knew the answer, but what she didn’t have were the details.

She could hear all inside the campus, something she needed to keep hidden from even her most trusted allies. Which was well and dandy, but she couldn’t see through walls, which might prove critical in this situation. Facial expressions often told way more than words, after all.

“She tried to play it off. She acted scared and afraid, like she was lost in the tunnels rather than meeting someone,” Carmon said.

“And this someone?” Again, Aunty P. already knew what happened to the enemy, but she needed the visual details.

“The figure was obscured to my eyes, but obviously feminine and a Legacy of the Pathways. I recognized the spell work from, well, Sybil.”

And there it was, confirmation. “That will be all then, Carmon. Send Spencer to investigate where the pathway was created. I doubt there will be anything there at this point, unless our enemy is stupider than we gave them credit for. If there is, it’s most likely a trap. Have him report to me once done.”

Carmon gave a subtle nod, disappearing from the room without a trace.

Aunty P’s eyes left the bound woman and found the ghostly apparition of what would have been her equal if the Reflection Kingdom was still alive today. The man, the Eldest Prince of the Reflection Kingdom, met her gaze.

Seeing a ghost was strange to her, but such was the Reflections. A summoning on mass scale, a commissioned defensive pact with being long gone from this world. To the outside, it was nothing more than a phenomenon, but Aunty P. knew the reality. Sometimes you need a monster for protection.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I think you needed my help more than you care to admit,” he said.

“Your help? Or your brother’s?” Aunty P. asked.

Lane of the Dormant smiled. “My help is his help, we are but one mind after all of these years.”

“Then what good is individuality?”

“The Void holds many secrets, such as how I can still use my Legacy after all this time. Why do you think we, the Reflections, were tasked with helping the Palemarrows. Because there are things that not even you could do.”

Aunty P. raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? Do show then.”

Lane didn’t reply, instead his off-blue eyes turned stark black. He froze like a statue as his ability connected to the prisoner. Her eyes turned black as well and she looked at Aunty P.

“How can I serve?” the bound woman asked with the voice of Lane.

Aunty P. didn’t waste time. “Tell me about the ones you consort with. The Harbinger and Witch.”