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Dossidian
‘Dossie come play with me!’
I stared straight at the ceiling of my travel pod. I knew it wasn’t her. It was this origindamned desert, using my greatest weakness against me.
‘Dossie? I know you’re in there!’ The phantom of my little sister swept around the perimeter of the pod. I could see her small shadow, as if she were cupping her little hands against the canvas, trying to peer through the fabric.
It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.
Unlike the spores, this magick was not as easy to guard against, or burn away. No matter what my father would have the rest of The Dominion believe, this magick did not come from daemons, but the land itself. The desert was hungry and used illusions to draw in unsuspecting prey to be devoured.
I knew the phantom that crept around my pod, begging me to come play a game of hide and seek, wasn’t my sister. I knew this because my sister was dead. She had been for nearly three hundred years.
‘Please Dossie? How come you won’t play with me? Don’t you love me anymore?’ The phantom asked, her tiny voice breaking, as if she truly believed I could stop loving her.
Of course I loved her. With all my heart.
But my love for her wouldn’t bring her back, and this illusion, as real as it felt, was just that - an illusion. A ghost of my mistake-riddled past, back to haunt me and remind me why I needed to stay away from the little green witch who made me feel things I had never felt before.
I allowed my mind to indulge in the memory of the moment I had shared with Meredith, if only to block out the relentless pleas of my dead sister.
The way she had reacted to my magick had been explosive, like setting a match to kindling. I should have sent Raven in, to help her with the spores. I had known I was playing with fire, but I was selfish, and weak.
I just couldn’t stay away from her, and my weakness would be her demise. My powers were unruly on a good day, but when mixed with strong emotions, and paired with delicate, flammable energies, I was a walking bomb. Bombs did not discriminate. They only destroyed.
My sister’s powers had been similar to Meredith’s. Wherever my sister walked, flowers and life had grown in her wake. The dry piece of desert our people occupied had exploded into a beautifully cultivated oasis by the time she had turned three. As she got older and grew into her powers, it was clear to everyone who knew her that she was special.
She turned dried out waterbeds into bubbling streams, saved withering crops with nothing but a smile and the gentle caress of her tiny fingers. Daemons did not have healing magick, and relied heavily on potions and herbs that we stole or traded with the magick folk, but my sister’s magick had been close.
She’d had the power of life burning within her and she had been generous with it, spreading abundance, joy and love everywhere she went. She had been pure and had deserved so much more.
‘Dossie, look! I made you a crown!’ The shadow held up the silhouette of a flower crown. She had made me countless crowns when she had been alive, telling me that I was a prince and princes wore crowns.
Yes. My sister had held the spark of life in her palms. It was a shame she had been cursed with a brother who burned so hot that he snuffed her spark out, leaving the world a little darker than it should have been.
Meredith reminded me of her. She was so full of life, and though her magick was finite and limited, she selflessly gave herself to those in need. Over and over again, I had watched her save our lives, and selflessly throw herself into our cause for no other reason than she felt it was the right thing to do.
Meredith owed us nothing, and yet she was here. Helping. Always helping. When I had walked into her pod and realized she had already deduced that we had been under a spell, I hadn’t been surprised. She was sharp as a whip and modest as hell about it.
She wasn’t prideful, and despite being angry with me, she had allowed me to help her. She always made smart choices, and I think that must have been what was holding me back from telling her the truth.
If she was smart, she would stay away from me. If she knew that my power ached to consume hers, and burn her away until there was nothing left, she would leave and never look back. When she learned what I had done to Sirroah, and understood that she very well could be next, she would need to make a choice. Meredith was not the type to make foolish decisions.
She was the smartest person I knew. Which meant she would be smart enough to know that she should run from me, but I was too weak to let her go.
Rycon
Kasha stayed out with us for much longer than fifteen minutes. It didn’t take long for Koda to launch into a retelling of mine and Rhyalla’s upbringing, sparing none of the humiliating details.
“Do you remember Alley Cat?” Rhyalla asked Koda, her face flushed after several rounds of Cachaça. I groaned and dropped my head back in embarrassment.
Here we go…
“Alley Cat! How could I forget!” Koda boomed, smacking the table so hard I was worried it might split in two.
Kasha was grinning from ear to ear, looking back and forth between Rhyalla and Koda excitedly.
“Who is Alley Cat?” She asked, and despite the fact that I wanted to skin Koda alive for bringing up this particular story, seeing her so enthused and close to her old self, I had a hard time being mad about it.
