Page 100 of Catatonic


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She took a sip from her cup, not looking at me as she said, "This isn't something I have seen. The immediate future is very uncertain right now. The distant future has a few more certain outcomes."

"And you want to help me get the best option for the immediate future?"

She nodded and placed her tea on the table. Her skirt brushed the floor as she paced the room. For some reason, the action struck me as familiar, and I was distracted as I tried to place why. So distracted that it took a while for me to register the words when Nisha said, “Did your companions not find it odd that there were so few fire collected, considering the centuries they claimed to have been waiting for this coming?”

My head spun with the quick change in topic. “Yes, they did, actually.”

“They were raised before now. You saw the protector's age … He had been awoken during the first World War of your realm.”

A sense of dread filled me, and I shivered. I was human during the first world war. And it probably wasn’t a coincidence that I was human now, as the protector was risen again.

“But why?” I asked.

“Because the witches were frightened. Their families were frightened. They believed the war was a sign that disaster would come as prophesied. They needed to feel that they were helping."

I considered that. "Was the protector buried in the same place as we rose him from?"

Her somber expression suddenly changed to a joyous excitement. "Yes! You’re thinking along the right lines. He rose and returned to the same resting place, so?"

When I raised the protector, I also raised a dragon.

"Was the dragon raised during the war too?”

Nisha’s smile faded, and her eyes pinned me to the seat as she nodded, and her voice took on a storytelling tone. “The dragon, as I’m sure you will remember from the myth, was once a power-hungry, magic-stealing man, Fafnir, who, upon taking too much magic, turned into a dragon. But he wasn’t a beast. He was smart and controlled, a plotter. He knew his best chance of survival was to get away from the protector, from Sigurd, as soon as he could. He flew from Sweden and landed in England during the war. He blended in, earned his fortune through clever strategies, and therefore avoided conscription.”

"He was human? He was in England? When I was alive?" I was aghast. I assumed the circumstances I found myself in had more to do with bad luck than anything else, but it couldn’t be a coincidence the dragon was alive at the same time I was.

Nisha nodded. “Sigurd followed him and presumed he would be in the middle of the battlefield causing havoc and so signed up to fight.”

“But Fafnir wasn’t fighting.”

“He was hunting.” I shivered, and Nisha leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Many witches lost husbands to the war. But one male stood out amongst the rest as a rich, handsome man who hadn’t known the horrors of war and was not scarred from it. Can you guess who that might be?”

“Fafnir?”

She sighed, and I knew it wasn’t the right answer. “He went by a different name, a boring, unassuming name, to hide his nefarious ways.”

“I knew him? As a person?” She continued to stare at me as though she could implant the thought in my head. “Not my father?” My heart lurched at the thought.

But Fafnir didn’t go to war. He was hunting witches. How would he hunt witches? How could he get them away from their families? How would he hide their deaths? Who did I know who could do that?

I gasped as the answer hit me with a memory of flashing yellow eyes. “Mr. Jenkins.” Nisha leaned back into her chair as though her job was done. “You’re saying that Darren Jenkins was Fafnir and his wives who died were witches? He killed them? By taking their magic?” I felt sick. My hands trembled, and I gripped them tightly to stop them.

“Did you not look into the eyes of the man yourself and see no soul? Were you not terrified beyond all reason?” Nisha asked softly.

“I was. I …”I killed myself to escape him.

She nodded, knowing without words. “Why did you do it?”

I bit my lip and shivered as I was taken back in a flash of memories to my wedding night. Weak, ill, torn dress, torn skin, a belt, debilitating fear. “I was so scared, and I just wanted to escape. I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I wouldn’t survive him, and something inside of me wanted to escape on my own terms.”

I’d been staring at my clenched hands so intently that I didn’t notice that Nisha had moved to sit next to me until she placed a warm hand on mine.

I looked up at her sympathetic face and she whispered, “Magic. The power housed inside your soul wanted to escape. When titan souls were split, it was their power thrown into the interconnected dimensions. Your soul pair kept the attributes of a titan, and you kept the power. You couldn’t use it as a human. Not until you reconnected with your soul pair. But it was always there. You were a nurse because your soul wanted to heal, a magic a magic-stealing dragon could sense. Rather than let him take you, as you could have done, your magic urged you to set yourself free, to be reborn where you could learn more about magic, as a familiar.”

“He would have taken my magic and—”

“He would’ve been very powerful. Powerful enough to open portals and travel to other planets, reaping them of their magic, creating a kingdom for himself.”

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