a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I
wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't
discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar!
I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about
editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep
this in consideration! Thanks <3
*
[Mishal]
Every
day that passed after the ambush and Isadora’s injury was agony.
Isadora
herself drifted in and out of conscious. Her brow was constantly
doused in a thick sheen of sweat and she was always too warm to
comfort anyone. Gracia constant and vigilant care got her back to the
City of Bells, and her wound was treated. When the surgeons and
healers had no more for her in the infirmary, she was brought back to
Luthera’s manor, where she had been lying in a silent, terrifying
sleep for several hours.
Mishal
sat beside her, every muscle tense in his body. He hardly left her,
and how could he?
If
he’d just been a
little
faster. He should have reacted quicker. He’d frozen so badly, his
mind jarred so violently at her injuries and the creature that had
wrought them…
Gracia
was on the other side of her bed, her face pale and drawn. She leaned
back in her chair, watching Isadora as if that would do anything for
her. Mishal gripped the arms of the rocking chair tightly so he did
not tap against them or tear apart anything that found its way into
his fingers. It felt like lightning ran through his nerve endings.
“It’s
some form of venom,” Gracia said, frowning as Isadora murmured
something in her sleep.
He
clenched and unclenched and clenched his jaw. “What about it?”
She
grimaced, as though she were the one who had been hurt. And with all
the magic she had used in the last few days, she was likely suffering
some of Isadora’s same anguish. “I don’t what I can do for her,
Mishal. I don’t know what the thing was that did this. I can’t
make an antidote for something I have no knowledge of. Even lessening
the severity of the gash so she didn’t bleed out took most of my
energy. I can’t draw out venom. Not that I could at full strength
either. Weak doses of venom, of poison, I could probably do that, but
this…”
At
the mention of the beast, his mouth tasted of copper. He could
picture it clearly. He imagined it even more vividly in his dreams,
what few and fleeting that he had. It had sunk claws into his minds
without ever having to touch him.
“It
reminded me of something,” he said. “The beast. It sounded
familiar.”
Gracia
lifted her gaze. “What?”
“I
said I thought it looked familiar.”
“I
heard you, but how could it possibly look familiar?”
He
shook his head, closing his eyes. “It’ll sound mad. But you
noticed how… amalgamated it was?” He opened them again.
“I
didn’t really look at it, I was more focused on getting you and
Isadora away.” She leaned forward and gently touched Isadora’s
temple. “If you have any insight, Mishal, please.”
It
had been haunting him ever since they’d fled the ambush. “Golden
crest of a wild cat, wicked point from a devilled arachnid tail,”
he said. “But
from its visage stares back eyes of ours, a glimpse that heralds doom
and woe for those who face the mighty Manticore.
It was from one Cassius’ poems.”
Gracia
sighed and leaned away. “The manticore is a myth. They only ever
show up in books that would also bolster pixies and shadowed
boogeymen.”
He
set his jaw and held it this time, glancing down at Isadora’s
glistening face. “I may not be as read on my folklore as Cassius,
Gracia, but I’ve listened to him enough that I’d stake my pride
on that beast being a manticore. Body and mane of a lion, tail of
scorpion, and face of a man.”
She
shook her head.
Determination
reared hot in his chest. It was insane, he knew it and he could hear
it, but everything he’d ever learned of them… That thing was
a manticore. “What’s that thing Professor Marita always said?”
“‘There
is truth to every tale,’ but this isn’t a story. This isn’t one
of Cassius’ fables.”
He
met her gaze again. “Then what is it?”
She
folded her hands together in her lap and her brow twitched. Isadora
whimpered and shifted and whimpered again.
After
a pause, Gracia put her face in her hands. “Even to entertain the
idea that this… creature was a manticore, that would be of no use.
I don’t know what can heal manticore venom unless by its own
extract to make an antidote.”
He
leaned onto one side of the rocking chair, putting one leg over the
other. “If the tail was severed and brought back, would that
suffice?”
She
levelled him with a sharp look. “Don’t you dare get any ideas
about that. That thing took Isadora out with one blow. We lost people
to that thing while they were just trying to distract it away from
us. Forestter, Remington, Liliana, Damona, Ursa.” She softened with
a long exhale. “You can’t help Isadora if you’re dead. I mean
that, Mishal. I wouldn’t suggest the most competent, strongest,
bravest warrior take on that thing.”
He
shivered. Whether from the cold of the stone floor, in the basement
of Luthera’s manor, and the lack of warmth but that from the
candles lit in the room or Isadora’s fever, or from the horror of
the situation, he didn’t know, but it wracked through him. Light
pooled in from the stairs that led above behind him, dousing the
chamber in faint light.
Mishal
curled into himself. His stomach ached from more than the tension he
held in it.
“Then
let me help extract the venom. You said you couldn’t do it on your
own, so take my energy and latent magic to use. Take as much as you
need.”
Gracia
raised her head, possibly to consider or maybe to chide him, but her
eyebrows rose, and she looked past him instead, as some of the light
filtering into the room went dark with a shadow.
“Take
mine.”
He
turned. Margaretta stood in an oaken archway that opened into the
room, where great logs of wood extended out from and bracketed the
panels behind. She strode into the room, rolling up the sleeves of
her jacket, and came to stand beside Gracia.
“I
know what to expect, and I have had moderately more experience than
Mishal with magic and have more awakened power.” Margaretta stared
down at Isadora grimly. “Take as much as you need.”
Gracia
looked up at her in surprise, blinking, then shook her head. “I’m
not sure how much that is, or how potent this venom is. If what
Mishal speculates is true, and that thing was a manticore…
Margaretta, I don’t know if there’s enough people in the world to
draw it out.”
Margaretta
held out her hand. Pointedly. “If it takes all my magic and all my
life’s force, or you have to transfer enough of that venom to kill
me, and it’s still not enough to save her, then Mishal had already
volunteered.” She finally turned down towards Gracia. “But not
until you’ve used every last bit of mine.”
He
sat up taller, off the back of the rocker. “Margaretta—”
Her
icy gaze locked onto his. “You of all of us cannot deny that this
is my doing. I should not have pushed us like this, I shouldn’t
have forced this on her. I should have listened. My own hubris should
not fall onto Isadora’s shoulders, nor yours. I will do whatever is
in my power to save her. If you do not believe me, or if I’ve
caused your trust in me to waver, I understand. But believe me on
this, Mishal. She will not die.”
Mishal
held her gaze, his chest winding itself even tighter. A lump rose in
his throat, his breathing went shallow, and he looked back to Isadora
again. She looked pained, even in her sleep, her brow bent and her
mouth firm and tense.
She
will not die.
He
let out a heavy breath. He released all the tension he was holding,
that he had been holding for the past several days. The weight rolled
off his chest. He suddenly felt very small, as he slumped back into
the rocking chair, and nodded slowly.
She
will not die.
“Yeah,”
he said, softly. He shuddered, staring at Isadora, and nodded again,
swallowing hard. “Yeah.”
She
will not die.
And as Margaretta took Gracia’s hand, he realised that her words
had the same weight that his mother’s used to have, when he was
much younger. It was the relief that accompanied an adult’s
perspective, and their knowledge and experience. Margaretta knew
Isadora would be okay.
She
knew.
word
count:
1,441
...Yaa...so just expect a whole lot of fangirling down there...
Points: 29825
Reviews: 465
Donate