Merle

Merle fidgeted outside the door to his mother’s room. Waited, every breath hitching in his chest, for her lilting voice to echo out and invite him inside.

He did not know his mother, much. She was a distant spectre, a long, wicked shadow that stretched occasionally down the hallways, scaring him out of the way. He knew her cold gaze, the one that peered through the nursery doorway at night. And he knew her voice because the walls whispered with it; the forgotten remnants of spells long since expended.

One by one, he’d seen her call his siblings. They always returned with their heads hung low or their fangs bared in anger. He was too scared to ask what went wrong, but he could sense it in snatches.

Not good enough.

Imperfect.

Worthless. Broken.

Their souls would echo with the knowledge that mother did not think them worthy.

He was fearful as he stood outside her door, because he knew that her wrath would soon be upon him.

“Merle, darling, do come in!”

There she was, all kind, sugary words. He could feel the poison in her soul beneath each one, dripping into his mind. With a tiny, trembling paw he reached up for the doorknob and pushed his way inside.

Mother’s study was clean and crisp, the air almost subzero in temperature. Delicate swirls of frost coated every surface, full of endless patterns that drew his eye at every turn, threatening to pull him in. But he couldn’t ignore his mother, who was just as hypnotizing.

Her cold, cruel eyes followed him as he walked. She was striking, captivating, her slender frame accented by draping jewels and silks. She did not wear a crown, like father did, but she deserved one—her visage was a regal one, her presence commanding as any monarch’s.

“Oh, darling, do I scare you? Really, you needn’t worry. A mother is never scary. I have nothing but love for you.”

He didn’t quite realize how badly his wings were shaking, how he could never meet her eyes, until she spoke.

He wanted to trust her. He could tell she wanted that, too. But souls never lie—and the souls of his siblings told him that his fear was not misplaced.

“I just have a question for you is all, darling. Then you can go back and play with your brothers and sisters! Is that all right?”

“Yes, mother,” he said, quietly. The tremble stayed caught in his throat, for which he was greatful.

“Wonderful! Now…will you look at me, darling?”

He glanced up from his talons. He looked into her eyes and did not glance away. She smiled, softly.

“What do you see, child? In me?”

He saw malice, hidden in the gentle curl of her lips. He saw darkness tucked in the glittering corners, hidden beneath the ice.

He saw her soul. It was a black hole, gaping, in the center of her chest. It wanted to suck him in, keep him forever, overwhelm him and make him its own.

“I…I see…”

Tell her ‘beauty’, said his mind, ’Love’. ‘Kindness.’ ‘Power.’

He liked that last one.

“Power.”

“Oh,” she replied, her eyes glittering, “You do, darling? That’s nice. Is there anything else? You can be honest with me.”

He sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth but couldn’t keep his mouth shut long enough to keep words from tumbling out,

“I see darkness and I see horrible, horrible magic, and I see your soul and it’s sucking me in and I want to leave but I know I can’t and I-“

“That’s enough, darling. You can stop.”

He froze and cowered, sobbing. She was going to tear into him and call him worthless and-

She crouched down to him, her fangs bared in a sick, twisted grin.

“You…none of your siblings have been nearly as honest as you are.”

He looked up. Her eyes were not angry. They glittered with horrible glee.

“And that makes you perfect. Because I know you’re just like me.”

“I am?” His voice quavered.

“Yes, darling! Only those who see souls could tell me what you did. And that is what I need.”

She paused tilted his face towards hers.

“At last, I have someone to train. I have had children of Shade and children of magic but none of the soul.”

She stood up and returned to her desk.

“I have much thinking to do, darling. I will call you back to me soon, and you will learn of the extraordinary gift that I have given to you.”

With as graceful a bow as he could manage, Merle fled the room and shut the doors so fast they almost slammed. And then he sagged against the wall and began to shudder.

He couldn’t tell if it was fear or if it was pleasure that he felt.

It could’ve been horror, too.

Father fetched him from the nursery the next day.

His brothers and sisters watched him with hatred and worry in equal measures, some jealous of the favor bestowed upon him and others anxious for what mother’s love might entail.

Father’s eyes were hollow and distant as he told Merle to gather his things.

“You’re being moved,” he said in a thick, coarse voice, “Dear Melliodora wants you closer.”

“Yes, father,” was all he could say. He took his blankets and his pillows, the little toys from the box that he loved especially. None of the older kids ever used them, and his younger brother rarely bothered. They wouldn’t be missed.

He left the nursery without looking back and without being bid farewell.

His new room was rich and luxurious. The bed was so large he could sprawl his wings out without touching the edges, its mattress downy and deep. There was a balcony and windows and a beautiful panel of stained glass the same color as mother’s wings. As his wings.

He had a mirror, and a closet full of finery. There was a chest at the foot of his bed full of magical baubles and a towering bookshelf full of clean, thick tomes. He had a desk with crisp paper and a pot of ink. He had all he could ever want and more.

There were also things in the room he didn’t understand. Runes made a ring around the ceiling, glowing faintly, whispering half-heard secrets in his ears when he listened. There were wrought-iron cages hanging from the ceiling, each one of them empty but soaked in the kind of aura magic—souls—shed.

Mother came to find him, not long after. He was still standing there in the middle, marveling, when she came up behind him.

“Darling,” her voice startled him, “Isn’t it lovely? All for you—magic takes a lot, you know. Best to foster it so nicely.”

He turned to face her, and he wasn’t afraid. He ignored the darkness that hid in her secret corners, the malice that lurked in her eyes. All he had was love because he had received some in kind.

“And that’s not all!” she chimed, “I have a present for you, darling. Look!”

Lifting a wing, she revealed a Hulking Greatowl nestling, which glanced out with wary lavender eyes.

“Every mage ought to have a familiar, especially talented ones like you, darling! I would like you to raise her and bond with her while I plan your training. Watch her—she has a soul, too, like any familiar does. See how it develops under your care! I’ll see you soon, my child.”

With that, she departed, leaving the young Greatowl curled up on one of the velveteen rugs.

The next weeks were devoted entirely to this new task. He was so eager to please his mother, so eager to prove his worthiness. He did not want to be ‘worthless’. He did not want to be ‘imperfect’. He wanted to be everything she told him he was and more.

He came to love his new familiar, more than he had ever loved anything (except, he supposed, his mother—he loved her so much it was hard for anything to compare, really). He called it—her—Frostbite, for she was feisty and such a rich, pale blue.

He found books on his shelves about birds. They hadn’t been there, he didn’t think, before he looked for them, but he was glad to have them. He taught her to fly from his balcony, swept across the yard alongside her and pointed out the little creatures whose souls he could sense when she could not even see them.

He learned about her biology. He learned about her wings and what made them work, about her mighty talons and keen sight. He learned why she could fly in complete silence.

Father took him to the library, showed him a book about Greatowls particularly. He took it back to his room and read it cover to cover. He learned how Greatowls were the choice mount of flightless beastfolk, how they were difficult to tame but loyal once broken. He saw how they were fitted with armor and then he spent two weeks creating all manner of gear for Frostbite to wear, from the ceremonial garb of the owls that Talona rode to the thick armor of front-line birds. He picked out enchanted baubles and fit them into collars and footbraces. He even tried out magic of his own when he couldn’t find what he wanted, and it worked. Of course it did—he had mother’s tendency towards innate power, towards greatness.

Above all, he fostered her soul. He watched it bloom and flourish in his care, growing larger, stronger, with each passing day. She loved him dearly and he could feel it, in her soul and in her actions. The way she rode on his shoulder, the way she preened his wing feathers in the morning. The way she hopped around behind him and called out to him occasionally when he wandered too far away.

It had been six months when mother came to find him in his rooms. He had seen her, once or twice, in the halls, but she had said little aside from encouragement as to his project.

“Merle, darling, I see you’ve been busy!”

His room was warmer, full of him. Books were sprawled on the floor and his little records covered the desk. His projects were everywhere; he hung Frostbite’s armor from the birdcages, kept her perch by his bed.

“May I see your familiar?”

He handed her over gently, eager to please. He was proud of how far they’d come, together. He knew mother would be.

“Oh, isn’t she darling! And her soul—you do really love her, don’t you? And she loves you right back! Look at how big it is. You’ve done so well, my child.”

He smiled so big right then. He knew she’d be proud. She loved him. He was perfect.

“Look, I read about her in the library! I made her armor, and I taught her how to fly, and I learned all there was to know! I even made spells of my own, from the spellbooks! Look at the charm she’s wearing—it’s the Swiftness in Battle sigil from Bellae Mars’s Tome of War-Runes!”

“Oh, darling, that’s magnificent! I knew you’d be a natural; really, you take so much after me.”

She paused, strolling around to examine his handiwork.

“Now that you’ve done all this, are you ready for a proper lesson?”

“Oh, yes mother! Please!”

“Excellent! Let’s sit down, and I’ll teach you all about soul magic.”

They both collapsed to the floor, and mother set Frostbite down on the rug.

“Soul magic is an art in persuasion, really. With enough skill, a talented soul mage can control others beyond the bounds of any other magical talent. See, I can make your familiar move around!”

With a flick of her paw, mother sent Frostbite running around in frantic circles, hooting madly. Merle giggled.

“But that’s not all, darling! Most soul mages will stop right there, but not you or me. No, we can do even more! See, directing souls is good, but using souls is better. Did you know that you can use Frostbite’s soul to do magic? Really! Get ready, and concentrate on her soul. I’ll show you how to use it.”

Merle zeroed in on that distant, icy flutter, seeing how it beat to his own pulse. He saw her love and was ready to accept it, to wield it with her at his side. He could be a battle mage! Mother was, he thought; father was a warrior, and father was always with her. What else could she be?

“Are you ready, darling?”

“Yes!” he chimed, his claws twitching as he felt the magic build. He reached for Frostbite as though to take her wing and connect their souls as one.

And then he felt it. A shift. His paw dipped in its path as mother’s soul flinched, its darkness seeping through the walls around his mind. He could tell in that instant that something was wrong and he lunged for Frostbite, to save her.

But he couldn’t.

Mother’s magic caught Frostbite up into the air, and she froze, ice seeping across her wingtips. Her soul pulsed frantically and reached out to him.

And then it seized up, trembling. Shards of ice gathered beneath it, pushed it outwards. They burst from his familiar’s chest, dripping blood. Her soul hovered outside her body as she went limp, and Merle sobbed, begging for mother to stop, telling her that he wasn’t ready, that she should wait.

Frostbite’s soul danced in mothers claws. And then she cast it before him.

“Take it, darling. It won’t last long if you don’t take it and, really, you wouldn’t want to lose all of her, would you? That would be…unfortunate.”

He grasped it with trembling paws, cradling it to his chest. It was freezing cold and full of fear, but it felt like her, still.

“Wonderful, darling! Really, you’re such a natural. Most young dragons can’t even touch souls; did you know that? But I had a feeling you’d be different. You’re so like me. You’re perfect.”

This time, he didn’t hear her praises. He heard the visceral, malicious howl of her horrid, horrid soul.

“Oh, darling, don’t be so sad. This is an important step! Really, this is a lesson you need to learn. This line of work doesn’t afford time for affection, actually. Why do you think my familiar is a janustrap and not a hippogryph? There’s simply no room for dealing with something that needs so much, that craves all that attention. Now, would you look at me?”

She didn’t give him the choice. With a wickedly sharp claw she tilted his face up, and he had to look into her cold, cold eyes. They sparkled just like they did that first day. The day she said she loved him, that he was perfect. She did not care what she had done. She did not even care about him. She cared about his talent and nothing more.

“Darling, I need you to know something, right now.”

She paused, and he sniffled, trying to focus on anything but her face. But her grasp kept him pinned, and the only other thing he could see was the distant sunlight through her prismatic wings. They stained it a deep maroon, the color of dried blood. They made it a distant and unreachable dream.

“I am not trying to hurt you.”

The pulsing of her soul said ’Liar’.

“But these are lessons you need to learn, if you want to be like me. And you want that, don’t you?”

He nodded only because her grip was so tight he could not shake his head ‘no’.

“Wonderful, darling! Now, let me show you where to keep that soul. Because carrying it with you all the time can be dangerous, you know? Only the most trained of us can keep multiple souls all at once, without corrupting them. That’s what these cages are for—to keep the souls you take until you are ready to use them.”

She walked him through the spell with sweet words and gentle gestures, but he did not let his eyes stop at that facade. He spoke the words with whispers and spite, watched as the trembling soul of his dearest companion froze into place, unmoving, in its wrought-iron cage, below which a now-useless set of Greatowl armor dangled.

He did not miss a single word. He performed each gesture with the ease of someone who had done it time and time again. And mother praised him for it. He refused to hear her.

With a few more words of admiration and a gentle pat on the head, she departed, leaving Merle and the lifeless corpse of his familiar behind.

But she promised to come back tomorrow.

Merle’s room transformed overnight.

The books were gathered and shelved from where they were sprawled on the floor. The thousand pages of notes and observations were crumpled, filed, or burned in the hearth. The armor was gone, miraculously, but a keen observer would find it on the ground beneath his balcony in a snarled heap, to be buried by the next snowstorm. The enchanted baubles he’d used went there too. He couldn’t look at them.

Frostbite’s corpse slept dreamlessly in the chest where the enchanted things had been. He found a spell to freeze it in time, to keep it from decaying. He couldn’t stand the thought of burying her, of losing her entirely. But he didn’t know what to do with her, otherwise.

The curtains had been ripped from his windows and draped over the sick pane of stained glass that sat innocuously in the curve of his ceiling. He pinned it at the corners with nails and draped so much cloth over it that its bloody glow could not find him.

He found covers in the closet for his wings and wore them. He hated the sight of that eerie, glasslike patterning. So like hers.

When mother came, he followed her teachings with blank eyes and a hollow heart. He only flinched slightly when she made him take Frostbite’s soul and cast a spell with it.

Mother made his days into a pattern. An endless, horrible pattern.

Morning was for mealtime. He took his breakfasts with her, and his dinners too, when they came. He did not talk unless she asked him questions. He did not act unless she commanded it. And he did not listen fully to her words, because they never reached down into her soul.

After breakfast, mother took him out to the Icefield. She showed him how to take the souls of living creatures, how to absorb them fully and incorporate their magic into his own before releasing what useless offal remained. How to use their added capacity to cast spells no dragon should be capable of. She taught him how soul-power circumvented magical burnout. Showed him how, and also what happened when a dragon tried such things without extra power to aid them.

He hated those lessons, but he hated all her lessons. The only difference was that these ones actually hurt him, spilled his blood on the snow. Brought him to the brink of death and then back with a word, just so he’d know what not to do.

She never stopped smiling, even as she forced him to tear his body to pieces.

’My perfect son,’ she’d croon, ’you need to know these things! I couldn’t stand the thought of you forgetting and doing something regrettable, darling. That is why we do this.’

Evening was for reading and small spellcraft. Mother would take him through the library and show him books of every sort except the kind he actually wished to read. She showed him spells for this and that, spells to kill and spells to disguise. She showed him what words of magic could speed the path of a poison through a dragon’s body and which spells could stop any ill. What words could persuade even the strongest of dragons to obey—so long as there was enough soul power at hand to overcome the target’s own desires.

She demonstrated it on him, once or twice. It made him feel sick, but he couldn’t stop it. He became numb and ceased to care, because caring made it harder. He tucked his fear and anger into a tight box in his heart where mother couldn’t see it and he didn’t have to feel it.

Nighttime was all for him, mostly. Sometimes, mother would bring him out of their palatial home and on a mission when the moon rose high and bathed the world in silver just as cold as the snow. But, most of the time, she left him to his rooms and swept off to do whatever dreadful sorcery occupied her free hours.

Sometimes, he would sleep at night. Or, he would try to sleep. He rarely could unless exhaustion physically forced him to. He would lie awake in bed and think of the souls he had taken, the creatures he had killed, the familiar he had lost, all for her.

Sometimes, he would read instead. He would take books from his shelves or go down to the library when he couldn’t find what he sought. He learned the things mother wouldn’t teach him; spells for health and joy and pleasure. Spells that made illusions dance on the walls. Spells that didn’t take souls to work, just strength of mind and heart.

He liked to find the kinds of tomes that were hidden in plain sight. The thick ones with scratched-out lettering down the bindings. He knew that mother kept them there for herself, and only herself. Just ordinary enough not to draw an eye that wasn’t looking. She was too smart to stow things in secret places, because secret places rarely remained away from prying eyes. She put them in the plain places were no dragon ought to bother with them.

But he bothered. Because he could. A little act of defiance that wouldn’t bring him punishments served with a sweet-as-honey smile.

There was one night where he discovered a particularly meaningful manuscript. It was a thin thing wrapped in black leather and decorated with thin plates of silver. It had a name-card, once, that had long since been pried away. He saw the glitters of tarnish, the faint indent, as he browsed and gently lifted it from the shelf.

He feared, at first, that it might be trapped, somehow. But mother used her magic in more meaningful ways. She would not stoop to such trivialities; defiance was not something she knew to care about. Nothing happened as he turned the tiny book over in his claws. So he added it to the stack he had gathered and curled up in one of the library’s many small, hidden corners.

It was the first thing he looked at, when he settled down. Its mystery was alluring, like the others of its kind that he had found. Those ones hadn’t been too interesting, all complex schemas that were as powerful as they were incomprehensible to his untrained eyes. But he didn’t stop hoping that they were secret for a reason, and so he flipped to the faded title page.

Grym Mortuus’ Primer on Practical Necromancy — Revised Edition

His breath hitched, and he read on. When the time came for him to leave, lest someone come looking, he tucked it into his wing covers and snuck it back with him.

He had found a worthwhile secret, at last.

He hid what he learned. He hid it deep within him; not in his soul, where mother could see, but elsewhere. His heart, maybe. Perhaps just his mind. Little mindless remembrances that would flit past, just enough to remind him, not enough to be suspicious. Like mother, they were there in the open but where they wouldn’t be noticed.

It was not any easy trade, necromancy. In fact, he knew, from intuition if nothing else, that it was among the hardest. But he was talented, just as mother said. He believed her on no other matter. Though he stumbled, though he drew from the power of other souls despite detesting every second of the act, he managed alright.

He learned. He learned lessons he taught to himself. It felt good and free and, for once, he felt like he did those first, mindless months: like he was making progress that he wanted to make. Not the progress demanded of him.

He had not looked into either the chest at the foot of his bed or the cage where Frostbite’s soul had lived, largely untouched, since the day mother killed her. But he looked in that night because he was ready.

His room glowed pale and white in the light of the souls in his cages, in the light of Frostbite’s still, mangled body from where it was laying, frozen, in the open chest. It cast the world in black-and-white, not so unlike the distant night sky outside his windows.

He breathed deep breaths, orienting himself. He arrayed his tools before him: enchanted stones and written spells. He gently lifted Frostbite’s body from its makeshift coffin and released the ward he had set around it. He could still feel her warmth; he had cast the ward as soon as mother’s footsteps faded down the hall, it seemed.

He set her down and arranged her perfectly. It had been so long since he had studied her or anything like her and yet he knew her anatomy by heart. He knew the bones that made her wings work, the types of feathers that powered her flight. It was hauntingly familiar and made his heart—his soul—ache like a broken limb.

He wasn’t used to aching like this, not anymore. He had shut his feelings out long ago because they did nothing but hurt and hinder. But in this time of reversal he called them all back and let them shape his words as he spoke the spell into motion.

It wasn’t true necromancy, not really. True necromancy was reanimation when the soul was not readily available, or the soul could not be called back. But the principle of binding soul to dead flesh was the same between true necromancy’s later stages and the spells he sought. And the surrounding knowledge was vital as he slowly began the ritual.

Her soul was delicate in his claws as he summoned it to him. If mother had taught him anything he cared to use, it was ease in soul manipulation; that first day, with the shock so fresh, he had struggled to take it. Now, it fluttered easily to him, and he could sense the memories that he had long repressed just beneath its surface. But it wasn’t prudent to pry—the countless souls he had taken from wild beasts having taught him the dangers of curiosity—so he held it in place and spoke slowly.

He touched each rune-stone and read the scripts word for word. His soul shuddered as the breath drained from it, and he reached out to the others that hung in the cages above him when he felt it try and give out. Power flooded from and through him, wrapping around Frostbite’s fragile soul and motionless body. Slowly, he stitched the two back together, navigating her essence back into place, tying it to her body at each key point.

He stretched the threads to her wings. To her heart and her brain. To her lungs and talons and even her tail. He breathed life back into her, watching with building glee how her body began to twitch, awakening slowly but surely.

He was so close, so very, very close, when the temperature plummetted.

The walls whispered, and he knew she was close. Coming closer, her anger freezing the very air itself.

He murmured faster, but the spell did not follow his pace.

Just a few seconds more, just a few…

He was trembling. He could hear her claws.

The last snatches of magic left his outstretched claws just as his door burst open. He saw her in flashes as he scrambled to gather Frostbite’s softly-breathing form. Her shadow stretched before her, writhing like a living thing, and her eyes pierced him from their depths. He could hear her voice, sweet and lilting, swiftly spilling spells into the air. She reached out to take his soul, to control him, but hesitated just a bit, as though worried over severing it. That was all he needed to fire back a spell of binding. He spat the words with severity that poured his hatred into physical form, watching as her body stilled for just an instant, borne down by invisible chains.

He flung open the doors of his balcony. She was just a step behind him all the way. His wings snapped open under their covers, beating the crisp night air heavily. He held Frostbite close, his claws finding the charm that still hung from her neck, after all this time.

Swiftness in Battle.

He felt its speed in his limbs as he powered away. He flew and flew and flew until the horrid screeching of her soul faded into the hills. He flew until he found the sea, and then the land beyond the sea. He flew until he felt he was safe and then he drifted down, adrenaline abandoning him to all but free-fall.

He landed, stumbling, on a stretch of quiet beach. His limbs could not support him, and he collapsed, chest heaving, into the soft sand. He could see lights in the distance but had no strength to seek them out, to so much as validate their friendliness. Perhaps, he was glad that they were so far—he would be safe until he could move on. For now, he needed rest; he was so, so weary.

Frostbite hooted gently against his chest, and, despite the soreness that threaded through each muscle, he smiled with a delight that saturated every fiber of his being.

Everything could be undone. Death—he undid it. And he would undo the pain his mother caused, too, in time. His last thought before sleep rushed to claim him was one of triumph, and he ceased to care over the future.

Anything can be fixed. There is no need to fear.

Hulking Greatowl

Familiar

A preferred mount when non-feathered Beastclans need to become airborne. A greatowl can keep pace with most species of dragon in flight.

2500

"Frostbite"

A soul mage. Where most forms of magic are entirely inaccessible in Thunder Hollow, soul magic functions without any sort of issue. Merle's powers are in high demand, though he usually works on fairly low-end projects relative to his level of skill.

He created Soot's magic-capturing amulet to spare her from the effects of having too much primal magic. The accumulated ice magic is then used to create an artificial winter over Thunder Hollow every year so that Shade creatures stand out more prominently.

He cursed Ruakiri into draconic form.