Before Meeting Up with Arthur and Neo

  ‘Where exactly is Almos? He isn’t at old Martha’s place, and neither is Martha.’

  A sigh escaped Aurora’s lips. “Of course I have to track down a customer because they ask for direct delivery. Darn it.”

  Shaking her head, she began her hunt.

  She checked with the baker. Nothing.

  The local apothecary. Nothing.

  The blacksmith. Nothing.

  Each of them eventually pointed her toward the same dreaded direction: Orlen the Mage’s store.

  Aurora cursed her luck.

  While she was debating whether to go there, her sixth sense flared.

  She ducked instinctively.

  A rock sliced through the air where her head had been.

  “Seriously, Ralph? Again?”

  Aurora slipped on her so-called Steelmask and prepared herself mentally to deal with this moron.

  “What’s wrong with tossing something at a cursed one?” the young adult, Ralph Ennou, said boldly, loudly, and without reprimand from any passerby. “Your mother is cursed. And if the bloodline is cursed, it affects the children.”

  Aurora suppressed the twitch in her eye. She didn’t respond. Didn’t rise to it. She knew it would only get worse if she showed emotion to someone like him.

  So she nodded once, and walked away.

  Behind her, Ralph muttered, “Tch. No fun.”

  As she turned the corner, a flash of memory surged.

  Eyes.

  Eyes that wanted to destroy everything.

  Pitless eyes that seemed like an abyss.

  Aurora made it out of sight before collapsing against a wall, clutching her racing chest as her breathing quickened.

  ‘Calm down. Calm down. Calm. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Mom’s not like that anymore. She’s fine. I’m fine. Arthur’s fine. We aren’t there anymore. Not in that storm anymore.’

  Her breathing slowly steadied.

  Then a voice cut in.

  “So you’re the one with my shipment? I thought it was Arthur’s turn, so I was looking for him. I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to pick it up myself.”

  Almos Nightshade.

  Every trace of vulnerability vanished from Aurora’s face. It was replaced with a scowl.

  “You changed your mind last minute,” she said flatly, her eye twitching, “without informing the people you’re paying?”

  Almos blinked.

  “For your information, I’ve been looking for you for half an hour. Cascades Edge isn’t that big. I checked every nook and cranny, ” her voice dropped to an intense whisper, “and you’ve been at my home this whole time?”

  It took everything in her not to actually yell.

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  ‘Everyone was saying he was at Orlen’s shop. Were they trying to get me to go over there to annoy the man!?’

  Almos jumped. “Hey, hey, hey. I had to work up the courage to see the Demon.”

  He immediately shrank back under her glare.

  “She’s disabled,” Aurora snapped, shoulders shaking. “She’s recovering from a mana outbreak. Of course she looks different. Why does no one in this town get that? Orlen lives here. He could tell you all about it!”

  As she forced herself to cool down, she heard Almos mumble something.

  “What?” she demanded.

  He swallowed. Louder this time.

  “Mister Orlen said Miss Elise is a Magician. That she was devoured by her desire and became inhuman.”

  Aurora froze.

  “…What?”

  Almos pressed on, nervous but emboldened by repeating what he’d been told.

  “He said the Scarlet Night, the Undying Legions, and recently the Black Storm from ten years ago. They were all born from Magicians. And he thinks your mother is one. She appeared a few days after the Black Storm formed.”

  The words didn’t register at first.

  They just… echoed.

  Aurora didn’t remember what specifically happned after. She just went on autopilot.

  She completed the transaction. Took the payment. Handed over the remedy.

  Then she walked.

  Only when she reached the Sheltered Woods did she snap back to herself.

  She inhaled.

  Exhaled.

  And put on her al false front before meeting her brother, as to hide her unease.

  * * *

  Arriving at the HMS Dauntless

  The former ship-of-the-line, HMS Dauntless, loomed ahead on the eastern beach.

  Arthur rushed forward toward the mooring lines, climbing up in an attempt to beat his sister in their little competition.

  It wasn’t much of a victory.

  Aurora had a basket she wasn’t about to drop.

  They reached the top deck and immediately went searching for their mother.

  They moved easily across the slanted boards, navigating the familiar terrain without thought. Traces of her presence led them to the captain’s quarters.

  When they entered. They both suppressed a wince.

  She was on the floor.

  Eyes glazed over.

  Aurora exhaled sharply. “Arthur. Get her medication. I’ll move her somewhere more comfortable and clean her up.”

  He nodded without a word.

  Aurora gently moved the eyepatch over the blackened mass that had once been her mother’s right eye. She found the prosthetic right leg and arm nearby, thankfully intact, and set them within reach.

  Black ichor stained the floorboards.

  Arthur returned with the medicine and a towel. Aurora wiped the dark substance from their mother’s mouth while Arthur helped lift her onto the bed.

  They administered the medication she had prepared for herself during one of her lucid periods.

  Then they waited.

  They watched the black veins along her neck and arms slowly recede. Watched her skin regain faint color instead of corpse-white pallor.

  They both tensed when strands of her white hair darkened with streaks of black, something which they had never seen before.

  But relief came when her remaining eye shifted from glazed to merely hazy.

  “She must’ve enhanced the formula,” Arthur murmured in surprise seeing her hair turn back to a color he’s seen only once.

  .

  Aurora let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “So… how long do you think she’ll be out this time?” she asked quietly.

  She shivered. Every one of mothers episodes looked like death. Every time, it terrified the girl.

  Arthur finished straightening the room before answering.

  “She probably pushed herself making that remedy for Ol’ Martha. But the medication’s improved from what I can tell. So I’d say an hour or two. Give or take.”

  Aurora nodded and went to store Almos’s payment in the family coffers.

  When she returned, Arthur glanced at her.

  “We’re still doing our family birthday today?”

  Aurora smiled.

  “Mom wouldn’t want it any other way. And when she wakes up, it’ll be a nice surprise.”

  It wasn’t any of their real birthdays.

  None of them remembered those.

  So they chose the day they first met instead, as their collective celebration.

  But as Aurora prepared for it, her thoughts drifted back to what Almos had said.

  For the first time in years, she truly reflected on that night all those years ago.