Chapter 148: The Mortem

Marek and Nokuti had left the dining room and had gone to oversee the final preparations for the Unildyr hatching and subsequent feeding. Crow, Lysaila, and Dawn had decided to stay and rest in the dining room after a long day of battling.

Large sections of Castle Mora had burned down, luckily the pantries and storages of food were not among the burnt. One of the Carin tribe’s cooks brought several plates of hot-steaming food for dinner.

Dawn ate her soup and salted meat in silence. Lysaila wasn’t hungry and stayed in the corner of the room, wrapped in her make-shift blanket, the table mantle. Crow asked for his food to be taken to his room and instead busied himself with reading one of his books near the fireplace.

After Dawn finished eating, she silently got up and left to find her twin brother, Vaughn. Lysaila’s face kept switching between expressions of anger and frustration for the past hour. Eventually, she sighed out loud, threw her blanket aside, and slithered over to the fireplace.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” Lysaila asked.

Crow looked up from his book, “This is unexpected. What’s on your mind?”

“You’re the historian of the tribe, right? Like, you know a lot of stuff, right?”

“I am in charge of information gathering, yes.”

Lysaila’s eyes darted around furtively.

“How much do you know about the Mortem?” She asked.

Crow closed his book. “As in the Order?”

Lysaila nodded.

Crow tapped his fingers over his book in a rhythmic pattern, “Let me think. Well, the Mortem was an order of magi founded in the Scarlet Realm over 400 years ago. They are most famous or infamous, depending on how you look at it, for the creation of, well… you.”

“All of the beast-kins,” Lysaila nodded grimly.

Crow sighed in wonder. “Yes, truly a remarkable accomplishment. Mixing the blood of all sorts of different species to create entirely new life forms. To this day no one knows how they did it. At the time, everyone admired and feared the Mortem for their magical feat.”

Lysaila’s indigo eyes narrowed and she hissed menacingly.

Crow cleared his throat, “Of course, the Mortem failed in creating their magical army since beast-kin have no mageborns. The Order collapsed soon after.”

“They created us to be their warrior-slaves. It only serves them right that they failed,” Lysaila seethed quietly.

“Yes, well, why the inquiries over the creators of your species?”

Lysaila bit her bottom lip, “...Do you know anything regarding Prime Edict?”

Crow leaned forward in his chair, “We’re entering the territory of myth now.”

“So, you do know about it.”

“Well, hard to say, there is no concrete proof,” Crow shrugged. “But I have read snippets of such things in old books.”

“My people mentioned it in hushed whispers, horror stories,” Lysaila stared into the fire. “I need to know more, tell me everything you’ve read.”

“For all I know, none of it is true.”

“I don’t care, I want to know.”

“...Alright. The Prime Edict was said to be an assortment of spells, of what kind I honestly have no idea. What I do know is that the Mortem were said to have created the Prime Edict and interweaved the spells into the blood of all beast-kin during their original inception and that the Prime Edict was then passed down through the blood, from parent to child.”

“Go on,” Lysaila nodded.

“Well, the stories differ at this point. Some say the Prime Edict was a passive form of magic that made all beast-kin loyal to their creators. Others say that the Prime Edict was a dormant magic that only activated when one of the Mortem were in danger, causing the beast-kin to protect their creators. A few even said… well, I don’t think it matters...”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Lysaila glared at him.

“It’s just that the Prime Edict couldn’t have existed, otherwise how did the beast-kin turn on their creators and masters? How did the beast-kin abandon the Mortem? The Order fell because the beast-kin ran away from the Scarlet Realm. How could that have happened if the Prime Edict existed? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t care for your conjectures, bird-man. All I want is your knowledge. What else did you read about the Prime Edict?” Lysaila hissed.

Crow sighed, “A few books said that the Prime Edict allowed the Mortem to directly control the beast-kin. With a single word the Mortem could make the beast-kin do whatever they wanted, even kill themselves.”

Lysaila took a shaky breath, “...My mother once told me of the sovereign tongue. That we would know when a Mortem was near. For when a Mortem would speak, ordinary folk would simply hear a man. But beast-kin would hear something entirely else, a language of power that burned through our very being. We would be helpless against the sovereign tongue. My mother told me to hide if I ever even heard a whisper of that cursed language.”

“I’ve never heard of this sovereign tongue,” Crow said curiously.

Lysaila chuckled bitterly, “Doesn’t matter. I never heard even a whisper of the language when I met him.”

“Met whom? Lysaila, what are you saying?”

She stared at her hands, there was a slight tremble, she hated it. “...I think I met a Mortem today.”

“What? The Mortem Order was destroyed in its entirety over 300 years ago. Even if somehow one of the creators of the beast-kin survived the destruction of their order, they would still be long dead by now.”

“I know what I saw and I know how I felt,” she snapped.

He raised his hands, “Okay, say I believe you. How do you know it was a Mortem?”

Lysaila clenched her fists, “I couldn’t kill him, even when I had my blade next to his neck.”

“What?”

“What if the Prime Edict was real? And what if just like how the Prime Edict is passed down through blood, the Mortem’s control is also passed down through blood or some other means.”

Crow leaned back in his chair, “It would explain how this person was able to control you, but the whole thing seems a bit far-fetched, no? If the Mortem could do that wouldn’t they have restarted their Order? Why haven’t we heard of them in 300 years? And why would one of them be in the Ebon Realm of all places?”

“You said it yourself, the Mortem Order was destroyed completely. What if only a few survived? Or even just one. What if that mage passed down their power and the inheritors have been biding their time all along, hiding here in the Ebon Realm, waiting for the moment to strike.”

“And you think that moment is now?”

Lysaila shook her head, “I don’t know. All I know is I’m going to find that son of a bitch and I’m going make him squeal until he tells me everything he knows. Then I’m going to take revenge for all lamias.”

“Assuming all of this is real and you are actually correct, how do you propose to even catch him if you are under the Prime Edict yourself?”

Lysaila licked her lips, “...I’m not sure how strong the Prime Edict is. I was fighting him just fine until the very end, I hurt him. I think the stories exaggerate the Prime Edict’s power. How else did the first beast-kin betray and abandon the Mortem? I didn’t even hear him speak the sovereign tongue. Clearly, the stories of the Prime Edict are not what they seem.”

Lysaila gripped the handle of her sword, “Whatever the case may be, my comrades aren’t beast-kin. I’m sure I can get Kyriil or Grim to help me out, maybe even one of the twins. None of them need to know the details, so long as they know that man is my enemy.”

“I noticed you didn’t include me in that group of comrades,” Crow pointed at himself.

“You’re not a mage.”

“Neither are you.”

“I can still fight.”

“So can I.”

“I’m a grand swordmaster and my species was literally created for war. Are you?”

“...Point taken. So, how do you plan on finding this Mortem mage?”

“I’m still working on that. He looked fairly unique, so that’s a start.”

“Oh, what did he look like?”

“He was very young and he looked like the twins, but it was different. For starters, he was really small. He also had really sharp grey claws. His skin was blue, but a different shade than the twins, it was paler. His ears were pointy, but they pointed downwards. His eyes were lilac and had slit pupils.”

“...Interesting. If it wasn’t for the color description, I would assume you were talking about a goblin,” he said.

“Goblin?”

“Ah, that’s right, you haven’t seen one yet. They are a chromatic species native to the Realm. They mostly live in Hollow Shade or in Vulture Woods, either place is dangerous for us to visit.”

“I’ll figure something out,” she swore.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Thanks for your help,” Lysaila nodded.

“It was my pleasure, our conversation has been most enlightening. And rest assured the details of our conversation will stay between you and me.”

“I appreciate the discretion,” she smiled. “Speaking of details, I forgot to mention one last thing.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“The Mortem, he had two heartbeats. I’ve never heard anything quite like it.”

Crow clasped his hands together, “...Lysaila, have you ever considered other possibilities?”

“I know what I saw, he was a Mortem,” she crossed her arms.

“Yes, but what kind of Mortem? You see, until now you have been talking about this person as if they were some young child. But have you considered that perhaps a creature with two hearts is something else entirely? What if what you saw was not some descendant or apprentice of the Mortem. What if what you saw was an actual founding member of the Order or perhaps some monstrous creature they created.”

“...That sounds unlikely.”

Crow gestured to her tail then her body, “Stranger things have happened.”

“Then how was I able to almost kill him?”

“Did you almost kill him? Or did he make you believe that?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she frowned.

“Yes, because playing with one’s prey is unthinkable, right? I mean, what sort of predator would do such a thing?”

Lysaila furrowed her brow.

Crow stood up and patted her shoulder, “Just food for thought.”

“...Right.”

“Now, we should probably go find Lord Marek, the hatching will be starting soon.”