Chapter 10: Reaching Age (Part Two)

I had an enemy ask me this question once before in the darkest of times, “What’s the difference between you and me?”

My answer.

“Nothing. You bleed. I bleed. We all bleed.” I paused a little. “In the end, everything bleeds.”

Then I made him bleed.

And he bled.

It was true. Well, mostly true.

-The Blood Father

It took perhaps an hour or so before I got back to the village and some more time before I met up with Dance of First. She looked as she did when she was but three years old. Raven-colored hair. Verdant green eyes. And taller, but in the end, still a child. She still had many years left for her full growth. She had to look up to meet my eyes. Really look up.

Unlike Demona Hunters who held the Ritual of Age when they reached the age of ten, which marked their full growth, Dance of First would need six more years. Most Demona needed at least sixteen years of time for their Ritual of Age to take place.

Brother Eagle Above Skies, being one year older than me, was already undergoing his Ritual of Age. Then he would become a true Demona Hunter and the growth of ridges on various parts of his body would take place. He would also obtain his markings.

Wraithborn, on the other hand, did not have any Rituals of Age. They only progressed slowly like humans. There was no sudden transformation during the period of Age, when the ritual would take place.

“Greetings, Brother Wolf Under Stars.” A slight curtsy. A slight smile. Some affection in her voice. And her eyes twinkling with something. She didn’t call me Hunter Wolf Under Stars. It was just her way of greeting me.

It was a special greeting. She didn’t do it for anyone else. The curtsy. The slight smile. She only directed those toward me. I didn’t mistake it for anything else.

I recognized it as childish love.

And just perhaps because I saw something of myself in her, I didn’t acknowledge it. Or perhaps because she was still too young. Both mentally and physical, though she was only five days younger than me and smart for her age. I didn’t know.

“Greetings, Sister Dance of First,” I said, making a gesture of equals with one hand. Our tribe had many gestures involving the hands.

The gesture of equals. Of respect. Of affection. Of Sympathy. Of praise. Of ridicule. Of contempt. Of farewell.

We had many gestures to convey our feelings with our hands when words were not enough. I didn’t like using them. Neither did my brothers. We found that words were always enough between us all.

Ever since that night of marriage between Hunter and Magus Embracing Flower, that night of silence under the shadows of the bonfire, of the moon, Dance of First had made it her top priority to spend time with me whenever I was free.

It was akin to that of a little sister following you everywhere, of a little Ronat following her mother.

I smiled at that image.

“What’s so funny, Brother Wolf?” Her lips formed a pout.

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

She gave a small sigh. “You are always secretive these days. I could almost think you are a Brown Burrower.” Her eyes held a glint. “Or that you are meeting with someone else.”

I gave a small laugh at that. “The only ones I meet up with are my Brothers.”

She let out a long “hmm,” before continuing. “Well, if yo say so, Brother Wolf Under Stars.” Somehow, I felt as if she had paused on a word in that sentence. A pause too long. Or perhaps too short.

For the most of the afternoon, I spent it listening to Dance of First speak of her morning, and of her thoughts upon the things she learned. When Dance of First spoke, you had to pay attention. There was an energy to her that could not be ignored.

After a small dinner with her and my Brothers, whom we met up in the Mixed section of the village, I separated from the rest of the group. None of them asked where I was going. They were long used to me going off to somewhere alone. It was a silent consideration that made me feel grateful.

In our village, each member of the tribe, regardless of race, had a role. There was no currency to be upheld unlike the other tribes and villages, only requests, offers, some small trades, and helping hands. And though there was discrimination in parts of our village, we knew enough to care for the injured, the elderly, and the disabled.

Still, we had our enforcement guards, the tight-knit group of Hunters, the diverse Magus, the Profession leaders and the Council of Elders, of which Hunter had a place in. These were causes of friction, and the most powerful causes were from the Magus, the Hunters, and the Profession leaders.

I had found, in my many years and almost in every world—strength and influence spoke.

Back then, my Brothers and I, though Hunters, were still mere children who had not even undergone their Ritual of Age, so we knew nothing of the deeper layers in our tribe.

Early night had fallen.

And I wondered about the secrets I kept as I walked aimlessly around. If I were to confess, it would have to be to the Magus Elders, or perhaps Magus Embracing Flower. I could also tell Hunter about it, but he was on an expedition. And even if I told him, what insights could he give me? I had already scoured the whole Magus library for such insights. I had already used every resources I could think off. No, I only had the Magus Elders to turn to.

There’s a funny thing about secrets I have learned in the years. A newly obtained secret, however big or small, is easy to let go off. But a secret kept under age-old cobwebs, hidden under long-gone dust of dust, and pushed to the deepest abysses of your mind, is the hardest to let go off. No matter how small or how big of a secret it is.

The longest kept is always the hardest to let go. Familiarity, Brothers, is a more frightening concept than the unknown.

Even three years was too long of a time for me. I wondered at whether to confess.

Ever since the nights of the First Hunt, there had been strange changes within my body. I was stronger, faster, and keener. They were subtle changes, and I didn’t notice it until two years had passed by since the First Hunt. But with each new beast I had never hunted before, with each new blood I had never tasted before, I grew stronger, faster, and keener. So slight of a change that I did not notice with each kill, with each new blood, but they totaled up.

Then, there came the convulsions. The sickening warmth of the blood in my veins. The fire that seemed to burn through my veins and organs like a molten river of fury. The screams that died in my throat. The thirst brought to life afterwards, as if a whole ocean of blood would not be enough to satisfy.

There were the random convulsions also. They came hard and fast, leaving a seemingly never-ending weakness, and left even faster. Each increasing occurrences, each increasingly stronger convulsion, I lost more and more blood. Then I woke up stronger that I was before.

They came at random intervals, but never when they were people around. It was as if my blood had a mind of its own, a goal of its own. Something mysterious, something unreasonable.

My mind flashed to the night of the Surge Awakening. The cold dullness of the black dagger. The white bone of its hilt. And the sharpness slowly descending upon my chest. Of Elder Magus Zelas, his black cowl that overshadowed his face, his black robe that nestled his bone-thin figure. Of Teacher Embracing Flower and her frightened look. Of me. Or for me.

A blinding flash. A sharp agony in my mind. Then I remembered the words spoken in the language of Knowing.

“The blood of kin…the Essences of blood…Foci…prayers to the All Mother and the All Father.”

Realization hit me.

“The Essences of blood,” I murmured softly to myself under the cover of the slowly darkening night skies, “and Foci.” Those words should not have belonged in the chants of the Surge Awakening. It was an unknown factor. It should not have been in there!

All the books on Surge Awakenings in the Magus Library told nothing of the Essences of blood. There was only the blood of kin and a few other chants. There had been a change in the attempted Surge Awakening I had undergone.

Why had I not connected these things before? Why? Even though memories of that night came rushing back to me whenever the convulsions struck.

My palms ached with a stinging pain. I had not even realized that I had been clenching my fist so hard that my nails had drawn blood.

Elder Magus Zelas. The cause of it all.

Determination welled inside me, and not a small amount of anger accompanied it. The anger steadily increased. It was as if the fire in my blood had ignited the anger, until it became too large for my body, too all-consuming. It needed an exit, a way out.

But I didn’t let the anger out. I kept it bottled inside me, under fine layers and layers of determination. I kept it smoldering, biding its time.

A thought entered my mind. A question that shook my very existence.

Kill?

No, I immediately answered back to myself, to that question. I grew frightened. I did not recognize myself. I was itching. My blood was itching. An itch that could not be scratched.

I slowly made my way toward the Magus section. With me, I brought no weapons. My blade-spear was still lying against a corner in my room. I only brought determination. And bridled fury.

Being one of the three most powerful Elder Magus, Zelas lived in the very center of the Magus section, his house one of the largest to add. He was also on the Council of Elders.

I headed toward this house, walking along on the dirt and stone paths of the village. I made my way pass through Magus disciples and a few Magus who were still up studying. Some of the more courteous ones waved at me, or gave me a short nod. I ignored them all.

His home was finely made. A little taller than two flights of stairs and rectangular in nature with a thatched roof made from Hibis plant. I knocked on the patterned door made of white-washed wood from a Strong-Heart tree.

It was a sign of his status. Wood from a Strong-Heart tree was rare and was always used to make inferior copies of true blade-spears.

A dry voice called out from within. Deep and strong. But it sounded pained, as if afflicted with something. I was sure it was just my imagination though. “Why do you even bother knocking? Come in.” I felt a sense of dread as I entered his room.

There, under the glow of a Fire Essence lamp, Elder Magus Zelas sat by a heavy circular desk with a hand cupping a small earthen mug. The bitter-sour scent coming from the mug was strong enough to even reach where I stood. He wore his usual black robe and cowl that overshadowed almost his entire face, showing only a faint trace of his brown tanned chin.

I sensed a trace of disappointment as he turned my way, the way his shoulders fell slightly, as if I was not who he had expected. Looking closely, he made for a sad figure tonight. There was no trace of mysteriousness nor a trace of danger I always felt from him.

His black gloved hand moved into a gesture of welcoming. An invitation to enter his home, though I was already halfway inside. “A young night today, is it not Hunter Wolf Under Stars.” He sipped at his drink, gesturing for me to sit. “What brings you for this—” A short pause as he swallowed. “Rare visit.”

Hiding my fury under deeper layers of determination, I returned a gesture to him. The gesture of respect. “Greetings, Elder Magus Zelas.” I took the offered chair, sitting face to face with him around the circular table, which was too small for my taste. Too uncomfortable.

Even this close to him, I could not see through the cowl he hid his face under. I could only see that faint trace of his chin. I wondered at how he could see through such a thing. Was he blind?

I thought for a while as I inspected this shadowy black figure before me. I decided to not play with words. He had more experience in such matters than me, after all. “What happened on the night of my Surge Awakening?” I was blunt. I would waste not one word. I stared into that black cowl of his, as if I could see through what lied beneath it.

His grip on the brown earthen mug froze in midair. Just short of a second. Not even as long as a blink of an eye. But I noticed it easily. “Why do you ask?” he said, settling the mug down onto the table.

“The Essences of blood.” My voice was slow as I spoke each word of that sentence. Slow and seemingly deeper. Darker, even. I noticed the Fire Essence lamp flicker, as if accompanying each syllable of my words. “Foci,” I continued. The lamp flickered once more. A strange coincidence, no doubt.

There was a long silence as Elder Magus Zelas sat in his chair, looking deeply into that earthen mug of his, as if he could find the answers he was looking for in that drink. He looked up at me. He didn’t find them there, it seemed to me.

He let out a short sigh. “It seems the alteration fell short of my expectations.”

I didn’t understand. What exactly was he talking about? “What do you mean,” I asked, my voice still calm, not even showing any traces of the worries I truly felt.

“That night,” he began, “was never supposed to have happened. It was a mistake, yet I went along with it.” He let out another short sigh. “The follies of a blood relation, of love.”

I narrowed my eyes at that. There were more people involved in that? “What exactly do you mean by went along with it?”

“Everything begins with something,” he said. “Especially tragedies.” A slow moving hand moved toward the black cowl he always wore. When the cowl came off, I shirked at what lied behind.

It was a horrifying sight. A face blackened beyond imagination, and it seemed to pulse with a dark something, like a beast in its death throes. The entire left side of his face had been scorched away, leaving only a few remnants of muscle tendons. From the flesh-devoid left side of his cheek, I could see the inside of his mouth, flashing white teeth at me.

Elder Magus Zelas must have seen through the question that was running through my horrified mind—What happened?

“Dragon fire,” he said in a slow, withdrawn whisper, his remaining sky-blue eye glistening with past memories. “Incurable, unhealable.”

I had heard stories and read about dragons before. But this shouldn’t have occurred. “It cannot be healed?” The disbelief must have entered my voice.

He shook his head. “Not any normal dragon. It was a dragon of death. Blacker than the night itself. With it, the dragon brought death, decay, and a black flame so dark, so cold, that one touch of it would make a thousand agonies seem like bliss.”

Although I was curious by this story I had never heard of before, I could not find any relation with it to my circumstances.

“It happened almost twenty-two years ago, on the day my daughter was born,” he continued in a voice that seemed sadder than it was before.

I paled at that number and my thoughts ran wild. But I dared not confirm any of these thoughts.

“It was a sad and joyous occasion. It was on this day that my wife died too.” With a shaking hand, whether from anger or from sadness—I could not tell—he took a small sip from his mug. “The years before that, our tribe was not one yet. It was split into two, the Demona and the Wraithborn.”

It was a startling fact—or was it a lie? Either way, I had never heard of such a story before.

He gave a bitter half-smile. A half-smile from not being able to fully stretch his half-burnt lips. “It’s a sad story. There’s a law in this tribe that dictates this story shall be forever buried, left to rot in the secrets of the blackened earth. Too many Wraithborn and Demona died that day. Too much enmity existed after that day. Anger at our own weaknesses, anger at our own shortcomings, and anger at the dragon. It’s how we became a mixed tribe of both Demona and Wraithborn, you see.”

His one blue eye seemed to become even sadder and his shoulders drooped as if a burden he was carrying had become heavier. “Do you never wonder why most of the tribes only have one race in it? And why we moved further away, until we became the most isolated tribe?”

It made sense. I grimaced at the answers I found to these questions.

With another slow movement of his hand, as if for emphasis, he put his black cowl back on. “It takes all my Anima, all my magic, and all the Nature Essences I can refine to keep this decaying flame from spreading.”

I hesitated, then determination welled up. “In the end, what does this story have to do with me?” I asked.

“You should already know the answer,” he replied.

And he was right. I did know the answer, but I could not admit it to myself.

I whispered so softly that I could barely hear it myself.

“Your daughter…she is Embracing Flower?”

Elder Magus Zelas did not affirm it, but his silence by itself was an affirmation. “That night of your Surge Awakening, my daughter—your teacher—was the one who told me to change the incantation.”

“And you did?” I asked, my voice weak, my hands trembling. From anger? From pain? From sadness? I could not tell. My thoughts were in a whirl, aimlessly refusing to solidify. “Why?” My voice became weaker.

“My daughter, she is too smart for her own good. Too headstrong. She may not look like this to others, but she truly matches her appearance.” He fixed a hand around the mug, as if it could wipe away everything. “I regret telling her of this story. In her silent fury, she began a path to gain power, enough power so that she could carry out her vengeance upon the dragon of death. It’s how she became such an accomplished Magus. Determination and willpower is the key to the paths of a Magus.”

A bitter smile showed underneath that cowl. “That determination was what led to this. She wanted to change the incantations of the Surge Awakening, to something different. Something much more powerful.”

He took a deep breath, half-pained, half-sob. “At first, she wanted to test the ritual on herself, but I could already see the consequences of such an act. I told her, but she did not listen. She was…blinded. So I acted before she could destroy herself. A nudge there. A push here. And a condition. I commanded her to become a Magus teacher for a full year before she could carry out such a ritual on herself.”

By now, my hands were clenched into fists so tightly, I felt as if my fingers would tear, that my very bones would break. My blood was thirsting and flowing with molten fury. It would set fire to the whole world if it could. Set everything to bleed.

The Elder Magus—no, her father—continued. “By chance, she obtained you as her student.”

My eyes narrowed. “By chance, eh. Why do I have such a hard time believing it,” I said in a voice so bitter that I surprised myself.

“I don’t blame you, Wolf Under Stars. You have every right to be angry at me, to be suspicious of me.” A brief pause, as if he waited for me to say something more. I didn’t, and he resumed his confession. “After she began teaching you for five months and attempted to awaken your surge for the whole of two months, but failed…she grew frustrated. But she never showed it. Then. A nudge there. A push here. I suggested, no, I influenced her into attempting the Surge Awakening on you.”

“When night fell, we began. As a father, I could never allow her to have the blood on her hands of perhaps forever destroying your Surge.” A sad voice. Sorrowful. Of loss and of bitter joy. “She’s the only reminder I have left of my wife. My treasure. She’s the whole reason I am persevering, still living on until now, fighting off the grasping hands of baleful death.”

The hand that cupped the mug shivered. “If I could cry at this moment, I would. It’s a sad thing, but ever since the black flame of decay destroyed more than half my face, I can no longer cry. No longer mourn for my dead wife. My tears have since long dried.”

I listened on in silence. I could not think of anything. I could not form any thoughts.

“After that Surge Awakening, she finally saw the consequences of attempting such a thing. She blamed herself then. I feared for her. She would not eat anything. She was no longer joyful. She was as dead as I was the day my wife died. The day the black flame of decay burned my face.”

He closed his eyes, as if the burden of the past memories were too much for him. “Then I used my Alteration. On my daughter. And on you. So that the both of you could never feel the full brunt of the horror of the memories. You see, the act of Alteration is a taboo thing among the Magus. A forbidden and dangerous art. It meddles with the memories.

“Such strong memories, however, cannot be meddled with so easily.” He glanced down at the wood of the table, a gloved hand tracing the patterns. “In the end, I subtly altered the self-blame of my daughter onto myself, making me the target of her blame and hatred.”

“As for you, the memories of that night were so strong that I could only alter a few words.” He gave a short sigh. “I was hoping that you would never remember, but I guess that was impossible.” A small bitter laugh. “Aha, it looks like tonight is the night of unburied secrets, eh? Do you want to know one more secret? The secret of the Hunters? And of their parents?”

It was enough. I could no longer take it. It was too much for me. I could only numbly shake my head at his questions, at his knowledge which cut deeper than any blade could. “Enough.”

“I am old now, young Hunter. No, Wolf Under Stars. I am so old. The pain is becoming unbearable. The decay each second, each minute, each hour, is steadily growing stronger as I weaken. I cannot even sleep on most nights. I can only stare aimlessly at this sad thing of a table as I bear the long nights.” He took a deep breath. “If you can find in your heart some pity for this old man, then please do not tell of this to my daughter. I will die soon. I am satisfied after seeing my daughter happily married, and about to give birth to a child.”

I left him then, my blood boiling with molten fire—my secrets would be my own.

There, I left Elder Magus Zelas, one of the three most powerful Elder Magus in the tribe and the father of Magus Embracing Flower; I left him in his fine house sitting sadly in that chair, resting his gloved hands on that heavy table; I left his dark figure, his sad shoulders—I left him behind the dark shadows the fire lamp casted. I left him waiting for his daughter who would most likely never come visit him.

In that cold night, I looked up at the figure of the sad moon as the members of my tribe passed by me, their curious stares also passing by me as I stood there alone by myself.

At that time, I wished hard. I wished so hard until I could feel the tears welling up from inside me. Until the sadness could have almost broken me. I wished to bury all of these things I had uncovered into the deepest parts of the earth.

Sadly, some secrets uncovered can no longer be buried again. Some changes that happen can no longer be reverted. Doomed forever by both time and regret, the currency of time.

I thought of her unborn child, of Hunter who had married her. Of Dance of First. Of my seven Brothers. Of Miam. Of everyone I had ever known. Of the beasts I had killed. Of everything.

I forgave her then. I forgave them both, as the tears ran down my eyes, wetting my cheeks. It was the first time I had ever cried since my infancy.

It was a night of changes.

And I walked aimlessly around the village, as my blood called to me, and as I called to my blood.

Some secrets, you just have to leave them alone. And the secret of my blood?

I would leave it alone, buried under the depths of both my mind and my heart. I would leave it alone.

A year soon passed by and the Ritual of Age came for me.

But I could never look at Magus Embracing Flower and everyone related to her the same way again. Neither could I look at the flower called Caranathus ever again in the same way.

Changes. A frightening concept. But familiarity, ever more so.

<><><><><>

AN: Well, the first arc of his childhood is done. Now for the second arc of his adulthood and the Ritual of Age. Hope you enjoyed the twist and this chapter.