THE JEALOUSY OF JALICE

As the aether-laced venom traveled through her veins, a tingle crackled over Annilasia’s skin and numbed her muscles. Any movement evoked pins and needles. What began as a faint ringing in her ears quickly escalated to a pounding drum. In sync with this, the prickling sensation gradually heightened to heavy vibrations that pulsated around her.

She wrestled down a wave of panic.

You’ve done this before, she reminded herself. Vague recollection told her it’d soon be over.

Mirroring the experience in Korcsha’s tent, the room shimmered and dripped like water running over paint. As the vibrations escalated, the shimmering increased and sent a shockwave through Annilasia.

In a rush, the vibrations and shimmering diminished, then ceased completely. The space around Annilasia reshaped faster than she could process. A black fog, so dense that it was impossible to glimpse the sky, engulfed her. She could make out the faint outline of trees around her, but their tops disappeared into the fog.

For a moment, she stood frozen to study her new environment. The bunker was gone; she wasn’t sure what to make of that. The trees appeared as dead as those in the Terrestrial Realm. The fog here was new though. She didn’t understand all the intricacies and laws that governed the Apparition Realm, but she knew that anything out of the ordinary was worth noting.

A glimmer radiating off her caught her attention. She lifted her arm and gazed at it with suppressed awe. Rather than her natural brown skin, usually marked with scrapes and scars, a black canvas as dark as the night sky fleshed out her frame. She would’ve blended with the shadows if not for the small, glittering dots and swirling spheres suspended like stars throughout her now dark constitution.

She marveled at her dazzling beauty—at how she had transformed into a mobile solar system. She ran her hands through what would normally be considered hair. Rather than individual threads, it amassed as a single feature, sifting between her fingers like parted water. The movement stirred the stars collected in it like beads of luminescent sand caught in a wave. Annilasia watched as her hair rolled through the air as if she were truly submerged underwater.

Her eyes traveled down until they found her feet. As expected, a silver-linked chain was looped around her right ankle and ran a few feet across the ground, where it absorbed into a silver ball lying nearby—much like the shackles Annilasia had witnessed Vekuuv slaves imprisoned with.

Her lifechain and lifestone served as the deciding indicators that she had reached the Apparition Realm.

Despite these astounding manifestations, an emotional unwinding loomed. Unhinged and amplified, her emotions coursed through her in a flow of energy as natural as a heartbeat.

The anger that drove her through every waking hour.

The fear she kept buried inside.

The pain wrapped around distant memories of a childhood long gone.

Every emotion seethed in a tangled web that formed aether energy unique to her. If she wasn’t careful, or dwelled too long on these feelings, they’d manifest into a hallucination-like conjuring. The conscious mind had power in this Realm. For now, her emotions simply manifested as distinguished colors from within the orbs inside her. She recognized the hues of red as anger and those of icy blue as fear. Other colors burst from the luminous spheres, but she couldn’t recall their meanings.

Her aura. She remembered the temple priests and their mirajin teachers referencing auras during her childhood teachings. The collection of kaleidoscope orbs and their obsidian encasing constituted her essence of inner being, a reflection of as well as a housing for her emotions, desires, and persona. An aura of pure aether energy unique to her.

Shaking off disorientation, Annilasia turned and caught sight of Jalice asleep on the ground. Relief flooded her at the sight of the chieftess. The aether venom had worked.

Like Annilasia, Jalice no longer bore her distinguishing physical features. In place of her red hair and alabaster skin, she now seemed a dark void, similar to Annilasia, with glittering stars that remained a steady ocean blue. The absence of a lifechain and an accompanying stone didn’t surprise Annilasia. Only Jalice could see her own chain and stone. Mirajin and dokojin were the exception to that rule, but not without enacting intense methods in order to see others’ life emblems.

Annilasia’s mind snagged. Dokojin.

She jerked around and peered through the fog. The thought of a dokojin crouching in the darkness sent a streak of panic through her. Her stars sparked like static.

Shrouded in the fog, and easy to miss at first glance amongst the trees, tendrils of vines rose from the ground at an unnaturally sharp slant through the branches. Dozens dotted the area, the nearest a few yards away. Annilasia crept over. As she did, the details solidified with each step to mock her initial deduction.

They weren’t vines but rather thick black chains, much larger than her lifechain, tied to metal ground anchors.

Annilasia’s gaze trailed up the lengths of chain to where the oval links disappeared in the fog ceiling. She licked her lips, grabbed one chain, and heaved. An unexpected weight resisted her, and her strength sputtered. Digging her heels into the ground, she pulled again. A dark mass appeared at the edge of the fog’s veil, swaying in silent protest of Annilasia’s goal to drag it down.

Laborious grunts and a few last tugs earned her the answer to the chain’s mystery. Annilasia’s hands froze around the links. Her muscles trembled as she struggled to stand her ground against the unfaltering defiance on the other end of the chain.

A corpse dangled above her.

Annilasia absorbed its details even as she let go of the rope in horror.

The clasp at the chain’s end was sealed around a bloated ankle. Craters marred the figure, as if beasts with ravenous appetites had ripped out chunks. Yet enough flesh remained to convey the frozen howl etched on the victim’s face. Hollowed eyes peered out like endless caverns, mimicking the gaping mouth of cracked lips.

Annilasia stared into the fog long after the decomposed body had vaulted out of sight again. The chain clinked around her feet as the slack gave way before a final snap brought the line taut once again. Nightmarish imagery danced in her mind as she struggled to fathom the sea of bodies that floated in the trees. Dozens of ground anchors with chains. Dozens of corpses.

Her thoughts skirted the dokojin again, distantly wondering if the bodies could be their handiwork. Recalling that even a single thought could summon such an entity in this Realm, she refocused her mind on what had brought her here, and scampered back to Jalice.

Pursing her lips, she whistled a pleasant tune that seemed to push away the fog around her. Golden plumes blossomed in the air, tumbling together in a synchronized flow until a molded humanoid silhouette stood before her. The cloud particles rippled with restless energy as if buffeted by an unseen breeze.

For a moment, intense fear and disgust shot through Annilasia, and an audible growl scratched in her ears. The reaction struck her as foreign and intrusive. By the time the noise registered, it was gone. She quickly dismissed it as a trick of the mind.

A voice like a powerful river emanated from the figure. The strangely melodious blend of masculine and feminine tones revealed the entity as a mirajin.

“You have sung my name, Annilasia. Why have you summoned me?”

The mirajin held a disapproving tone that rolled off the nebulous silhouette, lapping over Annilasia. She fought the shame this condemnation provoked, and struggled to banish the reverence that slipped through in her words.

“I’m in need of your aid, Elothel,” she said.

“Why are you here?” demanded the mirajin. “You need to leave.”

Annilasia squared her shoulders. “I’m not leaving. I paid a hefty price to be here.”

“I can’t shield your aura for very long—not while in this state. How long have you been here?”

“I just arrived. I’ll leave as soon as I get what I came for.” She gestured to Jalice. “I need you to restore her memories.”

The golden haze swarmed with agitation. “Are you star-touched? Why did you bring someone with you?”

“She’s the reason I’m here.”

“She isn’t even aware that she’s here. She’s asleep.” Elothel’s tone, otherwise steady and controlled, edged towards judgement. Fae shook faer head. “I can’t shield both your auras. Leave now.”

“I’m not leaving. I need you to enter her soul.”

“So, you came here hoping I’d soul coalesce with someone who’s not even conscious?”

“Not just someone,” said Annilasia. “This is Jalice—the Tecalica.”

Elothel bristled. “We discussed how this will be done. We meet at the Nova Oasis. I can only remove the wards when fully translated, not through projection like this.”

“I know. I’m bringing her to the Oasis,” Annilasia reassured faem. “But she’s been resisting, and I think . . .” She hesitated, unsure of herself now in the mirajin’s presence and under scrutiny. “All this time I thought she was excusing the atrocities she committed, but it’s possible she doesn’t remember anymore. Something is blocking those memories.”

“This isn’t necessary,” said Elothel. “She doesn’t need to remember. Just get her to me. How far are you from the Oasis?”

Annilasia ignored the question. “She might know something that could even the odds against the Sachem. Such information is valuable sooner rather than later, particularly when she’s proven at risk of dying before we even reach the Oasis. She could be what helps us end him. I only know what she told me long ago, and it isn’t much to go on. If she could tell us exactly what happened at the beginning, it could mean the difference between life and death for the tribes.”

“You’re risking your very existence being here—and hers. You’ve summoned me against my will, fully knowing the danger you put us in. Dokojin could materialize here any moment because of this inane visit.”

Annilasia stood firm. “I’m not leaving until you’ve done this, Elothel.”

Frustration emanated from the mirajin. “Soul coalescing without consent is a vile sin against Sahruum.”

“You know how I feel about Sahruum,” said Annilasia. She gave Elothel a determined look. “And if I recall, you don’t believe in omnipotence anymore. To dark hell with purity laws. You’d be doing Jalice a great justice. The Sachem’s done something to her. She doesn’t have access to her own memories. That’s a far greater crime than this attempt to free her while she sleeps.”

“You don’t understand, starborn,” said Elothel. “I have not materialized here in full like you. What you’re seeing is like a shadow. If what you say is true, I’m not certain I can remove the obstacle that blocks her memories in this state. Mirajin don’t retain their full power when in this summoned form. Sending me in there would be like sending your shadow into battle. That’s why I asked you to bring her to me in the Terrestrial Realm. Only there can I fully translate with her and break the wards.”

“Are you willing to at least try?” asked Annilasia.

“You could be setting off the very wards you worked so hard to replicate for your plot against the Sachem, alerting him to everything you’re doing.”

Annilasia hadn’t considered these repercussions and now hesitated. Doubt quickly dissolved, though, when she recalled Jalice’s stubborn loyalty to the Sachem.

“The Sachem did this to her,” replied Annilasia. “Any curse from him should be eradicated. This needs to be done.”

A stretch of silence held between them. Having been unsure if the mirajin would agree, she was surprised when Elothel nodded.

“I will do this, starborn,” Elothel replied. “But I’m doing this for her—not for your desire to enact vengeance on a naïve woman. If she is indeed afflicted by some dark aether, then it’s my duty to Sahruum to heal her of it.” Fae paused. “It’s possible, perhaps even probable, that I will not return. I’m weak in this projection. If I encounter hidden dokojin, I’ll be vulnerable.” The mirajin surveyed the treetops. “The forest is tainted with aetherwaste. Perhaps you’ve felt something akin to it in the Terrestrial Realm. It would translate into something different there.”

“A heaviness,” Annilasia murmured as she recalled the mysterious weight around the Fortress. She glanced at the nearest ground anchor and its chain. “There are bodies in the trees.”

Elothel nodded. “Souls that could not pass on to the Ethereal Realm. Those people died by horrible methods, and dokojin have trapped their auras here to drain them. It is these souls that proliferate the aetherwaste, which manifests as heaviness in the Terrestrial Realm.”

“Can’t we free them?” she asked.

Elothel shook faer head, offering no other explanation. “You should be very careful here. I would advise you to leave while I soul coalesce, but I sense you intend to see this through. If you stay to watch over your companion, be alert for dokojin. This forest is infested with them. They thrive in aetherwaste. If you see one, leave immediately.”

Annilasia remained quiet. She wasn’t about to confess that the aether venom within her was keeping her captive in this Realm.

Elothel turned to Jalice. Faer cloud dissolved and funneled down towards her like a violent cyclone. A bright orb suspended in the chieftess’s head absorbed the plummeting cloud until Elothel’s whole form had been swallowed up.

Annilasia was left alone again as she stood over the sleeping Tecalica.