Grrr… SLAM!
A small pink hand caught Tyeron's wrist mid-air. It was Lirka's. The growl that escaped her was visceral, a sound that could freeze the blood in your veins.
"Lirka, no!" Cora lunged forward, but Tyeron raised his other hand to signal her to stay back.
"You silly dad! Hurt my gold child!" Lirka's voice was fierce, vibrating with protective rage. Her fingers clamped down with inhuman strength and I watched Tyeron's face twist in pain.
"Lirka, I'm just trying to—" the priest began. But his gaze fell on me. He saw my pale face beaded with sweat, my hand still pressed convulsively against my chest where the light was slowly fading.
The magic in his palms went out instantly and the yellow light vanished.
"It's not his fault, Lirka," I said, my voice still shaking from the shock. "Please. Let him go."
The girl looked at me and I saw the conflict tear at her expression. Slowly, with an almost tangible reluctance, she opened her fingers and released Tyeron's wrist. She didn't move away, though. She remained there between us, shoulders tense and muscles ready to spring.
The priest rubbed his arm, staring at me with an intensity I'd never witnessed before. "Arek... what happened? When I brought my magic close..."
"My chest." Speaking was a struggle. "It hurt. And..." I glanced down at my shirt. The light was gone, but I could still feel it there underneath, dormant, waiting for the next contact. "And there was... the tower. And the red moon."
Silence fell. Silence dropped over us like a stone.
Tyeron swallowed hard. "Can I... can I look? Without any magic. Just see."
Every fiber of my body wanted to scream no. I wanted to cover that spot, hide it from the world and pretend it didn't exist, that it had only been a nightmare caused by the cold of the well.
But despite the terror, I nodded.
Lirka took a step back, reluctant, but stayed a breath away from us, ready to pounce. With fingers that were still trembling, I grabbed the hem of my tunic and lifted it.
Beneath the fabric, my chest appeared normal: pink skin, smooth, the innocent torso of a child. There was no mark, nothing visible to the naked eye.
"Now Lirka, stay still there for a moment. I just want to check something, I won't hurt him."
Tyeron held his index finger in front of Lirka's nose, keeping it still. The fox-girl shifted her gaze from the priest's finger to his jade eyes and her iris colors shifted from yellow to amber with that tiny change of angle.
They stared at each other for a moment, then nodded together in a silent truce.
Then the priest raised his index finger toward the sky, almost as if wanting to capture a reflection of the sun. The tip of his finger lit with a faint light, barely perceptible, and began to descend toward me, even more slowly than before.
Suddenly, his hand froze.
The Mark had appeared.
A pale circle emerged on my chest: a golden eye surrounded by rays. The patterns stretched into undulating lines, branching outward, climbing up to my collarbones and beyond, where I couldn't see them.
"That... is the symbol of Eteria." Cora's voice dropped to a whisper. Her wide green eyes fixed on my chest, while her fingers interlaced over her heart like she always did during the most solemn sermons.
"The center resembles it, yes," Tyeron murmured, "but these lines continue all the way to the shoulders."
He sighed deeply and the light on his finger vanished, letting the Mark blend back into my skin.
Lirka lowered her shoulders.
"I've seen something similar, yet at the same time profoundly different, in a book... a very, very long time ago."
"If you want I'll go look for it in the library!" Sipar's bright voice rang from the center of the garden, charged with the desire to make himself useful after witnessing so much tension.
"Thank you, Sipar," Tyeron replied, without taking his eyes off the spot where the mark had disappeared, "but the book I'm talking about is very far from here. And too big for you to carry."
Emma moved her hand in a small circle, tracing the shape of the now-invisible symbol in the air, touching her temple with a questioning gesture.
"What does it mean, you ask?" Father Tyeron let the question hang in the void. He paused for a long moment and stood up, straightening his imposing back.
The priest scanned the distant horizon, where dark clouds were gathering in the west, driven by a wind that carried the smell of rain. A storm was coming.
"That volume is part of the legends of the Five Continents. It's an ancient text, a tome that speaks of the end of the world and the rebirth of—" he hesitated, scanning the sky. "—a God."
End of the world?A God? Which one? The words froze my blood. The tower. The red moon. Are they connected to an apocalyptic prophecy?
"A symbol similar to this one was among those pages... an old friend and I had the chance to consult it briefly, many years ago."
"Father, surely you're mistaken," Sipar interjected with the typical confidence of a bookworm, "you know better than me that there are three continents."
"And no god is dead, right?" Cora added, with a note of anxiety cracking her voice.
What does all this have to do with the tower and the red moon?
Tyeron observed each of us in rapid succession, his gaze carrying a gravity that didn't usually belong to him.
"I don't have answers for now, but it's vital that none of you speak of this to a living soul."
We all nodded in silence, exchanging glances heavy with uncertainty. Tyeron was our pillar, our guardian. If he believed silence was the only way, there had to be a dark and pressing reason.
The priest rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous gesture that betrayed his agitation, and added in a low voice: "I need to write to an old traveling companion. He's the only one who would know how to decipher the deep meaning of this Mark."
The tone of his voice brooked no argument, closing the discussion like the bolt of a cell. Yet, in the tangle of my thoughts, a bitter doubt took shape, lucid and sharp.
He'd just said it had to remain a secret, yet he already wanted to send a letter?
That contradiction burned in my throat, but I stayed silent, while the first cold drops of rain began to patter on the apple tree's leaves.
Tyeron clapped his hands with sudden force, a sound so sharp that Lirka jumped backward, ready to spring again.
"Alright, Champs! Time to go inside to treat you and dress you. Sipar, where are those clothes?"
"Um... I found these, but I don't think they'll work." The boy unrolled a rough linen tunic that would have been roomy even for him, let alone the small and slight Lirka.
We all laughed, a nervous sound that served to break the weight of tension, and finally went inside.
Cora had me sit down and immediately began taking care of me. She cleaned my eyes with a damp cloth, removing the residue of dust and blood, applied her hands to the parts of my body that hurt the most. They were so cold that small ice crystals began to form in the air around her fingers, like a magical frost that descended to extinguish the fire in my muscles.
I knew Cora had an affinity with Water and Wind. When she combined them together, something Tyeron called "woven magic" during a lesson, she could create this cold.
Exhaustion finally claimed me. Night arrived and, with it, real rain, the kind that drummed heavily on the tiled roof. The wind howled through the gaps and thunder shook the sky, making the windowpanes vibrate.
I was lying on my bed, my gaze lost in the dark wooden ceiling. The beams, struck by the reflections of lightning, resembled gnarled arms ready to reach out into the darkness. Every time I closed my eyes, the well returned to haunt me: the darkness, Lirka falling, her eye vomiting that oily, horrifying creature.
Too many questions. No answers.
I shifted onto my side and my ribs immediately protested with a sharp stab. Every muscle, every joint felt like a nest of red-hot needles. But the worst torment wasn't the physical one. It was the silence of the room, broken only by the sounds of the storm and my siblings' breathing. Sipar was sleeping in his bed with his arms tight against his chest, Emma was motionless as a statue in her corner.
And Lirka?
I turned toward the fourth bed. In the darkness she was barely visible: a crumpled sheet and a dark fox tail sticking out from the edge. I lifted myself with difficulty and leaned toward her.
She is trembling.
They were small rhythmic shivers that shook her tail and the fabric of the blanket, as if she were fighting against a nightmare worse than mine.
"Lirka?" I whispered.
A blinding flash was followed by a roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the house.
Lirka's tail shot up like a spear, rigid with terror, before starting to tremble harder than before. The lightning's light had made everything sharp for an instant: the cracks in the walls, the outline of the furniture, the girl's tense face.
I placed my feet outside the sheets. The floor was cold and rough against my skin. With a few uncertain steps I reached her.
"Hey, Lirka. Are you scared of the storm?" I asked gently.
She emerged from under the covers and shook her head with an almost angry violence. "No!"
"Come on, don't be silly. Come to my bed. If you snuggle up to me you'll be safe," I suggested.
"No! Me no scared! Go away!" she shouted, but her voice was choked, lacking any real conviction.
"Fine." I didn't move. I remained there, sitting on the edge of her bed, in silence.
Another thunder rumbled. Lirka contracted under the blanket.
"But," I said quietly, "if you change your mind..."
She peeked out from under the cover. Her amber eyes stared at me, the pupils so wide the yellow irises were only thin circles around them.
I turned my head on the side.
"Actually... I'm the one who's scared," I whispered, lowering my tone until my voice seemed small and fragile. "These thunderclaps remind me of a bad thing that happened a long time ago. I feel alone. I need someone to stay here with me."
Lirka stared at me in silence. The growl rising in her throat died out. "If you really scared... but only one night!"
She shifted to the side, freeing a small space on the mattress. I slipped under the blanket, back to back, to give her space. But the next thunder was the loudest of all, an explosion that seemed to tear the sky above the roof. Lirka couldn't resist anymore. She turned abruptly and threw herself against my side, hugging me tight.
I could feel her heart beating wildly and her body shaken by shivers. I turned as well and held her carefully, passing an arm around her back.
"It's okay," I whispered against her hair. "I'm here."
The girl curled up against me. Her body gave off intense natural warmth and her hair smelled of wild herbs. I felt her tail wrap tightly around my leg, like an anchor. Slowly, her breathing regulated and her muscles relaxed. The hail began to pound furiously, but Lirka had finally fallen asleep.
Shortly after, I crashed too exhausted to fight anymore against the ghosts of the day.
Needless to say, a tower illuminated by an enormous red moon haunted me that night.