FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF FANTASILIA SERIES
𝘈𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘦-𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘺. 𝘈 𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯. 𝘈 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳.
Xanthiene Vivenca's life drones on in a cycle of finding her next meal, ensuring...
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The first few minutes didn't make sense.
Nyxis blinked at the scene unfolding in front of him, his mind barely registering what was going on. The chains around him bit at his skin and filled his nose with the smell of oil. It was the kind of thing that his mother was known to use to keep her torture devices intact and functional.
He cursed. His mother stood a distance from the pillar he was stuck to. She had her arms extended over Xanthy's form, chanting a spell that was so long Nyxis feared that their time would run out. With his mouth glued shut by no doubt a specialized escuira spell his mother concocted, he blinked and grunted at Reeca to check the timeteller. The varichria understood that they needed to struggle and make as much noise as they could.
Ugh.
It was bad enough that he met Adresin despite his adamant wish to not to. Now, not only had his mother killed one of the people they were meant to save, she had succeeded in coercing Xanthy of her synnavaim.
The spell for extracting legacies shouldn't have been with the Queen. Everyone thought it was lost and forgotten. There were no tomes detailing the arduous process. So how come his own mother was reciting it now, line by line?
Jarvik's corpse lay discarded in one corner. Nyxis's gut churned but he wasn't surprised. If he hadn't ran from the Palace that night, he might have ended like that, too. Marin, Jarvik's daughter, stared at the chaos unfolding with blank eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
Nyxis cursed in his mind. Just how much were things supposed to go wrong from here?
Turns out, things were going to go very, very wrong from here.
Xanthy convulsed by the Queen's feet, gurgling and flailing. The air dropped notches colder. Electric energy wove with the wind and made the hairs on Nyxis's arms stand. Then, light erupted from Xanthy's chest like those portable spotlights the festival troupes always flashed on the stage during their performances.
For the first time, Nyxis saw what a fairy soul looked like. It was...a ball of light. It turned air into syrup. Basically, it was a ticking bomb dug out of a person's chest using a mile-long poem.
It was beautiful, if Nyxis was allowed some moment of appreciation. It was everything Nyxis imagined fairy souls would be but the circumstance that allowed him to see it was something he never hoped for.
His mother threw her head back and laughed. Heartily. Nyxis had never heard her do that, even when his father, the King, was alive. His eyes widened. In fact, the Queen never really let herself be amused to this degree before.
Sweat beaded in Nyxis's forehead. Oh, gods.
The spell went on. Xanthy gagged and lurched. Nyxis clenched his jaw and flailed against the chains. Of course, it did nothing but pinch his skin in all the uncomfortable places. He cast his eyes towards Xanthy again. He had to save her. She didn't deserve any of this.
