Fireflies and Forbidden things

Chapter 4

NIKITA

Nikita was seated by the window, the shadows on her face elongated by the flickering lamplight. Her room was atop the grey towers, nicknamed so for the slabs of granite building up the tipsy compounds where the village priestesses resided. Every night, she dared herself to climb to the windowsill and dangle her feet over the ledge, staring at the little specks of village huts illuminated by blotches of wavering firelight. 

Beyond, the forest stretched; mysterious and foreboding, lurking with creatures she ought not to fear. A wolf howled from its depths; Nikita was overtaken by the strange urge to howl back, witnessed only by the moon hanging pale and full in the sky.

She was exhausted to the bone; the countless hours of fruitless research and documenting diagrams had resulted in nothing.

"Why won't you just go away?" she grumbled to herself. In response, the black flames leaped from her fingertips. Nikita played with the ghostly wisps, watching the shadows waltz along with her fingers. She knew she was treading a fine line, but she needed release. She would go insane without it; drowned by the pressure building behind her skull.

Nikita had always known there was something wrong with her. The ability to manipulate the supernatural was wielded by Silver-bloods. But she wasn't one; not by a long shot.

 You know what you are, the little voice inside her whispered. Nikita ignored it. She had always been good at playing pretend. She had been doing it ever since she could remember; hadn't whispered a word when she had discovered her ability to manipulate shadows all those years ago.

She hated it. Despised the part of herself that surged from dormancy, grappling for control. Nikita would do whatever she could to suppress it. To snuff it out so they didn't grow afraid of her.

Sighing, she slipped back into her room, almost tripping over an inkpot placed on the edge of her desk. Her head snapped up when something rustled in the corner. Nikita stiffened, reaching for the lamp on her desk. There were enough rumors of spirits that haunted the gaping chambers and spiraling staircases of the grey towers to breathe life into simple suspicions. 

 It was true that the dead sometimes possessed the power to travel between realms, but it was quite rare.

"Who's there?" Nikita called out uneasily.

"It's just me dear," the figure materializing from the darkness responded. Sister Emera's dark skin blended in with the shadows, only her brown eyes gleaming with reflected lamplight. She nodded her head in disappointment, reaching for the lid of the unclosed inkpot.

"You really ought to tidy up in here,"

Nikita only flashed her infamous grin, rocking back and forth on the heels of her feet. She felt as though a million bees were buzzing underneath her skin, agitated by the pale brown eyes staring at her. The silence began growing limbs. 

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" she asked Emera, hoping her fellow disciple would leave her alone. Emera was one of the priestesses Nikita couldn't stand. She always seemed to poke her nose in business she had no part in, chiding Nikita whenever she received the chance. 

Sister Emera tucked back a strand of her curly hair, adjusting her hood. "I was about to light the lamp for midnight prayer when I noticed you forgot to blow out your candle."

"I was just about to call it a night."

Emera began tidying up the piles of books strewn across the floor, fingering their spines as she stacked them into piles. "Demons, fair folk, gods and goddesses- a guide through the realms" she read out the title of a weathered book she picked up, raising an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're wasting all your time researching this."

The whispers had begun again. Nikita felt the familiar pressure brew behind her skull.

Emera mistook Nikita's silence as a cue to continue. "We shouldn't let our curiosity get the better of us sister. Sometimes it's best to leave some things unknown. As diligent priestesses, we ought to focus on appeasing the gods and not upsetting the great balance. The realms must remain separate. The borders are not ours to tamper."

Nikita felt the annoyance within her grow. She forced herself to calm down but she had never been good at controlling her temper.

"Ignorance should never be excused sister. Knowledge is power, the way it is applied can be a curse or blessing," she bit back.

"Sometimes we are not ready to handle the burden of knowing," Emera quipped.

"Sometimes knowing can be our savior."

"We must trust in the great goddesses for that, my child. The realms will remain separate, as they have willed."

"We cannot ignore the proof," Nikita snapped in exasperation. She was drowning, the anger clawing its way up and up. This was not good, a small logical part of her whispered. The other larger part of her wanted to burn Emera's opinion to the ground. "What are we supposed to make of the silver bloods?"

"A curse. Brutes, that's what they are."

"They manipulate the energy flowing between the realms. We are at their mercy. Just imagine the havoc that will run rampant when the realms collide."

"Blasphemy," Emera waved her hand in dismissal. "I will hear no more, especially not from the likes of you. The others are noticing your absence. You weren't in the white room last morning. Every day you disappear to the gods knows where and return with torn robes and scratched knees. It's time you grew out of your childish antics."

"But- "

"Silence."

Nikita wanted to hit something. The darkness inside her was flaring with her temper, she felt it rise to the surface, reaching for her with long greasy fingers. She forced herself to breathe, forced the limbed, prowling thing in her mind to crawl back into the depths it resurfaced from

 A tight smile slipped onto her face as she ushered Emera out of her chambers. "Thank you for your advice sister, but I must retire now.  Goodnight."

In the darkness of her room, Nikita had to discard yet another pair of gloves she had seared to crisp.