Solar Song, Frozen Fate ✓ | lion girl, frenemies, frost curse

Chapter 16: Solar Magick

Oolid slowly approached, shield at ready.

"Don't struggle. We're not trying to hurt you," he said as he held it up.

Sovanna hissed when her legs were bound. But she still had her paws and kept them moving, so they couldn't be caught. A yowl escaped her as a needle prick her thigh. Sudden waves of drowsiness plunged into her body. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she fought back, biting her tongue so hard to make pain keep her awake.

Oolid pressed his finger on his lips. "Shush, child, it'll be over soon and then you don't have to worry about a thing."

Worry? Don't? Panic rose in her chest. How can I not?

She thrashed her arms around as Humans neared to bind her. "Taking away what makes us Kaunlutha's evil," she said, her words slurring. Her tongue was thick and sluggish in her mouth. "Our a-and. Our mah-ick."

"But look around you. What's left here but some overgrown jungle and a forgotten castle? In an enclosure? Don't you want to be free? Relax and let them care for you, child."

By now her arms were tiring. The rubber rope dug into her legs, numbing them below the knee. Tears of frustration bloomed in her eyes. Sovanna refused to cry or that would mean giving up.

"No more fighting. That's it." Oolid's voice sounded far away. Her eyelids fluttered, but she still refused. She flinched when Oolid's cold hand touched her nose. He pushed her jaw, closing her mouth.

"Take the shield and press it to her flank," he ordered to someone behind him, "Magick is in the heart."

Sovanna with her mouth forced closed could only whine in protest. The medicine they put into her relaxed all her muscles. She could hardly move and her arms weren't even bound. The shield touched her side and with a shudder, she turned from lion to lionkind, becoming smaller so her legs slipped out of the rubber. With feeble paw, she tried to tug the one around her neck, but it only tightened as the Human holding it pulled it taut.

Oolid's white beard brushed against her head as he leaned over her. "That's it. There's a good girl," he said. "I was surprised, you know, when Ogalutha told me to use the shield on him. I didn't know that's what it did, take magick for safe keeping. I didn't know that he would die."

Die? Oolid killed him?

"When Rathana came, she was surprised I killed him before she did. She dismembered him. With his magick still intact in the shield, his body didn't turn to ashes like your mother. But you have to understand, Sovanna, I didn't know he would die. He's the one that let me do it. Did he know? I would say he would have to have known. Suicide. What kind of father does that to his daughters?"

Her mind whirled with confusion. She couldn't believe her father would have Oolid use the shield, take all the magick, knowing it would kill him. Ogalutha was fine. Sovanna never saw him look so stressed out that he couldn't take it.

Something deep inside of her shuddered then. Fear rippled across her body as the shield turned deadly into a needle that pierced her heart, digging into the core of her powers.

"Oolid," She lifted a heavy paw to try to stop him, but he grasped her paw in his hand and held it down, "no, please."

She realized what he was saying then. The shield could take all magick away, not just some. She guessed Fira only had some, so she didn't die. It didn't make up her whole being like it did for Ogalutha. The same went for all other Kaunlutha.

I have to get out of this. I have to stop him. She forced her eyes open, pushing the sleep back as far as she could, but it was like trying to hold open a heavy door that only wanted to close.