Roll With It Short Stories

Day Seventeen

Word Count 9: 900

Prompt 16: Bone Tea

"You don't have to do this Yuva." The woman grabbed her arm, holding her gaze. She was trying to hide her breathlessness but Yuva could tell she had rushed all this way.

"This is what I came here for, I knew what it might mean." Yuva turned away. She picked up the brush on the vanity, smearing violet across her face.

"We can find another way. We don't even know if Pexi is alive." She used a gentle voice but it still stung Yuva's ear.

"I'm here for one reason Rella and it all means nothing if I leave now."

"You sound insane, can't you see this is going too far. You don't get to come back from this, you'll be one of them. Intelligence will consider you an enemy of the State." The older woman pleaded. "I think Ilkau suspects you, she's testing you. She won't stop until she proves you a traitor or knows you're hers."

"You should leave. Someone might be listening."

"Fine." Rella straightened herself before leaving her student of nine years to her fate.

Yuva stood bare before the coven, their torches setting her skin aglow from the poultice covering her body. Her face was a stone but her blood rushed like a river in a storm. She focused on her feet beginning to numb from standing on the cold stone. Around her the members swayed wearing the masks of spirits that guided their principles. They moved in rhythm around each other but there was no joy in this dance. Their leader, the Blood Mother, emerged from the darkness of the cave. She was draped in fine silks of gold and veils of ash, she wore jewels around her neck and embedded in her skin, but she was ugly from years of curses inflicted upon her. They had aged her, twisted and discolored her skin. She walked with a limp from the ache in her bones and blood. All the wickedness she had cast on others they had returned to her in kind. She wore netting before her eyes, guarding them, but Yuva could still feel their magenta gaze. They were the only thing beautiful about her, she had stolen them from the Empire's Princess, but the Blood Mother had no use for vanity. It was a distraction from real power, as was wealth, as was lust or wrath. Ikau had built her empire with only one motivation, her right to rule over all she perceived as hers.

The coven's teaching taught that the magic of Ikau's ilk was considered dark, evil but this was only the perception based on the general populace's faulty morality. The magic was no different than any other, it was a manipulation of reality for one's personal gain. Ikau was born to a long line of rulers from ancient times. The Empire had stolen her people's lands away but did not know its nature. The power of Ikau came from the spirits of the land and she was its true sovereign. The empire had brutalized, marginalized and all but wiped out the indigenous population, so they had turned to the same ruthless methods used against them. Of course they were called demons whereas the men of the empire were called conquerers. There were a few darker rituals, however, that Ikau had wielded that her predecessor had not. Acts that had not been used since ancient times that drew great power from the land's memory of their sacrifice, that had long since been illegal in the rest of the world. The sacrificing of innocents, the forced conversion of stolen children, and binding rituals such as the Bone Tea.

"Yuva, tonight you cast aside that name. You will be known only as Sister, you are reborn as my kin." The Blood Mother spoke in a low voice. "You will submit to my will and be witness to my rule. Drink the brew and surrender yourself to me." Two of the masks with cloaks brought forth a bubbling pot balanced on a wooden post. They removed the lid revealing an indeterminable liquid that bubbled and hissed. A metal cup was filled and passed to Yuva, she took it, the heat burning her fingertips. She could see the vague glow of herself in the cup and knew that once she drank of it she would be slave to any whim of Ikau. Inside the brew were bones, the ones of Ikau's ancestors. They carried the power of her linage and once consumed that power would be inside her. She could feel the stolen eyes of Ikau burning beneath their cover, judging her hesitation. She tilt her head back and allowed the foul liquid down her throat, it burned but not from the heat. She stumbled and was caught by the crowd who smiled at her, with or without masks, all were grinning. Chanting 'Sister. Sister. Sister." Their hands all over her as her vision fogged, but she could still see the old crone come closer, reaching out to cup her chin. "You belong to me now."

Yuva awoke in the plain night dressings of the sisters, in her normal bedding. There was a burning in her belly where the tea sat, it was weight she would never be rid of. In the dirtied looking glass, behind her reflection she could see Ikau smiling. "Pexi, I'll find you." She told her reflection. "Even if I become the darkness itself."