Hamartia - the Singing Dagger | #NaNoWriMo2019

Chapter 6.2: Arrival

Caelem eyes locked on Mahani.

He must've heard me.

"No, it's not that, " as Caelem took alarmed steps closer to me. Then I followed his line of sight.

"It's that, " he continued. Looking down at my hand, my dagger was shining a luminous blue. Where the aswang blood had been dripping just moments before, light shone from all of the blades.

"I don't know. It's never done this before."

But it's never tasted blood either.

"That must be it, Mahani. Your dagger must be enchanted." The Wind Creature circled around the dagger, even crouching down to see from the tip of the blade.

Mahani pulled her dagger away. Its glow was fainter by now. "You could've just asked me to spin it around."

Imbal drew her hair back and looked at the two. "From the gaps in your conversation and your apparent comprehension of each other, I'll deduce that you both have a way to communicate exclusively." Imbal raised her eyebrow questioningly. "Care to elaborate?"

Mahani shrugged in equal ignorance. "I don't know. It seems that normally us mortals can't wind-speak. But for some reason, I can."

The redhead priestess closed her eyes and pursed her lips in concentration. Then beckoned to the cyclops and took a black rock from the fiber satchel that hung by his neck.

Placing the rock at the center of the clearing, Imbal whipped it with zest.

"Whoa, " Mahani stepped back from the priestess.

Imbal struck it again as the rock began to glow red under the friction of the whip. With a third whip, Mahani's eyes widened as a fierce fire burst from the stone.

"The shaman's fire, " Mahani muttered under her breath.

With Imbal's hands raised, sustaining the fire, Mahani's stare was pulled to the livid blue light. As the heat rose up, the fire turned whiter, until Mahani's face reflected back to her.

Imbal's eyes had turned white, but it was a deadlier white than that of the shaman who had judged her two years before. The glow seemed to burst from her eyes like the light was locked up inside her body. Imbal's mouth slowly opened and a dark, breathy voice came out.

"Ask of your true nature."

Mahani looked into the white fire. As she looked longer at the flames, her heart raced in her chest. Do I really want to find out? Who else could I be? Mahani bit down on her lip to try to stable her shaking nerves. Breathing in deeply, she looked straight into the fire again.

"Who am I?"

The bluish-white flames whirred in the forest wind. Staring into the flame, Mahani could see animated images on its surface. There she could see her in the bamboo house with Juna, Burkon, and Ikaro. Her throwing off her binukot clothes in the rain.

She saw her parents, ruling Selah from a bamboo platform just outside the walls, while Mahani peeked out from her quarters. The fire whirled faster and took her to one of her everyday lessons with the Time-Keeper, with her cross-legged on the pillowed floor, eating his every word up. Thinking that this learning about the outside world would be her only chance to experience it.

The fire went beyond those moments and slowed down to the day when she was with her grandfather. Now the memory locked in the fire seemed to move in real time.

"You, young lady, are going to be a very powerful woman someday." The old man reaches out both of his hands, a sheathed blade lying on his palms. He stares into his granddaughter's eyes with a certain reverence that makes the young Mahani tremble.

"This is your birthright. It will protect you when the day comes, and you will protect it too." Her Grandpa brushed her chubby little cheeks with the back of his brown withered palm.

"My little goddess. Straight from heaven. Her grandfather bent down and smelled her forehead with a deep inhale. A Selahin kiss that went straight to the heart.

The moving flames stopped abruptly. Mahani knelt on the forest floor, branches pinching at her knees. Her eyes welled up in rage and pining as she saw her grandfather fade away from her life again.

"No! Put it back! ," Mahani wailed. The fire started to return to its orange-red tint and dwindle in her eyes. Mahani pulled out her dagger and stood up to the shaman, whose scarlet curls fluttered in the strong forest wind.

Mahani's nostrils flared as she leveled her gaze with Imbal's blank glowing eyes. "Put it back, Imbal!"

Then Mahani felt her dagger shake within her hand. The dwindling flame rushed into the blade and the glow returned anew. A chanting voice broke the spell and Imbal collapsed on the forest floor. Everyone turned to see the origin of the song.

"I'm awake, Halie!"