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Nin is og waa nin is leh
A man who knows himself is a man who owns himself
Chaptxr 8
Edna returned to Levi’s side, the crushed herbs in her palm releasing a pungent aroma that filled the room. The scent was complex—earthy with undertones of citrus and something metallic. She worked with efficiency, spreading the green paste over his wound with gentle fingertips, her movements were tender, betraying a familiarity that spoke of countless similar moments.
"Hold still," she commanded as Levi writhed in visible pain. With her free hand, she began tracing patterns in the air above his injury—elegant, flowing symbols that seemed to hang suspended for a moment, glowing with a faint amber light before dissolving into the wound. I watched, transfixed, as she pressed her palm against the wound, muttering words in a language I'd never heard before. Yet I felt the strange familiarity again, tugging at the edges of my memory like a half-forgotten dream. I couldn't place it, but the flowing syllables were comforting.
Levi grimaced, his body tensing, but he remained still. A soft hiss escaped through his clenched teeth as the paste sank into his skin. The green veins seemed to fight against the herbs, pulsing more brightly before gradually dimming, like poison being drawn from a wound. Before my eyes, the edges of the wound began to close, silver scarring already forming along the perimeter as the unnatural green glow receded. It was nearly healed.
The silver sheen matched exactly what I'd seen on his other scars—that unnatural moonlight quality that had caught my attention earlier. It held a subtle luminescence because they were sealed with something other than ordinary flesh.
"That should counter the dark magic and accelerate the healing," Edna said, wiping her hands on a cloth. "Though you'll need to rest properly for it to take full effect. And we'll need to apply the herbs again in a few hours—this poison is stronger than what we're used to." Her voice carried confidently.
"Thanks," Levi managed, inspecting the partially healed wound with obvious relief as the green tendrils faded to a faint shimmer beneath his skin. His eyes found mine across the room, swimming with emotions I couldn't fully decipher. "So... where should we start?"
"How about starting with literally anything?" I suggested, the sarcasm cutting through the room like a blade. "Who were those cloaked men? I'm guessing they weren't there to give mission" The joke fell flat, a pitiful attempt to normalize the extraordinary circumstances we found ourselves in.
Edna and Levi exchanged a look laden with unspoken communication. It pissed me off even more. Without breaking stride in the conversation, Edna began pulling more herbs from various plants. She crushed different leaves than those she'd used for Levi's wound, adding them to a small wooden bowl, the sound of the pestle rhythmic.
"They were Ministers of the Wraith," she finally said, her voice dropping to a near whisper despite us being alone in the house. The name itself seemed to lower the temperature in the room, as if the mere mention of them invited their presence. "Four of them came for me at the warehouse." She paused, her expression grave, the memory flickering behind her eyes. "Ministers rarely venture beyond the magic realm—and never alone. They draw power from proximity to one another. But to see six in a single night..." She shook her head, disbelief evident in the subtle tension around her mouth. "Even two is considered an omen. Four is unprecedented."
"Six approaches a full coven short of a High Priest," Levi added, his voice equally subdued. The gravity in his tone told me more than his words—whatever a full coven meant, it was something to be feared.
As she spoke, Edna moved toward me, bowl in hand. "Your turn," she said, nodding at my shoulder where the blade had grazed me. The green tinge around the wound had spread, though not as dramatically as Levi's. "This will help."
"Ministers?" I repeated, the word sending a chill down my spine. I remembered the figure in my house—the unnatural stillness, the way shadows had seemed to cling to them like loyal pets. "Like... evil priests?"
"Exactly like evil priests," Levi said, sitting up straight with only the slightest hint of discomfort. The herbs were clearly working their magic, returning some of his natural vigor. "They serve the Shadeborn—entities from beyond our world and the magic realm that feed on darkness, pain, and fear. The Ministers are their most devoted servants. Those green-glowing blades they carry are imbued with dark magic that poisons any magical being it touches, corrupting their abilities and eventually killing them if left untreated."
Edna's fingers were cool against my skin as she gently applied the paste to the cut on my shoulder. It stung sharply on contact, making my eyes water, but the pain quickly transformed into a pleasant tingling sensation that chased away the burning ache. The sensation reminded me of jumping into a cold lake on a hot summer day—the initial shock giving way to refreshing relief.
I shook my head, trying to process all of this. "Wait, back up. Magic realm?"
"Try to relax," Edna murmured, examining the bruising around my throat. I winced as her fingers traced the marks where invisible hands had squeezed. The bruises were tender, a physical reminder of how close I'd come to death. "These need treatment too."
"The magic realm exists parallel to this world," she explained, her hands moving from my wounds to shape the concept in the air between us. "Think of it as another dimension where magic flows freely, where those with innate abilities can harness and manipulate energies that are mostly dormant here." She gestured at herself. "It's where I'm from."
As Edna applied the paste to my bruised throat, she began whispering under her breath, her fingers tracing glowing symbols in the air. The languagewas soothing, each syllable carrying a weight and resonance that seemed to vibrate in the very air around us.
"What language is that?" I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them. Something about the sounds struck a chord within me.
Edna's hands froze mid-gesture, her eyes locking with mine. Something like shock flickered across her face before she carefully composed her expression.
"You... recognize it?" she asked carefully.
"Not exactly," I hedged, not wanting to mention the dreams where I'd heard similar sounds, where sand had burned beneath my feet and a sky too blue to be real had stretched overhead. "It just sounds... familiar somehow."
Edna and Levi exchanged a loaded glance before she resumed the incantation, her voice slightly more hesitant now. The paste made contact with the tender bruises. It burned for a second, then cooled dramatically, like mint on overheated skin.
"How do you even travel between realms?" I asked, leaning forward despite Edna's attempts to keep me still. "Some kind of magical doorway?"
Edna shook her head, her gold earrings catching the light with a subtle shimmer. "It's not that simple. The barriers between worlds aren't meant to be crossed. You can't just walk through a door."
"So then how—"
"Two ways," she said, cutting me off with two raised fingers, her other hand still working the healing paste into my bruised skin. "Either you're born a Shifter with enough innate isura to tear the fabric between realms yourself, or you find an artifact made by one."
I frowned, the implications hitting me. "But how did you specifically cross over? Are you a–shifter?"
"I used an artifact," she admitted. "A one-way ticket, so to speak. Once used, it became null of Isura." Her voice carried a subtle undertone of something like homesickness—the kind that comes when you know return is nearly impossible.
She moved to a kettle that had somehow appeared on a side table, adding herbs to the water. I hadn't even noticed her preparing it.
A chill ran through me as I processed this information. If people from magical realms could cross over, what else might be hiding in our world? Were the monsters from stories real too? Horror movies suddenly felt less like fiction and more like documentaries. If Ministers and Mist weavers were real, then what about all the other creatures that went bump in the night? The line between reality and nightmare had blurred, leaving me questioning everything I thought I knew about the world. Suddenly, my normal life seemed like an illusion, a thin veneer over a reality teeming with supernatural dangers.
"Isura?" I asked, watching as Edna traced symbols in the air above the kettle, much like she had done over Levi's wound. The water inside glowed briefly with an amber light that illuminated her face from below, casting her features in warm gold.
Levi leaned forward, arms braced on his knees, watching my hands like they might still catch fire at any moment. His gaze was both wary and fascinated.
"That sensation you felt? " he said. "That was Isura. The current underneath everything. Life, death, magic—all of it. Some people call to it, some just touch it on instinct." His eyes flickered to mine. "You've been brushing against it for a while now. Today you called on it in your desperation"
I looked at my palms, tracing the lines that had moments ago held dancing flames. "It felt like… heat, memory and something alive."
Levi gave a half-smile. "That's about right. Isura is like… something you tune into. Like the universe has a heartbeat, and you finally heard the pulse." There was something in his voice I rarely heard—a reverence.
I met his eyes. "And what if I can't control it?"
"Then you don't," he said simply. "Not at first. This isn't wand-waving fantasy. It's old, wild, and picky. You don't ‘control’ Isura—you learn to ride the storm."
"And these artifacts only work one way," Edna continued, pouring the glowing tea into three mismatched mugs, "unless they were created by an especially powerful Shifter—which are exceedingly rare." Steam rose from the cups in curling tendrils that seemed almost sentient, twisting in patterns too deliberate to be random.
Levi leaned forward slightly. "The last Shifter powerful enough to create two-way artifacts was Aurora."
"The singer?" I blurted, incredulous.
Levi's face broke into the first genuine grin I'd seen all night. "I know, right? I was so psyched when I found out. Apparently, being a pop sensation was just her side gig." For a moment, he looked like the old Levi—the one who got excited about comic books and new video games, who'd stay up all night debating whether teleportation or invisibility would be the better superpower.
"She shifted here about 150 years ago," Edna clarified, handing us each a steaming mug. The liquid inside swirled with faint golden light, like sunrise captured in a cup. "Left a few artifacts behind when she returned to the magic realm. As her powers grew, she no longer needed them—could shift between worlds at will."
"Drink," she instructed. "All of it at once. It will help with the healing."
I sniffed the concoction dubiously. It smelled like wet earth, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and something like iron or copper. "Is this going to turn me into a frog or something?"
Levi chuckled, then grimaced. "Nah, just tastes like one." He raised his mug in a mock toast before downing the contents in one long gulp, his face contorting in disgust. "Ugh. Never gets better."
Something clicked in my mind as I steeled myself to drink the mysterious tea. "Is that what your dad's been searching for all these years? An artifact to get back to the magic realm?"
Levi nodded. "To get Edna back home. And to take us there, where we'd be…safer." A shadow crossed his face as he said this, suggesting the journey had been more complicated and painful than his simple explanation suggested.
Taking a deep breath, I tipped the mug back and swallowed the tea in three quick gulps. The taste was indescribable—bitter and sweet at once, with a strange aftertaste like electricity. The effect, however, was immediate. Warmth spread from my center outward, racing along my limbs like liquid sunlight. I flexed my fingers in wonder as the stiffness melted away, as pain I hadn't even registered receded into memory.
"Wow," I breathed, feeling my throat open as the constriction eased. The constant burning ache that had accompanied every breath since the attack faded to a dull memory. "That's... incredible."
"Ancient remedy," Edna said with a small, satisfied smile. She sipped her own tea more slowly, seemingly unbothered by the taste that had made both Levi and me grimace. Finally, she applied some of the healing paste to her own wound, the green glow around it already fading under her experienced touch.
I rolled my shoulders experimentally, marveling at how much better I felt. Whatever was in that tea and paste had worked miracles on my battered body. The warmth beneath my skin surged again, stronger this time, no longer painful but almost comforting—like being wrapped in a blanket fresh from the dryer.
I turned to look directly at Levi, my patience for half-explanations completely evaporated. "And what exactly are you? What am I? What is Edna? Why are we targets?" Each question tumbled into the next, a cascade of unknowns I needed answered.
Levi hesitated, rubbing his thumb over the silver scar on his forearm. "I'm half-Fae," he said, the word hanging in the air between us like something fragile and precious. "My…mother's blood. That's why I have the power of a Mistweaver. I can manipulate air currents and create fog dense enough to conceal entire areas." He glanced at his hands, examining them as if seeing them anew. "Still working on the more advanced stuff—solid mist bending, illusions. Not quite there yet."
"Half-Fae," I repeated, the Minister's sneering voice echoing in my memory. "That's why he called you a mutt." The slur made sense now, but understanding its meaning only made the cruelty of it more apparent.
A shadow crossed Levi's face, but he nodded. "Yeah. Not exactly popular in either world." He shrugged, feigning indifference, but I could see the hurt.
He gestured toward Edna. "Edna is Daemeni. She's known for her speed and lightning manipulation—wicked fast reflexes and can power New York city with her currents. She's also developed a rare affinity for healing magic. The golden artifacts she wears? Traditional for Daemeni—they help channel her powers."
"And me?" I pressed, that warmth stirring beneath my skin again, a phantom echo of the flames that had danced across my fingertips earlier. "What am I?"
Levi's eyes met mine, a strange mix of awe and hesitation in his gaze. "You're—"
"Stop." Edna raised her hand sharply, cutting him off. The sudden command startled us both, the authority in her voice brooking no argument.
"But she deserves to know," Levi protested, the frustration evident in the tightening of his jaw.
Edna's expression softened. "By the ancestors, I want to tell you, Waris. I do." She moved closer, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. "But right now, you have no control over your isura. It's radiating from you like a river. Anyone with the ability to invade minds would know instantly who and what you are if we speak it aloud." She shook her head, regret etching lines around her eyes. "I can't risk it—we can't risk it. Not when we're so exposed."
She reached out, taking my hand in hers. "I promise you, when we reach safety, I will tell you everything."
As our skin connected, a bright spark jumped between us—actual visible electricity that made us both gasp. The brief flash illuminated her surprised expression, casting stark shadows across her face. Edna's eyes widened, her fingers tightening around mine instead of pulling away as I might have expected.
"The insignia," she whispered, more to herself than to me. Her thumb traced an invisible pattern on my palm, following lines only she could see. "It's almost completely burned away." She looked up at Levi, something like wonder and fear mingling in her expression. "Her magic is stronger than we realized. It's consuming the binding symbols placed on her at birth."
"Is that... bad?" I asked, the warmth beneath my skin surging in response to her touch, like it recognized something kindred in her energy.
"Not bad," Edna said carefully. "Just... unprecedented." The word hung in the air, heavy with implications I couldn't yet grasp.
"We need to stay focused," she continued, releasing my hand reluctantly. "There's a reason the Ministers were acting so strangely tonight. They shouldn't have ignored the hub. They shouldn't have been able to find Waris so easily."
Levi nodded, a grim satisfaction crossing his features as he processed the significance of what had happened. His eyes held a calculating look I'd rarely seen in them before.
Under different circumstances, I might have felt proud. Instead, cold dread spread through my chest as the full implications of what we'd been discussing earlier sank in. "So if these Ministers are part of a High Priest's coven, what does that mean for us?"
"It means we're facing something far worse than we anticipated," Edna replied, pushing back stray curls that bounced back to the fringe of her temple. Her own wound had begun to heal after her treatment, the green tinge fading to almost nothing. "A High Priest of the Wraith doesn't leave the shadows unless something significant is at stake."
"But that's not even the most disturbing part," Levi added, his eyes meeting Edna's with shared concern. "Why did they come after Risa? Why not go for the hub?"
"The hub?" I asked, feeling increasingly lost in the jargon they shared with such familiarity.
"A focal point we created," Edna explained distractedly, still processing the implications. Her fingers tapped a rhythm against her thigh, a subtle indication of internal calculations. "A concentration of magical energy and residuals that essentially acts as a beacon. Any Minister within fifty miles should have sensed it immediately—we designed it that way, to draw their attention from... more vulnerable targets."
The way she looked at me made it clear who those "vulnerable targets" were. The knowledge settled like a stone in my stomach—they had been protecting me, all this time, from dangers I hadn't even known existed.
"But they didn't take the bait," Levi continued, his voice tight with tension. "They ignored the hub completely and came straight for you, Risa."
"Which means they knew exactly who to target," Edna concluded, her expression grim. "They weren't just hunting random strong magical signatures. They were hunting you specifically."
Levi and Edna shared another of those looks that made me want to scream. Secrets upon secrets, layers of knowledge I'd been excluded from for years.
"There's something else," Edna said slowly, moving to sink into the armchair across from us. The weight of her words seemed to physically press her down. "The Ministers I encountered tonight—they weren't normal."
"Define 'normal' when we're talking about shadow priests," I muttered, the sarcasm a thin defense against mounting fear.
Edna ignored my sarcasm. "They were human. Or they had been, once. Corrupted humans, marked with wraith sigils." She traced a pattern in the air, a shape that seemed to darken the space it occupied before fading.
The statement seemed to hit Levi like a physical blow. "That's impossible," he breathed, disbelief etched in every line of his face. "The human world is protected. The magic realm prevents wraith corruption from taking root here. The barriers—"
"Are weakening," Edna finished, her voice heavy with certainty. "The missing people from town... I believe they're being taken, corrupted, and returned as hollowed vessels. Perfect spies with access to both worlds."
Missing people. The words echoed in my mind, conjuring images of missing person posters that had been appearing around town with increasing frequency over the past few months. Faces of strangers, and some not so strange—like Brian Kettering, who'd disappeared for three weeks in January only to return with no explanation and a new, unsettling vacant stare that everyone attributed to trauma.
"Brian," I whispered, the realization crashing over me like ice water. "Brian Kettering—he went missing, and when he came back, he was... different. Everyone said he was just traumatized, but..."
"But he wasn't himself anymore," Levi finished for me, his expression darkening. "Because he wasn't himself. Not really. Just a hollow shell where Brian used to be." His fingers curled into fists, knuckles white with tension.
"How many?" I asked, my voice barely audible above the sound of my own heartbeat. "How many others like him are out there now?"
"I don't know," Edna admitted, and the uncertainty in her voice terrified me more than anything else that night. In those three words lay a confession I never expected from her—a limit to her knowledge, an edge to her power. "But if the Ministers are corrupting humans here, turning them into their servants, then the protective barriers between worlds are failing faster than we feared."
"And if there's a High Priest here..." Levi added, leaving the thought unfinished. He absentmindedly traced one of the silver scars on his forearm—an old wound from what I now understood was another encounter with those poisoned blades. The scar caught the lamplight, the silver sheen almost beautiful despite its violent origin.
The implications crashed over me in waves—each person who had gone missing and returned might now be a spy, a hollow vessel serving these Ministers. People I passed in the hallways, sat beside in classes, exchanged pleasantries with at the grocery store—any of them could be watching, reporting, waiting. The ordinary world suddenly seemed sinister, full of potential threats disguised as familiar faces.
I thought of the flames that had danced across my fingertips earlier, the strange rightness of it. "What about me?" I asked. "Where do I fit into all this? Why would they target me specifically?"
The silence that followed my question stretched uncomfortably long. The house creaked around us, as if it too were listening for the answer. Outside, the wind had picked up, whispering secrets through the leaves of the maple tree that had stood sentinel over the Hoffman home for decades. That tree had witnessed so much—children playing beneath its branches, Genevieve reading books in its dappled shade, and now this moment of terrible revelation.
Finally, Levi spoke, his voice gentle but firm.
"Because you're important, Risa. And Edna and I aren't the only ones who've been watching over you all these years."
The magnitude of that statement—all these years—sent a fresh wave of betrayal washing over me. "What do you mean 'all these years'?" I demanded. "How long have you known about this?"
"Since my mom died," Levi answered quietly, his eyes meeting mine with a mixture of guilt and conviction. "She protected you before she died. I only found out about everything when Edna showed up a couple weeks later. From the magic realm."
The words hit me like physical blows. Those weeks after Genevieve's death—I remembered them vividly. How Levi had withdrawn, how I'd tried so desperately to reach him through his grief. I'd thought he was simply mourning, processing an unimaginable loss in his own way. I'd given him space when he needed it, comfort when he allowed it. And all that time, he'd been carrying this impossible secret, learning about magic and Ministers and all these dangers.
A complicated ache spread through my chest—sadness that I hadn't been there for him when he truly needed someone, anger that he'd chosen to shoulder this burden alone when I'd been right beside him, waiting to help. Years of friendship, and he hadn't trusted me enough to share this part of his life.
But looking at him now, I remembered—he was just a child then. We both were. Forced to grow up too fast in the wake of tragedy, but still children. What choice did he really have?
"We need to move," Edna said abruptly, standing. "If they know about you, this house isn't safe anymore. None of our safe houses will be."
The amber lamplight caught the worry lines etched around her eyes, revealing a weariness that her composed demeanor at school had always hidden. How many nights had she spent like this—tending wounds, running from dangers I hadn't known existed, protecting me from shadows?
"Where can we go?" Levi asked, "If they've corrupted humans, they could have eyes everywhere."
Edna's gaze turned distant, calculating. "There's one place. A sanctuary even the High Priest wouldn't know to approach." She looked at me, her expression unreadable. "But to reach it, Risa needs to understand what she is. What she can do."
"What I am?" I repeated, that familiar heat beginning to build beneath my skin again. It moved through me like a living thing, curling around my ribs, sending tendrils down my arms. A part of me awakening after a long slumber.
Levi reached out, catching my hand in his. The touch was electric, sending a jolt through me that momentarily doused the building flames.
"You're like us, Risa," he said softly. "You always have been."
My mind raced with questions, with fears, with the dawning understanding that the world was vastly larger and more terrifying than I'd ever imagined. But beneath it all, underneath the fear and betrayal, a strange excitement flickered to life—a sense that I was finally about to discover a truth that had been hovering just beyond my reach my entire life.
"Okay," I said, squeezing Levi's hand in return. "Then tell me what I am."
A heavy silence fell across the room as Edna and Levi exchanged another meaningful glance. The clock on the mantel ticked steadily, counting down to something inevitable. The house held its breath around us, the very air seeming to thicken with anticipation.
"For now we can gatther that they were looking for you, Waris," Edna finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. "That's why they sent so many. The Ministers don't commit resources like this unless..."
"Unless what?" I pressed, a cold dread seeping into my bones.
"We can only assume that their goal is to eliminate a specific target," Levi finished, his grip on my hand tightening protectively. "A high-value target."
"I’ll say it bluntly," Edna said, her eyes never leaving mine. "They came to kill you, and they won't stop until they succeed."
The finality in her voice settled around me like a shroud. Whatever I was, whatever power I possessed —it was enough to make me the primary target of these Ministers of the Wraith. Enough to make them want me dead.
And as I looked between Levi and Edna, I realized with chilling clarity that they weren't surprised by this revelation. They had always known this day might come. They had been preparing for it—preparing me for it subtly—for years.
"Why?" I whispered, my voice breaking on the single word, the revelation too heavy to bear.
"Because," Levi said grimly, "they fear what you will become."
xoxo
Until your shadow meets mine again—
Simxn
Author, Crown of Thorns: Desert Rose • Editor, The Alchemxst
