The Spirus Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 JB Trepagnier

  ISBN-13: 9781541171763

  ISBN-10: 1541171764

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  Table of Contents

  Soryn

  Esylle

  Leodos

  Soryn

  Esylle

  Leodos

  Esylle

  Volaris

  Soryn

  Leodos

  Volaris

  Leodos

  Soryn

  Sono

  Leodos

  Volaris

  Esylle

  Oris

  Soryn

  Oris

  Esylle

  Soryn

  Leodos

  Soryn

  Terros

  Volaris

  Terros

  Joron

  Esylle

  Soryn

  Fluvis

  Soryn

  Terros

  Oris

  Leodos

  Soryn

  Volaris

  Neptis

  Esylle

  Sono

  Soryn

  Leodos

  Oris

  Soryn

  Volaris

  Esylle

  Sono

  Leodos

  Terros

  Joron

  Oris

  Soryn

  Leodos

  Esylle

  Neptis

  Leodos

  Sono

  Soryn

  Volaris

  Esylle

  Soryn

  Oris

  Neptis

  Leodos

  Fluvis

  Esylle

  Volaris

  Leodos

  Joron

  Oris

  Leodos

  Joron

  Esylle

  Sono

  Soryn

  Volaris

  Esylle

  Leodos

  Esylle

  Terros

  Lisana

  Oris

  Leodos

  Sono

  Lisana

  Esylle

  Sono

  Leodos

  Volaris

  Lisana

  Leodos

  Esylle

  Lisana

  Sono

  Esylle

  Soryn

  Her legs hurt and there were shooting pains up from her feet. She had been walking for days. She could have sprouted wings and flown. She could breathe underwater. She could have gotten down on four legs and ran freely. She was able to do all of these things, but was expressly forbidden from doing any of them outside of her home. No one could know what she could do. If she flew near a Farkhi turned back into a human, they would see her pale skin and know she was different. She didn’t resemble the Tarks either if she changed after swimming. She could turn into a land animal like the Theran, but they could just smell that she was different. It was easy to hide she could make fire like the Tempris as long as she controlled her temper. The Farkhi could only fly. The Tarks could only swim. The Theran could only become animals. The Tempris could only control fire. Soryn could do anything she wanted.

  Soryn’s tutor and the man who had raised her, Belisarus, would not tell her why she was different, just that it always needed to be hidden. He wouldn’t tell her how she came to the ability to change into all four different forms. The Farkhi, the Tarks, and the Tempris all had a ceremony on their tenth name day. This was the day they stopped being able to choose any form from their tribe. A form and a job was assigned to them that day and after their tenth name day, they could only assume one form. Soryn did not know her name day. When she thought it might be her tenth year, she asked about the ceremony and was told there would be none. Every day that year, she went into the gardens, which had high walls and was the only place she was allowed to change and play, and she would change into different things. She never lost her ability to change into anything she wanted, nor did she lose the ability to change into something from all four tribes. She asked, but she was never given an answer.

  It seemed like she had been asking questions since as long as she could remember and she never got any answers. She wanted to know where she came from. How did Belisarus come to find her? How could she do what she could do? Why could she do magic on the island where they lived when everyone knew magic was dead there? He never answered her questions. He pushed her on learning how to hide her flame red hair and violet eyes because she was also Tempris and told her that she always needed to stay hidden.

  Before she was born, she was taught that long ago, there were wars. The Farkhi, the Tarks, the Theran, and the Tempris lived in peace with the Tempris ruling. When the humans came, they had weapons they had never seen before. There were arguments over territory and what to do with the tribes. There was a war for thirty years with the tribes fighting against both each other and the humans. The humans seemed to keep coming with more weapons. Despite their gifts, the tribes were unable to fight against the human’s weapons. The humans knew that the tribes would not accept one of them on the throne and still accept their laws. The humans kept a Tempris on the throne to rule, but passed a decree that they must marry a human. The humans hoped mixing human blood with Tempris blood would make them less powerful and essentially exterminated the rest of the Tempris.

  Soryn knew the history and why she had to change her hair to black and her eyes to blue. She would be killed or captured on sight as soon as she set foot on the mainland if they saw her red hair and violet eyes. She knew she had to keep her abilities secret because the tribes would react badly to anything different. She was also told stories about a room underneath the castle where tribe members just disappeared one day and were taken and studied by the humans. They were never heard from again. She didn’t know why, if her abilities were such a danger to her, why she was being sent on this mission or why she was being told to expose them only to the princess. She didn’t know why she was not allowed to play her flute until after the princess had agreed to come back to the island with her.

  She knew nothing about the Princess Esylle except she was a Tempris princess and her mother was human. The rumors were that now, the royal family could hardly control fire and no longer had the fiery red hair that Tempris always had from so many years of marrying humans. She was not told why she was going to see her, why she should reveal herself , nor how she was supposed to convince her to come back with her. She was given no information at all. The only reason she agreed to go was because Belisarus promised to finally answer the questions she had been asking for so long once she got back.

  It smelled differently on the mainland than it did back home. On Idric Island, it smelled of salt and moss. There were trees and plants here she had never seen before and her senses were overloaded by new sights and smells. She had to concentrate and push the smells of so many trees she had never seen out of her head when she was searching for food, otherwise, she thought she might never be able to eat. Belisarus paid someone to go to the market for them back home, but he taught her from a young age how to search for food and which plants were edible and which ones were poisonous. She asked him why he taught her about plants that didn’t grow on Idric, since she was never allowed to leave the house, and he didn’t answer her then either.
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br />   Before she left, he told her the best route to take so no one would see her until she got to the castle and managed to find a way to approach the princess. He told her the route she was taking was longer, but she would not go near any of the tribe’s camps and she could not show herself as anything other than a young girl to anyone other than the princess.

  On the first day off the coast, she initially had trouble locating food because some of the things that grew on the mainland could not grow in the island's climate. She knew what they looked like from drawings Belisarus had shown her, but the Theran in her made looking for food by smell a lot easier. The first two days, she spent longer than she should trying to find food, but once she knew what it smelled like, it got easier.

  On the fourth day, the smell of so many different trees, bushes, and plants no longer became strange to her and she was more used to it now. It was easier to find food because she wasn’t trying to tune out the smells of her surroundings. It took a total of seven days for her to get close enough where she started to see other people, but she stayed hidden from them.

  She could see the castle in the distance from the hill she was standing on, but had no idea how she was going to get in. She was sure there would be guards at the front gate and it would be nearly impossible to get near the princess without having other people in her way. She was also given the odd order to touch her and see if she could call to the fire in her blood. She didn’t know why she was given that order since they shared no blood relation and she shouldn’t be able to call her blood. She also didn’t know how she was even going to get close enough to touch her or how the princess would react if she tried.

  Soryn did the only thing she could think of. She walked to the castle as close as she could get without attracting attention. She hid behind a tree and felt her entire body vibrate and shrink as she turned into a gnat. She tried to pick the smallest flying insect she could think of to get into the castle because she didn’t want to get smashed by anyone.

  She flew through the castle, not quite knowing what she was looking for. She eventually found a room and a man dressed like a king pacing. The rumors must be true that the Tempris blood was being phased out. His hair was dark and his eyes were blue. He had no reason to hide that like Soryn did. She finally saw the princess sitting at a table with her face in her hands. There was also a very tall man sitting with them. Soryn didn’t know who he was, being that she had not been told anything about him when she left. He smelled like old books and the mahogany resin Belisarus sometimes burned. She liked the way he smelled, but she didn’t know if she could trust him. She landed on the top of the throne and just watched and listened.

  “You can’t keep putting it off,” King Joron told the princess. “You need to remarry. We need an heir.”

  “We have an heir!” she cried.

  “The Princess Lisana has been missing nineteen years. If she was able to be found, we would have done it by now. We don’t even know if she’s still alive. We’ve questioned and even tortured all of the tribes and no one knows who took her. She’s gone. You need to admit it to yourself and move on. Rivannus left to look for her and he’s been gone eighteen years. You’ve heard nothing from him. I hate to keep telling this to you, but he’s gone too. You need to move on and get remarried while you’re still young enough to have another heir.”

  “I know she’s out there. I can feel it. We just need to look harder.”

  “Where do you suggest we look that we haven’t already? We’ve torn this kingdom apart looking for her. We don’t know what she looks like anymore. She didn’t grow up in the palace and you know she wouldn’t know she needs to color her hair to fool the humans. Don’t you think someone would have noticed her with red hair by now? No one knows we hide our abilities.”

  Soryn knew she wasn’t supposed to be hearing this. She knew it was common knowledge that the ruling Tempris had lost so much power they no longer looked the same. She didn’t know if they hid their hair and eye color the way she did or knew another way. She didn’t know why they had to hide their abilities like she did when they were royalty and should be able to do what they wanted. Both the king and the princess smelled of ember and it got stronger the more upset the princess got.

  “How do you know someone didn’t find out it’s red after the herbs washed out and kept darkening it so we wouldn’t find her?”

  Soryn didn’t know what they were talking about with herbs. She thought her hair dark and it stayed that way. Could they not do the same?

  “What purpose would they have keeping her alive and hidden? What could they possibly want with her?”

  “You know what we can do,” Esylle said. “How do you know they are not keeping her and training her for something? You know how these humans are.”

  “The humans don’t know about us. We’ve been slowly hiding ourselves for so long, they have no reason to suspect we are still at full power. They would have had no reason to take her thinking they could use her because of what we can do.”

  “I know she’s still out there. If something had happened to her, I would have felt it.”

  “You can’t keep sitting around here doing nothing thinking she is somehow going to come back. Your child is gone. She disappeared as a baby. Even if, for some reason, she is out there and we haven’t found her, you have no idea what she looks like and she doesn’t know you. You need to accept it. There will be three men coming tomorrow for you to meet. You need to pick one because you’re going to marry at least one of them.”

  “I don’t want to marry one of them! What if he hasn’t come back because he’s still looking for her? What if he comes back tomorrow and he has her?”

  Joron sighed. “I know how hard this has been on you, but you need to accept neither of them are coming back. You have a duty to the kingdom and that is to marry and continue our line. You need to have an heir and teach them our ways.”

  “I don’t want to remarry!”

  Soryn was watching and listening and she saw Esylle’s eyes change to violet when she got angry. Maybe they did use the same tricks she used to hide. Finally, the tall man spoke.

  “You’re losing control, Esylle. Your eyes. You need to fix them before you go back outside. Your father is right. You need to move on for the good of the kingdom. Why don’t you compose yourself and let’s go walk in the garden?”

  Soryn watched as Esylle closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, they were blue again. She didn’t look at her father as she left with the tall man. Soryn flew out the door and followed them as they went into the gardens. She stayed close enough to hear them, but not close enough that they would have noticed her. She watched Esylle take the tall man’s elbow and lean into him once they were outside in the garden.

  “Leodos, I thought you would be on my side. You’ve been with me since she went missing. I know you did things you didn’t want to help me. Why are you on his side now?”

  “Because I don’t want war. I’m surprised there hasn’t been one already since your family started darkening their hair and hiding their eyes because you think it’s what the humans want. The tribes will not answer to anyone except Tempris and I’m surprised they still are now that you hide your abilities. If your family’s line ends with you, you know the humans will be fighting for the throne and it’s going to start another war with the tribes. Tension has always been high with them.”

  “I wish the other humans were like you,” Esylle said, resting her head on his arm.

  “I’m different because I chose to be. Do you think I’m proud of what my family used to do to the tribes? I’m glad that ended when my father died and I hope they don’t ask me to train anyone else to do it. I was such a disappointment to him when I refused to continue his work studying the tribes.”

  “That’s when we knew we could trust you with our secret; when you refused. My father saw how your father and the other humans treated you when you said no. He knew then that you were kind and not like th
em.”

  “You know what is expected of you and you know what is going to happen to the peace here if you refuse,” Leodos said.

  “I know what’s expected of me, but I know she’s out there somewhere. Even if he’s not, she is. I can feel it. Why should I have to pretend like I love someone and produce another heir when there already is one?”

  “You know what I did questioning people to find her. I did awful things to make people talk. I pushed people to the limits anyone would have told me what they knew. No one knew who took her or where she was taken to. Even if she is still out there, you might never get her back.”

  “What if they took her because they are planning something?”

  “What could they be planning? No one knows what your family can still do except me since you chose to trust me with that secret.”

  “What if someone found out?”

  “How could anyone possibly find out? You darken their hair from the moment they are born. You use your magic to change their eyes to blue until they can change it themselves. You keep the babies away from the public until they can control themselves. You’ve even managed to keep it hidden from the humans that marry into to family. If you can even keep it hidden from a spouse, how would anyone else manage to find out your secret?”

  “What if someone that has married into our family found out and didn’t say anything? What if they told someone and they planned this?”

  Leodos just looked down at her sadly. “You’re making up wild tales and excuses because you don’t want her to be gone. Tomorrow, you will pick a husband and have a new heir. Maybe the new baby will help you move on.”

  Esylle didn’t comment further. She kept walking with her head resting on Leodos’ arm and continued to look upset. Soryn had not been told anything about the Princess Lisana being kidnapped nor anything else she had overheard today. She really knew nothing about the mainland because she lived so far away on an island that so few people live on. None of the tribe members lived there because there was no magic. She didn’t know why Belisarus had settled there after she was born because he seemed to know all kinds of magic because he taught her how to do it.

  Soryn felt out of place here on the mainland. The palace was too big and too ornately decorated for her. She missed the stone house she grew up in with its high walls and privacy. She had never met her neighbors and she was free to be as she was there. She didn’t like being on the mainland, where people talked differently than she did and she had to hide everything.