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Chapter 9 - Djinn, Our Brother

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A banquet was not what Rena expected to be greeted by the same group that had kidnapped them the previous day. 

She sat uncomfortably in a high-backed wooden chair on a padded cushion, nervously fingering her crystal key. Under close watch, they'd been given the option to bathe before coming, but none of their group had done much with it. Rena herself had only wiped her face because Leora threatened to do it for her if she didn't. 

The hall was a semicircle with a tiered platform positioned where the centre of the circle would have been if it was full. The platform itself seemed to be composed of roughly cut stone, some arranged into staircases, while other parts became a miniature waterfalls, catching the water that fell in from the ceiling above. Various mosses and small shrubs helped to bring the entire thing to life, a shrine to nature herself. Everything about it was a contrast to the exquisite marble that spanned the floor, the delicate arches and carvings into the walls and roof.

Sunlight filtered in from the gaps in the ceiling and the large, open windows that ran along the flat wall to fall on everything from the large, elegant wooden tables and their occupants to the largest, most curious statues Rena had ever laid eyes on. She guessed them to be representing ancient fae mythics, if this were truly an ancient place of worship as the oracle had said, but they were like no fae she'd ever seen. Their expressions watched the future, gazes focused on something so fervently it seemed as if it would consume them. 

Rena had stopped studying them as soon as she'd become sure that one of them was watching her back and returned her attention to closer things. 

Though the other Unbounds at the banquet seemed to leave and return with their own food, Rena's table was told --ordered even-- to remain seated and brought their meals. It reminded her all too much of the priory, the way the Order demanded things be done, and while it only set Rena further on edge, it succeeded in relaxing the shoulders of several of the other Mythics on her table. 

I feel like I'm on display. Rena poked at her food, unable to bring herself to actually eat it. The Unbounds threw curious glances in their direction. They're all watching us. 

Rena lifted her eyes once again trying to make contact with Nazine at the other end of the table, but he continued to stare into the depths of his plate, searching it for answers. 

Come on, Zin, she mentally begged him. Snap out of it! 

She'd been relieved at first, after her group had been seated and Nazine and the archangel had been brought out not long after, but it only took one glance to realise something was wrong. There was a dead look in his eyes, one that had stared back at her in the mirror until recently. 

Possession. To have control wrested from you of that which you value most. Helpless to take it back.

Rena considered imbuing an illusion into some bread and throwing it at him before remembering the wisps, standing side by side behind Nazine and the archangel, and that she couldn't touch her ley if she tried. 

Instead, she tried to use the time to take in her surroundings, if there was anything that could end up helping her. 

She doubted any of the Unbounds would sympathise. They mingled and laughed and talked with eachother, completely at ease. Many wandered around with several parts of their physical Mythic showing, some more complete than others. Horns, wings, tails and scales were not an uncommon sight in the crowds. Unlike the priory, it seemed that here, remaining in your pure human form was the abnormality. 

Some stopped to talk to the Mythics at Rena's table, earning them flinches and terrified looks for their attempts at friendliness. Rena herself only managed a few words in return at best and even so, was unable to release her key from the protective grip of her fingers.

 She watched one of the angels press his lips together and set his face as an Unbound bid him an awkward farewell after attempting conversation. When the Unbound left, the angel met the eyes of his companions and gave them a stiff nod. 

Their group had decided one thing in the baths. 

That no what, they stayed together. Plans for escape or just pure survival didn't matter, but they would support each other. They would not abandon or ignore one another and somehow, they would get through this despite whatever trials it might bring. 

Everyone, with the exception of the silvery-haired oracle had agreed. She had remained in the corner, lips tight with silence as she washed the dirt from her skin. 

Rena hadn't even been sure that she'd heard them. There was a distance in her gaze that she wasn't sure how to place, like she was watching events play out through her mind on a screen invisible to all but her. 

I wonder what she sees. 

As if sensing her stare, the oracle cleared her throat and lifted her eyes to meet Rena's. The silvery irises compelled Rena to hold the gaze as she searched for something deep within, examining the depths Rena knew she wasn't going to find. 

After a minute, the oracle returned her gaze to her food and continued to pick at it. So quiet that Rena almost didn't catch it, she murmured, "Prepare yourself, guardian. Your purpose awaits," and proceeded to stab a vegetable with a delicate fork and place it in her mouth like she'd said nothing at all, leaving Rena wondering if she'd imagined it. 

She was about to ask when a hush fell over the room, the clinking of metal against plates and chairs scraping against the floor as they were pushed back and the Unbounds stood, one arm over their chests. 

Rena followed the direction of their heads to a tall, graceful figure sweeping across the floor. 

Long, white hair--not silver like the oracles, but actual, pure white--fell down the back and front of his pale robes and seemed to cover most of his face. Like his robes, the colour of his skin shifted constantly as such that Rena couldn't pin it down. One moment it was grey, the next blue before turning caramel as the material covering it shifted between purples and greens and yellows, pulsating out from his key. 

Even before he began to ascend the steps of the platform, arms folded in front of him, Rena knew this was the Unbound's leader. 

The sunlight from above illuminated his form, bathing his being in a well of light. Judging from the intakes of breath around Rena's table, it had the desired effect. 

He looks like the archangel. 

She turned her head to gauge the archangel's reaction, but like Nazine, his gaze was missing something. 

"My brothers and sisters!" he began. His voice wasn't like that of a siren, but the words touched every corner of the room, calling attention from even the deepest shadows. Compelling with nothing but the man's confidence and charisma. "We gather here today in great joy, but also in great sorrow, for during the rescue of our newest kin, we must also say farewell to those that paid the final price to ensure their safety."

The man thumped a hand over his chest and lowered his head, eliciting the same response from every other Unbound in the room causing it to echo like thunder. 

"To our warlock brother, Fiel. To our sisters, Jienna, pixie of the fae and the shadow Mythic Stef, we bid you farewell. We, the kin you leave behind on this mortal plane, send our thoughts with you as your spirits return to the embrace of the ley. Your sacrifices shall neither be in vain, nor shall your noble spirits be forgotten as we strive to continue to embody the ideals you have shown us. Through the ley, return!"

His final words were echoed by the Unbounds, each one solemn and bowed, farewelling their fallen. Rena and her table remained silent, strangers in the family they were surrounded by, their only refuge found in each other. 

A minute of silence passed before the man atop the platform threw his arms wide, the sleeves of the robe glittering in the light and pointed an accusing finger at the large double doors Rena had entered through. 

"Bring out the defilers!" 

Every head turned to face the doors as they swung open with a resounding bang. 

Prepare yourself, the oracle had said. 

Rena wasn't sure any amount of warning would have prepared her for this. 

Four figures, blindfolded and bound like livestock were led into the hall, encouraged by shoves from the Unbounds escorting them. They stumbled around, unsure of their footing, struggling to stay upright and preserve what measure of their dignity was left. 

Even if their matching grey armour hadn't given them away, even if the room had been bathed in darkness, Rena would have known in a heartbeat who the prisoner at the end was. 

Cayden.

Unlike the other three ley guards, Cayden was restrained by two Unbounds, one on either arm. As the group continued towards the man atop the platform straight past Rena's table, she was able to make out the blood still matted in the hip-length hair that'd grown after he used the ley, the long gashes across his skin and the crimson stain that covered his fingers dripping from his wrists. The other three fared no better, but their injuries seemed older. Cayden's were fresh, still raw and seeping from whatever had inflicted them. 

It made Rena want to hurt things. 

A tall, lanky figure trailed behind the ley guards, their long fingers steepled. A faint glow emanated from the robes that flowed around them that constantly shifted between states of repair and tatters, revealing the bones and the scraps of flesh that clung beneath. 

"Spectre," breathed an angel beside Rena. "They can't mean to--"

The ley guards were spread out at the base of the platform a metre apart and forced to their knees. Rena leant forward with them, utterly focused on Cayden. It wasn't until she saw bright spots of light that she realised she'd forgotten to breathe. 

"Brothers and sisters!" said the man atop the platform. "Gaze now, upon the defilers, the monsters responsible for the loss of our brother and sisters this past night!" 

The ley guard at the end, a woman with brown hair longer than Cayden's swept up into a ponytail lifted her head to the audience she couldn't see. "The only monsters I saw were the kidnappers that stole bodies that didn't belong to them!" 

The last word was barely out of her mouth before she backhanded and sent pitching forward to slam into the floor. 

One of the Mythics at Rena's table, a pale woman of stocky elegance threw her chair back, her fingers biting into the wood of the table. "Freya!" 

The ley guard who'd called out, Freya, managed to drag herself back up. "Svala!" She spat something to the ground. Blood. "Thank the nine, you're safe." 

The pale woman pushed the chair further back, clutching the back of her neighbours like she was a heartbeat away from racing to Freya's side. "Freya, hang on, I'm--"

"Silence!" 

A wave of... something swept across the room. Powerful and demanding, it left no room for argument. Rena wasn't sure she could have spoken if she'd wanted to. A barrier had fallen over her voice, the same barrier that had the pale woman calling Freya's name shrinking back into her chair, agony written into the lines of her face. 

The man on the platform, the one who'd given the command stepped forward on his platform. Beseeching them, a pleading gesture, a grandfather who had seen too many horrors of the world to believe in it anymore. 

"Mythics!" 

Rena's eyes were torn from Cayden to the man on the platform in unison with every other Mythic at her table. 

He bared down on them, projecting an authority that made Rena want to cower. 

"My name is Qariinn, and I am an Unbound djinn Mythic." He paced, hands folding behind his back, now solely addressing the Mythics at Rena's table. They that had been kidnapped on his orders. "But my freedom was hard earned. Like you, I was collected before memory could save the faces of those I was born to. Like you, I was raised by the Order. And like you, I allowed them to mould my mind.

"I was raised to believe I would be an asset to the world. That I would commune with the portals and help strengthen the ley while honing my own abilities. I was given a personal guard that watched my every move under the guise of protection as the Order continued to monitor my progress. He never left my side. Ensured that I never left the Order's teachings.

"But something was amiss. As I drew ley out from the depths of a portal only to watch it be taken away, to be imbued into clothes and buildings and food by human hands for human sale and use, I began to realise something was not right. Why, if the creators had intended for humans to use it in such a way, did they need me to harvest it for them in the first place? 

Qariinn shook his head, one hand stroking the length of his beard. "It took months of questioning, months of answers that were denied to me before I came upon the truth one night. Was it not our history, the human's jealousy and ignorance of our kind that led to the massacres of old? Was it not the human's envy of our ley that forced the deities to bind our races together to save us? 

"My brothers and sisters, you have been raised into a life of slavery covered by a drape of luxury. From birth you were collected. From infancy you were trained to become nothing more than obedient tools for the Order to harvest ley. Ley that they store, ley that they sell on the common market for exuberant prices along with the scales and feathers and claws that they reap from your bodies! Ley, the energy of our world, that they have stolen from nature herself! You only have to look at the portals closing across the land, the rising number of chaotics to understand that the ley is angry, to feel its fury at the way we allow the humans to exploit it through us!"

Qariinn's voice continued to rise, sweeping the room away in a fevorous tide of syllables and precise wording, tinged with just enough emotion to edge the passion in truth. He sounded angry, from every swipe of his hands across the air to every sharp consonant, furious that humans could abuse his kin in such ways. 

And Rena found herself listening, considering his words. She'd felt the same way at times, that the Order had deliberately held the Mythics back, prevented them from doing true good in the world. Was this why? Was it to ensure that their only way of obtaining ley would not be endangered? 

"But our time of reclamation is nigh!" he shouted, voice pitching across the roiling sea of feeling he evoked in the crowd. "Already you see those around this hall that have embraced my words and shaken free of their human bond, claiming the body that is rightfully theirs! Embrace the truth, my kin, and that same freedom shall be yours! The fear you feel now is not your own, but that of the human with whom you share your existence, knowing deep in their soul that their time of tyranny is coming to a close!"

The djinn swept an arm down towards the ley guards kneeling on the marble floor. 

"These four defilers you see before you embody everything that is wrong with this world. Our world. They take the ley we harvest, hold it prisoner in containers of glass and iron until they consume it at their leisure, even going so far as to pretend control over it!" Qariinn's hand snapped back, and a crackle of energy flashed behind him. "But I ask you, if the creators had intended them to wield such energy, would they not have been gifted with the ability to touch it themselves?" 

"They dare to harness the energy of our world, corrupting it with every touch. For too long has this sin been allowed to continue, rotting away the core of what it means to be a Mythic, daring to embody the power of the nine families, but no longer!"

The djinn's eyes glittered. The room held its breath, anticipating his next words. 

"It is time that they gave that energy back!" 

The room erupted. 

The muscular Unbounds attending to the ley guards stepped forward and ripped the blindfolds from their faces, holding them prized above their heads as they presented them to the Unbound crowd who stamped their feet and hit the table so hard Rena felt the vibrations up her spine.

"We dare not sully this temple ground with such impurities as the blood of a defiler," continued Qariinn. "But there are other ways, more fitting for the sins they have committed!" 

Rena was ice.

She forgot how to breathe, how to think, how to move as reality crashed down in a ringing silence. 

They're going to--

The top of the platform was no longer clear. Instead, a misty white cloud covered the stones, blanketing the waterfalls and small plants in an eerie fog that grew with every breath. 

--to--

"Defilers, for your crimes against this world and as voice of the Unbounds and Mythics still imprisoned by your race, I sentence you to a spectre's embrace!" 

A spectre's embrace. To have the life literally sucked out of you in a freezing, final embrace of death that would extinguish any existence. It wasn't just your energy that left you, it was said, but your very essence, that which was supposed to return to the ley, consumed. 

The lanky figure, the spectre with his robes of rags and gore turned towards the djinn.

Waiting.

Qariinn raised an arm. 

"Begin!" 

Rena's dinner climbed her throat as the spectre turned back towards the ley guards, examining each of the four with a careful eye. As it fell on Cayden, Rena dug her nails so hard into the table that two of them snapped. She could do nothing but watch, held in place by that terrible, engulfing power of the djinn and her ley suppressed by the two wisps at the far end of the table as the spectre stalked towards Freya. 

It took its place behind her. The Unbound beside Freya placed one hand atop her head, the other under her jaw and far from the snapping teeth. 

She struggled, but it was obvious the Unbound's strength far exceeded her own, and with her ankles shackled and her wrists pulled behind her back she was soon panting, her shoulders slumped in defeat. 

"Svala!" came her voice, sounding choked as the spectre placed its hands on her cheeks. It was enjoying this, dragging out Freya's demise. "Svala, may I fight with you again on the fields of battle! It has been an hono--"

The word was choked off. The spectre was leaning over, leeching the vitality from Freya's face as her skin turned grey and the misty grey smoke was drawn from her lips in a tormented, reluctant final breath. It ended an eternal minute later when the spectre released her face.

Freya's body slumped forward and did not move again. 

Svala's wails rose above the shouts from the Unbounds jubilant at the death. A high pitched, keening howl that raked at the edges of insanity and called at a vengeful power long gone from existence, a fury that was only tamed as Leora rose from her own chair and pulled Svala into her arms even as the spectre continued on to its next victim. 

"Not here," whispered Leora. "Not now."

The second female ley guard was next in line. 

The same sickening process was repeated. The Unbound forced her head backwards, but unlike Freya, this guard accepted her fate without a cry or final defiance.

As the spectre took her face, Rena watched her chest heave, trying to commit everything about her to memory in her numb shell of thoughts so that she would not be forgotten. 

"Bri," whispered the oracle. "Forgive me." 

Rena's eyes fell on the oracle who looked much younger than she had in the cells. Her eyes were closed, tears dripping from quivering eyelashes as she hugged her shaking shoulders, bringing Rena to the terrible conclusion she knew couldn't be wrong. 

She knew this would happen. Rena stared at her. She knew. She knows how this ends, and there is no stopping it. Her gaze drifted to the spectre, releasing its second husk. Even her own guard, her friend.

Two down, two left. Rena searched the room frantically, the frenzy rising up through her core as death moved one more space down the line to where Cayden knelt, head bowed. 

Andre struggled as Freya did with the same results. With one eye swollen shut and the entire left side of his face covered in trails of someone's blood, Rena's tears broke free even as she tried to choke them back. 

Please. 

"Ill'iryni!" Andre managed to wrest his head from the grip of the Unbounds one last time. "I swear if I get to the afterlife and they tell me you were wrong about your harp-handling lectures, I'm going to come back and haunt you!" 

Please. 

No deity answered her silent prayers. 

This isn't happening.

Andre's body joined Freya's and Bri's on the marble floor. 

And then it was Cayden's turn. 

He kept the Unbounds away longer than the other three had managed, even managing to twist his body and get his shackled legs under the knees of one and trip them over, but the effort was for naught. The Unbound that had guarded Andre joined forces with the two on Cayden, and together, much to the amusement of the Unbounds at the tables, still pounding away with cutlery and feet and hands, they held him still. 

The spectre positioned itself over Caydens, taking an extra moment because of the two extra people required. 

"Stop!" choked Rena, barely able to hear the word herself. Her legs felt like jelly. She wanted to run. To hide and cower in some dark corner away from everything, to live in denial that this was happening. "Leave him alone!" 

Her words fell on deaf ears. Qariinn continued to stir up a frenzy, claiming traitor and defiler and bringer of evil of a man that had looked at her and seen more than a pretty face or a crystal key. The stranger that had helped her fight off a chaotic, had held her steady and spent hours doing nothing but talking to her and teaching her to drive a carriage. 

Cayden's head shook the forest of arms on his face, and for the briefest moment, Rena was sure that he'd been looking at her before the spectre's arms sealed the gap.

Something in Rena snapped with a scream. 

"Cayden!"

That something began to burn at both ends as she flung her chair aside and bounded forward, her agile hind legs covering the distance in a heartbeat. 

One stride from the Unbounds, Rena jumped. 

Her feet met the shoulders of an unbound and sent him toppling forward even as she was leaping off him and pouncing on the spectre. She felt hands on her forearms, trying to remove her. She whipped them aside without conscious thought and lunged for the spectre. 

It staggered backwards under her weight, fell to the ground as she bunched her body and kicked off its stomach to land back beside Cayden and crouch over him protectively. The other Unbounds had recovered from the shock and the three of them surrounded her, hands outstretched like they planned to pin her to the ground like a wild animal.

Which she supposed she was, considering the low growl that was reverberating at the back of her throat. She still couldn't feel her ley, thanks to the wisps, but she didn't need it. 

"You don't touch him," she snarled, snapping at a leg that got too close. "No one touches him!"

The djinn swept down from his platform in a misty cloud of ley that surrounded him like a halo. Rena could do more than see it. She could smell it rolling off him like the scent of the sky and all its mysteries. 

"You, Mythic," he said, every word quivering with disappointed anger. The other Unbounds retreated. "You would defend one who dares to defile the ley, betray the essence of this world? Do you--"

The cloud of ley around him had engulfed Rena as he spoke, but now, it seemed to freeze with his words. Shock crossed his face as he studied her, Rena never yielding an inch under that gaze, no matter how much instinct was yelling at her to flee. Something stronger, a desire that wasn't ingrained the way instinct was written into her spirit but born of some other influence held her there, feet and hands cemented over Cayden. 

The djinn blinked. 

Once. 

Twice. 

Then, in the least expected move of the century, he offered Rena the deepest bow she suspected he was capable of. 

"My humblest apologise, sister. I admit, I was too caught up in grief at our loss and joy at the rescue of our kin to sense you earlier. If I had known about your presence, I would have welcomed you and offered you a place in our most honoured halls without hesitation." 

Rena continued to stare at him in silence. 

The djinn straightened and threw his hands in such a gesture that Rena couldn't decide whether he intended to hit someone or celebrate the most wonderful news that he'd ever recieved. 

"Why was I not informed!" Qariinn demanded, pacing around Rena's space, projecting the question to the tables surrounding, to the Unbounds now silent. "Hunters, why did you not inform me, or did you not recognise!" 

The Unbounds that had restrained Cayden glanced at each other as if unsure of what they were missing. "Inform you of what, Qariinn?" 

"Look at her! Tell me what you see!" 

"Uh... she's a fox?" 

It was then that Rena became aware of the extra weight protruding from her tail bone, the graceful limbs covered in burnt orange fur and tipped with ebony that swayed behind her, balancing her out. The more heartbeats that passed, the more the numb shell around Rena cracked. Her nerves came back to life, and sound seemed to shift around her. 

"A kitsune, to be precise," said the djinn, pausing for breath as he stared down at Rena, a ridiculous grin plastered across his face. "But more importantly, she is Unbound." 

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A/N - Long. Ass. Chapter. Damn it was hard to write *-* Also Rena, dammit, you weren't supposed to go kitsune on their asses yet, but you just couldn't wait, could you? 

Wordcount: 30,557