Melody of Mana

I was numb, cold, there was nothing. All around me there were screams and panic, but I felt like I'd been frozen in ice. Some people were still fleeing the room, or trying to fix the wave of mana that had been released when the queen had died. It was still hurting me, the injuries her spells had given, but it was nothing to the feeling of my mana refusing to go into my mother.

In my head I knew what it meant, but I didn't want to accept it. She was dead, gone, there was nothing I could do. But she was still here in my arms, still warm, still... so still, so very still. All the little movements were gone, and as I finally blinked, I felt like she was too. There was something about bodies, once the life was gone it was just... gone. It was still her, but also not, her soul, or whatever you wanted to call it no longer dwelt here.

I felt it building, pain, suffering, loss, tears sprung up as the hope died and I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell and weep and break things. I wanted to hurt those responsible, but they were all dead. The queen was dead, the stupid invaders were mostly dead, save a holdout here or there... there was nothing I could do. So I pushed it down, hid it, tonight I had to feel nothing, not until it was over. It felt... wrong, but still I grit my teeth, shaking for a few seconds until I could reach that freezing cold that had enveloped me only moments ago.

Some of the guardsmen were still trying to rise, trying to get up and do something. As I looked up I saw a soldier running into the room. He had no aura, no power, but the look of fearful determination on his face was striking.

"What's happening, someone yelled about a death priest!?" He asked as he came over to where we were.

"The queen... she... lost her mind when she learned Emperor Durin died, just started trying to kill people," one of the bodyguards said as he tried to rise. "That woman there stopped her, thank goodness. Where's the prince?" He asked.

"Over here sir," the newcomer said, pointing to the boy where he lay nearby.

"Bring him over, I'll try to heal him," I said. The bodyguard looked at me with a mix of emotions. "I was just the messenger about the emperor's death, stop being stupid." I was low on patience or fucks to give at the moment, but I'd still try to save a child if I could.

The bodyguard looked hesitant, but there were no other likely candidates around. He placed a finger to the boy's neck, looking for a pulse, and closed his eyes, but brought him over.

"Sir, you can't..." another of the guards tried.

"No pulse, if she can save him, she must, if she can't, he's already gone."

I tried, I really did, but there was nothing. The little boy who'd never get to grow up was just as gone as my mother was. By the end of it the lingering effects of the attacks from the former queen were too painful and I tended to myself after shaking my head.

"What do we do?" One of the men asked, sounding sort of lost.

"We need to contact... I'm not sure, actually, for now just make sure the attackers are out of the castle and we'll do what we can to restore order. We'll worry about everything else tomorrow, save what we can tonight." It seemed he was taking control of this unit, a smaller scale action of what was likely to happen everywhere, not that I particularly cared anymore.

"You," I said, looking at the man without magic, "What's your name?"

"Liam miss..."

"Liam, go get me a tablecloth or something and help me wrap her up, then I'm going home," I declared.

"Miss, the city is in chaos right now," he replied.

"Interesting, but that's not a tablecloth or something," I was done, done with these people tonight. I was taking my mother home, and I was going to figure out what I was doing after that, but for now, I just didn't care.

"It's not safe..." he continued, trying to dissuade me.

"I've killed men tonight Liam, and if someone gets in my way, they will join the others. Tablecloth, now." He seemed to take that as the not so subtle threat that it was and moved off at speed.

It took time, but soon enough young Liam was carrying my mother's body out to my carriage. Thankfully it was somehow fine, parked right next to the others with the horses looking mostly a bit scared. The soldier laid mother gently in the back while I looked around for the driver, who appeared to have fled.

I didn't know how to drive a carriage like this properly, but I'd been around enough wagons over the years to have picked up the very basics. So I got in the seat, let loose the brake and set off. I was lucky that during the fighting something had destroyed the gate, or I would have had to deal with the people there. It looked like a massive beam of fire had melted it halfway into slag. They'd managed that before it had been shut, and it wasn't shutting anytime soon. Most people were either trying to fortify the castle or just in a general panic, so I drove right on through.

The city streets were empty. There weren't any sounds of fighting, but it looked like most people had decided just to hole up till morning, and deal with what they found then. That made things easy for me, as other than a few odd looks from the one or two people running here or there or the odd patrol, nobody got in my way. I probably did a poor job, but the horses were well trained, and they knew their business, all I had to do was point them.

When I got to my house I could see the wards in full action. There were one or two men, quite dead, on my lawn, but nothing else. As I approached, a hole opened near the entrance to let me in. I could do something like that, with a bit of effort, but someone must have seen me approaching. It wasn't the protocol I'd set up for emergencies, but at least they didn't get in my way.

"Ma'am, you're home, are you... ma'am?" The butler approached with a limp, a bloody rag tied around one leg. In his hands was a crossbow, his eyes got wide as he looked at me.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"I... are you feeling well?' He asked.

"I will live, by the way, we have protocol for a reason. Next time follow them for my returning while the wards are up."

His eyes followed me with worry as I went to the back and pulled out my mother, or what was left of her.

"Is that..."

"My mother, get the door please." I could have asked him for help, but I wanted to do it myself, it seemed right.

I struggled to carry her inside the house proper, going off to one of the side rooms and gently laying her down on a couch there. Then I sat down, because I felt so very lost. I didn't know what to do, where to go, what to say. So I sat there, watching her, thinking about her.

It happened slowly, the longer I sat there, going through my memories, all the times she'd been there for me all the places we'd gone, all of it, the more I felt. My lips tingled strangely, my eyes burned and watered no matter how many times I wiped them. I pushed it down again, tried to hide from my emotions once more. A shaking hand went for a cup of tea someone had brought me and I looked down.

What I saw there shocked me. It was me, but the eyes, my eyes looked so wrong, so pained, and so cold, and so angry. That was what the butler had seen that had shaken him so.

When I tried to raise them again, to look away there was only one place for me to look, and all the thoughts that sprang from that. I closed my eyes, trying to block things out and an image appeared there unbidden. I saw her, the way the looked at me when I was just a baby, and then I saw my own orbs in the tea, it was wrong, so, so wrong.

I felt the first tear streak down my cheek, and from there I couldn't stop. It was the crack that broke the dam I'd build to hold it all in. I took gasping breaths, trying to stop it, trying to hold it again, and failing, tear after tear came as I took in shaking breaths. Finally I opened my mouth and I wailed in pain, it was a sound I barely understood, yet was so, so familiar.

I didn't mean to put any magic into it, but the magic found its way there anyway, and as the low scream escaped me the walls shook and cracked, paint peeling away. I let it go two or three more times before finally crawling my way over to the body. I buried my face in her shoulder one last time, and I wept until I could weep no more.