He reverently touched my hair, the white streaks lightening as it dried.
“You called her Mitera? Do you know that word means ‘mother’ in Illyrian?” they asked.
I shook my head.
“If she was Illyrian, she probably didn’t want them to know her true name, which makes sense. You bear the mark of a Tesseris Mageia,” they said, gesturing to my hair.
“Tesseris? What does that mean?” I asked, unfamiliar with the word.
Kyris glanced nervously at the door but seemed reassured that it remained closed.
“Tesseris Mageia are mages who can control all the elements, not just one,” he said.
“That’s a lie,” I responded automatically. “No Mageia can control more than one element. It’s impossible.”
The comb snagged in a knot on my hair, and he stopped speaking a moment to focus on the tangle.
“No, the lie is what the Elusians teach, to keep you compliant. A lie to keep themselves safe,” Kyris whispered, sending another fearful glance at the door as they worked the snarl free.
“Our goddess, Hecate, and god, Elus, designed all things to be in balance. Earth and Air. Fire and Water. Magic and Suppression. Mageia and Elusian. Hecate and Elus created a world of harmony. But the Alexandrian Elusians became greedy. They craved power and control, so they stole it. To cover their actions, the Kings of Alexandria set about destroying all knowledge of Tesseris Mages.”
He continued working the comb through my tangles, his voice taking on an almost sing-song quality.
“A Tesseris Mage, one who has found and joined with their Somatophylakes, is a glory to behold. Not only can they control all four elements, but they can also block or destroy an Elusian’s ability to Suppress the Mageia powers. They guard their Mageia’s body so the Mageia can focus on weaving the elements.”
“It sounds like a fairy tale,” I said slowly. “But that word… I’ve heard that word before. Somatophylakes. Soma, right? What are they, exactly? Are they human?” I asked as Kyris began braiding my hair into a queue.
“Somas are… different. Stronger. Faster. Hecate created them to be arbiters of justice. They can take the forms of animals and use their abilities to defend both Mageia and humans.”
“Why doesn’t everyone seem to know about them? They seem more myth than fact.” I asked.
“The Alexandrians are afraid of the power of a Tesseris Mageia because it blocks their own. They knew that linking with a Soma was the key to unlocking a Mageia’s power to wield more than a single element, but they needed the slave labor of the Mageia to keep their society running. Two hundred years ago, the Alexandrians began a campaign to eliminate all knowledge of the Somatophylakes and began killing any they could find. They needed a way to limit the risk a Tesseris Mage represented.”
“Somas were deemed… expendable in the eyes of the Alexandrians,” Kyris continued, his eyes shadowed in remembered pain. “They were too resistant to control, too much of a threat to the society the Alexandrian Elusians wanted to create. Still, Illyria held its own for a while. We began taking in the Mageia who fled the other countries, matching the refugees with Somas born both at home and abroad. Until the Alexandrian physicians developed a blood test that could identify if a child had potential to become a Soma. They couldn’t identify who might be Elusian or Mageia, but Somas they were able to detect.
“Once identified, the Alexandrians began a secret campaign to murder the next generations of Somas to keep the Mageia from reaching their full potential. It was disguised as the Shaking Fever, but the Illyrians never accepted that story.”
Kyris caught my attention with their comment about the Shaking Fever. I had lost my little sister, Eila, to it when she was three and I was nine. I didn’t remember much about her, only that she had the most gorgeous green/gold eyes I had ever seen.
I also remembered the tutors talking about the toll of the Shaking Fever from around one hundred fifty years ago. Thousands had died, almost exclusively children. There were still flares of the disease almost annually, and the death count was always greatest amongst the young. Could all that have beena lie? What was I saying, ofcourseit could be a lie. This was the Elusians we were talking about.
“Why hasn’t Illyria done anything?” I asked angrily. “If they knew this was happening, surely they could have stopped it.”
Kyris shook their head sadly.
“We fought,” they said with a shrug. “Westillfight. Somas are both warriors and healers, so they knew something was going on when so many children began dying in Alexandria territory from the Shaking Fever. We knew the fever was easily treatable. There was no reason for so many children to die--unless they were being murdered.”
“No one knows? Why hasn’t anything been done? Why doesn’t anyone know?” I demanded. If what they said was true, this could change everything for my people.
“Illyria has tried, but the reach of the Empire is long,” they said sadly, tying the braid off with a bit of cord. “When I was taken, we were just barely hanging on. Somas were always uncommon, just as Mageia and Elusians are. Illyrians tend to breed almost exclusively Somatophylakes, or humans. This made us a huge target for Alexandria. We have very few Illyrian-born Mageia. We had to rely on Mageia coming to us from other countries, but as Alexandria’s influence has grown, that influx has slowed to a trickle.
“Even in Illyria, Somas aren’t immune to an assassin’s blade, or to poison. Once a Soma has died, their Mageia usually loses the ability to void the Suppression. Alexandria has been systematically eliminating our people.”
I mulled over what Kyris had told me, wondering how much of it might be truth. It sounded like the truth. It felt like the truth. It answered so many questions I’d had since childhood. Perhaps if my mother hadn’t told me about Somas before she died, I would have doubted more, but it all fit.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I won’t forget this. Is there anything I can do for you?
Kyris smiled at me as they gathered their sundries and stood to leave.
