Page 58 of A Siren of Beasts

“We fell for the same woman and pursued her as we did all things, together. Only, when it comes to matters of the heart they don’t always play by the rules of the universe. Fate is a fickle thing and my fate was to be rejected by the woman I’d believed was my soul mate. She chose my brother but not me and it crushed me, made me angry and vengeful. After that, I wanted nothing to do with my brother or the queen who’d rejected me, so I chose to spend time with the humans.”

“Wait, you fell for my mother?” I interjected, confused at this realization.

Zyrmus lifted his warm brown eyes to meet mine, sadness and regret where the only things I saw in them. “I believed I was in love with your mother, that she was supposed to be my mate because Navak was. Everything before then had always been equal between us, following the same path. So, when he developed that emotional bond marking him as one of your mother’s mates, I assumed it would be the same with me as well. Never had she led me on other than to be a supportive queen to her subject and brother to one of her lovers. I’m the one who read everything wrong, but I was young and stupid, with an ego that would make you disgusted to be around me.”

Reaching out he covered my hand with his. “Kezia, now that I know what it feels like to have a soul mate, I know your mother was never going to be that for me. Back then, I felt entitled to it. Other than Hisceas, all your mother’s lovers were guardians over this world. The humans are the ones who started calling us gods when they saw our magic.”

“So, there was a time when monsters and humans coexisted?” I asked, curious since their reaction to me was less than welcoming.

“Yes, begrudgingly we managed to share the land we lived on with the humans. I taught them how and what to plant in our soil, what to hunt that wasn’t a monster, and in return, the humans taught me to cook and other minor skills. It was addictive to feel valued after I’d been rejected by someone I thought was supposed to love me no matter what. Then I met Azedor, a human who’d arrived on the latest boat full of humans. He was different, there was something about him that made me realize he could use magic. Azedor was a young man, about the same age as you are now, I would guess. He’d finished his training with his master and was sent here to learn about magic from us. Apparently, word had gotten back to his country that we also performed spells. But not in the way they must. Tell me, do you know how wizards cast spells?”

Frowning, I shifted my thoughts to everything we’d been hunting down the past few days. “Only that they have no magic of their own, they need to steal it from another object, perform a sacrifice, or use the blood of something magical to cast a spell.”

“Correct, wizards can use magic, harness it, direct it to where it needs to go, but they can’t produce it like we can,” he confirmed. “That’s what Azedor was trying to figure out, how could monsters have innate magic and humans didn’t? So, I taught him many things and he would trade showing me spells he’d learned. There were so many books of spells and incantations that could do so much, if you had the power to pull it off. Behind my back, Azedor started to hunt smaller monsters and use them to work spells. Soon, he was killing stronger monsters to see just how big of a spell he could cast. Until one day, he managed to convince a foolish monster that all he needed was to prove he was more powerful than his brother to win the woman he lost.”

My eyes grew wide and I clutched his hand with both of mine as my gut told me this story was going to make a turn for the worse. It was clear to me now that Azedor must be the wizard that kidnapped my mother and ultimately became my father.

“How, how did he convince my mother she loved him? If she was aware enough to turn you down, what clouded her mind enough to make this possible?” I questioned, knowing it had to be something awful for this to make sense.

“Magic,” Zyrmus stated, his face stormy.

Pulling his hand away from mine he stood and paced, as if he couldn’t bear to relive this part of the story but pressed on.

“In an effort to learn all he could about magic he befriended your mother, spent time with her, wooing her slowly. Then he started using love spells on her. Blinding her ability to tell they weren’t soul mates, that he was something special she couldn’t live without. That’s what he’d been using his kills of stronger monsters for behind my back. When I realized she was falling for a human but had tossed me aside, I lost it. Which was exactly what Azedor needed to get under my skin and put spells on me that I didn’t even notice. My rage was targeted at my brother and her other mates. If she was going to lower herself to love a human then she didn’t deserve the other lovers she had. Hell, she refused to mate with them no matter how they begged her. She wouldn’t take that final step because she was afraid to tie them to her forever. How could she love someone for that long?” Zyrmus scoffed. “Lies put in her head by a human who has no concept of what soul mates are like. There is no way I would change how I feel about you, Cor Meum. You are my heart, what living breathing being says they don’t need that part of themselves anymore?

“So, the wizard filled her head and heart with lies as he twisted mine into one of hate and revenge. Then something changed, I don’t exactly know what it was. It could be that the temples he’d been having every village build were complete, or something changed with the queen. Either way, there came a day when Azedor decided his time in Drento was finished and he needed to return to his country and teach them all he knew. That’s when he set the final act in motion, the one that had me betraying the one person I loved most in the world and failing at my purpose for existing. In one action I ruined everything for every creature that lived on this land,” his voice was strained with the torment he felt.

It was almost as if I could feel his pain as my own and I couldn’t allow it to continue. Raising from my seat, I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head on his back. All I wanted was to remove this pain from him, to free him from this life of torment he’d been stuck in for so long.

“Whatever you say next, know that I’ve already forgiven you,” I whispered, a tear running down my cheek as I had an inkling of what he was going to tell me.

“How can you say that? No one should forgive me for what I did, least of all you,” Zyrmus growled between clenched teeth, even as his hand covered mine. “Who could forgive a monster who killed his own twin? Killed him, believing that I was in the right to do so, along with his fellow brothers that loved the queen and fought with everything they had to make it back to her. To this day, I don’t know what spell he used on me, but after the first kill, I was lost to madness. There was no sense of right or wrong, family or enemy, all I knew was they had to die. With the magic I released with their deaths Azedor completed the spell he’d been weaving and building since the day I told him about the land. Each and every one of those temples he’d built, and I’m sure continued to build as the population grew, leeches the magic from our land and feeds directly into him.”

That knowledge hit me like a punch in the gut, yet it made everything clearer. The wizard was as strong as he was because there was a direct connection to a power source. He didn’t need to sacrifice or use rituals anymore because he’d found a way to become a monster.

“Why the madness?” I whispered. It was the only thing that didn’t make sense. “The land is what gives us life, even if we all became mad we would be reborn.”

Turning in my arm, Zyrmus faced me and hugged me tightly. “No they wouldn’t, if the land lost too much magic it would protect itself first and foremost, keeping all the magic it had. Which means at some point we’d all die, be reclaimed by the earth, and never return. The land as we know it would die and all the magic would be gone, stolen by a man I taught everything to. Not sure there could be a bigger failure for a guardian, but that was his plan. He needed both of us gone or his plan would never work. What he didn’t account for is magic must have balance and that balance was for me to die but not to be reclaimed. My soul was stripped from me but it was trapped in limbo as I was entombed in a cave where I lived in torment reliving my failures and betrayals for eternity. Then I was pulled from the cave and all I could focus on was your scent and the pulse of your power. Unbeknownst to me, my madness called others to me, which is why I arrived with the mob I did. I still don’t know why I was freed, though.”

Looking up at him seeing the past still haunting his gaze I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him. “Azedor is back, he’s my father, and hunting for me. I think he freed you to find me.”

To be continued in Tamer of Beasts