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Eizen cast a small fire arte to turn the lamps on and illuminate the room. The wooden floor cracked under Eizen as he entered the room, and a soft echo of footsteps followed after his.
The city’s library was the largest Edna and Eizen had ever seen. It had taken both siblings several weeks to go through it, looking for what they needed through its bookshelves, until a specific book that neither of them could read caught their attentions.
It was far past midnight, but being malakhim had its perks. They didn’t need to eat or sleep and, thanks to being invisible to the vast majority of humans, they could sneak like this without caring about human schedules or bothersome loaning processes. They just needed to be careful not to do anything that could scare the humans, or they would start screaming about ghosts and haunted buildings—which Edna regularly forgot.
The now familiar wooden shelves towered over Edna once again, stretching out to the ceiling and the walls, its books illuminated with the lamps’ warmth. Edna stalled for a moment as she looked left and right before approaching one of the ladders.
Behind her, Eizen and Grimoirh continued their conversation.
“Thank you again for lending us your help, Grimoirh.”
“Don’t mention it, Eizen. I owe you one, after all. And besides, I am curious about that unreadable book myself. I’ve lived for a long time, but this old girl has never heard of anything like what you two described.”
It sure looked like an interesting book, Edna thought, surveying the bookshelf and trying to remember its location. And after they had gone through all the trouble to find Grimoirh, escorting her all the way back from Yseult—Though, with what Eizen had renamed as his ‘Reaper’s Curse’, that might not have been a wise choice—Edna hoped that the books’ contents were worth the trouble.
“How old are you, Grim?” Eizen said after a pause. “I assume you’re older than me and Ed—”
“Don’t make that question again, Eizen,” Grimoirh cut him.
“My apologies.”
“And besides,” Grimoirh continued, as if Eizen’s inappropriate question didn’t just interrupt her. “I will take the chance to read a certain anthology now that I’m here.”
“An anthology?”
Grimoirh nodded. “A poetry one,” she said. “‘Mad Screams of Love’.”
Edna heard Eizen humming. “Didn’t take you for the type to read poetry, Grim.”
“I’m a lady of many virtues,” Grimoirh said with a chuckle.
Finally, Edna locked eyes with a book of a faded red-brown color. Ah. There you are, aren’t you.
Edna took the tome in her hands, big and heavy. Decayed only by the light and the pass of time, it was obvious that the book never met many readers. Embossed golden drawings of very detailed dragons decorated its cover, an artistic merit that Eizen had loudly praised weeks earlier. Edna had to admit that maybe humans had an acceptable artistic eye, but only sometimes: she would have liked it far more if only dragons weren’t the symbol of the last stage of a malak exposed to too much malevolence. Seeing one, even like this, felt like a bad omen.
Edna jumped down the ladder and carried the book to the table Grimoirh and Eizen currently sat at, with expectation and excitement filling her chest. Eizen and Edna had their long list of disappointments, having traveled and read thousands of books for naught, but something told Edna that this book had what they were looking for.
“There’s our book,” Edna announced, dropping the ancient tome in front of Grimoirh.
Grimoirh took the book in her hands and started flipping through the pages. Though the middle part of the pages retained its original color, the browny-yellow borders spoke for the book’s real age. From her spot, Edna recognized the illustrations of malakhim followed by that language neither she nor Eizen could read.
Grimoirh then squinted and pursed her lips, a frown of disapproval clear on her face.
“It is ancient Avarost as I dreaded,” Grimoirh stated. “You must already know this, but ancient Avarost uses impressionist script. Every character can have many different readings depending on how they are connected, and the writer’s emotions. This will take a while.”
“Sounds like quite the language—”
“Sounds like a pain—”
Having spoken at the same time, Eizen and Edna turned to stare at each other.
“Well, both of you are right,” Grimoirh admitted with a chuckle. “Sadly, even if some of the rules were documented, we have no way to know what the writer was feeling. The best I can do is a recreation as a starting point in order to read as best as I can.”
Eizen settled back into his chair and crossed his arms. “It will be a pity if all knowledge of this language gets lost.”
“Yes. I guess I will need to adopt a pupil to teach someday?” Grimoirh joked, then sighed. “The more years go by, the less that those records survive...” She then straightened her posture. “But that’s enough. Let’s get this over with.”
After realizing that it would take Grimoirh several hours to decipher the book, Edna and Eizen decided to keep a distance so as not to distract her.
The following hour went by with nothing to fill the silence but Grimoirh’s occasional sighs, the whispers to herself, and the rustling of book pages. Eizen lost himself in a book about bugs; Edna did the same with one about baking that caught her attention, at least until she remembered that she enjoyed eating sweets far more than making them. And so, abandoning the book, Edna sat by the windowsill to watch the stars outside instead.
The time that passed ever since Eizen and Edna left Rayfalke Spiritcrest, on a journey to cure Eizen’s affliction, felt like an eternity and the blink of an eye at the same time. But with malakhim being so long-lived, that was natural: their sense of time would get out of sync with the real world, and the years blended with such ease that a century would feel like no more than one or two years.
Edna hugged her knees, deep in thought. Unable to accept Eizen’s terms, it had taken Edna a lot to convince him not to leave her behind until he lifted the curse. It was very likely that Eizen never found such a remedy, and Edna couldn’t let her brother wander endlessly around the world while isolating himself from everyone else. Considering their search until now had been fruitless, her concerns were far from unfounded.
Edna didn’t mind if they never found a cure, however. Unpleasant as it was, Eizen’s reversed blessing was a part of him, and Edna had accepted it as such since the very first moment she noticed its unfortunate effects on her, long before Eizen himself did.
“Alright boys, I’m done,” Grimoirh announced. Edna jumped from the windowsill to approach the table, and Eizen abandoned the book he was reading to get closer. “This is quite the extraordinary book. It’s research about dragons and malakhim, written long ago by someone trying to figure out how to change a dragon back into a malak.”
Edna frowned. High resonance was common among humans during the Temperance of Avarost but, though she knew that humans changed faster than the earth or the stars, Edna had a hard time imagining that the same greedy humans of her time used to worship malakhim. And having any interest in turning malakhim back to normal, too. It had only been what, a thousand years before her birth? Malakhim during the Temperance of Avarost might have helped the humans advance their civilization, but Edna couldn’t picture herself giving a single human her blessing.
Edna tilted her head. Grimoirh had lived that time, hadn’t she? She had to if she knew the language, so she could answer Edna’s questions. Not that Edna was that interested in hearing about it.
“That can’t be possible,” Eizen murmured with a frown.
“Indeed. From what I have gathered, the book only contains records of the failures and the conclusion that it was impossible. But there’s something else that might interest you, Eizen,” Eizen raised his eyebrows, listening attentively. “It’s written in this corner: ‘By carving forth the heart of a white-horned dragon, and partaking on it and its blood in a primal state, malakhim blessings shall fade away.’”
Edna froze. This was the answer that Eizen and Edna were looking for, their fabled cure for the Reaper’s Curse: If Eizen lost his malak blessing, he would no longer cause misfortune to everyone around him, a fact Eizen had mourned countless times. But the costs to that would be...
Edna turned to Eizen. With his arms still crossed, Eizen closed his eyes, deep in concentration.
“If what this book says it’s true, at least,” Grimoirh added, then let out a sigh. “As I said before, ancient Avarost’s grammar is nothing like ours. Sometimes you have to rearrange the words, and even then the meaning can require leaps of logic and flashes of intuition. What’s written is inconclusive, to boot. After this, the book only briefly mentions how some malakhim lost their blessings during research.”
Edna felt nauseous. Though she didn’t doubt Grimoirh was being truthful to the original text, Edna couldn’t help but doubt the book’s reliability. Why the heart of a dragon, a malak filled to the brim with malevolence? And what if it was a metaphor or a manner of speaking? It felt impossible to tell.
Grimoirh closed the book with a soft thud, then fixed her hat. “Do with this information as you wish, you too. But,” Grimoirh stood up, turning to lock eyes with Eizen. “The Avarost civilization was one that caused its own demise and vanished in its entirety. Don’t forget that.”
Something lurked beyond Grimoirh’s warning that had nothing to do with the topic at hand, but Edna’s mouth stayed tight shut. She could tell Eizen had noticed it too: if he wanted to, he would say something.
Eizen, however, just nodded. “We won’t. Thank you again, Grimoirh.”
“I’ll consider our little debt to be paid with this. Wish you well, you two,” Grimoirh said, then jumped out of the table.
“Thanks, Grim. See you around.”
Edna waved goodbye to Grimoirh, who stopped for a moment in front of a shelf to take a book with her before leaving the library.
Edna took the ancient tome back. Somehow, it felt even heavier than before.
Thinking about losing her blessing always filled Edna with uneasiness. Back when Eizen told her that he was leaving to find a way to erase his, she didn’t understand why would he want to lose a part of his identity as a malak, regardless of how twisted it was.
That, of course, went without knowing what they did now. Would Eizen really have to eat another malak’s heart? The idea that dragons were malakhim turned into mindless monsters served as little comfort to Edna. And why a dragon with white horns in particular? Did some malakhim eat enough hearts during the Temperance of Avarost that they could tell the difference? Edna’s grip on the book strengthened. Or were they forced to by the humans?
Eizen had once told Edna that he would do anything to lift the curse, but neither of them ever considered this possibility. Edna couldn’t stop seeing it as a step too far, as if Eizen losing his blessing would be a punishment for his actions rather than a reward.
Not wanting to look at the book any longer, Edna climbed up the ladder again to put it back in its place, knowing no one would ever read it again.
“So that’s it. If you eat the heart of a white-horned dragon, there’s no more curse,” Edna looked down. Eizen, who had approached the ladder, was watching her. “So? What do you think?”
Edna would never blame Eizen for not wanting to try this solution, no matter how desperate he was, but she also wouldn’t stop him from trying. In the end, this was his choice to make, not hers.
Eizen took a deep breath as if carefully considering his next words. “I don’t know,” Eizen admitted after a pause. “But I can’t say I look forward to eating one of us, dragon or otherwise.”
Edna held back a sigh of relief at Eizen’s words. That makes two of us. “And who knows if that will even work, right?”
“Right,” Eizen then paused, and this time Edna knew what he was about to say. “Edna, you can—”
“Never,” Edna cut Eizen off, walking down the ladder until their eyes were at the same level. “I don’t care how dangerous it is, I’m not leaving. I want to be with you,” Edna then paused to concede. “Let’s just keep looking, okay?”
They would never find another way and Edna knew it, but she also didn’t care. Life with Eizen’s curse wasn’t easy, but sometimes you had to take things as they came.
Furthermore, what Eizen needed most wasn’t a cure: it was to stop hating himself for his own existence. Edna hoped that, one day, Eizen would be able to find the forgiveness he desperately craved during their travels and that he couldn’t accept from her. Maybe that was what this journey ultimately amounted to: Eizen’s search for redemption.
“Edna…” Eizen closed his mouth, as if he wasn’t sure what to say, before adding. “Stay on guard. The Reaper’s Curse could present itself at any time.”
“Suits me well,” At Eizen’s confused face, Edna explained. “Regardless of what the future might bring, I’m going to live today as I want to.”
Eizen was right, of course. The curse’s danger was very much real. Edna knew it well, having been its primary target. But being by Eizen’s side was also all that Edna wanted, no matter how unpredictable, relentless, and unforgiving Eizen’s curse could be.
Edna knew that Eizen’s blessing could kill her one day. Maybe both of them would die because of it. But if they were going to be doomed, then they were going to be doomed together.
“I was fearing you’d say that.”
Edna didn’t miss that, despite what he had said, Eizen was smiling.
