Chapter 45

  When Illusion Breathes

  I remember when the city of Avinnois used to

  shine. The high towers, crafted from gleaming marble and silver, would catch

  the first light of the sunrise, scattering its glow like a thousand stars

  across the sky. The air was thick with the scent of magic—rich, earthy, and

  electric, as if every breath carried the pulse of the arcane.

  Five years have passed since that day—the day

  Enoux made me promise. It feels like a lifetime ago, yet the weight of that

  promise still lingers, sharp and unyielding, as relentless as the curiosity

  that once drove me.

  Back then, I didn’t grasp the full weight of her

  words—not truly. I was too consumed by the need to understand, to peel back the

  layers of the world around me. Too absorbed in my search for answers, for

  truths that had always danced just beyond my reach. Enoux had asked me to keep

  Selene safe, to end the experiments before they could pull me into something

  unrecognizable, something she feared I might not come back from.

  I kept half of that promise. I stopped the

  experiments on my little sister, but I didn’t abandon my pursuit entirely.

  Instead, I turned my focus to others—strangers, mostly. Less spectacle, more

  simplicity. After all, if someone happened to brush against me by accident, who

  could say whether my powers didn’t simply reveal themselves?

  What good was it to stop completely when there

  was so much more I had yet to understand? The failures weren’t due to any lack

  of ability—they stemmed from my own ignorance. I had to learn more about the

  Soul-Bound and the Soul-Touched. Only then could I hope to comprehend the

  elusive force that was Soul Magic.

  As the years passed, I found myself maturing more

  quickly than I had anticipated. I began to bloom into a young woman, though at

  the time, I remained blissfully unaware of what that truly meant. It wasn’t

  until boys, some twice my age, began to… flatter me, that I truly understood.

  "Twice your age?" The dragon's voice

  carries a note of amusement. "That would make them..."

  "Yes," I reply, wincing. "Ugh...

  don't remind me."

  The dragon snorts, his laughter soft and knowing.

  Believe it or not, thanks to Enoux's sponsorship,

  leaving behind a small fox-kin child—one who had been an endless whirl of

  energy and curiosity—was a blessing in disguise. The moment the nanny stepped

  out the door, I bolted out the window.

  The dragon laughs heartily.

  "What?" I raise an eyebrow, feeling a

  spark of mischief. "Too soon?"

  "So soon?" He chuckles. "You were

  just saying how inseparable you two were."

  "She was a five-year-old wrecking

  ball," I sigh, shaking my head. "Always asking questions, squirming

  with the energy of ten youths, and tugging at my sleeves every moment. And

  don’t even get me started on her obsession with food."

  The dragon chuckles again, the sound light and

  warm.

  It’s not that I didn’t care—how could I not? But

  my life was shifting too rapidly. Something beyond magic had stirred within me,

  and I could not for the life of me figure out how to control it. I had to focus

  on that—that strange pull inside me, the way the air crackled with an energy I

  couldn’t explain, as though the world itself was alive in ways I’ve never felt

  before.

  The dragon laughs again.

  Perhaps… I should’ve kept that part to myself.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  It was a bright afternoon when Selene tugged at

  my sleeve, her tiny hand warm against my skin. She was brimming with

  excitement, chattering about something that had caught her eye, her words

  tumbling out in a joyful stream. But I wasn’t really listening—not fully. The

  market around us was a blur of color and sound, the air thick with the scents

  of spiced meats, ripe fruit, and the ever-present hum of magic. I had no time

  to be lost in such distractions, not today.

  But then, something strange cut through the

  clamor. A ripple in the air. It was subtle at first—just a faint shiver of

  heat, enough to make the hairs on my neck prickle. I paused, my senses

  sharpening, scanning the crowd. My heart skipped a beat. Something was amiss.

  Selene tugged at my sleeve again, her wide eyes

  drawn to a small gathering at the edge of the market square. A group of

  adventurers—rough-looking men and women, their armor worn from days on the

  road—huddled around something, speaking in hushed tones. The closer I drew, the

  clearer it became. In the arms of one of the adventurers, a child lay still.

  At first glance, she seemed like any other

  infant, swaddled in furs with a fragile, quiet innocence. But there was

  something unmistakably otherworldly about her—an ethereal shimmer to her skin,

  faintly glowing, as though moonlight itself had been woven into her very

  essence. Her ears were long and sharp, unmistakably elven, yet her

  features—soft, delicate—spoke of something far more fragile, too fragile for a

  typical elven child. The air around her hummed with an energy, like the first

  spark of a flame that could never be fully tamed.

  Whispers trailed in her wake, murmurs of

  disbelief. A failed experiment. A homunculus, some claimed. A creation of rogue

  mages who had dared to play gods, twisting life into something forbidden,

  something unnatural.

  Then… something extraordinary happened. Selene’s

  inner Leyline stirred to life. She tugged at my sleeve again, her small hand

  persistent, insistent. Frustration boiled over, and I snapped at her, but when

  she met my gaze, she gave me a look—one that froze me in place. I blinked,

  confused. Her eyes weren’t green anymore. No, they were violet—deep, radiant

  violet. It wasn’t just a faint hue, nor was it a mere shade of blue. It was the

  raw, untamed glow of aether, pulsing with an energy all its own.

  “Big sister…” she whispered, her voice soft yet

  laden with something I couldn’t place. “Those men… there’s something wrong with

  them?”

  I furrowed my brow, still trying to grasp what

  was happening. “What do you mean?”

  She gazed up at me, her expression serious,

  almost troubled. “There’s… a wavy, fuzzy thingy around them.”

  “A… what?” I asked, struggling to understand.

  “Everyone has one,” she continued, her voice

  trembling slightly. “Some big, some small, some bright… but theirs… it’s dark.”

  I paused, trying to make sense of her words. “And

  what about the baby?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

  Selene shook her head, her small fingers gripping

  my sleeve tighter, her urgency palpable. “Like… you, she does not.”

  I didn’t understand why I felt so drawn to the

  elven child—perhaps it was the strange tug in my chest, or the way the air

  itself seemed to shift when I looked at her. Perhaps it was the nagging thought

  that, like Selene and me, she too could be Soul-Touched. But something about

  her felt… important, as though she held the key to a mystery I wasn’t yet ready

  to unravel.

  I don’t know what possessed me to steal an infant

  from a grown man’s arms. Perhaps it was the way she barely made a sound, barely

  even breathed, as if she had already resigned herself to whatever fate the

  world had written for her. Or maybe it was the way the man held her—like

  something less than human. Like something broken.

  Or maybe—just maybe—it was the moment my bare

  fingers brushed against her skin.

  The heat of the crowded market had made my gloves

  suffocating, and I had pulled one off without thinking. It should have been

  inconsequential. But the instant my skin met hers, my magic stirred—unbidden,

  undeniable. The truth seared through me.

  She was one of us.

  Not just an abandoned child. Not just some failed

  experiment.

  Her essence pulsed beneath my fingertips, ancient

  and untamed, like the heartbeat of forgotten forests. Druidic magic—wild, raw,

  and impossible to fabricate. A homunculus, perhaps, but something more.

  Something real.

  The realization struck like a spark to dry

  leaves, and before I could second-guess myself, I was moving. One breath, one

  heartbeat, and she was in my arms.

  Then came the shouting. The curses. The chase.

  Selene shrieked with laughter as we tore through

  the market streets, the infant clutched tightly to my chest. I barely

  registered the pained yelp behind me—Selene, sinking her tiny fangs into a

  grasping hand. Then we were running, weaving through startled merchants and

  overturned stalls, dodging through the tangled veins of Avinnois.

  And when we were finally cornered, when I turned

  to face our pursuers, the illusion shattered.

  They weren’t men.

  They were gnolls.