Rival Desires

What had been a struggle of magical strength and sorcerous prowess was becoming a simple contest of athletics and Theryl was going to beat Elara to the box.

Elara summoned a crude gale and hurled it at her rival. She had to slow to do it, and it was an easy spell to counter or dismiss – she simply had to hope that Theryl had nothing left with which to stop it.

The howling wind struck Theryl full force and knocked her off her balance and then her feet. Elara passed her and reached the box.

As the Enchantress Theryl Starwright, High Witch of of the Silent Grove and one of the Luminary Eight stretched a finger out to touch it, Sorceress Queen Elara Woeheart, Sovereign of the Occluded Kingdom, pulled open the lid of the Coffer of Cardinal Desire.

The coffer granted the first person to open it each century an object of their greatest desire, it was said, though, it was often in an unexpected form, and rather famously, did not come with the wisdom of how to use it.

Elara knew what she wanted; power. She drew forth the scroll that was her prize and backed away from Theryl, tossing the coffer aside. The enchantress may have exhausted herself in her failed attempt, but Elara still had some last deadly magics at her command and no longer needed to fear accidentally harming the box if she unleashed her fury.

Theryl lay where she’d fallen, her chest heaving as she watched Elara glance at the writings on the scroll. “What is it? The knowledge to bind some awful thing to your will? Shall Damnation Wraiths become your servants?”

Elara did not respond. She was stunned and bewildered. She read over the scroll again, eyes wide.

“This cannot be.”

Her rival rolled to a crouch. “Elara, what have you wrought?”

With a careful gesture and a dire word, Elara tried to dispel hidden magics upon herself, but all she purged were some of her own protective wards. She was seeing correctly. This was neither illusion nor befuddlement.

“I do not understand.” It was not a familiar feeling for the sorceress.

Theryl was about to stand when Elara threw the scroll down before her. The enchantress hesitated to lift it from the dusty crypt’s floor – Elara dealt in much darker magics than Theryl, so if it so distressed a woman who had come to be known as Woeheart, it might be wiser to leave it be. She picked it up.

“This is a contract of marriage,” she said in confusion. It was not magical at all.

“It names the parties!” snarled Elara.

It listed both Elara and Theryl, by their full names and their many titles. “Us? This is what you wanted, Elara?”

“Of course not!” yelled the Sorceress Queen, her usual stiff demeanour lost amidst her indignation.

“I knew we were linked…”

“To use your fate weaving for this… And you call my magics dangerous!”

“I have not manipulated your destiny! You of all people would know and be able to resist, I would invite destruction. But I trace the threads, and so many of my own led to you. We are tied together! I have seen that, I just did not understand how. Until now.”

“But this?” Elara gestured at the contract. “I am to be your wife? That is my desire?”

“I don’t know your desires, Elara. Why did you come here?”

“I needed to beat you here. I knew you were searching for the coffer. You and the rest of the Eight are a menace. You meddle in my affairs. I could not afford for you to gain such power.”

“You think I came here for power? I’m the most powerful woman alive! I am the greatest practitioner of the ancient arts in centuries!” Theryl yelled.

“I am stronger.” said Elara, her voice quiet.

“So? I don’t care. It does not matter. Power is irrelevant, it is their goals that a person crafts themself from. Is that really what you desired, more power? You want more of the riches you already possess in such excess you could never spend it all?”

“No… It is never enough. I was content once, Theryl. But I was weak. It was not that I had little, it was that I had less. Less than those who came. Those who cared not for my words or opinions. I was weaker, so my will was meaningless.”

“You have avenged yourself on those who hurt you a dozen or more times over. Even I do not know their names or crimes, so severely did you destroy them. The entirety of the Occluded Kingdom is yours. Now you blame me simply for not kneeling. For not being weak. You see the mere ability to resist you as evidence of ill intent. But I swear to you, I do not wish you harm.”

“You thwart my efforts. Undo my plans.”

“You unleash terrors upon the world and I send them back to the awful places you go to fetch them. I will not allow you to carelessly harm those I am sworn to protect.”

Elara stared at Theryl in suspicion.

“Why is this the answer to what you wanted?” Theryl gestured with the contract.

“I do not know.” The sorceress queen was strangely sullen.

“I do not believe you.”

“I care not what you believe,” snapped Elara.

“Another lie. You didn’t simply want power. You wanted to ensure that none can threaten you. This does that. The box gave you something you either would never think of, or you would refuse to consider. An alliance, with the Luminary Eight. An alliance sealed by marriage. Far better than to defeat us would be to have us with you. But we would need assurances. You would need to cease your most reckless and dangerous practices. Cease making new enemies with unprovoked aggression. Those alone might deliver you the security you desire, though you are too proud to admit that you keep taking risks despite the need being gone.”

Elara took a deep breath, she was considering. “I will let none bind me.”

“There is one you would allow. Yourself. That is what this is. This is what you want.”

Elara had cast down those who had wronged her. She had grown strong, and safe, and accomplished all that she had wanted. Theryl and her allies had not pushed back against her until she had moved beyond her kingdom. Her vengeance was done, and she had become lonely. She’d been holding her anger only because she needed to hold on to something.

“I am hardly one to be lost to enrapture by the beauty of the High Witch of the Silent Grove,” she tried.

“You’re saying that is all you think I’d bring to a marriage? My looks?” smirked Theryl.

“You’ve spent great power on them, so I may not be the one to criticise as shallow here.”

Theryl laughed. “You should be the one trying to convince me of this insane plan, it is your desire that brought about this conversation.”

Not her desire, but she’d understood quickly. “You have been tracing the threads of fate. What have you seen?”

“I do not owe you knowledge of my own future.” A return to wariness.

“Not even if it is also mine?” Elara smiled weakly. She was not used to any of this.

Theryl leaned against the plinth that had held the coffer. She was so tired. “Tracing my own future keeps leading me to you. We are tied together. Tightly.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, it is not an easy thing to make sense of. You are a critical part of my future. You possess the fate ‘The greatest yet seen shall be nine together, and she will speak for all.’ We can both guess at what that means.”

“I will join and lead the Eight. An unprecedented ninth.”

“That won’t be happening unless we become a lot more comfortable that you have moved on from your vengeance, but that thread is distant. Similarly, I will be freed only if you face love and choose honesty.”

“Freed from what?”

Theryl shook her head. “I do not know, but there are others. I will be by you as you sit your throne. Honesty will not be my choice to make. My soul will be in your keeping.”

Elara pondered, but her thoughts had begun to question the meaning of the prophecies more than whether she could trust the woman who spoke them. Theryl was the only person who rivalled her in power, the only one who understood what she could do, how she’d come to it, despite the other woman’s different choices in her approach to magic. Was the enchantress the only one who might understand her? The others of the Luminary Eight were different in what they could do and who they were. Far more different than an enchantress and a sorceress. Was Elara the only one who might understand Theryl?

“You were touching the coffer when I opened it,” said Elara, thinking.

“Maybe. I was trying to grab it.”

“Perhaps it listened to us both, somehow. Made something that we both could want. A marriage will not put your soul in my keeping, though. Not a political marriage. Probably no kind.”

Theryl sighed. “I know what that fate is, we are destined to fall in love.” She undid the clasp behind her neck, producing a chain she held up, dangling a ring she’d been wearing like a pendant. “It will take your help, none have your skill at manipulating the spirit, but with this, I will give you my soul for safekeeping.” She handed the ring to Elara.

The sorceress stared at the ring. A simple design, with a large gem or crystal set upon it, cut with many odd facets. It felt strange. Powerful. “Why would you do that?”

“So you can truly trust me, because you could destroy me. I think that is what you need. An act of absolute faith and utter vulnerability so that you can let your suspicions go. A willing hostage for as long as you need.”

Elara stared at the ring. Where had she found such a thing? A vessel for a soul could be made in many ways, but this was remarkable work. Theryl was not known to delve into the dark knowledge needed to trap and manipulate souls. She would know better counters for Elara’s own soul magic had she possessed such understanding. This ring felt more like… the coffer.

Elara stared at the box where it lay after she’d discarded it, irrelevant for the next hundred years. The ring must have come from the box.

She threw another gale at Theryl. The shocked woman countered automatically, nature was a domain she understood well, and the power she used to defeat Elara’s spell was precisely wielded, but it was power she still had. Theryl hadn’t been too exhausted to stop Elara knocking her away from the box. Theryl had intended for Elara to open the coffer.

“Elara! What is wrong? What are you doing?”

The sorceress did not reply, except to throw deadly spell after deadly spell at her rival, who desperately fended them off. Elara seized Theryl’s soul and tried to tear it away from her, failing only because the woman put all her skill and power into shredding the spell that gripped her essence. Now, Theryl’s power was truly exhausted. She fell to her knees. Elara was unsteady on her feet. She drew forth power, forming it within her.

“You won’t kill me,” said Theryl, panting, “we are fated to be together.”

Elara spoke a word of power, laid down a curse. It took her time to recover her breath. “Honesty will not be your choice to make. You will never lie again, enchantress. When did you open the coffer?”

“Please, don’t…”

“When?” Elara did not have the energy to shout.

“A few weeks ago. I beat you here.”

“What was in it?”

“The ring. I was confused. It took time to understand.”

“You forged the marriage contract. Put it in the coffer.”

“Wrote. Not forged. It’s real. We can make it real. But I placed it within. Let you find it.”

“Why?”

“I realised the ring was the only way to make you trust me. That’s why it was in the box. But I needed a way to get you to listen. To even consider hearing me out. But you don’t trust me. You don’t trust anyone.” Theryl spoke more to the floor than Elara. She would not meet her eyes.

“Why did you search for the coffer, Theryl? What is it you wanted?”

“You.”

Elara was silent. She did not compel further explanation, but waited for it.

“I trace the threads of fate. I have for a long time. Usually, it is vague, tiny glimpses, just a little nudge of something, and insight into why someone made the choice they did. But since you became powerful, discovered your dangerous new arts, I keep finding you. And the more I look for signs of myself, the more I find you. I’m bound to you. But nothing I see binds you to me. It is not fate but necessity that makes me important for you. You are clever, ambitious. You’re driven more by justice than cruelty, but you won’t let go of your darkness. You could be incredible, or you could become a monster. You need help. You need me.”

“You lied.”

Theryl looked up. “I’m not lying now, you’ve seen to that. We were enemies. You repeatedly tried to kill me. A lie that brings about a great good, that benefits the one who is deceived? What sin is that?”

“One against me!” hissed Elara.

“You will die if you do not make peace with us. We are eight. You might be able to understand my power, counter it, but there are seven more you cannot. Even if you are stronger than each, they will work together and destroy you. War is not an option, Queen of the Occluded Kingdom.”

“You didn’t do this for me. You wanted to control your fate.”

“So? That’s all you’ve ever wanted. If I am to be tied to you, why not as an equal, a partner? The vision of you in my heart is an incredible woman. And if I cannot sway you from your path, counsel you to acknowledge that your vengeance is done and you must move on, you will become someone I cannot abide, and my ties to you will be my doom. I need you to follow the path I found for us. One of safety and joy.”

Elara shook her head. “The coffer grants you what you need to get what you desire, but not the wisdom of how to use it. This might have worked. This might have been enough to trust you.” She held up the ring.

“Then we can still go forward. Please… I could love you!”

“And I could have listened. I could have agreed. If you hadn’t lied. The ring was enough for me to understand that you meant no harm to me. Enough to trust you. You didn’t find what you needed for you to trust me, though. Trust I would listen. You didn’t look.” Elara began to walk away. Neither woman would be fighting again soon.

“Why destroy yourself for spite? Why burn the world for it?”

“Spite is the only reason to burn the world that is ever honest. I would have said yes. You wanted to choose who I became, and for some reason, I would have said yes.”