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..BYZANTINE..

(adj.) Intricately involved, devious or secret.
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"Please tell me that you are alright, Eir."

Serephina was much troubled to look at her enormously dim shine glowing on her lashes concealed amethyst eyes. Her sore sunken lids and the white patched lips sipping her morning tea in a distasteful gesture from the ivory cups answered her queries while her lips lied with a bright grin.

"We aren't expecting you to comfort us, you moron. What did you do in the least not to scare us?" Mordana tossed her words.

"I'm alright. Just that change of place didn't let me sleep. I will be fine in a day or two. Worry less," she fibbed.

"You sure?" Serephina asked in a much-concerned tone.

"Girls. Let her relax and then we may speak about it all. Give her some time," Galene tried to ease them out.

"No, Galene. She is trying to hide something. Maybe she was able to convince you. Yet to us, she is the same terrible liar," Mordana snorted as she took out the resurrection pendant from the folds of her palms.

The raven smoke arising from the pendant made Galene go haywire.

"What did you do with this? Who died? Don't try to hide. Please." Mordana tried her best not to let her frustration seep its pricks in her words.

"It was..." She exhaled a blurting sigh.

"Speak without breaks."

"Mora! Don't threaten her. It's Eir."

"So? Sere, don't try to calm me. I see no reason. In all these lifetimes, we never did anything in solitary even when we couldn't help we stood for each other. Despite being near, she has done it all alone. Should I call it maturity and applaud?"

"She would have reasons. Maybe she could..."

"Sere, wake the hell up. She has abandoned us. Don't forge lacking reas..."

"Kayte, it was." Eir kneaded her clammy palms and vented out her fears.

Her words struck like daggers in their heart. Everyone's eyes danced to the strings of chaos. Before anyone could muster their words, she clarified them.

"She was robbed of her soul by the same spirit that we saw. She told me that she wanted her soul to be in the least pure. Hence, I resurrected her."

"But we did protection chants. We did take every step to save them. Yet how?" Galene spoke the least of her ramming thoughts.

"What if it's a delusion? A stupid trick?" Mordana queried her.

"It's not. She could see my purple eyes. She knew we are not mere humans. She even requested me to take care of her daughter till her husband returns. How could that be possible?"

"Some spirits can read the subconscious mind of mortals. Maybe that's how the spirit could have gathered these fragments of her life. But the purples and us?" Serephina pondered.

"Maybe it's all an illusion. A play to be precise. Serephina was caged in a bizarre place and you had resurrected a woman in the same night. Did you check on their house?" Mordana's words brought a new claim but it was put off when Eir refrained her responses.

Her already pale face grew paler and the dilating orbs grew glossier, wetting her raised cheeks coloured carmine out of guilt. She swallowed up every word that fought for their freedom. Her nails pinched her palms, bespeaking her slapping troubles. Amidst her oscillations and foolish riots, Mordana picked the tune.

"Not again! Spill it all. How are you so sure of it?"

"Mora! It's enough. Stop compelling her. She is weak and that's more important. First, we must tend her before..."

"Stop, Sere! It's her turn to speak and I'm sure nothing is less burdening." Mordana retched her words while her eyes were fixed on Eir's throbbing knuckles.

"Please don't frighten me!"

Eir's yelling sobs replaced the serene waves of the teal water with harsh ripples. The delicate creatures swimming in it bubbled out an elegy of sorrow for her.

"Oh, Eir, I'm sorry that she..."

"Please, Sere! Stop." She begged between her bated weeps.

"Why so?" Mordana implored as she grabbed a pitcher to suppress her devastation.

"Care me not. I deserve no mercy," her inflexion strutted.

"No riddles now. Just direct speeches. You get that?" Mordana stressed her every word, making her nod twice.

"Is Arva alright? Did you reach for her?" Galene asked.

"She is fine. I hope so." Eir chose between her words.

"Gods sake Eir. Direct replies will save us. Is she safe and in your care?" Mordana snorted.

"I will say she is in my custody but I'm not sure if she is safe."

"Why not?"

It's now or never. Spill it all. Her rummaging heart stiffened her.

"I will tell you everything. But to know that you must know how it all began."

Her unsteady words hitched up every breath floating in air.

Galene understood that something uncertain was munching up their lives. If not for that why would her sole be burning in the middle this excruciatingly.

"How did this begin, Eir? How are you so sure that it's nothing devious?" Galene asked as she clutched her shoulders, giving some courage. With a final breath, she made her decision to spill everything at last.

"My father was a sermon bearer. He died because of the uncontrollable hallucinations that haunted him, making him forget everything. Eventually, he died. But before that, he did a thing. Something I wish he shouldn't have done."

Galene laced her palms in Eir's and tried to read the unsaid from her eyes. Her heavy lashes soaked as they collected the tricks of grim grips.

Better to be a soldier than a slave. Unleash it all. Her heart spoke its usual words, something she cared the least. But now she did pay heed to it. She took her last breathe of rue and threw out her hidden chain. The metallic tendrils and crossing serpents with a bulged eye teased everyone's sight.

Galene widened her shock struck lashes for some good minutes. She turned to look at Serephina and Mordana only to see their surreptitious glances.

"Holy hermits! Did you inherit the certain ruin? Lords, be merciful." She gulped down a glass of water while the women skimmed at Eir's petite limping frame in a dreadful hush.

"Are you trained to use it?" Galene inquired, expecting things to be less tangled.

"In titbits and some basic readings that he had taught me. After seeing him perish in front of my eyes, I could never forgive this stupidity. I could strive against my fury to have it worn, but broke my promise of learning to use it." Eir wiped her trickling tears on her wrists, sniffing her breathes of less burden after a long time.

"Oh, Eir! Come along here." Galene embraced her warm arms around her and let her cry to gather her lost self.

Serephina tried to assimilate things on her mind that raised a mutiny. She closed her eyes and took long breathes to suppress her momentous rage. She felt it all wrong yet she tried to be less hurting. To her, Eir was an unasked mother. She wiped out her anger and engaged herself to lessen Eir's burden.

Mordana's stilled mind did make her mad. Even if they were pouncing prancers, she couldn't accept this. She knew that she wasn't ready to wage a war of words, but neither could she wreath a comforting blanket with them. To her, trust was a one-way road that Eir had already forsaken. She chewed her fury between her grinding teeth and pressed her lips tight to disguise her irate odours.

"Thanks, Eir. I'm glad you could accept it. At least you did say it before things worsened." Serephina patted her hardened shoulders.

"Sere, things are bitter. I wish I was attentive earlier." Her words mystified them once more.

Before any could bargain their usurped stability, shuffling hustles of hurried strides caught their attention.

"Moh... Uhm. There you are. Here, quick," Hugh spoke between his fast breaths.

His tall slender legs sprinted towards Galene extending something covered in velvet golden clothes. The crusted outlines with a crater in the middle made it appear like a bowl carrying some flat article, making the girls raise their brows to arrow their unasked questions. Before any response slipped out of their anxious minds, he pushed the cloaked relic into her clammy hands.

"Mom, is there something you need to sort in Narngons?" His doubts were answered with a nod. Her unusual gesture and weeping sniffs of Eir clouded his senses.

"Did I disturb a private conversation?"

"Ah, no. They are fine. Is this bowl the relic?" Mordana tried to fabricate a curiousness.

"Nah! Bowl is too large to be a gate for a mortal world. Our relic is something you would never need until the threads beckon you to hunt it down." Hugh played his riddling words amidst the already chaotic air.

"Threads?" Serephina pondered while loosening her right grip from Eir.

"You will know soon," he recited, making her chew up her lips in a smug smile.

As they were conversing, Galene had opened the velvet wraps and placed the flat round stand on the tea table. She took a short red-stained thread and cleaned its pinpoint nook. She then mounted a slender metal piece, with a sharp point at the tip and an eye-sized void on top. She dug through the bowl and picked something up that flared a new noise in the air.

With as much care possible she picked a minuscule blue kyanite stone vibrating with a faint whimper, transmitting the frequencies arriving from the other end. She cleaned the stone with vapours of specks of cosmic dust filled in the bowl.

"A knitting crochet and a bead transmitter? Are these the relic to communicate to Narngons?" Serephina asked gazing at the finely trimmed facets of the mounted stone. It glinted a new shine upon the resols of the teal waters, spreading the new sinag of resolute.

"Right! The thing you would hunt whenever you ought to work with threads." Hugh winked at Serephina.

Slowly he turned to Eir and her silenced face and wavering eyes magnetized to the floors made his temples crease. Serephina noticed the change of air around him. Before it could get bitter she intervened.

"Holy heavens! The finest relic I have ever seen. Now we would get to live some virtual moments of the place we miss."

"Ah, right! And we will see our tutors," Hugh sighed nostalgically.

The simple chatters made them miss the moment Galene had connected the blue kyanite into the nook. The veining cyan beams rained their shine on the ceiling and the polished grounds, enlarging the dimensions of the needle in every factor. Gradually the mistic shines knocked on each other, ushering the nearer sinag to race on the walls and then fall to the grounds to rise again.

The sooner they had gone twenty chases around, the cyan rays revamped into golden electric spark needling the walls to generate a glaring globe of silver. Through the glaring arcs, some sinag arose to write some words on the once bright now faint ceiling.

Code to connect, it read.

Galene closed her eyes and pictured her husband and spelt a secret code, inaudible in every syllable.

"A Transcode? What for?" Mordana quizzed.

"Relic communications open gateways between realms and it's better to seal the portals with a code. Wise prevention than hunting down a remedy after shufflings and menaces," Hugh reasoned her with his know it now tone.

"And it's hidden from us for?" Serephina smoked out.

"Eh! It's not hidden, it's ever-changing. Only the involved people can read them. Heard of Glypnetics? It's a bizzare code slang."

"Complicated but easier with practice," Eir spoke with a momentous enthusiasm.

"You know it?" His brows shot up while he coated his words in a sweet symphony.

"Not me, but Sere. She is an amateur glypnetologist. Sooner she would be a proficient scholar." She laced her arms in hers in a doubtful mind. Serephina read between her moves and tightened her grip.

"Ah don't boast me, curie queenie. My senses blast when I strive to explore the fenced meanings. Glypnetics is not a study to mess with passive brains. It's a dangerous delicacy, sweet if eaten right or an indigestible cud that would pay you with infinite unwanted peristaltic churns. Mark my words."

Her words made Eir chuckle a bit. Hugh's turmoil ran a less slower race on seeing them all chattering together.

Seeing the tensions dissolve into the breezes of laughs, Galene felt a recourse of relief in her. As she spelt the last word the sphere acquired a dusk tint, confirming that the communication was to begin soon.

"Lads hear me. None will blame nor sneak. We must fight it together. Alright?" She stressed peering at Mordana who was merely present.

"What? Did something happen? Your words sound more like warnings."

Their odd stillness clarified that he was the one left out.

"Mom, you can speak right?" He demanded.

"You would know it sooner. That's all I could say."

Before her words could reach his ears his eyes had noticed the pendant swaying on the chest of the amethyst child. In a glance, he could guess what would have happened here. Yet, he chose to wait and know it.

Should picking some plump tomatoes, cereals and onions take this much time? Oh Aaron, what a horrible bargainer you are! He cussed his mate to divert his rattles.

"Watch your words. Your dad isn't that forgiving if you annoy him in front of elders." Galene's warnings brought him out of unrest. He coated a disguising smile and nodded his head affirming her.

"Time to solve the riddles." Galene declared as the last rays sinking into the brink of the abyss whispered a howl, notifying them about the opening of the portals of the two realms.

Hello everyone! The secrets of Eir and the stirs it elicited are out. Hope it was enjoyable. The next update would reveal everything ending part one of the chaos. But the inevitable is commencing its turn.

Here are some empathic questions.

.Ø. If you were made to face such a situation like that of Eir, what would you do?

.Ø. If you were made to know about such a secret who would you be? Mordana or Serephina? And why?

.Ø. If you have any guesses on further happenings drop them here to discuss.

With love,
🦋..Yaris..🦋