Cursed Children of the Night

1.2: Lagaya

Ligaya took a deep breathe before looking at Tityrus Aetos’ body, before looking at his soul who was looking at her with large eyes. His mouth was open and closing like he was a fish pulled from the river, she would have said something but she promised Heliodora and Deinokrates would have the first c***k at him when he was dead.

Then she already had her chance to tear into him while he was trapped.

Ligaya would have to seal his body, before giving it to one of the nearest Mage and Warrior Council collection sites, it would stop others from trying to claim her reward money. Not that they could, since they would have to have the man’s body with them and she had already sealed it away onto one of her tattoo-seals.

Tityrus’ soul was staring at her in disbelief.

Oh well, that was one down side of being a Spirit Mage. You would always have to see those you killed a second time and all of them had words about how they died, sometimes it didn’t matter if you killed them or not.

Spirits always had words about their deaths and it was rarely pleasant.

‘You -’

‘Don’t you blame her for your death,’ Heliodora’s soul calmly said, ‘how could you? After what happened to us? I thought you were a better than this. But no, you’re as a bad as those who killed us.’

‘I had to,’ Tityrus said putting his hands up.

‘Why did you have those children, uncle?’ Hemera asked.

‘You’re as bad as Lady Xiphias is,’ Deinokrates said, ‘I can’t believe you, how could you do that to Grandmother’s people, we could have been related to them. You might have murdered your family, just like our Sect leader allowed to happen and will continue to allow to happen.’

‘Father said -’

‘If Father told you to jump off a bridge, would you?’ Deinokrates asked cutting Tityrus off curling his fists, like he was ready to punch his own brother, ‘no, you wouldn’t and here I thought were starting to think for yourself.’

‘Deinokrates?’ Tityrus asked wide eyes and an open mouth.

Ligaya could tell that they would be going at it for a while, Heliodora folding her arms and pinching her mouth.

She stared at him before moving towards Tityrus’ body, unsealing a small silver coin and playing it on Tityrus’ shoulder since the water around his body was the only thing that kept it upright.

‘You can use Sealing Magic?’ Hemera asked, ‘Mama said it’s rare for Mages to learn more than the basics.’

“Storage seals are basic,” Ligaya said smiling gently, before showing her the silver-shaped coin. It’s a shame she lived in Jagwin, she would have made a wonderful student if she had lived in Nildisi. She would have made a wonderful Warrior student, she would have been curious and always seeking information.

‘They are?’ Hemera asked.

“Yes, but it can become tricker depending on what material you’re using to store things in, it’s worth learning since you can place numerous items in a single seal, but it’s better not to put too much in one since you could end up forgetting what’s in them.”

She put the coin on a seal-tattoo, the coin disappearing in front of Hemera sight.

‘Tattoo?’ Hemera asked.

“It’s the hardest type of sealing, I have about four of them. It’s risky in the fact that upon death the seals will move to your bones,” Ligaya said looking at her forearm, ‘it’s hard to put ink on yourself. So, you can hire other Mages to put tattoo-seals on you, Warriors can get them. But they can’t use them, so most don’t. Tattoo-seals are useful in the sense that you can’t lose them. Making them the perfect spot to store things away.”

‘Coward,’ Heliodora said.

Ligaya looked up, spotting Deinokrates and Heliodora stared.

“Staring will not change what has happened,” Ligaya said.

‘If he thinks moving on ends this, than he is missing a few apples to be an apple tree, I’m going to show him a mother’s anger,’ Heliodora said.

Heliodora disappeared leaving Deinokrates behind, his shoulders dropped and he held his hand out for Heliodora. She took it and he pulled her into a hug, all Ligaya could do was watch.

She hadn’t been hugged since her Lola, mother and sister had been murdered while she had been elsewhere.

‘I’m sorry you had to hear that,’ Deinokrates said hugging her tightly.

‘Oh, I was talking with Miss Ligaya about her seal-tattoos,’ Hemera said pulling back, taking his hand into her own, ‘I wish she could have been my teacher.’

And that broke Ligaya’s heart.

“Maybe in another life,” Ligaya said smiling, taking a seal from her tattoo-seal, it was a simple illusion of butterflies. “Then I might have the honour of having such a bright girl as my student.”

Ligaya put the seal between her hands, a smile on her face. Golden and silver illusion butterflies flying around them. Hemera giggling putting out her hands, butterflies landing on his hands and hair.

‘Thank you,’ Deinokrates said, ‘I wish that his life didn’t have to end up like this, but that was a choice that he made.’

‘I wish this didn’t happen to you three,’ Ligaya said.

Another poor soul that has been driven to revenge by Jagwin’s actions, Ligaya thought, only he took out his anger on the wrong group.

“You don’t like him?” Deinokrates asked, “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I don’t care enough to have any sort of feeling towards him,” Ligaya said raising her left shoulder up to the bottom of her ear, “positive or negative.”

‘Maybe in the next life, I hope Hemera has someone like you as her teacher,’ Deinokrates said squeezing Hemera’s hand, ‘if only it could have happened in this life, then she truly would have been the lucky one.’

“No, I would be the lucky one,” Ligaya said smiling, “it’s an honour to teach the next generation.”

‘Bye, bye Miss Ligaya,’ Hemera said.

Ligaya blinked, but she smiled. The two had moved on, she could only hope that the afterlife would treat them kindly. She put her clock over head to keep the icy winds from getting to her ears.

She only knew about Tityrus’ crimes because of the spirit of the group’s elder; Bunica Lacramioara.

The same elder that Tityrus stabbed in the heart before massacring the rest of her family without missing a beat. Bunica Lacramioara asked her to deal with him because she didn’t want the rest of her living relatives to have a run in with the man; turns out it wasn’t uncommon for young men to live the caravan they grew up in to start their own, or join newer caravan’s, or for young women to join new caravan’s when their marriage prospects boiled down to some ill-behaved cousins.

Ligaya didn’t know if he would attack other caravan’s, but he had no remorse for the one he did attack and it was better to air on the side of caution. It also helped that Bunica Lacramioara got her respect when she scared the living daylights out of her. It had been some years since a spirit had been able to sneak up on her, but now she knew she still needed to work on her tracking abilities, along with sensing auras of those living and decease.

She counted herself lucky that Bunica Lacramioara wasn’t a spirit who was keen on murdering everyone she could get her hands on. Or else she would have been dead with how miserably she failed to react or sense her presence in the first place.

It didn’t help that she reminded her of Lola Marikit, it also didn’t help that where they were killed was quite close to The Sorrows, where the borders were forever expanding and that meant she had a limited amount of time to help them cross to the afterlife before they were forever stuck in the world of the living.

There was a collection centre close by, then she would make her way back to the cave where Bunica Lacramioara and her family agreed to wait for her. She could only hope that she was fast enough, she could only hope that the children would not be stuck along with murders and those who didn’t realise any number of the Major or Minor Wars were over and they were still ending people’s lives.

She took a deep breathe, she allowed the sound of the sound of the snow beneath her feet, allowing her thoughts and feelings to float like a river. Soon, she was outside the centre of the collection centre.

Nodding, she tied a mask over the lower half of her face. Knocking on the door, and taking a step back.

“Officer Laurent,” Ligaya greeted.

“Ling,” Officer Laurent greeted, “another one near The Sorrows.”

“They think they’re safe during the winter,” Ligaya said nodding, “most don’t realise that their victims follow them. Nor that they are delighted to give away their locations if it means they can have some revenge.”

“More and more are coming from Jagwin,” Officer Laurent said, “we don’t send the bodies back any more, something’s happening there and Warrior and Mage Council are starting to look into the situation.”

“It would seem that the rumours are not just mere rumours after all,” Ligaya said.

“What have you heard,” Officer Laurent said.

“I interviewed the spirits of Hemera, Heliodora and Deinokrates Aetos,” Ligaya said unsealing a copy of the notes she had taken when interviewing the three, she knew a copy would be sent to the Warrior and Mage Peace Council.

“Thank you, Ling,” he said nodding, “now follow me and show me what damage has been done to Jagwin bounty.”

Ligaya nodded, following him into a plain white room with a single metal table in the middle of the room. She unsealed the silver coin putting in onto the table before unsealing the body.

“More brutal than normal,” Officer Laurent said looking at the body, “broken neck and frost bite around the legs, wrists and neck.”

“Spirits asked me to,” Ligaya said shrugging.

“Trapped him in ice?” Officer Laurent asked.

“Child killer.”

“One of the worse.” Officer Laurent looked at the face, before grabbing a book and flipping through it. “Tityrus Aetos, yes, quite the high bounty. I’ll send notes to the Warrior and Mage Council that he had killed innocents while in Nildisi.”

Ligaya nodded.

Following him to the front, he walked up to the table and placed a bag of money on to the surface, pulling out a notebook to mark down her reward.

“Thank you,” she said sealing away her reward, it was never smart to walk around with large amounts of money.

“I’ll see you after another bounty,” Officer Laurent said.

“Good bye, Officer Laurent,” Ligaya said walking out of the building, she pulled her hood back over her head, while it would be faster to fly back to where Bunica Lacramioara and her family where waiting. It would be faster, but it would not be safer and it would risk her getting caught into The Sorrows and the many spirits that had been trapped by the forest over the centuries.

Taking a deep breath, she started to make her way back to her starting point.