Soul Harvesting

The scent of burning meat crackled nearby, and its smoke poisoned Seren’s lungs. It fed a growing headache. A blindfold pressing into her eyes worsened the headache, and the walking made it unbearable. Eventually, uneven ground grabbed her feet and yanked her down. Sharp leaves and twigs pierced into her cheeks. With her hands bound, she wormed forward until a hand jerked her head back, and lifted her onto her feet. Her blindfold loosened from the attempted escape.

Ahead of her, a bonfire in an open field waited in the coming dusk, fueled by her neighbors. They mindlessly walked into the blaze like ants.

“Walk,” the captor commanded.

“Where am I?” she asked, slowing her pace to a stop.

The captor pushed her forward a few more steps. “This is fine here,” he said.

Robed men and women surrounded her and spoke as one. “Yes.” Then, they bowed their heads and muttered a chant together.

Her shoulders stiffened with a numb infection. An infection that crawled to her arms and dripped into her legs. Legs which moved without a command, without her guidance.

Heat flickered off the fire the closer she walked. Each crackle crescendoed with a step.

No. Stop. Please. Please. P—

A force knocked the air from her breath.

Her dad snatched her body away from the fire.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

Air refilled her lungs. “Thank— you.”

An arrow flew in the darkness. Striking one of the harvesters. Seren glanced back. Taliesin, perched on a tree, he readied another arrow.

The surrounding harvesters closed in, and her dad moved in front of Seren. Dauntless. “Stay behind me,” he said.

A harvesters lunged in with an unsheathed dagger. The dagger bounced off her dad’s shield, and he replied with a swift cut. Blood spewed from the harvester’s neck, and the rest attacked in unison.

Her dad stepped forward. Another arrow pierced the back of an incoming harvester. The two remaining harvesters split, readying to attack both sides. On their ready stance, her dad lunged. His strike sliced through the unready block. But the other harvester lunged too. Slipped past the shield. Then stabbed her father in the side.

Her dad roared.

Jabbing the harvester with his shield and cutting through his neck. He stumbled afterwards. Keeping himself up with the shield.

More harvesters moved in and unsheathed their daggers and then more harvesters joined and started a chant and the others encircled the two.

Taliesin abandoned his perch after a few harvesters began climbing the tree. His foot dragged in the dirt like a broken wagon as he scrambled. They cornered him nearby.

The harvesters waited until the end of the chant. Akibon swirled around the chanters, a wind that didn’t stir. Her dad’s breathing grew desperate as his body trembled over the weight of the shield.

Seren closed her eyes, and tapped into the akibon, redirecting the flow. Without her kurnyit, it was like carrying water without buckets. But she managed. His wound began to close, and the trembling stopped.

But so did the chanting.

A new flame scorched within the palms of the chanters. The fire joined together from the palms of their hands until the heat surpassed the bonfire.

Then they released it.

The blaze soared. Scorching the grass as it flew. But then it swerved. Like a string that wrapped around a dowel, it swerved into Taliesin. Wrapping him into a fiery coat.

As the flames swirled around him, the cyclone’s color darkened. If it were the setting sun, then it was now the deepest dusk. A deep purple flame.

A silence displaced the unforgiving heat.

Once the cyclone dissipated from its destination, Taliesin stood in the middle of it. Black fluid boiled out of his pores and steamed into a mist around him. A purple halo mist remained above him like a crown before it solidified back into a liquid and poured into him. What was once Taliesin, was now a culmination of the darkest night. Its now deep purple skin carried the resemblance of a constellation. Freckles of light dances around in unison. The prince screamed in pain as tears leaked out of his eyes, sizzling as it streamed down his face.

A harvester ran toward him. His dagger dug into the prince’s skin. The skin pulled in the blade and consumed the harvester’s arms. The harvester yelped, panicked, and tried to pull himself out, only to be completely ungulfed with a purple ooze. Ooze ate through his skin, leaving nothing behind. The fumes burned the surrounding skin. Skin sloughed off the skull, like an overcooked animal over a spit.

“I’m sorry,” the prince whispered. As the partial body dropped to the dirt.

His presence alone consumed the surrounding akibon. Seren’s control over it waned. Her father’s wounds reemerged and he trembled over his shield until finally falling to his side.

The prince turned to the other harvesters. They dropped their daggers and took a fatal moment to consider fleeing.

Mist extruded out of the prince’s body. It circled around as the harvesters began to flee. Daggers clanged together. All that was left on the field, a dying father and his daughter, and when the mist cleared it revealed Taliesin, tears poured from his eyes like an open wound.

Taliesin stooped down. Vomit spilled from his mouth. A pool of bile and blood formed underneath him. His skin faded to its normal hue, and his head dropped to his chest.

Then, his body dropped into the pool.

Seren shook herself out of the horror and started to heal her father. The same stirless river. But it redirected into Taliesin.

“Stop!” Seren tried again. “Please stop, Taliesin!”

“I can’t,” he replied weakly. He crawled out of the pile of blood and vomit, but it still clung to him as a stain.

“Please!” she begged again. “Please… stop.”

Her dad covered her hand, his touch growing cold. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a wound.” After a cough, he turned and righted himself up, wobbling as he stood. “See?” he said, using a sword as a cane.

“You’re not fine,” Seren said, keeping him steady.

“Bring me to my bed, and I’ll be fine tomorrow.” He smiled. The same smile he used when he hid presents or finished the last bowl of food. “There’s a cart.” He gestured with his chin. “Have Taliesin take me.”

Taliesin’s arms trembled as he brought himself up. His first step ended with him falling back to the ground. Still he tried, like the town drunk, he staggered to the nearby cart and rolled it over.

A woman marched past the bodies. She carried a sword to her side. Her eyes locked into Taliesin, blade drawn. She aimed her blade at Seren and waved it towards the cart. “Take your father home. As for the prince…”

“You saw who he is,” Bryndall said. “He can’t be killed. He has the Co—”

“I don’t care!” she yelled, and looked at Seren. “You felt it. He stole your akibon, that’s all he does for Taeleera. He just steals.”

Taliesin’s eyes shifted away. “That’s right,” he said.

“He didn’t mean it. He—”

The woman spoke through her teeth. “Go. Home.”