Larkspur | ONC 2023

Chapters 8

"Let me go!" The girl beats against the iron bars of the tiny cage-like room.

Her captor paces the length and breadth of the room, hands clasped behind her back. There's a blue light straying from somewhere and her snow-white hair looks ghostly in the unearthly light. 

"I won't until you learn to master your magic and channel it in the right direction."

"I won't use magic." The determination is clear in her voice.

"Oh, you will. I will make you." The woman snaps her fingers, shooting a green ray of light so quickly that the girl flinches. But the magic lights up all the candles in the dimly lit room, making it seem less cold and foreign. 

"You can't. My magic is bad. I will never—"

The green beam shoots right towards her. She screams and ducks, the magic barely missing her.

"Hiding won't help." Her captor comes closer, circling the cage like a predator. Another beam shoots. She ducks again, trying to move in the little cramped space of the cage. 

"Defend yourself, girl!" Another shot and this grazes her skin, burning away the sleeves of her dress. She whimpers and grabs her arm, attempting to reduce the pain. Slowly removing her hand, she stares at the hot scalded mark on her skin, slowly forming a red blister.

"No!"

Another shot. Another duck. Another blister bubbling on her leg. She presses her teeth together, in an attempt to not cry. She's panting and sweaty, but the determination in her eyes has still not faltered.

"Use your magic girl, or you'd have to go through more of it."

"NO!"

"You're getting on my nerves." She seethes.

"You can't break me. Do your worst." The girl gets up and stands up straight, hands on the bars. "Kill me if you can."

"Foolish girl!" The woman snarls. Magic erupts from her palm, flames licking her fingers, coiling around her arms like ropes of destruction. The girl closes her eyes, bracing for the full impact of her wrath. And in the split second as her magic hurls at the caged girl like a rocket, a brilliant white light floods the room, followed by an ear-splitting scream and an explosion of two opposite magic colliding. A figure clad in black rolls to the other side of the room, clutching its arms against its body.

The woman's eyes widen. "Hem!" The girl screams. The pain in her throat is raw. Her eyes lose their human touch and turn into purple balls of fire. Simmering purple flames rise from her entire body, melting away the cage like a bar of chocolate. The purple turns darker and darker as the girl takes one step forward. Her captor slowly inches backward, mumbling some incantations. A thin green barrier rises in front of her, like a screen, but they both know that barrier is nothing but a cotton net trying to hold a lion. There is no expression on the girl's face as she inches forward. The flames around her are black-death now, licking the ceiling, cracking the plaster. 

"Lark. I didn't—"

"You hurt Hemlock." She says very coolly. There's no remorse in her expression. Her hands sway in the air, almost like a dance, but her captor knows it's a dance of death. There's something ancient and untamed inside of the girl that manifests only when she's threatened beyond a threshold.

"Lark no!" the boy screams from the other side of the room, trying to stand up, clutching his seared arm in his other hand.

But Lark moves forward slowly still. The lady's back touches the wall—nowhere to escape.

"You are not a monster, Lark! You don't want more blood on your hands!" The boy shouts. And that snaps her out of the high. The flames die down suddenly, almost like turning off a gas stove and the girl collapses on the ground like a sack of onions—limp, unconscious.