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Chapter 876  A Burning Memory, Part 9

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Ria refilled her glass to the near brim, spilling a little bit of red onto the table. She pulled a face, and I wasn\'t sure if she was upset about having to recall this particular moment in her life, or because gravity had stolen a few precious drops of her wine.

"When Silas went to rummage through the smoldering ruins of my father\'s house, he didn\'t just find notes and journals about me. Actually, I barely even crop out in any of his entries. He didn\'t need to document me… not when he\'s already got a bazillion jillion pages detailing the life cycle of a phoenix up till the age of seven.

"Seven?" I said. "The same age you were?"

For my astute observation, Ria gave a little ambiguous smirk - but did she elaborate? Well, hopefully somewhere down the line, she will.

"Turns out Torem has had half-successes before molding creatures like me - meaning to say, I\'m not actually the first of my kind by any stretch. You wanna get technical - then actually the first of me came about a full century before me. My big, big, a lot of bigs, big brother. He was the first recorded case of a man-made creation. The first ever phoenix to walk the realms.

"Yet alas, for a being of absolute immortality, he didn\'t really last long at all. Neither did the one after him, or the one after him, and etcetera, etcetera. Somewhere down the line, he adjusted his other. But why were they dying, you ask? Well, ask yourself this - why exactly did my dear ol\' daddy wait so long to give a name I methods - started aiming only for females - thinking maybe the inherent prowess of the opposite sex might help with something. Did it? Don\'t know - my big sisters still kept dying one after the other. But why were they dying, you ask? Well, ask yourself this - why exactly did my dear ol\' daddy wait so long to give a name I never even got?"

Another question for the class to answer. Except this time, I haven\'t the foggiest as to who did what and why. Maybe I could guess, or maybe -

"Because you turn seven," Irene answered, her voice low and kind of strangled in her throat.

Ria beamed.

"Attagirl."

Irene looked noticeably perturbed, and I had this pressing urge inside me telling me I should be to. Yet I still didn\'t know the reason as to why I should be.

"Why? What\'s up with the number seven?" I demanded, cranking my head in both directions searching for an answer in one of their silent, shared expressions.

"You can do the honors," Ria said, nudging her head at her. "I\'ll probably take up the word-count for the night if you let me run my mouth."

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Irene sighed, momentarily taking a swig from her glass, and barely even flinching.

"Near the age of seven is the stopping point for us Kronocians to manifest our magical abilities. How and when they manifest vary from species to species, but the signs are there if you know what to look for. And it\'s seven - always, only, at the seventh year of being. Past that point, you\'re just mundane, normal. Humans tend to produce the least number of magic users and are generally the late bloomers. The only exception to the seven-year rule are the Elves, who do not possess any intrinsic magical properties whatsoever."

"You can add my siblings to that short list of exceptions," Ria said, taking the liberty of refilling Irene\'s drink for her, blind, or most likely ignoring her deathly glare. "Well, almost, but not really. They had magic, but… also not really? It\'s kind of like… well, they can certainly transform, set things on fire, but what they can\'t do is not die. They didn\'t have that. But, come to think of it, now that that factoid is out there, how do you test something like that? Not dying - how do you even begin to prove an ability like that exist in a person? Well, any bright ideas?"

And that\'s when shock and understanding violently collided in a rumbling, ash-filled explosion of horror and disgust.

Ria smiled again, raising her drink towards me, and I could see my own shock distorted in the reflection of her nearly-depleted glass. A second later, the rims of our glasses met, clink, then she drank.

"As soon as my siblings turned seven, my father would put a knife to their necks, and then for humanity, for his ambition, he\'d slit their throats," Ria said, her cool smirk stained with red from the wine. "He did this to every one of them, seven years raising them, loving them, only for them to be tacked on the end of a journal and listed as failures. He never named any one of them too, probably couldn\'t be bothered thinking of any if they were just gonna wind up dying anyway. He\'d do this again, and again, and again, a new son, a new daughter over and over - wearing kind smiles, and faking affections.

"And he must have known they loved him, that they loved him so, so much. That I loved him. And even with that in mind, he didn\'t hesitate letting that blade loose over and over. They lived a lie. We all lived a lie. We were all just trial and error to him. When he said he was going to name me soon, I was over the moon. I couldn\'t wait. And if what happened that day had never happened, if he didn\'t get his long-awaited comeuppance, there\'s no doubt he would have done the same to me to see if I died, you know? To know if… if I was just another failure to jot down at the end of a page. Some… some stupid fucking digit he can just forget about the second I go limp. Can you believe that? He… this fucking guy… the fucking audacity… he…"

There was no hiding the sudden surge of anger in her voice as much Ria wanted to. She pulled off the usual farces, the smile, the laugh, but it wasn\'t working this time. She couldn\'t hide her true feelings this time.

"In a way, I\'m almost glad it was Silas that got to slit my throat. Torem will never know, will never get the satisfaction of knowing his life\'s work is a resounding success. I can take solace in that at least. He died, and he died a failure. A liar."

Ria was still fuming though she seemed utterly oblivious to her own rage, the frenetic billow and sway of her flames. She down the rest of her glass in one fell swoop, and rather than abating her emotions, it just made her blaze even brighter.

Which, yeah… liquor and fire. Of course it does.

To my right, Irene\'s lips were twitching and narrowing as if struggling to not let any words escape her mouth.

"I\'m sorry you had to go through that," she eventually muttered, sounding stiff, automatic… and I had this strange feeling that she had more than that to say originally.

"And I\'m sorry you had to listen through all of that," Ria groaned, slumping down in her seat. "Talking about my stupid past - what a waste of breath. Seriously, whose bright idea was this to begin with?"

"About Torem, Ria" Irene said, still retaining her robotic way of speaking. "Whatever happened to - ?"

"Divines, you still want to go on this?" Ria scoffed. "There\'s a million billion things to ask about, no doubt. You wanna go through them all, you\'re gonna need to learn to stop time itself first. And as far as I know, there ain\'t no magic for that yet."

Irene opened her mouth again, but instead of words, a great explosion resounded, reverberated. Then came another explosion, and another one right after; the window drapes were suddenly ablaze with dim colors. And through the walls, the sounds of cheering and celebrating could be heard far and wide.

"Midnight," Ria smirked, filling her drink again and raising it up in the air. "Happy New Year\'s, my dudes."

Irene and I both joined her in raising our glasses, sharing clinks, sharing sips, and in that brief silent moment of fireworks and merriment, as the rich, pungent taste made it way to the back of my throat, I realized I completely forgot the point of all of us three even being here.

To celebrate.

And so far, there\'s been a severe lack of actual celebration.

"Now, c\'mon," Ria suddenly proclaimed, setting her glass down and immediately rising to her feet, seemingly having come to the same realization herself. "Let\'s go see what they\'re blasting out there."