“Don’t worry about the others.” Baba Yaga said. “Vladion is even more paranoid than you are. These walls keep anyone from overhearing us, even him. Whatever happens in here will stay between the two of us.”
“When you put it this way, it sounds like a threat.” Lith said while using Life Vision to check his opponent, yet she wasn’t weaving any spell nor using fusion magic.
“I’ll get straight to the point. I’m not interested in you so much as in Elphyn. I’d like to speak with her. Now.” She said, making Lith jump on his feet.
“How do you know that name?” He asked as War appeared in his hands. The cracks had yet to disappear and the Adamant fragments stuck to each other as if they had been badly glued together.
“Please, don’t insult my intelligence. Dawn told me about your partner and how the three of you clashed until you merged with Elphyn. Back then I had no idea who such a cursed object might be, just like I failed to recognize Menadion’s tower during the battle of the Feymar mines.
“Yet during your last tribulation, when I saw that young woman fighting against the King of Kolga, everything become as clear as day. She was Elphyn Althena Menadion and she looked exactly like the last time I saw her.” Baba Yaga said.
Lith stared at her while weaving his spells yet he said nothing.
“If I wanted to attack you, I would have already done it.” Baba Yaga sighed. “I’m not Lochra and I’ll not try to take her away from you. I just want to make sure that she’s alright.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Lith said, following his basic rule to trust no one unless strictly necessary.
“Use your brain, dammit. Do you really think Ripha accepted Threin’s death with a shrug and a smile? As soon as Elphyn passed out crying, Ripha came to me with all the pieces of her husband she could find, begging me to bring him back.”
The Red Mother spoke with an annoyance that reminded Lith of Elina back when he was little and one of his siblings threw a tantrum.
“She even offered me victims to fuel Forbidden Spells and it took me hours to talk sense into her. Only once she accepted that her husband was gone forever did Ripha cry herself to sleep.
“Once she woke up, we pooled together our resources to devise a way to save Elphyn from death if necessity arose. I’m the mother of all the undead and she was the greatest Forgemaster of her generation so of course we found a way.” Baba Yaga said.
“Think about it. I know about the tower, about the artifacts that she left to her apprentices and I even know how to use them. Menadion was many things, but a genius healer wasn’t among them.
“How could she create on her own a way to put Elphyn in a suspended animation state without my help? For crying out loud, I even helped her to plan that damn tower!”
“Really?” Solus slipped off Lith’s finger and turned into her stone doll form. “Did you really know me and my parents?”
“Epphy? Is that you?” Warm tears streaked down the Mother’s cheeks. She had long lost any hope to hear that voice again.
“Why are you crying? Were we that close?” Solus had no memories of Baba Yaga and seeing an adult moved so much for a complete stranger felt really awkward.
“What? Did you lose your memory along with your body? Of course we were close. After your father’s death, I became one of your best friends and we spent a lot of time together. Back then I looked like this.”
Baba Yaga turned into a young maiden barely sixteen years old, about 1.6 (5’3″) meters tall. She had waist-long golden hair and clear blue eyes. Her voice was silvery and her body had the never-ending energy of youth.
“By my Mom! Malyshka is that you?” The appearance of Baba Yaga’s Maiden form made several forgotten memories resurface in Solus’s mind.
Most of them were beautiful images about them studying magic together or visiting the most beautiful city of Mogar by traveling with either tower. Some of them, however, were very embarrassing and turned Solus’s usually golden eyes into a bright shade of purple.
They belonged to her rebellious phase, followed by a different phase where she had experimented with all kinds of pleasures that a young adult without supervision could desire.
‘The next time Lith and I perform a mind fusion, I’ll die of embarrassment. Aunt Loka’s words now make much more sense. Gods, compared to me, Lith is a cloistered monk. He’ll never let me hear the end of it.’
Solus wished to lose her memory again with all of her might, but Mogar kept spinning with its usual indifference.
“Epphy!” The Maiden hugged Solus, happy that not everything was lost.
“Don’t let her touch you, Solus. She might use Invigoration to steal the tower’s secrets!” Lith said in a hurry.
“My breathing technique is called Sun and Moon, you runt, and if I wanted to examine her body, no force on Mogar could stop me.” Baba Yaga replied with anger.
“Actually, someone can stop you. Me. Lith, I appreciate your concern but Malyshka is just hugging me. Malyshka, neither of you can order me around. This is my body, my life. I’m the only one that has the right to decide whether to be examined or not.” Solus replied.
“Do you really think you can help me, Malyshka?”
“Maybe, but to do it, you have to drop the cloaking spells of the power core first. Do you know how to do it?” The Maiden took a step back to look Solus in the eyes and show her how serious she was.
“I know how to do it, but I won’t.” Solus took a step back as well, delicately pushing Baba Yaga’s arms away.
“What? Why?”
“When I opened to aunt Loka, she tried to kill Lith. She said that it was the only way to free me, that my affection for him is nothing but the result of years of abuse and of the orders that he forced on me due to the master-servant bond we share.” Solus said.
“Silverwing actually has a point.” The Maiden looked at Solus and then at Lith, wondering if her memory loss had been really caused by Menadion’s disappearance or if it was the consequence of Lith’s orders.
Baba Yaga knew how a slave had only two choices. Empathize with their master and survive, or resist until the slave spell and the abuse broke them. Either way, they would lose their mind.
“No, she doesn’t! This is all me. Lith has never given me an order. We always discuss everything together. Otherwise a few seconds ago I would’ve punched you in the face to escape from your embrace.” Solus said.
Her words made sense and the Maiden reconsidered the entire situation from a new point of view.
‘They have no mind link active now so Lith can’t control Epphy. He might have ordered her things like “protect and love me” but in that case, she would act much more passionately towards him.’
