***
the difference
between a mortal
and an immortal
is,
life force spells
work on mortals
so they can theoretically
live forever
by taking
from other mortals,
and nights
are mortals
with no magic,
just a hunger
for dragons,
though no one knows
where young nights are born
or where old ones go to die,
but
there’s summoning rings
that supposedly work
to steal the life of a night–
the books hold no information
about what they eat
(though I know that now)
or how to lure them
just
warnings that if your summoning ring catches them,
you might implode
before drinking all their life
and more warnings
that if you find a night
you’re better off
fleeing
before it destroys you
and more warnings
that a powerful night
might
just ignore the summoning magic
completely
and how
you’re probably better off
recruiting fire breathing dragons
to burn it to a crisp
but no dragon
in their right mind
wants to approach a night
so I didn’t
make just one
summoning ring
I made
twenty
seven
to feed
the trees
and
I made the runes
out of sticks and pebbles
planted in mud,
waiting on a word
to burn
to life
and
I waited for it
to come back for Sliptide’s lover,
if it hadn’t already done that,
then I got bored
of waiting
so I went out
to gather ingredients again
to enter the astral plane
and find the hungry night inside
–since surely
a mind eater
had a presence there–
to steal
its meals
out from under it.
Jordyn Saelor 