by Jade Alters
“Stop,” Helena whispers. Even the subtlest note of her voice commands the power to stop a magical war. Her parents hold back their spells just long enough for her to add, “Save it for the bigger battle. Things are too uncertain right now… the alliance with the Kyrie is shaky… we still have the Fiends to deal with… and now the Lotus… these scumbags aren’t worth the blood you’d get on your shoes.” Helena’s parents turn back to her, faces rippled with both concern and admiration. Even after all the hate she’s endured… she’s right, and they know it. A war of one shape or another is right on the horizon. The Core Lines can’t afford a smaller one between themselves. But neither can they be expected to coexist. Not here.
“I motion to banish the Haruman, Gorshen, and Dymmer families from the Grotto at Six Rivers,” announces one of the Core Line matriarchs.
“That’s absurd. Banish three Core Lines from the ancestral home of-”
“We second the motion,” Graham and his wife overpower the objector, one of Ferres’ conspirators. The young man himself only hangs his head in shame. Whether it’s for what he tried to do to Helena or the two holes that represent failure in his neck, we’ll never know.
“Third,” raises another of the Core Line leaders.
“Fourth,” comes another. The three families in question and Ferres huddle together, uncomfortable under the unfamiliar weight of everyone else’s despise.
“You would give up almost half of the Grotto’s ancestral power for this abomination?” the leader of the Gorshens has the misplaced gall to say. Weak as I am, I almost lunge at him. Emery puts out an arm to stop me as the other members of the Core Lines draw close around Helena.
“Helena is Blood of the Origas, and an esteemed member of the Core Lines of Six Rivers. By majority vote, you are not, any longer,” declares one of the leaders close to her.
“And if you speak another word against her, you’ll be more than just banished,” promises Graham Bartos. Cringes and fists abound through the crowd around Ferres. But, with the ASTF and the other Core Lines bolstering her numbers, they wouldn’t dare strike out against Helena now. Whether or not they accept defeat, one by one, they’re forced to retreat. They vanish through the thick trees of Six Rivers, never to return to their ancestral home.
The first to speak, about two minutes later, is Helena’s mother. She kisses her daughter on the forehead, then says, “You all need to go. Before they do something stupid. We’ll escort you to the Tether. You have a package to deliver.” She and her husband put a hand on Helena’s shoulder, eyes flitting down at the ancient knowledge in her hands.
“This knowledge… and the power that comes with it, are safer with no one else,” says Graham. Helena’s parents take her from Fey Deller and Emery to help her back up the white cobblestone path to the Tether Teleporter. I jump when a hand hits my back.
“Hey, nice work,” Emery says.
“What, that little puppet show? Psh, nothing,” I wave her off. I act like hearing that didn’t send just the warm tingles through my chest that I needed.
“Seriously, Hoster. And I don’t just mean what you did with Ferres. In the Forbidden Shelves, you held your own getting to the bottom. Underwater, in the Forgotten City, you called out to us. And… when Ferres hit us with that drowning spell, you called me back, didn’t you?” Emery asks. Her eyes sparkle at me in a way they haven’t for some time. Not since I visited her in a dream.
“Well… all I can do is call. You have to answer. And you did,” I admit.
“Still… thank you,” Emery says. “I know it isn’t easy. All of these trials are meant for descendants of the Origas. For anyone else…” Then I see it. My great defeat. For just a second, Emery’s eyes jump over to Darius. She means to thank me, and that’s all. Hopes for anything else evaporate, leaving a void in my heavy chest. “But, despite all that, you’re still here. You’re still fighting. I didn’t want you to think nobody sees it.” My eyes widen, watery despite every attempt to hide what I feel behind them. I run my sleeve across my forehead to suck up the tears before they give me away.
“Thanks,” is all I can manage without my voice cracking. Then Emery smiles, her hand slides off my shoulder, and she heads back to Darius’ side. She doesn’t want me that way anymore. But she does want me here. I’m… not useless. They need me.
You’ve got more spirit than anyone, I hear Grandma’s voice ring in my ears. I smirk and pick up the pace to follow the others back to the Tether. We have a package to deliver.
Emery,
Mount Shasta Wilderness
We’re so close. I see the smoke rising from the cooking fires in the camp. The Council and the Kyrie leaders have been waiting, along with Ori, Cain, and Sasoen, since morning. They knew that, come this afternoon, either the Origas’ lost knowledge would be complete, or it would never be. Here we are, showered and dressed from our brief pass through the Academy, with the two other pieces of it in hand.
Then I see them. They stand with their dark, glossy shoes in wet grass. They face away from us, much like our last encounter. Three robed figures who bare the emblem of the most beautiful flower to ever poke through the muck. The Lotus. The energy of the ASTF shifts from eager to apprehensive instantly, as we climb the grassy hill towards them. They stand directly in the path to the Truce Camp.
“You chose this,” Heren’s voice echoes out from the middle figure. He or she doesn’t waste time with I told you sos or I warned yous. No, it jumps right to consequence. Right to the sentencing. The figures turn, the outer two first, then Heren in the center. Each of them bears a different device. Heren wields the metal orb we’ve already seen. The figure to its right has a curvy steel X in its grip. The last bears something like a blade, a hilt with a thin, semi-rigid wire curving up from it.
“And you choose to be cryptic, instead of talking or listening,” I counter. I’ve just about had it with being judged by Heren from afar. When we’re the ones going through hell to break these seals. To gather this knowledge. I mean - we’re descended from the most powerful beings there ever were! If not us, then who is worthy to turn these pages? “Do you even know about the Gray Fiends?”
“Of course we do,” Heren answers without hesitation. I plant my feet while the Lotus paces ever closer. I see the others shuffle and shrink back half-steps from the corners of my eyes. I war against every urge to do the same. “Threats are addressed by the Lotus in order of magnitude.”
“And you think we’re more dangerous than those things?” Rock pipes up.
“We know you are. The Lotus has observed you all for some time. We determined you were a nuisance long before you sought out the forbidden knowledge. Now you’re a threat,” Heren tells us. It’s weaponized orb hangs ready at its side.
“But… why was it left behind, if not for someone to put it back together?” Helena tries.
“That’s exactly what it was meant for. Just not by you,” Heren says.
“What do you know about the Origas that we don’t?” I shout again. I rub my fingers together for a trick in each hand.
“Everything we do is their will,” Heren tells us. The orb pops up. I let both my tricks sail just before the sound begins. Two rift-disks. Heren sidesteps one, then the other. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one thinking ahead.
Helena lets loose a vicious tempest between us. The violent movement of the air dilutes the disabling frequency just a little. Just enough that we can still move. Rock leaps on the ground, his panther legs already sprinting. He races out past where the noise projects and cuts back in for the Lotus with the steel X. Helena keeps the wind raging while I sling an endless barrage of tricks at Heren.
I start with portals but conjure illusory pikes in the ground around me. The shimmer like human-sized mirror shards. Darius bolts around the other side of the Lotus, averting his eyes from Heren and the Vampire-paralyzation light. He slings a blurry punch at the Lotus with the wire blade. The robed figure surprises us all by leaning away from the strike with incredi
ble speed. It slashes a deep red line across Darius’ side just before vines jump up from the ground by its ankles. Fey Deller commands them to lash around the Lotus. She gets two wrapped while Darius throws up a piston-loaded kick. The robed combatant, however, manages an incredible turn and flourish, dodging Darius and cleaving Fey Deller’s vines in one.
“It burns!” she screams as she falls away. The vines retract through the earth, back to the arms she deployed them from. But, as they draw back to her, I catch a glimpse of their sliced ends. They’re cauterized, like someone pressed them to a stove.
I take up a glassy pike in each hand with new fury. They tear through Helena’s stormwind to stick the ground by Heren’s nimble feet. I keep it up while Rock skirts around the X-wielding Lotus. He tries to go in for a snap at the throat several times, only to be knocked away by the X, or sidestepped. Then all of their strategies align. I realize all too late that we lost the second we fought. These weapons were picked specifically for us. And we’ve played right into it.
It happens too fast. The wire-blade Lotus steps back to let Heren flash his paralyzing light at Darius. He doesn’t even have a chance to blink, and falls back, rigid. This creates an opening for the other Lotus to swipe his wire-blade directly down the side of Fey Deller’s face and chest. It sears a long gash in her body which blisters almost instantly. Her side hits the grass.
Rock freezes in amazement as the true strike he was distracting his opponent for fails. The Lotus with the X somehow sees Hoster’s Astral body floating close to it. The X flies out like a boomerang and, as it strikes Hoster’s spirit, I see it too. We all do. The X slices clean through the glowing blue projection of him, and disintegrates it. It’s reduced to mist, which swirls back to Hoster’s physical body. The X swings back around, to the hand of its wielder. But Helena, Rock, and I are still standing. I can’t let it end like this. We’re so close.
“No!” my voice rips out of me with a ferocity it never has before. The invisible force of my fury, my mortal defiance, rips the remaining six of my illusory pikes from the ground. They flip forward and shoot off, razor-tip first at Heren.
It jerks sideways in alternating directions, until finally, one of my spears clips the side of its hood. His hood. The cloth falls away from the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. Soft skin glistening. Blue eyes piercing. Brown hair swept back in two perfect wings. There’s not a dimple. Not a scratch, a scar, or a misplaced hair. But no fangs… no pointed ears, or cracked rocky skin. I haven’t seen them use tricks or spells… what are they? A flat expression of murder haunts his thin lips. It makes his blemishless perfection all the more haunting.
The second the last of my pikes stabs down, he switches spots with the X-wielding Lotus. Heren lifts his orb to blast a disabling migraine through Rock’s skull. I muster all the strength I can to conjure a new trick but, before I can, the Lotus’ steel X whips around Helena’s storm and clinks off of her forehead. The winds stop. The blaring sound overwhelms us. My nails scrape into my forehead while my knees dig into the dirt.
When my sight clears enough to make out what’s around me… I can’t process it. I’m not the only one kneeling. We’re all in a line on the ground. On one side of me is Helena. Down that end of the line is Darius and Fey Deller, too. On my other side is Rock, and Hoster on the outside. One of the Lotus guards us on either end of our line, with Heren pacing down it. The fact that his hood remains down chills my blood. We know what he looks like now, when he’s taken such care not to show us. Suddenly, he doesn’t care anymore.
“I know it’s worth little to you now,” Heren announces over us. He paces down our ranks while his orb sits in the grass, continuously emitting that disabling tone. He eyes us each with neither interest nor hate. But neither is there any real pity in his eyes. “But I am sorry. You’ve made your own choices, but I didn’t want to kill you.”
Heren stops at Hoster. He puts a hand out to the Lotus at that end of our line. His colleague hands Heren the curvy steel X. Hoster looks up at him, unable to speak. His eyes glint with a dare for as long as he can, but it’s fading fast. The closer Heren leans, the more he understands. The more his brain does backflips to escape that this is really happening. I jerk forward. I have to break free of this damn sound! I have to! My chest hits the ground. My hands are tied tight behind me, I realize now. All of ours are. My head is fixed on Hoster. I’m too weak to move it. I can’t look away.
Heren presses the X into Hoster’s chest with one hand, grasping his shoulder in the other to hold him steady. The longer the metal touches him, the more his cries descend into groans, then half-paralyzed screams. His wide eyes rise up to Heren’s dull, numb ones. Steam rises from the area of contact. Hoster starts to shake and jostle. A clear line of saliva pours over from his shaking lips.
“No!” I’m hardly able to cry out just as Hoster goes fully rigid. A perfect, blue-light replica of him shoots out from his back, in the same position, then dissolves. Hoster’s Astral body scatters to the wind. When Heren releases his physical one, it slumps over on its side, an X scalded through Hoster’s clothes into his bare chest. His eyes roll back. His chest deflates of every last breath.
Heren hands back the X and walks over to his orb. He plucks it up and heads to the next down the line. He cradles the machine over Rock’s head. It shakes more with every inch Heren lowers it, to the point where the other Lotus has to hold him steady.
“No…” I whimper, but I’m unable to move, besides my lips.
The fire comes from above. That, I imagine, is all that stays Heren’s hand. It’s all that saves Rock’s life. A hail of solid napalm comes down from three different sources. How they managed to get above us so silently, I don’t know. If only they’d gotten there earlier. Dragonlord Thise, Dorian, and Cece circle around above us, unleashing hell on every side of the Lotus. With the rest of the Council and the Kyrie leaders so close behind, even the Lotus know to flee. But I never turn my head to see it. I just stare at the other body on the ground with me. Even while the fires rage.
The one who found a way to make me enjoy the Heritage Ball. The one who taught me to trust, from the inside of a trap. That goofy smile… that clueless humor… I’ll never see, or hear it again. Somehow, they even burned away his Astral form. Hoster…
He’s gone.
Revelation
Darius,
Truce Camp, Mount Shasta Wilderness
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. It’s all I can think, the whole walk in. The one kid that wasn’t supposed to die. Not ever. Some form or another of him would live on - I thought it as much as anyone. I also saw as well as everyone else what happened when that wet sock Heren put that… thing on him. Hoster’s Astral body… it just dissolved.
None of us make a sound while we follow Thise and the others back to the camp. Fey Deller is still almost unconscious, like myself, so Lily helps her along. Reynold does the same for me. The effects of that damned light still in my system, I can’t even bring myself to crack a joke at him. But… part of me knows that’s not why. I haven’t felt this in so long, I almost don’t recognize it. The sting of loss reminds me that, once upon a time, I liked Hoster. Quiet tears trickle from Emery and Helena into the dirt. Rock’s hands don’t unclench from fists the whole way to the big meeting tent.
“It will take us time to read through these,” that old bat Ori says when we drop the missing tomes before her and the other two.
“You’ve all been through… a great deal,” says Cain, like he has any idea. “Why don’t you go rest?”
The five of us peel apart about as well as a rotten banana. We walk together to a section of the Truce Camp with a tent for each of us. Even I’m reluctant to disband from the rest of them. We weren’t safe together. How can we break apart, even if it is only a matter of feet? Even if we are exhausted? Just about all that does it is the fact that the tents are only big enough for one. Outside mine, I hear Emery and Helena try to talk for a while. But they can’t. Neither of them c
an get through a full sentence without a whimper. I can hardly stand to listen to it. As a matter of fact, I can’t. I can’t feel this stuff! Not with everything else! God damnit, Hoster! I smash my lumpy pillow up around both my ears to hide from it all.
Rest. Sure. Like I ever did that before. Before I started having fucking dreams in that cell. Before Hoster’s soul vaporized right before our eyes. I should have known, just from that, what was waiting for me. I’m laying on my back, staring at the canvas roof of my tent, when a blue glow lights the inside of my tent.
“Damnit, I know you’re not real,” I murmur to the hallucination. I roll over to the side, away from the specter.
“Does that matter?” answers the voice I know can’t be there. I’ll never hear it again, not really. “We both know you can’t actually sleep. So you don’t really have a choice but to listen to me.”
“Oh yeah? And why… why would you even come visit me? Just doing the rounds?” I bite back. I curl up with the sudden tightness in my gut. “It’s not like you and I were great friends or…” I can’t do this. I let out a long sigh, instead of yelling at the hallucination of a ghost.
“Because she chose you,” says the voice. My eyebrows and ears perk up. “I don’t know why, but she did. Out of our mixed bag, she chose you, Darius, so… be good to her. Please?” He sounds so genuine… so heartfelt. Am I even capable of conjuring up such an illusion? I roll over to face him.
“Hoster?” I ask the blank wall of my tent. The blue glow, the phantom - it’s all gone. “Shit,” I murmur. I do the only thing that’s left to do for the rest of the night. Stare at the ceiling and torture myself with his last words, whether they were real or not.
Emery,
Truce Camp, Mount Shasta Wilderness