by J C Maynard
Dalah looked at the dead attacker she saved them from. “Oh, shut up.” The four of them ran until they heard voices in another side hallway. They stopped at the corner and listened.
“I killed the guards on that entrance.” said a girl in a hushed voice underneath a mask. “We just need to find Borius; Selenora will be able to kill him.”
The four looked at each other with wide eyes. Selenora Everrose is the one behind all of this.
“Be careful,” said another voice, “we’re outnumbered, but have to hold the Nexus.” The two traitors began to run toward the intersection of tunnels, and when they came close, the four ran into the intersection and launched a great glowing ball of crimson, sapphire, white, and gold toward the two Evertauri. Having no time to stop it, the liquid-looking ball hit them and exploded on impact, leaving a charred pile of black on the ground.
◆◆◆
~Minutes Earlier
As Raelynn sat in the dining hall of the Nexus talking to another Evertauri, a man walked into the Nexus from a small side hallway; Grennkovff — the large, dark-skinned man with dreadlocks who accompanied Calleneck in the meeting with Mordvitch. His robes draped around him and he passed her table with a lowered head and scowling face.
Thinking nothing of it, Raelynn continued her conversation with the Evertauri, talking about her travels to Aunestauna. Laughing at a joke, she suddenly stopped when a shower of dark green sparks landed on her shoe; they came from Grennkovff’s foot as he stepped by. Another step, and green embers trickled out from under his boots. “Hey, watch what you’re doing.” she said to him as he passed.
She watched as Grennkovff slipped through the crowd of Evertauri in the Nexus. Dark green flames swirled beneath his robes and on his legs; only a few Evertauri took heed of him as he walked by. When Grennkovff stood at the center of the underground plaza, the dark green flames grew in brightness within his cloak. With only a guess of understanding about what was about to happen and a fraction of a second to do something, Raelynn screamed out. “Everyone down!”
At that instant, a massive disk of dark green energy shot from Grennkovff’s chest in all directions, parallel to the ground. Raelynn barely got to the ground before the plane of energy roared over her head, rattling the air like a thundercrack, shattering the table at which they were sitting. The air settled, and around her, five Evertauri lay dead on the floor, their bones shattered or chests cut.
As Grennkovff ran from the scene, Raelynn sprinted up the staircase to her father’s study, breaking the door open. “Explosion in the Nexus! An attack! Sound the alarm, now!”
Without hesitating, Madrick bolted out of his door and, hearing the commotion below, produced a massive wave of silver light that beat out of his body and wound it’s waves through all the tunnels in Seirnkov.
“Do you know what’s going on?” shouted Raelynn.
Madrick nodded. “I have a strong suspicion.”
Raelynn ran off down a stone spiral staircase. She approached sounds of yelling and flashes of light. Her heart raced and her hands sweat, prompting her to verbally calm herself. At the bottom of the staircase, she entered a great hall, where dozens of colors of flames and embers raced back and forth. A large group of loyal Evertauri pressed against the mass of masked sorcerers. She watched as a girl in a black cloak produced a lime green shield of Taurimous to protect herself from the attackers — it was Aunika Bernoil. A masked girl ran up behind Aunika with a dagger, but before she could reach Aunika, Raelynn pounced on her with her own knife, stabbing it through her chest.
Aunika swung around and thanked Raelynn. “Help me?” said Aunika as three clouds of embers circled and dove towards them. Aunika lifted her palm and produced a lime green shock wave that rippled through the air, scattering the embers. Raelynn grabbed a torch off the wall and ran toward a man who attacked the Evertauri guards. She jumped on top of him, closing her legs around his neck and stuffing the flames in his face; he vainly tried shooting out brown jets of light, but could not injure Raelynn before she drove her knife into his neck.
“Raelynn!” yelled Aunika as she dodged balls of fire. “Why aren’t you using your Taurimous?”
Raelynn’s breathing picked up as a stream of magenta light twisted through the air towards her. She raised her palm; out of it came a flicker of violet, then a flicker of sapphire, and a small puff of silver smoke. “Raelynn!” shouted Aunika. Just before the coil hit her, Raelynn dove to the ground behind a large stone column that split the coils into two.
Just then, Raelynn heard a girl and boy shout Aunika’s name. Calleneck and Dalah, followed by Tallius and Lillia, fought their way through the crowd of loyal Evertauri to aid Aunika.
◆◆◆
Calleneck grabbed a beam of wood off the floor, sprinted over to his sisters, and smashed the head of a masked man dueling them. “Aunika!” he said. “Do you know what’s happening?”
She ducked under a sheet of peach light that soared through the massive hall. The sounds of Taurimous colliding with Taurimous made it almost impossible to hear. “Rebellion!” yelled Aunika above the noise. “. . . Selenora . . . War in the tunnels . . .”
“Watch out!” called Lillia as she blocked a cloud of glowing sparks with her white ribbons of light that flew through the air like auroras.
To his side, Calleneck saw Raelynn holding her hand up and producing tiny threads of light that barely reached two feet away. What is she doing? What’s wrong with her Taurimous? The colors of her Taurimous changed like a kaleidoscope from teal to pink to yellow, causing eerie waves of light to pass over her face. He had heard the stories of what Raelynn could do; she had been training since she was a toddler; but only a few embers were emanating from her hand. He ran over to her. “Raelynn, what are you doing? Why can’t you use your Taurimous?” She ignored him and threw her knife into the back of an old man who sent a white bolt of electric-like Taurimous toward Tallius. “Raelynn! What’s wrong?”
She ignored him again and ran forward into the blasts of fire, trying to get a better position. But before she could get to a safe place, a scalding blue ball of waterlike energy spun toward her; she tried to duck, but it enveloped her. Seeing her fall, Dalah, Tallius, and Calleneck dodged through the crowd of dueling sorcerers. Raelynn lay sprawled on the ground, and the right half of her body gushed blood over the cold stone. Tallius picked her up, her blood dripped over his cloak and her eyes were open but glazed over. “Get her to the doctors, now!” said Calleneck. Dalah ran with Tallius into a tunnel, illuminating it with sapphire and gold orbs of light.
When Calleneck turned to locate Aunika and Lillia, his body was thrown to the ground by a shock wave of air; the only thing he could see was a giant yellow sphere explode one hundred feet up, shattering an enormous mass of dark green sparks. Borius is fighting Grennkovff. Selenora was still yet to be seen, as was Madrick.
“Aunika!” called Calleneck as he pulled himself off the ground. Another shock wave plowed him against the wall and the crowd of five hundred cloaks began to exit the giant underground hall while still fighting. “Aunika!” he shouted above the noise of the explosions. He saw two figures in the distance in a storm of swirling energy. His sister ran up to him, replying to his call. “I think they’re losing!” he said, noticing the dozens of dead, masked sorcerers lying on the ground in pools of blood with their crimson red cloaks.
They ducked under a beam of teal embers that shot over their heads. “They’re retreating to the tunnels,” said Aunika. “And if this is Selenora’s work . . . Madrick must be hunting her down now.”
A throng of Evertauri still fought around them, but the yellow and green light from the center of the hall became too bright to stand. Calleneck could barely discern Borius and Grennkovff at the center producing violent whirlwinds of energy. After what seemed like a full minute of thunderous explosions, Grennkovff’s foot began to lose traction on the rubble-covered floor of the hall. He slipped, and a blast of Borius’s yellow light cut through the air, t
riggering a dark green explosion. For a second, the entire hall was quiet, and all that was left of Grennkovff was a heap of glowing green embers on the floor.
The remaining crimson-cloaked Evertauri, realizing their only hope was Selenora, fled the hall through a tunnel and a stampede of loyal Evertauri followed, hoping to pin them in the tunnels. When the traitors ran into another mass of loyal Evertauri, they were hit from both sides with a storm of energy. Explosions shattered the tunnel walls and blinding light filled the underground passageway for a few loud minutes until the masked Evertauri were eliminated.
◆◆◆
As the battle had raged elsewhere, Madrick had found her. He stood on an underground bridge over a black chasm. A girl with raven-like eyes stood on the other side. Her hair blew back and forth, despite there being no breeze in the enormous cavern. Madrick’s deep voice echoed, “Selenora,” he said, “you have betrayed us and failed.”
“Have I?” said Selenora from across the bridge. “A third of your Evertauri followed me and killed another third of your troops and spies. You have just lost droves of sorcerers.”
Madrick stepped forward. “Why try to take down everything I’ve built? Was it Xandria?”
Selenora shook her head. “Xandria couldn’t comprehend what I could do. And she’s had her time on the throne. The Age of the Sorcerers is coming, Madrick, and I’m not afraid to fight for it.”
Madrick took another step onto the bridge and shook his head. “Look what you’ve become. I took you in and raised you, Selenora. I raised you as my own daughter!”
“We could rule over everyone, Madrick!”
“You don’t understand!” screamed Madrick with a tear in his eye. “You don’t understand that it’s not about claiming the throne for ourselves! We cannot abuse our power but must use it for good. Ever since I took you in as a child, I thought all you wanted was to learn and to help others. What happened to creating peace in the kingdoms like you always dreamed of?”
Selenora let a tear of rage and regret drip down her face. “I woke up.”
And with those words, she hurled countless balls of crimson fire at Madrick. Madrick sent silver ribbons of light bouncing through the air, meeting every ball of fire Selenora produced. Still, the swarm of energy was unlike anything Madrick had ever encountered, more than Mordvitch and Borius combined; stronger than Raelynn.
Madrick sent bolts of silver light coiling over and under the bridge until meeting Selenora’s crimson shield of Taurimous. He advanced forward, but was stopped by a massive wave of crimson that shot through the cavern, shattering stalactites all around. An endless storm of silver and crimson embers danced around each other. The storm of light swirled faster and grew in size. Madrick’s fingers trembled and his teeth clenched. He could see Selenora’s face — a face of anger and defeat.
Knowing what was about to happen, Madrick shook his head and shouted to her, “Don’t do this! Selenora, you can come back to us!”
Selenora nodded, “I’ll come back.” She closed her eyes, and put down her hands. Madrick’s cloud of silver light overtook her and shattered her body into thousands of glowing rose petals.
Madrick stood on the bridge, motionless. He broke down into tears as a shower of rose petals rained down from where Selenora once stood. The petals silently drifted into the black chasm below.
Calleneck was standing in the Nexus when it happened — the moment Madrick defeated Selenora. The moment that would send shivers down his spine even months later. The moment where the corpses of all of Selenora’s fallen sorcerers vanished into the air in clouds of fluttering rose petals, leaving nothing but pools of blood behind on the cold stone floor of the Nexus.
The Pale Glow of Starlight
Chapter Eighteen
~Afternoon, October 8th
Kyan’s hair blew across his face in the strong afternoon wind that swept through Aunestauna. A few leaves blew around his boots as he walked through the third district. In a square, a group of Ferrs had gathered; men in the middle were handing out fliers and shouting, “More volunteers for the war! More volunteers! Defend your kingdom and fight the Cerebrians! Take back our land! Pay is 270 argentums monthly plus food and clothing! Calling ages 16 to 35!” A man stepped out in front of Kyan and asked him to join.
“No thank you sir.” said Kyan; he was already more involved in the war than he wanted to be, fighting for both sides. Many men he used to see regularly around his part of the city had gone off to Endlebarr. Not only was Kyan still cynical towards Ferramish authorities, but he was a Ferramish authority in another body, a prince; he knew the inner workings of the war. Cerebrian forces pushed back Ferramoor day after day, and Ferramish intelligence’s secret missions were failing time and time again. An unknown force was sabotaging every effort to advance their campaign. Of course, Kyan knew the source of the failure — the Phantoms of Cerebria could not be countered if no one knew about them. They were truly ghosts, haunting the Ferramish troops, luring them into ravines and killing them off. Of course, the Ferramish government had to publicly attribute these losses to the strange dark forest of Endlebarr; but fear of this unknown force flooded the Palace halls.
Lost in thought, Kyan walked away from the square. He had begun the habit of taking walks around Aunestauna. However, these walks had changed from his normal outings to steal to simply . . . walks. Using the money that he had saved up from the giant pawn shop owner, Kyan had eaten three meals a day for multiple weeks — an irregular practice of street rats. And as opposed to avoiding conversation with others at all costs like normal, he only felt mild discomfort in speaking to fellow Ferrs.
Kyan had gained a bit of much needed weight, making his ribs disappear and unknowingly, his usual dark glare had vanished. The days began to blend together, and oftentimes, he would forget who he was. Thoughts entered and exited his mind from his other bodies, causing him to question everything he thought about the war, the world, his families, and himself.
Kyan turned into an alley next to the theatre, and climbed up the walls onto the top. He meandered over to his little shack, which looked dreadful in the dim gray light of the seaside city. The wind knocked the door back and forth and the coats and blankets nailed to the inside fluttered around. Kneeling down, he entered his little home. It had a door on the floor leading to the theatre attic below, which he sometimes slept in when winter came and brought freezing temperatures to the city. On his shelf sat the little silver ornament Kyan had shown Raelynn when she did not know who he was.
Kyan searched through his memories as Calleneck for information on Raelynn’s condition after the battle in the Nexus. The memories were still blurry, but he knew that Raelynn had survived her injury from the battle and that she was being healed by doctors in the Evertauri.
Kyan picked up his Olindeux and ran his fingers over it. He assumed that the three curved lines represented his father, his mother, and himself. Although he had never met his father and mother, for some reason, he could never put the Olindeux away. It was almost as if a chain was strung between it and Kyan. Although Vree Srine had demanded he leave the city for danger of Riccolo and his Nightsnakes, something had kept Kyan there, and the Olinduex served as a reminder of what it was. Kyan dismissed the fact, but deep within him, he longed for an answer of what happened nearly twenty years ago.
Deciding the silver ornament was clouding his mind, he quickly slipped through the floor door into the attic of the theatre, where he could just make out the sound of a choir.
Walking through the maze of rafters and beams, Kyan sat down by an opening which looked down into the large theatre hall below. A choir sang on the stage in a haunting tune which filled the hall with a ring of minor key. Kyan sat there and listened, trying to rid his mind of thoughts about the war or Raelynn or the Phantoms or the strange behavior of King Tronum and Prophet Ombern. Kyan heard a creak behind him and looked back to see no one. Turning back to the choir, his head stopped when his eyes lined up with Riccolo’s. He smashed Kyan�
��s head against the attic rafters, knocking him unconscious.
Freezing cold water rushed over Kyan’s face and a hand grabbed his hair and pulled his head out of a water filled bucket. Kyan coughed out water as he opened his eyes and examined his surroundings. He was in a moonlit courtyard in the middle of a ramshackle building in the fourth district. The Nightsnakes’ Manor. A group of figures surrounded him, and the boy holding his hair stood with a gaze of hatred. Kyan’s hands and legs were tied around a post and the night air was cold against his skin.
Riccolo walked forward. “Thank you for waking him, that’ll be all.” The Nightsnake walked back into the circle, taking the bucket of cold water. Riccolo knelt next to Kyan and put a hand on his dripping face. Tisking his tongue and shaking his head, Riccolo talked in a near whisper. “I was upset that we did not finish our last conversation.”
Kyan stared into Riccolo. “Talk to me without tying my hands.”
Riccolo slapped Kyan, who returned by spitting on Riccolo.
“You think I’ll listen to you?” said Kyan. “Follow you?”
Riccolo smiled. “I have my ways.” He slipped a knife out of his pocket. “Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have four fingers, Kyan?” Riccolo moved closer and whispered. “I can make this very painful, Kyan. And unless you do what I say, I will torture, starve, and kill you right in this courtyard. If you do what I say, I will spare your life, leave you alone, and give you something I know you want so dearly.” Kyan stayed silent as Riccolo opened up his coat and pulled out a piece of parchment in an envelope. Riccolo continued. “I was walking past an orphanage the other day and saw you there. When you left, I snuck into the building and into a back room where the files are kept, and I found something very interesting, dated back seventeen years ago.” He read from the envelope. “Orphan File of one-year old Kyan Aldas.” Riccolo turned it around to show Kyan the writing on the front. He pulled out the parchment from the envelope. “I read your story Kyan. I know why your parents left you. It’s right here and it's yours if you do what I say.”