“There goes the Reaper who can give me what I desire,” Unending said. We both got up, determined to press forward. “We have a lead now.”
“Mar-El Mavris,” I replied. “I guess we can ask around?”
“Or we can see if they keep a registry,” she murmured, gazing out the window as she put her scythe away.
Boots thudded up the stairs. The second shift of watchmen. It was time for us to leave the tower and continue our search for Anunit. She’d seemed like an illusion when I’d first heard her name, but now I’d seen her, thanks to Unending’s relentlessness and determination. I’d heard her voice.
Anunit was out there somewhere, and if we found Mar-El, there was a chance we might find her, too.
* * *
After making a few inquiries and sifting through the local records, Unending and I found the last known residence for Mar-El Mavris. Our search took us to a sprawling oasis in the middle of a golden desert. It was a small town built around a turquoise body of water. Giant shrubs with waxy leaves were growing pretty much everywhere. There were decorative stone columns adorning the town, each covered in various swirling symbols—likely belonging to a local religion. The wide-open houses looked more like pavilions, with fluttering curtains of brightly colored tulle and organza. There weren’t any doors, only tear-shaped windows and embroidered pillows on every flat stone surface.
This place had an oriental feel to it, reminding me of Bedouin settlements in the Sahara Desert. The Aruni here had found peace and tranquility in the arms of the desert, basking in sunlight and endless heat. I could see women gathering fruits from the arching trees, their baskets filled with shiny orange, yellow, and lime-green berries. It seemed as though time had stopped here. No one was in a rush or worried about anything. They took what the desert gave them, and they were content.
“According to the records, Mar-El lives here,” Unending said as we walked slowly toward the oasis. The closer we got, the bigger it seemed, the more vibrant its colors. A warm wind rolled through, making the curtains rise and shift in the reddening sunset. I wished I could just bask in this sun like everybody else, but I contented myself with simply admiring and observing those who could while cloaked in Unending’s invisibility magic. It was wonderful.
“I guess we should ask around to see if anyone knows him,” I said. “Assuming Mar-El is still alive, that is.”
The Aruni had longer lifespans than humans, but we didn’t know how old Mar-El was when he’d last seen Anunit. Unending revealed us as we entered the oasis, walking along the shore and smiling kindly at the people, and I pulled the hood over my head, no longer protected from the withering rays of sunlight. Gradually, they got closer. To my surprise, they weren’t at all fearful, even though we were clearly foreigners not of this world.
Unending spoke first, approaching one of the women wrapped in scarlet-red and golden-yellow silks, a leather belt fastened around her delicate waist. Unlike the Aruni in the kingdom we’d visited before, the inhabitants here had darker skin with a persistent bronze shimmer. It was eerie and impossible to ignore, as if their skin had been made of a mixture of precious metals.
“We mean no harm,” Unending said to the woman. “We’re looking for Mar-El Mavris.”
“Who are you?” the young Aruni woman asked, her eyebrows raised in astonishment as she scanned her eyes over us from head to toe.
“We’re friends of this realm,” Unending replied. “I wish I could tell you more, but time is of the essence. Do you know where we might find Mar-El?”
I gave the woman a warm smile. “Do you know if he’s still alive?”
She stared at me for a while, then nodded faintly. “He’s alive, yes. He is our shepherd.”
“Your shepherd?” I asked, intrigued.
“He guides us. He keeps us safe. We left the kingdom of Ozar in search of a simpler life, and Mar-El is the one who brought us here. We built our homes around the oasis with no doors because we love and trust each other. This is the kind of world we envisioned for ourselves and our children, and Mar-El helped us create it,” she replied, her eyes brightening as she thought of the Aruni man who could very well lead us to Anunit.
“Would you please show us where we can find him? We need his help,” Unending said. The woman motioned for us to follow her. She took us to the northern edge of the turquoise water and up a set of white stone steps. At the top, a small villa-style building rose, built on two levels and following the same design as the others—large windows, no doors, just wall segments coming together at different angles to hold up the roof.
“Mar-El lives here,” the woman said, stopping by the main entrance. “He will welcome you with open arms. He’s a wonderful being.”
“Thank you,” Unending replied.
“I should warn you—without being mean or disrespectful, of course—that Mar-El is very old now,” she said. “His mind is not what it used to be a century ago. My brothers call him senile, but I think that’s too strong a word. He tends to replace truths he cannot remember anymore with things he made up. Mar-El means well, though. You just need to be careful not to take everything he says as real.”
That wasn’t encouraging, but I hoped Mar-El could at least remember Anunit well enough to tell us about her. We went inside, examining everything in our path. Every wall and decorative floor tile. Every painting and every marble sculpture. Every piece of furniture and soft curtain. It was the home of someone who had nothing to hide, who loved the fine arts, and who reveled in the desert breeze. I wondered what it was about him that had captured Anunit’s interest.
“Who’s there?” A scratchy voice echoed down the vast hallway. It came from the far end, where a room opened up, overlooking the desert between sculpted columns.
“I am Unending, of the Reaper folk,” my beloved replied, raising her voice so he could hear her. “And this is Tristan, my soulmate. We’ve come to ask for your guidance.”
A figure emerged in the wide archway, an old man with a hunched back and almost white hair. Dark blue silks flowed down his form, stopping inches from the ground to reveal his bony ankles. His big yellow eyes were sparkling with excitement. “A Reaper!” he exclaimed. “Come through. Please!”
We joined him in the huge open room. Its walls were painted green, creating a splendid contrast with the golden sands outside. There were several chaise lounges scattered through the space, piled with cylindrical pillows and soft cashmere-like throws. I wondered if Mar-El often slept here. This part of the house provided an excellent view of what was bound to be a starry sky at night.
“Are you Mar-El?” Unending asked.
He gave us a friendly smile, bowing politely. “At your service, Reaper and friend.”
“Thank you for welcoming us into your home,” I replied. He was open and relaxed, reminding me of a fun hippie grandpa, the kind who’d let you stay out past your curfew or turn a blind eye so you could sneak out to see a live concert. His silk attire only reinforced that impression. I instantly liked him, though I wasn’t sure of how helpful he’d be, considering what the Aruni woman had told us about him.
Losing access to our own precious memories was one of life’s crueler twists.
“Anytime. We don’t have doors here, and a Reaper is always welcome in my world,” Mar-El replied. He pointed to the lounge chairs. Considering that Anunit was being hunted by Death and likely other Reapers under her command, I wondered if this welcoming demeanor was part of the cognitive decline that the Aruni girl had mentioned. We could very well be enemies of Anunit—technically, we kind of were, and yet he was inviting us into his home and speaking highly of Reapers altogether. “Please, sit down.”
We made ourselves comfortable as Mar-El sat in a rattan-style armchair. His joints cracked as he moved, and he grunted softly from the effort. “We’re looking for Anunit,” Unending said, getting straight to the point. “From what we know, you last saw her about two hundred years ago. Or is that wrong?”
“It’s wrong,”
he replied, his expression softening as he remembered the missing Reaper. I could almost see her in his mind’s eye. “I’ve seen her many times since.”
“That’s odd,” Unending muttered. I, for one, was astonished by the speed with which he’d opened up to us, to begin with. This was way easier than I’d imagined. “Why haven’t I picked up more traces of her?”
“She is very good at concealing her presence,” Mar-El said, beaming with pride. “She is clever and resourceful. Death will never find her…”
I frowned. “I don’t understand—if Death is still looking for Anunit, why did you let us in here?”
“Oh. Well, if you know about me, then you must know about me from Anunit. She would never tell the ones hunting her about Mar-El Mavris. No one else would, either, because no one else knows,” he said. “You wouldn’t be here unless she trusted you.”
Ah, so this wasn’t cognitive decline at all, but rather a thoughtful conclusion. It made me feel bad. Unending and I could choose to tell him the truth of how we’d actually learned about him, but after quickly exchanging glances, we seemed to be on the same page. Mar-El didn’t need to know the details in order to help us. He just needed to know that we were looking for her. “You’re the only one who can help us find her,” I said. “When was the last time you saw Anunit?”
“Barely a month ago. And I will see her again soon. She comes to see me regularly. Even after all these years, even as I’m aging, she still loves me.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, and my pulse was racing like a Vision horse. This was it. This was the break we’d been searching for. Unending reached for my hand, squeezing tightly. I felt her excitement, and it matched mine. We’d come to the right place. With a little bit of luck, we’d be one step closer to talking to Anunit.
A family of our own flesh and blood felt less like a wild dream and more like a real possibility. To say I was thrilled would have been an understatement.
Astra
(Daughter of Phoenix and Viola)
There was a sense of peace that I only found in the heart of the redwood forest. This place was ancient. It had seen so much. It had lived through years of suffering and prosperity, of agony and joy, of dark hatred and glowing love. Through it all, the redwood forest stayed the same, the evergreen crowns of its quiet giants rustling in the warm wind.
I couldn’t read Thayen’s aura due to his vampire nature, but I could tell from his expression that he was both relieved and frustrated—the former because Soul had confirmed that he’d had nothing to do with Isabelle’s behavior, and the latter because we still didn’t know what had.
Now that I was away from Isabelle’s presence, I realized how wrong it had felt. There was something about her, something I couldn’t quite figure out. My dad would’ve called it a bad vibe, but it was more profound than a mere feeling. The sensation had persisted in the back of my head since Isabelle had first walked into the training hall. She’d come in with her wires wrong.
“This is where we saw it,” Thayen said, pulling me out of my thoughts. We’d stopped about half a mile from the Great Dome, on one of the smaller paths that connected it to the treehouses. He stood between two large bushes, their green leaves stretching far and wide.
“Where you saw what?”
“That damn shimmering gash I told you about,” he replied.
I sighed. “Sorry. My head’s all over the place.” I focused on the forest, putting Isabelle away in a dark corner of my mind, at least for a while. She’d taken most of my energy already, and I couldn’t let her drain me completely. We’d find out what was wrong with her eventually, just not today. “You said it looked like a luminescent tear in the air, right?” Thayen nodded, and I moved closer to his position. My skin tingled like nothing I’d ever felt before. “Whoa…”
“Whoa, what?” he asked.
“I think I feel something. It’s faded, barely there…”
He scoffed, hands resting on his hips. “How? Corrine and the other witches didn’t sense or trace anything within a one-mile radius.”
“True. But sometimes I can feel faint traces that others don’t. Not always, mind you,” I said, going over all the times I’d felt something strange that no one else in my family could—not even my mother or aunts, who were all Daughters of Eritopia. I’d been born overly receptive but with no understanding of how the ability worked. “It’s just a faint sensation. Like a pressure all over my skin. It’s hard to describe.”
“Could it be connected to the gash thingy?”
I nodded. “Possibly. I don’t really believe in coincidences. Something is off here—I just can’t put my finger on it. All I can do is confirm that there was a strangeness here. An otherworldly presence, different from the fabric of The Shade itself.”
“If you don’t believe in coincidences, would you agree with my earlier theory that the gash and Isabelle might be connected?” Thayen replied, a smile testing the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not going to rule it out, though I can’t see how, exactly. I think we’re still missing a lot of information for the time being, so it’s hard to link the two. Not impossible.”
I circled Thayen several times, trying to get a feel for the weird sensations coming from the spot where he said the gash had been. The feeling persisted and didn’t fluctuate in any way. It was constant and fuzzy, like the distant memory of a powerful event had somehow remained.
“I’m honestly surprised you were able to pick anything up,” Thayen muttered, briefly checking his phone.
“Me, too. I told you, it doesn’t happen often, which is why I usually keep it to myself. My parents know, but given its irregularity, we decided to keep it to ourselves until I get something more concrete.”
Thayen frowned, taking a couple of steps toward the path. “It glowed in a strange way. Like nothing I’ve seen before. I asked Corrine if it might’ve been a wild portal or something. Remember, she mentioned it—”
“During class not long ago. Yeah, I remember.”
“She said it couldn’t be one, since wild portals are mostly the stuff of legend these days. No living witch has seen one.”
I nodded again. “That’s true. Also, wild portals don’t just… disappear.”
“Do you think it could still be a witch’s work, though?” Thayen asked, looking at me as if I were his last bastion of hope. “I’ve been thinking about it, turning the issue over repeatedly in my head, and it definitely looked magical.”
“I don’t think all the witches are fully accounted for,” I said. “I wouldn’t exclude the possibility. But there was no witchcraft detected in Isabelle, so that would throw a wrench into your proposed connection between the two.”
He glanced over his shoulder as if hoping the gash might miraculously reappear. “Not all witches are accounted for…”
“Corrine and her kin are good people. But they cannot guarantee the integrity of every single witch currently alive across the dimensions,” I replied. “To answer your question, yes, it could be a witch’s work. It could also be something else. We can’t know without the actual portal.”
“Damn it,” he muttered, throwing his head back. “This isn’t going anywhere, and I’m tired of going around in circles.”
I allowed myself a deep breath, putting my hands on his shoulders. “Thayen, it’s not over yet. We’re still investigating. And you heard Corrine. She’s going to look into it again. I’ll make sure to tell her what I sensed. I’ll bring Mom over, too, just to double-check.”
“What about Isabelle?” he asked, looking right into my soul. He had a very intense gaze when he sought the truth. “Did you sense anything there?”
“I didn’t see it until now,” I said. “But yes. Again, it’s hard to describe, and I need time to think about it, to properly explain it to Mom, too, before I can share it with anyone else. I don’t know how that’s going to help, but I would like to consult with her on this. Maybe she can help with a theory, at least. I don’t know. As a Da
ughter, I’m usually hypersensitive to any kind of magic stuff. The problem here is that if it’s foreign magic, magic we’ve never dealt with before, I don’t have the knowledge to identify it.”
“But you’d be able to describe it,” Thayen concluded.
“Yes. It obviously won’t ring a bell with Mom or my aunts. But I can’t keep it to myself, either. I have to talk to someone who’s knowledgeable about magic, in general, at least, and for me, that’s Mom. Just go easy on me. I know there’s a lot of pressure because of Isabelle, but I would hate to steer anyone in the wrong direction. This goes for her and for… this,” I said, pointing at the spot between the bushes. “Now, come on. Let’s get you home. Your parents are waiting.”
We resumed our walk through the woods, headed toward the treehouses. “You’re right,” Thayen conceded, lowering his head. “It bugs me beyond belief.”
“And I don’t blame you. I’m the same. My own cousin tried to kill me. A girl as sweet and as kind as she is… She’s transformed. I don’t recognize her anymore, and it scares the crap out of me. But Soul was right. We need some rest.”
Thayen seemed to agree, yet the concern didn’t leave his sharp features. I doubted he’d close an eye through the night. I dropped him off at Derek and Sofia’s treehouse, and we agreed to meet back outside Isabelle’s room in the morning, once my shift was over. A fresh mind was needed to untangle this troubling mystery. Thayen needed some rest now, more than ever. And I needed to stay close to Isabelle and observe her through the night.
I doubted I’d sleep much, either.
Thayen
A Shade of Vampire 87: A Shade of Mystery Page 14