Unity: The Todor Trilogy, Book Three

by Jenna Newell Hiott

  “You’ve stopped the wind,” Felyse said as she sat next to Numa. “Now you can easily recreate Todor.”

  “I can make Todor look the way it’s supposed to, but it will not be the Todor of my vision. There are no Terrenes here now, and Gemynd is not here to stand with me and Soman at the top of Tolnick keep.”

  “You have yet to remove your greatest obstacle,” Radine said. “Why have you not done this simple step?”

  Numa watched Toa as she simultaneously smashed and devoured the beetcakes, a trail of red juice dripping from her chin. Numa tried to feel the Joy that such a delightful sight should bring, but with Radine’s question hanging in the air, her heart was clouded with sorrow. “I will fail at creating my vision. I know that now,” she said quietly.

  “My daughter, why would you say such a thing?” Gracewyn moved closer and placed her hand on Numa’s back.

  Numa pictured Gemynd’s face in her mind. It was the only sight she longed to see, and the one that gave meaning to her life. “I fear that my love for him is stronger than my desire to create my vision. I do not have it in me to destroy him.”

  “Whom do you believe you need to destroy?” Felyse asked.

  “Gemynd. He is my greatest obstacle.”

  Felyse smiled. “Even if that were true, you only need for your greatest obstacle to stop being your greatest obstacle. You must remove it as your obstacle, that’s all. You do this by changing your perception of it. Destroying it is only one way to do this, but there are many other ways too.”

  “I don’t understand. I can think of only one way to remove Gemynd from my perception.”

  “But you can choose to perceive him as something other than an obstacle.”

  “Your mother is right,” Radine said. “How you perceive Gemynd is completely up to you. Regardless, Gemynd is not your greatest obstacle, child.”

  “In order for my vision to come true, Gemynd must be at the top of Tolnick keep with me and Soman. Since he’s refusing to do that, he certainly seems like an obstacle to me,” Numa argued.

  “He is not your greatest obstacle,” Radine repeated. “You are distracted by this thought and it is pulling you away from discovering and removing your true obstacle. The longer it takes you to remove it, the more you risk the total destruction of Todor.”

  “Gemynd cannot be your greatest obstacle. He may be an obstacle, but he’s not the one you must remove before you can make your vision reality,” Gracewyn added.

  “Do you know what my greatest obstacle is?”

  “No, only you can answer that for sure. But we do know that it isn’t Gemynd.”

  “If you don’t know what it is, how can you be so certain that it is not Gemynd?”

  Felyse took Numa’s hand and patted it gently, just as she always did before Numa found out some crucial bit of information that would have been useful days ago. “In your perception of Todor, the land is peopled with Iturtians and Zobanites. As Queen of this version of Todor, you see them as your people, right?”

  “Right,” Numa answered. “They are all in my care.”

  “I know I have said it dozens of times, but you have spent far too much time away from Turiya,” Radine said. “If you had spent the proper amount of time with other Empyreans, you would already know all of this. Your creation would have been easy.”

  “How is that helpful to me now?” Numa flicked a stray crumb of beetcake across the ground.

  “Radine is annoyed with me and Felyse, not you. As you were growing up, we wanted to protect your power of choice above all things, so we never pushed you to be aware of your glinting powers and, once you did leave Aerie for training, we did not want to force you to stay in Turiya if you did not wish it,” Gracewyn said. “Your path has been more difficult because of this, but it has been of your own making. You discovered the things you needed to know when you needed to know them.”

  “What is it that I need to know now?”

  “You know that Joy comes from sustaining the Oneness of Life,” Felyse said. “An Empyrean’s Oneness has many layers.”

  Numa glanced from one of her mothers to the other. “You told me not long ago that the Oneness of Life meant my own Oneness. That I had to come to accept and love even the darkness within me.”

  “Yes, that is true. Your own Oneness is paramount to having Joy. That must come first.”

  “An Empyrean is the embodiment of Lifeforce and Joy in Todor,” Radine jumped in. “But if an Empyrean is to live in Todor--outside of Turiya--she must have at her side the perception of physical form as well as that of thought in order to perceive the true Oneness of her creation.”

  “I don’t understand,” Numa said, repeating the phrase for the thousandth time since she’d first met Radine.

  “To put it plainly, an Empyrean in Todor requires an Iturtian and a Zobanite to fulfill her Oneness, to allow her to perceive the wholeness of her creation,” Gracewyn said.

  Numa felt the seeds of understanding open within her. “Gemynd and Soman are necessary for me to perceive my perfect version of Todor,” she said. “Since I was a little girl, I knew we were better together. And I knew that I needed both of them to make my vision a reality.”

  “Yes. So, you see, Gemynd cannot be your greatest obstacle.”

  “Unless Gemynd isn’t the Iturtian that belongs with me. I find myself turning to Sam for his wisdom more and more; and Tatparo has my complete trust. Perhaps I only saw Gemynd with me in my vision because he was the Iturtian I was closest to. Perhaps he is my greatest obstacle and when I remove him, another Iturtian will take his place by my side.”

  “You cannot ignore your love for Gemynd. You feel Oneness when you are with him more than any other time.”

  “I can’t shake the feeling that it has something to do with Gemynd. In my vision, the Deis showed me a writhing serpent whose skin split open. When the skin peeled away, the serpent was covered with Aerie jewels in the exact pattern as the ones on the handle of Gemynd’s dagger. When I saw him holding his dagger, covered with blood that way, a sense of knowing passed through me that I was looking at my greatest obstacle.”

  “You must figure out what else that vision could have meant,” Gracewyn insisted.

  “None of this matters anyway because the Terrenes are gone and I believe they might be necessary to create my vision of Todor. I am Empyrean, but I cannot simply recreate a lost race of people, can I?”

  “No, because, in that case, even the act of creation would be forcing their wills,” Gracewyn said.

  “But you can recreate them by perceiving that they are still in Todor,” Radine added.

  Numa didn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes this time. “You always speak as though changing my perception is as easy as breathing. Well, it’s not. At least not for me. I see the Terrenes as gone from Todor. I don’t know how to see it any other way.”

  Radine looked thoughtfully at Numa for several moments. “Perhaps the husk gatherers can help you.”

  “The husk gatherers?”

  “There is a legend that deep within Turiya live people called the husk gatherers. According to the ancient tales, they collect the things that are no longer perceived.”

  Numa arched an eyebrow. “That sounds far too convenient. Are you saying that I can just go to these people and ask if they have a few thousand Terrenes in their collection? And may I have them back?”

  Radine lifted her shoulders simultaneously in what appeared to be a shrug, but Numa had never known Radine to be uncertain of anything before. “I’ve never been to the Skalja myself, I only know what I’ve heard in the legends.”

  “The Skalja?” Numa gave Radine her full attention. “That was the name of the book Keeper Sam found. He said we might find Golath there and ask him who his killer was.”

  “The Skalja are the husk gatherers,” Radine explained.

  �
��If these Skalja, or husk gatherers, have Golath, and all the Terrenes, then is this where people go when they die? What about the Viyii?” Numa’s mind spun with questions. Once again, she found herself wishing Gemynd was with her to help her sort it all out. “After Golath died, I watched his Lifeforce become One with all the Lifeforce in Todor. The same thing happened when Molly died. So, what part of them goes to the Skalja then?”

  Again, Radine shrugged along with Felyse and Gracewyn. “I only know what I’ve learned from the legends, but my understanding is that what the Skalja collect are sort of like memories; perceptions that once were but are no longer. They are not the same as the Viyii, which, of course, is the name for the Oneness of the Deis.”

  Numa pondered this for several moments. “If I went there and found these memories of Terrenes, then what? How do I bring a memory back to life?”

  Now Radine giggled, that musical sound that never failed to make Numa feel like a dolt. “You change the way you perceive it.”

  Numa rubbed her eyes. “I will go to the Skalja then,” she said, resigned that it was her only hope for bringing Terrenes back to Todor.

  Felyse reached out and squeezed Numa’s hand. “Take the others with you,” she said with a sweet smile.

  “I will have to have Keeper Sam accompany me as he is the only one who knows the way, and I suppose Soman will insist on going. But who else should I take?”

  “Everyone.” Felyse exchanged a glance with Gracewyn and Radine. “Offer all the Zobanites and Iturtians under your care the opportunity to be reunited with their lost perceptions. Not all will want to make the journey, but many will find great healing in it.”

  Gracewyn pulled Numa into an embrace. “I know you are feeling discouraged, my child, but you are doing well. You are closer to making your vision a reality than you have ever been before. For the first time in centuries, Zobanites and Iturtians are truly living in peace.”

  “Rebuild the land once again and have a ceremony for peace. Then begin your journey to the Skalja,” Radine said as she faded away.

  “We love you, daughter,” her mothers said in unison as they each placed a kiss on Numa’s cheeks.

  “I love you, too, Mothers.” Numa watched them fade into nonexistence, then she looked down at Toa. “Would you like to help me rebuild Todor?”

  Numa closed her eyes and listened to the song in the Lifeforce of all of todor. She smiled when Toa began humming along with the melody. In an instant, Todor looked as though it had never been touched by the wind. Everything from the red sands of the Iturtian desert to the cliff top village of Aerie, and even the Tolnick keep, were perfect once again. Numa brought the people to Tolnick and was pleased to see them work together to reestablish their lives in the city.

  As queen, Numa’s quarters were on the fifth floor of the keep. She filled her room with things she had come to love in her travels through Todor. She had the golden fountains and luxurious bathtub of Zoban; the cold, delicious drinking water of Iturtia; and the scent of fairytooth from Aerie. It was a beautiful room fit for royalty and Numa thought the only thing missing from it was her king.

  Numa stood before a piece of polished silver and created herself a pearlescent, white gown with gold stitching. It was the perfect attire for an evening of celebration with her people.

  “Numa,” Soman called quietly from the doorway. “May I enter?”

  “Of course.” Numa turned to face him. “I was just wondering what Gemynd’s opinion of this gown would be. What do you think? Do I look like the queen of Todor?”

  Soman smiled, his eyes moving over the length of her. “You’ve looked like the queen of Todor for as long as I can remember.” He walked across the room and stood next to her. “I came here to tell you that Archigadh is growing restless so we should begin the ceremony soon, but I have a feeling you are intentionally taking your time.”

  Numa turned back to her reflection. “I thought if we waited long enough, Gemynd would appear. I’ve tried nudging him hundreds of times, but it’s as though he’s vanished from Todor altogether. If he was here, the three of us could stand at the top of the keep together. This could be the moment that my vision becomes reality.”

  Soman’s yellow hair and Zobanite garment were a perfect complement to Numa’s gown. She knew that to most eyes, they would appear as the ideal royal couple. “That moment will come,” Soman said and put his arm around her.

  Numa leaned her head again against his shoulder and, once again, chose not to tell him that she suspected Gemynd was her greatest obstacle. “We mustn’t keep the Chief waiting.” She tipped her head back and smiled. “If he’s willing to try the integration, then I am certainly not going to stand in his way.”

  Numa and Soman walked down the spiraling staircase of the keep to the ground floor where they were joined by Keeper Sam, Tatparo, Toa, and an obviously impatient Archigadh.

  “I am uneasy and I am hungry,” Archigadh said, his massive arms crossed over his chest. “That’s a volatile combination, lass.”

  “I can do little for the uneasiness, but I think I can fix the hunger.” Numa handed him a tray that held a small loaf of bread and a pile of sliced meat. “See if this will quiet your belly until after the ceremony.”

  Archigadh grumbled something else as he scooped the food into his mouth. Numa knew his crankiness would abate with his hunger and there was no need to fret about it.

  “We have set up a dais at the far side of the square for you,” Keeper Sam said and Numa noticed he had changed into a clean robe.

  As she walked across the city square, Numa smiled and waved to the people. Small stacks of bundled twigs and clumps of scraggly flowers lined her path and she realized it was the peoples’ attempt at decorating. Apparently neither the Iturtians nor the Zobanites had ever truly learned the fine art, but their effort made it beautiful all the same.

  “Thank you for being here,” Numa said as she faced the crowd from her place on the dais. “Tonight we are going to witness a special Unity ceremony. Chief Archigadh has courageously volunteered to strengthen his will by taking the steps outlined in a very old book. The first step in this ceremony is to destroy The Compact. Because none of us here today has ever seen the original Compact, I am going to read it in its entirety before it is destroyed. While it is necessary that we never allow the past to hold us back, it is also important that we remember what has come before.”

  Keeper Sam carefully held out the ancient page for Numa to read. The writing was barely legible, the brown ink so faded it had all but disappeared in some places. An urge to touch the page overcame Numa and she reached out, gently resting her fingertips on its surface.

  A melody flowed into her fingers and up her arm. The tone was low and mournful. It was a song of a brokenness born of fear. When the song reached her head, Numa saw an image of three people sitting around a large, flat stone covered by a blank page.

  “I am Kaykos, the eldest of the race of Terrenes,” Numa heard the woman in the group say.

  “I am Progon, the eldest of the race of Zobanites.” This was the man Numa would come to know as Keeper Clary. Numa had never known him as anything other than a very old man. Seeing him in his youth left no doubt in Numa’s mind that he was a Zobanite as he’d claimed to be. He was enormous and beautiful, the essence of strength and physical perfection.

  “And I am Fyrmen, the eldest of the race of Iturtians.” The dark-haired man sat with the posture of a king, self-assurance and pride in his every mannerism.

  “The purpose of this meeting is to return a balance of power to Todor,” Progon said. “With the agreement we form today, let us create a future for Todor as glorious as its past.”

  “My people are the weakest in the land, the most vulnerable to domination. Yes, Iturtians have weak bodies like Terrenes, but while they live they have no weakness. Even the impervious Zobanites have a weakness of will. Iturtians have
no such weakness. It is true that all of us here are friends, but future Iturtians could easily subjugate Terrenes if they so desired.” When she was finished speaking, Kaykos pulled a small blade from the pocket of her apron and set it on the table between them.

  “It is my intent to restore the balance of power in Todor, just as it is yours,” Fyrmen said, his voice sounding eerily similar to Golath’s. “My people do not wish to dominate anyone, but to live in harmony with one another as our forefathers did. It is my solemn hope that the agreement we write today reflects my good intentions.”

  Progon nodded then picked up the blade and cut himself deeply across the palm of his hand. Kaykos took the blade from him and did the same to her own hand. Fyrmen followed the example of the other two, then the three sat silently watching their blood fall from their hands and mix together in a small depression in the stone.

  When the depression was nearly full, Fyrmen dipped his finger in the fresh blood, then used it to write upon the blank page.

  The image vanished and Numa blinked as she oriented herself to the present. “The ink is blood,” she thought to herself. She left her fingertips on the page, marveling that she was touching the blood of Todor’s ancestors. Another pang of longing stung her heart as she once again wished Gemynd was with her. He would have cherished the opportunity to see Fyrmen’s handwriting with his own eyes.

  “Are you able to make out the words?” Sam asked, clearly wondering why Numa had not begun reading.

  “Yes, I can see it now,” she answered and lifted her chin to project her voice to the crowd. “The Compact of Todor as written by the eldest of each of Todor’s races: Kaykos, Fyrmen, and Progon. From this point forward, this agreement shall be the official governance of the land. Its purpose is to ensure the balance of power of Todor. Number one, because they have no natural powers, the race of Terrenes shall henceforth be the rulers of Todor. Every king and queen of Todor will belong to the race of Terrenes.”