Lupus kept his resolve. “Yes I did, brother. I was alone for eight years before my legion found me; I had to live a false life just to stay sane” he grimaced. “Even when I was found, I was alone. You were all nowhere to be seen. I afforded every resource I could to find you, yet none of you appeared. Instead, I was deceived; I was pushed away, not drawn close to you as I should have been.
“Pain? ...Yes, I know pain. I know the heartache of knowing what my brothers’ and sisters’ forms look like and being able to find them nowhere, of feeling like a failure for not being good enough to bring a family together when it was my purpose to do so. I did all I could, brother, and now that I’m here…you suspect me of inability and apathy?” he laughed desperately at the injustice of it all.
His words didn’t even dent Samael’s stampede. “Deceit, you say? You think we all deceived you, that we were all hiding?” he sneered. “Don’t let Hydra fool you, brother; I was far from here when they tricked you so easily. I was learning how to beat my wings, to prevent falling into pits of molten magma and my death the moment I first opened my eyes. I built a home out of ash and rock on the volcanic tops of my hell-spawned world while you were busy pretending to still be human!”
Though his attention was glued to the brother screaming his pent-up rage at him, Lupus saw in the corner of his eye an armoured woman join them from a doorway at the rear of the room. Her armour was the same blue as the oceans on the surface of Hydron, with gold borders lining each protective plate. Her helm had no face plate and covered only the top of her head to allow her thick, white hair to cascade over her shoulders and down her back. Long grey feathers were attached to the back of her helmet like the tail of a show bird and her khaki battle-skirt flowed unarmoured from her waist before leading to white-gold shin greaves topped with baroque wolf heads. She stood next to Hydra and watched with casual interest at the sight before her, as if she had predicted this very scene and had come now to watch it happen.
The air hung heavy with a sense of energy that Lupus could not identify. It was as though the very room was full of emotion, like he could feel the moods of everyone around him. As the atmosphere of the hall continued to change, he realised with a pressure on his mind that the new arrival was none other but the same Apostle that must have been responsible for the psychic beacon.
I am Valkyrie and the third, the newcomer said to his mind, the others unaware of the private communication. He knew now how his legionnaires must have felt the first time he spoke to them in his form. It felt strangely intimate. You should explain your past better, Lupus. Samael will not hold his temper for much longer and none of us will prevent the natural course of his actions, she cautioned. She knew his name. Was that awareness spawned from her psychic ability, or did she know him somehow?
Ignoring her familiarity with him, Lupus was rife with anger and shock at how little the two Apostles warmed to his arrival. The others seemed genuinely delighted, but Samael and Valkyrie were cold and sharp. He returned his attention to the former of the pair who was impatiently waiting for his attention, despite how much he seemed to want Lupus gone.
“Do not make the mistake of belittling my experiences, Samael. I have witnessed more than you can imagine and suffered greater losses than your petulant choler could manage” he warned.
Samael refused to buy into it. “Do you expect me to believe that for ten years you’ve been looking for us? I cannot stand this lie. Vermillion chose you, brother, to be the First. You were meant to lay the path for all of us, to unite us as one, but you failed. In your ignorance you left us stranded until our faithful legions finally found us and even then we struggled. You are weak” Samael looked away, his facial expression revealing his hurt more than his anger. “You’re unfit to be an Apostle…”
The last insult was enough to destroy Lupus’ tolerance and with an explosion of energy he took form, becoming the Lion for the first time in the presence of his kin. This time, his anger was so great that he was unable to control the change and crushed several chairs on his side of the table in the process. Opening his massive jaws in outrage, he roared with all his intensity at Samael, now small as a lamb in comparison.
Amazingly, Samael began to laugh derisively at him. “Finally! Now we’re seeing you! I grew bored only hearing of you, brother”.
Lupus clawed the floor of the room, growling a challenge at Samael. If the latter truly had an argument to make, let it be with their fists if words wouldn’t suffice. The other Apostles withdrew from their positions, unwilling to interfere with the power play.
“Come on then, show us! What have you been doing all these years - watching over the precious humans and their pathetic Empire? You’re not one of them anymore, remember?” Samael cried out, sore frustration now tainting the fury of his voice.
He looked Lupus directly in the eye, meeting his challenge face-to-face like no enemy had ever dared to before. Samael waited for the reaction to prove all his perverted suspicions true, but he didn’t get it. “WHERE WERE YOU?!?” he bellowed in demand.
“He was at war, Samael” a new, dreadfully gentle voice answered. “And yes, for longer than any of us hoped he would be, even you. Yet, by the aches of his heart and the blood of his legions were our worlds kept safe. Sweet brother, the Lion saved us before he even came here”.
Lupus recognised the speaker with a haunting familiarity that should have brought him joy, but it brought him the pain of old wounds ripping themselves anew. Yet, even now, after the hurt it dealt him to face a possibility his mind hadn’t dared to consider for years, the sound of the voice instantly calmed him. It was so influential, so brilliant, that he changed back into his human form as quickly as he had become the Lion.
The late arrival was female he knew, though he had yet to see her. Slowly, more scared than he had ever been, he turned to see her face. What he saw was impossible. Who he saw was gone. Was this a dream? He couldn’t comprehend the reality of what he was seeing, nor the intensity of the strength he felt when he laid his eyes upon her. Despite the insanity of it all, his heart made him trust his eyes.
She turned from the bottom of the stairs to face him. Her long, blazing blonde hair was the first thing to fill his core with happiness and delight. When she looked at him with the same brown eyes that he thought he’d never see again, his soul melted away the serenity that only deep love could grant. Her soft cheeks reddened when she smiled at him, her splendour capturing his attention completely as though she were the only person in the galaxy.
“Hello, Lupus” Calla said.
Chapter 8
HE COULD HAVE died when she spoke, but he lived.
“Let’s give them the room” Hydra suggested. Some of them seemed reluctant and interested by the sudden change in atmosphere, others simply confused by it, but Valkyrie had already begun to leave. Lupus understood now why she had spoken to him in such an aloof tone. He recognised her for who she really was; Calla’s sister Raina. So, this is why they had both disappeared on Gothica. Fate was twisted.
To his shock, Samael had a look of regret in his eye, as if he had stumbled across a connection in his mind that destroyed his aggression towards Lupus. Had Calla’s familiarity with him made Samael question all his doubts and accusations? What did she mean to them that Lupus didn’t? Perhaps she had filled his role where he had let them down.
Their kin left the two of them alone in quick succession, each with a different expression on their face. Some exchanged whispers and their feelings about the meeting between them, others kept quiet, thinking better to discuss the private affair between the two Apostles.
Calla stood by the staircase, resplendent in her white armour, looking more beautiful than he could remember her being. The protective plating she wore was segmented much like her sister’s, but where Raina had gold lining on her armour, Calla’s was left without a border. The light gleamed off her, casting a pearlescent figure. She wore a scabbarded sword on her back, the ruby haft visible behind her right shoulder. Her
hair was tied up at the back, but several strands came over the small cream headband she wore to rest on her left cheek, which was now flushed in honesty at her delight to see him again.
Lupus couldn’t find the words to describe the way he felt seeing her stand before him now. She was utterly more gorgeous than he remembered and her voice was as melodic as it was powerful. He took a slow step towards her, then the next, and the next until he was face to face with the woman he had so cautiously allowed himself to love.
“How…how can this be?” he gasped, regretting his choice of words even as they escaped his lips. “I can feel my very spirit strengthen and become whole to see you again” he smiled faintly, terrified that she was an apparition of his imagination.
“I am no illusion” she promised him, clasping his hand and laying it on her cheek to reassure him. Her eyes were sincere, but there was a hidden pain wrapped in their depths.
Here was his goddess. Here was the Queen that he had fought for.
Without a moment’s more hesitation, Lupus brought himself closer to her, cupped her face with both hands lovingly and kissed her lips. She returned the kiss without any reluctance, an energy in her reply that spoke of a longing borne from years of waiting more alone than the others could have realised.
Lupus had the same effect on her own spirit as she did on his, an emboldening of her heart that in that brief sharing of each other wiped away her memory of all their years apart. The outside world seemed to be eclipsed by the power of their connection, a bond shared that spoke of a love grown and preserved over a decade of separation. Now it seemed it was only yesterday that they lost each other and the same intense feelings that had been denied to anyone else returned to them in waves.
As Lupus withdrew from her lips, eager to look upon the eyes that had so often tamed his anger back on Gothica, she kissed the tip of his nose with the softness of a feather. He felt thunder in his chest at the gesture, one that even he had almost forgotten. To anyone else, the level of emotion between them would have seemed unbelievable or even dramatized. It was not for others to decide, though; they knew the truth of their past, the time they had spent together, what they meant to each other. Their connection was pure. They were destined to be life companions.
“I thought you were lost to me…” Lupus whispered and closed his eyes, scared that they were betraying him. When he opened them, she was still there with him.
“No,” she murmured, her smile reaching out to him ignorant of the tear running down her cheek. “I will never be lost to you…what happened was what must, but we won’t be apart again” she promised.
Lupus hugged her in a tight hold that begged her to be right.
“If I had known that you were to become an Apostle…” he began, unable to find justification for another failure of his, another truth that he was too foolish to see.
“You couldn’t have known…” Calla told him. He wiped the tear caringly from her face and she tenderly stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.
When he next spoke it was in a quiet, defeated voice. “I was the First Apostle…She showed me your forms, but not your faces…For so long I blamed myself for leaving Gothica when you were taken. Never did I imagine that you were to be Blessed…I should have seen it. I should have sensed it”. He lowered his head in shame.
Calla held his forehead and kissed it softly to calm him. He looked back up at her, his own eyes beginning to water but he kept strong for her, as he always had. Never before had he felt so weak, yet so strong, in anyone’s presence. Relief at her nature battled with the walls of guilt that had surrounded his mind for the last decade.
“But you couldn’t have…nor were you meant to. If She wanted you to know, She would have allowed you to” Calla replied. “Lupus, we were all Chosen for different reasons and set on the paths that were right for us. One day you will understand why She sent you to Gothica, why it was that you knew me before the Blessing” then even she looked down, her faith in Vermillion’s plans waning. “Maybe you’ll even come to understand why She took you from me, as I have tried to all these years”.
“I wanted to be there for you,” he confessed. “I wanted to protect you from all this, but now you’re part of it…”
She reached out a hand to touch his chest, covering his heart with her palm. “In your heart you always knew we were both meant for greater things” she said. “I promise you that I did not discover my nature alone; Raina was with me from the beginning. We learnt our ways together, just the two of us, until we came here and found Hydra and Seraphim” she looked at him guiltily then. “My love, forgive me but I was the one who…”
“…What? You were the one who what?” he smiled ignorantly.
She met his eyes with honesty and vulnerability, fearful of the words that stuck in her throat like a sour sweet. “I told Valkyrie to conceal our presence here until the Gate was secured. I’m sorry, but it was my fault you didn’t find me sooner.”
He looked away from her at once, trying to hide his inevitable expression despite his love for her. The truth hurt more than he thought he was capable of feeling with his impenetrable skin, but it was his heart and mind she struck, not his flesh.
When he pushed the conflict of emotions battling inside him away, he gazed upon her and found he could forget what she had done. How could he hate her for the course she had taken when their duty as Apostles was more important? As much as the question demanded a challenging answer, he couldn’t find it in him to judge her for the decision she made.
He took her hands in his. “You did what was right, Calla. You are my companion and nothing can change that, not even this war. No distance or time apart can break us. I do not feel betrayed…I just wish I could have known so I could have safeguarded you all the way…”
She believed he meant every word and it was clear that he needed reassurance about her time without him. “My legion…they were perfect for me, Lupus. Vermillion took care of me after the Blessing, just as you did before it”.
If only he had known her fate ten years ago. Even if he did long to see her, he would have known she was safe, that she could take care of herself and that her legion would be looking for her until she was found. Maybe then, with all that security, he could have focussed more clearly in the Purge Crusades. He could have saved so many more lives. Yet, who could he blame? The woman he loved, who was at no fault, or the goddess that had changed their lives forever? It was not his judgement to make.
Calla saw the look of regret in his eyes despite her efforts to relieve him. “You cannot forsake the past; it happened as it was meant to, my love. What you know now cannot change what you did then”. She held his gaze, lifting his head high for him.
“If you had known I was to be an Apostle, would you have ever stopped searching for me? Would the distraction of me been any less severe? It would have been more intense, I think” she asked him, intent on making Lupus forgive both himself and Vermillion for keeping Her secrets.
“Do you have to ask?” he laughed dryly, a tear finally breaking through his resolve and pride. “I would have turned over every rock, felled every tree and explored every cave just to find a trace of you…I would never have given up” he said, realising that he was foolish to think just moments ago that he would have fought the Crusades with more focus.
She smiled, kissed him once again on the lips and held his hands in hers. “I know that, Lupus, and that is why you weren’t told about me. You were meant to go to war, to fight so that you could defeat the enemy and lay the path clear for us. You had your destiny, I had mine, and knowing my nature would have prevented its fulfilment”.
Lupus hated how much sense she made. It destroyed his reason to punish himself and to feel unworthy of her affection. In reality, he felt like a lamb, not the Lion. He eventually nodded in reluctant agreement, admitting to the truth and the unchanging necessity of the past, but unwilling to completely accept it.
“How do you know so much of my past, where the othe
rs do not?” he asked her.
She lowered her head and pulled away before her answer would take his hand from hers. “Raina…Valkyrie now… sensed your presence when you arrived in-system. She told me about the weight hanging on your shoulders, as if the very experiences of your Crusades cling to you like demons. I…” She lingered, uncertain if she should really confess to going behind his back.
“Calla, tell me…do not be afraid of my reaction. You are safe from my ire, you always have been” he encouraged her.
“…While you were meeting the others, I asked the commander of my legion to talk to yours. They are old friends, so I knew they would share their stories with each other. I know what you’ve been through, Lupus, and why you had to do it. You’ve made so many sacrifices, and lost so much on your own, but no more. When I saw you here I could see you had changed…” she explained, her voice trailing off at the end.
Lupus suddenly felt as if she were about to undo all the closeness they had just experienced, like her new understanding of who and what he was undid the image of him in her heart and mind. Perhaps the enthusiasm with which she greeted him was an escapee from their separation years ago.
“…But no matter what has happened, and what will ever happen, I love you. I always will” she finished, raising her head again to look at him, expecting him to feel anger at her investigation into his past. She had always known his temper was unstable, that part of his nature as an Apostle was a rage and anger that rivalled any of the others’, but more than anything she was scared she was no longer capable of taming it.
Yet she was.
He looked at her mesmerizing face and felt none of the fury she expected him to. He was hopelessly bound to her and whatever future was meant for them. No matter what she did, even if she betrayed him, she was not beyond his forgiveness.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 23