The Oblivion Stone (The Liftsal Guardians Book 3)

by Alexandra Moody

  ‘Does he want to see me?’ Rhyn continued.

  ‘Yes, he’s waiting for you in the castellum.’

  Rhyn nodded again and immediately set off. He made his way quickly along the valley paths and up the stairs that led to the plateau high above the village. His father had been away for months and so much had happened while he’d be gone. Vas wouldn’t be happy to hear about the situation that had arisen in his absence, but Rhyn couldn’t afford to put off the reunion with his father.

  He reached the top of the steps and paused as he looked at the castellum. Sunlight was hitting one of the tallest spires causing a bright flare of light to shine over the icy fortress. The place was truly beautiful, and Rhyn desperately hoped that it wouldn’t be destroyed because of the humans.

  He sighed heavily and continued towards the castellum, each step feeling more demanding than the last. The meeting with his father wasn’t going to go well, that much he knew for sure.

  The large wooden gates were already open when Rhyn reached the castle walls, and as he walked inside, he could feel the eyes of his warriors watching him closely. They were all aware of the things that had happened while his father was gone, and Vas’ hatred of humans was legendary, so they knew what Rhyn was about to face.

  He probably should have brought his mother with him to see his father. She was the only one who could talk sense into Vas sometimes. But Rhyn didn’t want to cower behind her. He needed to face his father alone and deal with the consequences of telling him that humans had set up camp just on the other side of the rift.

  His pace reduced as he entered the castellum and became slower still as he made his way through the corridors towards the throne room. It was still early morning, and the castellum was quiet. He could hear the distant clang of metal out in the courtyard where his fighters were training, but the sound was barely audible from inside the castle walls.

  Rhyn would much rather have been outside with his warriors. Then again, he would probably have preferred to be anywhere other than headed towards his father. But as much as he wanted to avoid it, Rhyn knew his father needed to be told what was going on.

  He was almost to the throne room when Emha came bounding up to him. The young girl grinned brightly when she saw him, her eyes lighting up with genuine delight.

  ‘Hello, Rhyn,’ she said, as she skidded to a stop in front of him.

  ‘Emha,’ he said, with half a bow, which caused her to giggle.

  He smiled at her reaction, wishing for a moment that he could recapture the innocence he’d had at her age. Life was certainly a lot more complicated now.

  ‘I’ve just returned,’ Emha said. ‘I heard Sloane is back. Where is she?’ She struggled to keep her voice from rising with excitement. Rhyn had seen how protective Sloane was of the girl but hadn’t realised quite how close the two of them had become.

  ‘She’s gone again for a few days, but you’ll see her soon.’

  ‘That’s great,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘Do you think she missed me?’

  ‘She’d be crazy not to,’ Rhyn replied.

  ‘So is that a yes or a no?’

  Rhyn laughed, shaking his head at her. ‘I’d say it’s a yes.’

  Emha gave an approving nod, seeming much happier with his second answer.

  Rhyn let out a breath and looked past her towards the throne room that lay beyond. ‘I have to go speak with my father…’

  ‘Okay,’ Emha replied. ‘Will you tell me when Sloane gets back?’

  ‘Of course, I will.’

  She gave Rhyn a wave before turning and heading back the way she had come. He stood watching her for a moment as she left. The child was so innocent and kind. She was exactly the reason their world needed protecting, and he was going to need his father’s help if he wanted to succeed.

  Two guards stood on either side of the entrance to the throne room, and the moment they saw Rhyn, they pulled the doors open and ushered him inside. Rhyn let out a sigh and pushed his shoulders back before he entered the room.

  The throne room was one of the areas in the castellum that Rhyn tended to avoid. While his father seemed to relish his place upon the throne, Rhyn had no desire to sit there and order people about. He wanted to be fighting side-by-side amongst their people, not lording over them from a seat in some secluded room. He was like his mother in that respect. The two of them both lived and worked amongst the other Unfaih and would never dream of separating themselves as Vas did.

  The room fell quiet as Rhyn entered. Several advisors were loitering around his father’s throne, including one of the elders who was quietly talking in Vas’ ear. The door slammed shut behind Rhyn, and everyone in the room turned to look in his direction as he strode towards his father.

  The advisors parted ways as Rhyn approached and he got his first proper view of the man he hadn’t seen in months. Vas was still wearing his riding clothes, though they barely looked used despite the many months of travel they’d been through. Vas’ hair was the same deep brown colour as Rhyn’s own, and his pale blue eyes held their usual look of disdain as he watched his son approach. The hard lines on his face were more defined than usual, though that probably had more to do with whatever the elder had been whispering to him as Rhyn arrived.

  Rhyn wanted to scowl at the elder who was taking cautious steps away from the throne. He had wanted to be the one to explain the current situation to his father, and he had no idea what the elder had been filling his father’s ears with. He hoped he had arrived before the man had told his father too much, though Rhyn knew from the look he was getting from Vas that he was already there too late.

  ‘Leave us,’ his father said, emphasising his words with a lofty one-handed gesture.

  Rhyn crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for the room to clear. His father wanted to talk to him alone, which couldn’t be good. None of the advisors met Rhyn’s eyes as they passed, which probably wasn’t a great sign either. If it had to be an elder who informed his father about what had happened while he was away, Rhyn wished it could have been Lorian. He was always much more level headed than the rest of the council, who seemed to relish in judging Rhyn on his mistakes.

  When the door closed behind him, and the last advisor had left the room, Rhyn paced towards Vas until he was standing right before him.

  ‘You look tired, Father’.

  ‘And you look too well rested,’ Vas replied, his eyes narrowing as he studied his son from head to toe. ‘I’m surprised you can sleep at all when there’s an army of humans banging at our door.’

  ‘I see you’ve heard our latest predicament.’

  ‘Predicament?’ Vas scoffed. ‘The scourge of the universe have become our new neighbours, and you describe it as a simple predicament.’ He shook his head, disgust clear in his eyes. ‘I thought I taught you better.’

  ‘I have the situation under control,’ Rhyn said.

  ‘How?’ Vas replied. ‘There are more humans on their way to the World of the Woods as we speak, and all you seem to be doing is preparing to defend against their inevitable assault. We should be the ones to attack!’

  Rhyn’s gaze darkened as he stared his father down. ‘Attacking without provocation is not our way,’ Rhyn growled. ‘And if the humans get through the rift—’

  ‘I would rather die than see them in our world again!’ Vas declared, his voice resonating off the walls as he pushed himself from his throne and stood to his full height. He paced away from the throne, his body stiff with anger as he moved. ‘We will send every last fighter through that rift before I allow one of them to step through it. Our best option is to attack, and we need to strike now.’

  Rhyn took a breath as he tried to keep himself calm. His father was getting worked up, and there was no way Vas would listen to any of his suggestions if he shouted back in kind.

  ‘I know your feelings towards the humans, but if we send all of our warriors through the rift, it will leave the castellum vulnerable to attack from the Brakys. Our forces nee
d to be split, with half defending the rift and half remaining at the castellum. We can retreat to the castellum should the humans overcome us at the rift. You know we can outlast any siege from here.’

  ‘And what if the humans come through the rift and are attacked by the Brakys?’ Vas asked.

  Rhyn rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at his father. He wanted to tell him how he hoped to avoid any fighting by closing the rift, but he wasn’t sure if Vas would agree with him. The elders had been too fearful to consider closing the rift, and Rhyn expected his father would react the same way. He couldn’t risk his father stopping him, so he decided to keep Kai and Sloane’s mission to himself.

  ‘Exactly,’ Vas said, taking Rhyn’s silence as an admission of defeat.

  ‘There’s no ideal solution,’ Rhyn conceded. ‘But attacking the humans would be a mistake. We would need to send a large contingent of fighters to overcome their settlement, and we cannot have so many warriors positioned so far from the rift. They need to stay close in case there is a Braky attack. We cannot allow the creatures or the humans to obtain the Liftsal. That is our main priority.’

  Vas’ eyes narrowed as he considered his son’s argument, and Rhyn stood in silence as he allowed his father to process what he’d said. As Vas’ eyes narrowed further, he knew his father was struggling with the weight of the problem they faced.

  ‘Why are you so determined to protect those vermin?’ Vas finally asked.

  Rhyn frowned slightly at his father. ‘I’m not protecting them,’ he replied. ‘The humans can’t be trusted, and I agree they have to be dealt with, but I’m not convinced they are all bad. I’m not protecting them, but I don’t want to fight them if we don’t have to. Many will die on both sides.’

  Vas let out a long breath as he turned and retreated to his throne. Rhyn could hear his father’s disappointment in the heavy sigh, but he needed his father to know the truth about how he felt.

  Vas slowly lowered himself into the ornately sculpted chair and stared at the far wall of the throne room. He was so deep in thought that minutes passed and still his gaze didn’t flicker. Eventually, he turned and looked back at his son.

  ‘Is it because of the girl?’ he asked.

  Rhyn stiffened in response to the question. He had hoped the elder had skipped over the part about Sloane, but in hindsight, the man had probably told Vas about her the first opportunity he got. The villagers had been gossiping for weeks about his relationship with her, and now it seemed that he was finally facing the one person he had to explain himself to.

  ‘Sloane,’ Rhyn replied. ‘Her name is Sloane, and no, she isn’t the only reason.’

  ‘But, she is part of it…’

  ‘Yes,’ Rhyn admitted.

  ‘Then you are a fool,’ Vas replied, his eyes darkening. ‘You know what happened the last time one of our kind fell for a human.’

  ‘Sloane’s not like that,’ Rhyn growled. ‘You haven’t met her. You don’t know what you’re talking about…’

  ‘I don’t need to meet her to know what I’m talking about,’ Vas replied. ‘And you will do well to remember who you are talking to.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ Rhyn asked, his gut stirring with anger. ‘You certainly remind me enough that the thought is never far from my mind.’

  ‘That is enough!’ Vas shouted, slamming one fist down on the arm of his chair.

  Rhyn blinked in response, surprised his father had overreacted. Vas was always hard on him, but he usually kept a tight control over his emotions. For him to allow them such free rein showed he was as tired as he looked.

  ‘Apologies, Father,’ Rhyn replied.

  Vas gave a slight inclination of his head and seemed to accept the apology. ‘Now, tell me of the other humans.’

  ‘Their leader is after the Liftsal,’ Rhyn said. There was no point avoiding the truth. He knew his father was likely to find out soon enough and it was better if he had all the information available to him when making the difficult decisions Rhyn knew were coming their way.

  Vas became rigid, his face a frozen mask of fear as he looked at Rhyn. ‘And how did he learn of the Liftsal?’ he asked his voice deadly calm.

  ‘He appeared to know of it before the humans arrived in the World of the Woods,’ Rhyn replied.

  ‘But how did he know? That knowledge should have died out centuries ago on Earth.’ Legitimate concern touched Vas’ features, and he looked down at the floor as his troubled mind tried to sort through the details of what he was being told.

  ‘The elders had a few suggestions. They thought that the Braky followers could have passed down the information through the generations. But there was also mention of an Unfaih girl who got stuck on the other side of the rift when it closed.’

  The reference to the girl got Vas’ attention, and his eyes darted up to Rhyn, a flicker of pain passing through them for a brief second before the hard expression his father always wore returned to his face. ‘She died,’ he replied, all emotion bleached from his voice. ‘The elders are naïve for suggesting otherwise.’

  ‘You knew her?’ Rhyn asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think—’

  ‘I will not hear another word about it,’ Vas replied. He stood and moved behind his throne to look at one of the great tapestries that hung on the back wall of the chamber.

  ‘I have heard enough from you for one morning. I want a report on the current state of the human settlement, an update on the defence mechanisms in place at the rift and you will inform me when the villagers have been relocated.’

  Rhyn frowned at the back of his father’s head. The abrupt end of their meeting was unusual, even for him. He suspected it had something to do with the Unfaih girl, but such a long time had passed since she disappeared and he had no idea with both Lorian and Vas had such strange reactions.

  ‘And if you refuse to attack first, I want a list of tactics for dealing with the humans, giving me all the scenarios you can think of and the countermoves we can make,’ Vas added before he waved his son away with one hand. ‘Go, now.’

  Rhyn didn’t need him to repeat the request and left the room without another word. He walked out of the castellum and started heading towards the rift.

  Although his father had threatened to attack the humans recklessly, he seemed to have stopped short of seizing back control of the warriors from Rhyn. That meant he still had time to avoid the battle, as long as the humans didn’t strike sooner than expected. However, Rhyn’s back up plan was still at least a day’s ride from the rift, and without the Oblivion Stone, he knew that war was inevitable.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rhyn was so consumed by his thoughts as he walked through the rift that he barely felt its icy chill against his skin. He didn’t register the warmth from the suns on his face as he stepped into the World of the Woods, and he failed to notice how each warrior he passed looked to him with confidence in their eyes as he paced through the clearing.

  He hadn’t been through the rift since the previous evening, but a lot had happened in that short time, and the clearing was buzzing with activity. Some warriors were erecting defensive wooden spikes around the perimeter, others were stockpiling weapons, and a few were sparring with each other under the hot suns. Rhyn didn’t know when the humans would attack, but he was certain his warriors would not give up the rift easily.

  He surveyed the scene until he caught sight of Elyx who was helping his men as they set up spikes along the tree line. It saddened Rhyn to see so many trees had been cut down to defend the area, but it was nothing compared to the damage the humans would do if they remained in the World of the Woods.

  He made a beeline for his second in command, though his path became obstructed as he stopped by the small groups of warriors who were busy working on the defences. The men seemed glad to see him and were quick to inform him that their preparations were going well. His warriors always had a hardworking ethos, and Rhyn was filled with a sense of pride as he talk
ed amongst them.

  He eventually made it to Elyx who was unhappily grunting as he knocked a long spiked stake into the ground. Dirt covered his clothes, much like all the warriors around them, and he wore a familiar look of gloom on his face as he worked.

  ‘Elyx,’ Rhyn said in greeting as he neared.

  Elyx gave the stake one last slam into place before he dusted off his dirt-stained hands on his pants and turned to Rhyn.

  ‘I hear your father is back,’ Elyx replied gruffly. ‘Any change to our plans?’

  Rhyn shook his head. ‘Vas isn’t happy about the human presence, but he agrees with our plan to defend the rift.’

  Elyx seemed to relax slightly at the news. ‘I feared he might wish to attack.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you want?’ Rhyn asked. His second had made his opinions on the humans very clear on more than one occasion.

  ‘I want them gone more than anyone,’ Elyx replied. ‘But I do not want to put our warriors at risk unnecessarily, and we must not leave the castellum vulnerable.’

  Rhyn nodded, somewhat surprised that Elyx’s opinion fell in line with his own for once. His gaze scanned across the field, judging the quality of the defences they had built. They’d made good progress, but if the humans attacked soon, they would not be ready.

  ‘I’m here for a report,’ he said, turning back to Elyx.

  ‘Not much has changed,’ Elyx replied. ‘The humans haven’t been this way since we first faced them. Though their camp has been much busier than it was before.’

  ‘Busier? How?’ Rhyn asked.

  ‘It appears they are putting in place defences of their own.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Rhyn said, looking past the Unfaih warrior and into the trees. ‘Has the other vessel arrived yet?’

  ‘No,’ Elyx replied. ‘If what the human said is true, it is due to arrive today, but there has been no sign of it yet.’ There was scepticism in his voice, but Rhyn ignored it. He was well aware of Elyx’s distrust of humans, and he wasn’t about to encourage it.

  ‘When will your next scout return from the human camp?’ Rhyn asked.