She could see his face better now. He looked like a brawnier Jules. A straight nose, full lips, and bright grey eyes. When Ahna was close enough, the man rounded the latter in surprise. He had seen her blue skin and purple eyes underneath that long hood. But he did not budge more. He relaxed his posture and kept looking at the elf.
Ahna figured she had better get straight to the point and skip the pleasantries. “I’m looking for Sonny, or Thamias, whatever name he goes by these days.”
The man did not flinch once. He brought the cigar to his lips once more. “Are you two related?” he asked as he exhaled.
Ahna answered with a single nod.
The man extended a hand. “The name’s Daniel.”
Ahna took it, confused, but still shook it. “Ahna.”
“If you’re his sister, he really won’t be happy to see you.”
So, this man knew Thamias, and he knew he had a sister. Those words made Ahna flinch. She was instantly silenced.
“I guess you want me to let you in?” Daniel posed, his words coated with judgment.
Ahna was barely able to utter a vague, “Yes.”
And in she was. Daniel let her through the backdoor. He discarded his cigar in the sand and closed the door behind him. If Ahna had thought this part to be the hardest, she would be excruciatingly wrong. Ahna’s chest burned with the apprehension of what would ensue.
What had happened to Thamias in all these years she had been gone? Who had he become? The first thing she would ask him was definitely why and how he had found his place at the Colosseum. Other than that, her mind was blank. To her, only about a month had passed away from him. To him, one hundred and eighty-nine years.
Daniel led the elf through the archway encircling the battlegrounds. A red carpet stretched on the sandy ground. A couple of yards further stood a wall with a gate guarded by a man and woman in legion leathers. They instantly stepped aside, opening the gate as Daniel approached, not even laying eyes on Ahna. A set of stairs led the two upstairs to a large hallway of sand marble and frescoes that told the stories of the Colosseum.
Thamias awoke from the sunlight that rained into his room. The bright golden light painfully pierced through his eyelids and induced the lousiest of headaches. He lifted his chin to scan his surroundings. He was sprawled out in his bed, his arms and body in a cross and his pillow missing. Only when she started to move did he even notice her. A woman with wavy brown hair and porcelain skin lay beside him, her head on his chest. His movements had woken her in turn.
Thamias could barely remember the night prior. His eyes met with empty bottles of wine scattered around his room. The red leather sofa had its back to him, but he could see another pair of women’s feet sticking out to the side. The curtains to his right were wide open. Thamias cursed himself for having forgotten to close them.
He straightened his body slowly, making sure he would not wake his night partner more. But her olive-green eyes were already open. She kissed his chest gently, trailing down his torso. Thamias let his head fall on the absence of pillows and closed his eyes.
She pleased him for a couple of minutes until he climaxed, her hair clenched in his fingers. Thamias sighed deeply. After this wild burst, the migraine returned with a vengeance. The woman with no name rose out of bed and fetched a pink toga out of somewhere. The other who had slept naked on the red sofa followed, and the two made their way out, giggling with each other, as fast as Thamias had let them in.
Now that he was alone, he could finally get some rest, but not before clearing this mess off his floor. Memories of the night appeared one by one. Those two women had not been alone—he had images of at least six to ten people. Daniel was even somewhere in there. Thamias smirked. Daniel’s brown silk shawl slouched on the corner of the bed confirmed his presence at last night’s celebration. Other items did not belong to him. A necklace, a bracelet, even a pair of undergarments.
Thamias locked eyes with himself in the mirror. He looked like complete shit with his silver hair all over the place. He found a lace from gods knew where, which he used to tie his locks in a half-up bun. The next step was to find a pair of pants. Last night’s black breeches would do, for now.
Thamias heard him before he knocked on his door. Daniel’s footsteps. He was probably here to retrieve his shawl.
“Come in,” Thamias said, his back to the door. He was still buckling his belt.
The door opened. Daniel walked in, accompanied by another set of footsteps. Probably the owner of that necklace or bracelet or undergarments. Thamias had to take one last look at himself before he turned around.
* * *
His amber eyes snapped wide open. His entire body froze. He could see the door clearly in the mirror, and whoever had stepped in with Daniel.
Ahna’s body stiffened, and she gasped louder than she had wanted. The little brother a few steps from her had turned into a man she no longer recognized. The frail, skinny dark elf she had known had the figure of a fighter, and every muscle in his back had stiffened. They pushed against his twilight-blue skin like they were ready to explode. She could see part of his face in the mirror on the opposite wall, but she wanted him to turn around. She wanted to see him better because the little she saw right now shattered every part of her soul.
Thamias mustered the will to face her. He was speechless, but not because of tension or a lump in his throat. He simply had no words. And even worse, he had no desire to speak.
Ahna’s lips trembled. Seeing Thamias like this, how much he had changed, was like seeing a ghost. His amber eyes glowed with silent but deadly flickers. By the gods, the hair, the marked cheekbones and jawline...Thamias looked just like Xandor.
Daniel, who felt like a stranger, cleared his throat and traced back his steps. “I’ll leave you two to whatever this is.”
He was royally ignored. Daniel took the door and closed it behind him.
How long it took before any of them spoke was undetermined, but it was Thamias who finally said the first words.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice was far and distant, like he did not care for the answer but had to ask something.
Ahna swallowed hard. She could not find the strength to speak. The man who stood before her was a complete stranger. He was not the brother she had seen but a few weeks ago in Bravoure’s cathedral. The one they had named the Congregation’s protégé. He was not the young and shy elf she had once named Dragonborn. Ahna took a few steps forward. She wanted to touch him, to see if he was real. To see if it was really him.
Seeing him here meant so much more than finding her little brother, Ahna realized. Seeing him here was comforting. Thamias was one of the only things left of Bravoure’s past, the Bravoure Ahna remembered. Everyone else was dead. Kairen, David, Diego, and Lynn. Even the Mother Divine or Iederias, Clarice, and Farooq. Thamias was everything that was left of a time long gone and forgotten. Thamias was her only anchor to what she had lost.
She wanted to reach out to him, but his eyes flared when she extended her hand.
Ahna withdrew her hand and pursed her lips. Tears began to glaze her eyes, clouding her sight, but Thamias’s eyes were still well visible.
“I’m back, brother,” Ahna murmured. She wanted to explain herself, to tell him what had taken her so long, but the cold in his eyes made her freeze.
“I can see that,” he retorted. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. “But what are you doing here?”
Her eyes were glazed, but she could not cry. Nothing in Thamias’s posture softened.
“I’ve come to see you,” she said. “I can’t explain it, it has something to do with the Planar Mask. Something was wrong. I was trapped in time, we were all scattered…” Her voice was so frail, it could have been annihilated with one single blow.
Thamias let her bring a hand to his cheek, but he felt nothing. Her touch was cold and unwanted.
He had never expected to see her again. Ahna had left that one day and never returned.
It was supposed to be just weeks, one or two months, maybe. They had told him about the Planar Mask. Every time more magi had returned, Thamias had run to the Academy like a lost puppy looking for his home. Thamias had waited long enough. He had stopped waiting long ago.
“What do you want from me?” he asked. When her hand disconnected from his skin, he felt its absence linger a little longer.
“Thamias...” Ahna closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. There was a lot of resentment lodged in her brother’s voice. He blamed her for something. She did not know for what exactly, but she could feel it. His tone swelled with it.
“Meriel,” he grunted. “You’d better start talking fast because I won’t wait all day.”
Ahna grew cold. A single tear ran, but the rest of them crystallized along with her emotions. She made space for a catatonic sadness that settled in her stomach. It hurt like a knife, but it was better there than held in her throat.
“I need your help,” she said. Considering the way their conversation was going, she had better get to the point. “You know what Bravoure is like now, you know what they did to...us. There’s much more going on, and it’s all about to come crashing down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bravoure is declaring war on Galies—”
“Oh yeah?” he interrupted. “I really couldn’t care less right now.”
“Let me finish—”
Thamias cut her off with a flick of his hand. “Meriel, is this another one of your grand plans to save the world?” he asked in a derisive tone.
“Pardon me?”
“Like the one time you came up with a plan to save Bravoure from Xandor? Or the last time you said you had a way to find your Academy friends and you didn’t come back?”
So, that is why he was mad. Ahna stuttered: “I didn’t come back because I couldn’t!”
“Meriel, I really don’t give a damn.” He was shouting. “You left!” A bellow that was all too familiar. He pointed to the outside, to Bravoure and its entirety. “Look what happened after you left.”
His tone was meant to hurt. Ahna had to tell Thamias now why she was here, looking for him, or she would lose him for good. “I’m going to the Dwellunder.” Her voice was now louder and dark.
“What?” Pause. Thamias glared incredulously. “Are you crazy? You actually think life is better there?”
“No!” she retorted. “Like I said, there’s much more to this. There’s a cult of undead planning for destruction, and the only way I have to stop it is in the Dwellunder.” She paused, gathering the next thing to say. “And I want to ask you to come with me.”
Thamias’s jaw fell. It had to be a joke. Either his sister was insane, or maybe he was still dreaming. He had to be. Undead? The Dwellunder? Was she serious? Was she really coming here, after all these years without her, barging into his room to ask him to go back to this place to stop some crazy urban legends? Madness must have taken the best of her. Somewhere along her way through time, she must have lost her mind!
“You come here after two hundred years to ask me to come to the Dwellunder with you?” Thamias scoffed and laughed. His frown made his laughter truly incongruous. It was so forced that it was almost contagious.
“Bravoure’s fate is—”
Thamias snapped. He took a step forward, towering above his sister, raising his voice. “I couldn’t care less about Bravoure’s fate. Do you think it cared about me?” His index finger jumped back and forth between him and Ahna’s chest. “About us? You mentioned it yourself, but do you actually know what happened? Are you even aware of what they did to us?”
Ahna flinched. Thamias was scaring her now. She was speechless and had nothing to respond with. She wanted to step into her brother’s arms and hold him against her, to feel his warmth and comfort. Seeing him with so much anger was killing her.
“Just like you’re doing now, they came to find me. They wanted me to burn Iskala to the ground. I’m surprised they haven’t come to me for Galies or whatever you’re talking about.” Thamias shrugged with a crooked smile. One all too familiar. One that screamed the Sharr name louder than his voice. “Even that idea sounds much more appealing than going to the wretched Dwellunder.”
Ahna raised her chin and crossed her arms. Thamias slowly drew her anger out with his tone and words. She could contain it thus far, but now, it was boiling. “How can you say that?” Seeing as Thamias was not answering, she pursued. “Bravoure welcomed you once! And you’d rather give into hatred than do what’s right? What have you become, Thamias?” She was hoping to trigger some sort of reason in her little brother’s mind. Her next words were crafted to sting. “I never thought you’d remind me of—”
But she only awoke cold-brewed anger. His finger met the middle of her chest again, interrupting her, this time pressing against it. He pushed her skin with such repressed force that it almost hurt her. “Watch what you’re about to say, systr. You don’t want me angry.”
“Mother fought for this place to be our refuge. She sacrificed everything. We owe it to her to do the right thing.” That was the last thing she could say before his glare silenced her.
He stared her down, deep into her eyes. His face was so close that she could feel his warm breath brush against her cheekbones. And there she saw it, his amber eyes glowing. A hot flame the color of gold. Ahna had seen these eyes before, but not with such fire inside them. At this point, despite everything else she wanted to feel, she was more than dead afraid. Thamias’s breathing turned into a low and controlled growl.
A jolt of terror spread through her veins. Ahna conquered it with a deep breath. She would not let it subdue her. It was Thamias, he would never do anything to harm her. She stepped closer to her brother, her body almost touching his. Her arms made their way around his chest for a hug. It was Thamias, her little brother. She wanted to hold him and forget about the look of rage in his eyes.
It was Thamias, not Xandor.
Not Xandor.
But he stepped back and shoved her back.
“Don’t touch me.”
Ahna’s wall of glass instantly shattered to a thousand pieces. The frozen tears she held ran freely again, and they burned her skin. Ahna took a few steps back, trembling, her breath shaky. Thamias must have noticed, but he kept his infernal gaze fixed on her, and he watched her turn around and leave.
Ahna could not get his voice out of her mind. She could not scratch those eyes out of her thoughts. She could not lift his anger that still pressed against her chest. Ahna lay paralyzed on her bed in Song Cicada, unable to move, unable to escape. She had just regained the ability to breathe properly. Now she needed to find the strength to walk again and leave this gods-damned place.
This was what Thamias had become.
So much anger, like an old shadow that had swallowed him whole. Ahna wanted to know where everything had gone wrong. Where his fate had taken such a wrong turn. But when would she ever get the chance to ask him?
She had spoiled it. What did she expect, showing up at his doorstep after two hundred years and asking him for help? What did she expect, asking him to return to the place that had birthed their pain and woven their fears?
Ahna rolled on her belly, pressed her face into the pillow, and screamed. She screamed so loud it could have shattered the sky. Her voice crumbled back into the silence of her room. Once she was out of breath, she let the tears flow freely. She did not even feel that pain from the Arc of Light in her veins. It was masked by everything else smothering her soul. There was no voice or echo from the phoenix of her vision. Now, Ahna even had trouble believing in its existence, believing in her vision and the revelation that had come with it.
Perhaps it had all been a dream. Perhaps it was not real, and there was no way to stop the awakening of the fiend from the past. Perhaps it was some twisted subconscious urge to return to the Dwellunder because of some sick wish to go home.
No. Even in the deepest corners of her mind, Ahna would never consid
er the Dwellunder to be her home. Her home was here, in Bravoure. Here, with Thamias.
Ahna just wanted a second chance. She just wanted to hold her little brother again.
* * *
He had Daniel to thank for finding his sister stayed at the Song Cicada without him asking. He had that stupid voice in his head to thank for telling him to go there. And he had his sister’s words to thank for making him feel guilty, so guilty that he actually came here, to Ahna’s doorstep. She had to pull the Mother card, didn’t she? He was angry and relieved at the same time. Their feud of just now had felt like old times.
Thamias hesitated five times before finding the courage to knock. His migraine was gone, which helped with feeling better. For the rest, he was an utter mess. Ahna said nothing, but he knew she was there. He could hear her through the door. He had dark elf ears, after all.
“I know you’re in there,” he grumbled.
He heard a thump, then a couple of footsteps. The door creaked open slowly, and Thamias entered the room. There were just a simple wooden bed and some unimportant things. Ahna stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed and her eyes swollen. She looked both angry and sad at the same time.
He was better at hiding the same emotions.
Ahna watched Thamias enter, her heart heavy but squeezed dry. It just weighed a lot on its own. Thamias was wearing more clothes now. A black leather tunic that was a tad too small for his large chest. He closed the door behind him. She waited for him to say something this time.
Thamias discarded a large satchel on the floor that Ahna ignored.
“I wouldn’t go to war against Galies,” Thamias admitted, shaking his head.
Ahna closed her eyes and exhaled in slight relief. “Why are you here?” she murmured.
“What do you need from the Dwellunder?”
Ahna breathed in slowly. She might as well answer him. “Access to the Circle, because I’ll find a gate there, and it will take me to the Hollow Earth.”
Tempest of Bravoure Page 12