The Prophecy of Arnaka (The Arnaka Saga Book 1)

by Lucia Ashta

  Elena and Marco made love for hours, and, as the sun edged closer to the horizon, Elena thought that this was one thing that he was very, very good at. For now, she would forget the outside world and whatever crazy persons had engineered the charade that had forced them an ocean apart so they might be easier prey.

  Elena felt safe with Marco. She nestled into his arms and allowed herself to drift off into a light sleep. As soon as she did, the vision came to life behind her closed eyelids.

  * * *

  Ashta headed down the hallway past many doors just like hers. These were the rooms where the pupils slept, and it was quiet. Ashta went straight to the door of Anak’s room, though at first glance there was nothing to distinguish it from the others. She paused a moment before entering. She anticipated waking him and telling him of their imminent departure. With her hand pulled back to rap softly on his door, she had a sudden change of mind. Before waking him, there was one place she wanted to visit first.

  She left the dormitory hall and walked down a long corridor to the old library that the temple masters had transformed into a marital bedroom for her and Anak. Ashta reached out to push the door open, and an unexpected rush of emotion ran through her. Determined to honor her duty to humanity, she had accepted Archangel Michael’s command without question. But in that moment, she regretted that she and Anak would not marry that next day, especially since she had no idea when they might be able to return home and resume their wedding plans. There was completion in this union between man and woman. She and Anak would come together symbolically representing the feminine and masculine aspects of the Divine, both present in equal parts.

  With a deep breath of resignation, she gingerly opened the door to the room. What she saw there was not what she had expected at all. Her heart tugged at the scene before her. Anak was already inside the room. He sat in the middle of the bed, on top of an exquisite violet bed cover that Kaanra had made for them as a wedding gift. Anak cried quietly. Tears rolled down his cheeks and streaks marked his face where the tears had already begun to dry on his skin. He looked up at Ashta, and she felt everything he felt; her own tears came instantly.

  Anak also had a small bag with him. Ashta knew that his own mother, Pers’ho, had also made this bag for him when his parents took him to the Temple of Na’anesh Kal. Anak’s sword, given to him by Kaanra when he was seventeen, leaned against the wall in its worn leather sheath. It was apparent that Anak, too, had received the call to duty. Ashta was not surprised that he already knew. She and Anak were deeply connected to each other, and also to their spirit guides.

  Ashta dropped her cloak and unfastened the bag from her shoulders. She unstrapped the sword from her waist. Then, she walked toward Anak. She climbed onto the bed and sat across from him, in the same pose that he was in, in the center of the bed. She crossed her legs and moved a little closer to him so that their knees touched. She reached out her hand and placed it on his chest over his heart center. Ashta placed her other hand over her own heart center. They sat that way, with their eyes closed, while the tears continued to spill down their cheeks.

  With their eyes still closed, Anak leaned in to kiss Ashta. They kissed with delicate tenderness, but that tenderness soon transformed into passion. Everything awakened and became magnified. In seconds, Anak’s hands were all over Ashta’s body, trying to touch her everywhere at once, frustrated at the impossibility of it. They would consummate their marriage despite their change in plans.

  Anak guided Ashta back onto the bed and forced himself to slow down and undress her with presence and appreciation. He removed all of her clothing, and, as she laid there vulnerable and exposed for him, he forgot his sense of urgency and the pressing mission they were embarking upon, if only for an eternal instant. He stood transfixed, staring at his future wife, seeing both her inner and outer beauty in full splendor. Two more tears escaped as he reflected on his blessings.

  With hot tears all over his cheeks, Anak undressed and lowered himself onto the bed. He felt Ashta shudder beneath him at the feel of his bare skin against hers. Then, he became one with her. Ashta’s eyelids swung open to find Anak already staring into her eyes, but then her eyelids slid back down halfway in an expression of unbridled ecstasy.

  In that moment, there was only the two of them. They were in love. There was no urgency anymore. They were connected in every way they could be, and a sense of calm overtook them both. They enjoyed feeling each other. In that perfect expression of the Divine, their responsibility to humanity and to the planet fell away. Not a single thought hampered their minds. They found freedom in their love for each other.

  Through that intense connection, experiencing the shattering of light and pleasure at the same moment, Ashta knew that she could have conceived their child. If the circumstances were different, Ashta would have welcomed everything about it. As it was, she felt the gasp of a passing soul and the divine intervention that prevented conception until they completed their mission and the time was right for it. The private consummation of their vows that night would not bear fruit. That would have to wait.

  Anak lay on top of Ashta, still joined with her, and they slept in this togetherness for a moment under the ripe moon. Then they kissed once more—it was a kiss full of the love they did not need to voice—and pulled apart, but only in the physical sense. They dressed, strapped their bags to their backs, fastened their swords to their belts, stepped into their shoes, and grabbed their cloaks. They walked out the door without a backward glance, and, as Ashta pulled the door closed, the weathered wooden door sang to her.

  * * *

  Elena woke with a sudden start. It had happened again. But this time, she understood more. She surrendered more to the vision, resisting it less. She had begun to give herself over to the intangible. This time, she knew the visions were no accident. She now believed they were about her. She allowed herself to entertain ideas that would have been unthinkable a week ago.

  The young woman Elena had seen in her visions even looked like Elena. The resemblance wasn’t perfect in every aspect, but the similarity was undeniable. And one essential feature was exact: Elena and the woman of her visions shared the same amber, lioness eyes. Elena felt a knowing that Ashta was the same soul in a different time and body.

  Elena stirred against Marco’s warm, unclothed body. She already loved every inch of him. She already knew every mark and contour of his body. Marco had not slept while Elena rested. He stared at her now, waiting.

  “I had another vision,” Elena told him.

  “I know,” Marco said. “I could feel it coursing through you. What was it about this time?”

  Elena shared the details of her vision. Meanwhile, Marco’s eyes lit up progressively more and more. Finally, Elena couldn’t continue with her story without knowing.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  “I am your twin in that life. I have felt it too,” he said.

  “You have?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I have not seen it as you have. But I have felt it. I think that I probably knew it the second I saw you.”

  Elena looked back at him, into those eyes that were so similar to hers.

  “You have the same eyes that you had then,” she told him.

  He nodded. “As do you.”

  “Yes,” she said, somehow still surprised that he would know this.

  “So, have we stepped into some parallel universe or what?” Elena asked.

  Marco smiled at her. He knew it was difficult for Elena to digest all of this information in such a compressed amount of time. For him, it had been very different; it had been a gradual learning. He had always known to some degree that the world was an astonishing place where miracles happened continually.

  “Perhaps,” he said and pulled her to him again. He kissed her on the forehead.

  “Shall we start giving the bad guys a run for it? Figure out who did this to us?” he asked.

  “Yes!” she answered. Fired up, she scooted out of bed
and headed toward the shower.

  29 The Complete Unknown

  The twins set off, navigating the halls hand in hand until they reached Kaanra’s room. The temple life taught them to be unattached to material things so even the masters’ rooms were simple and modest. Freedom from attachment brought freedom from pain and suffering. The twins rapped lightly on the door. Everyone in the temple slept, but they could not leave without speaking with the master. He was like a father to them and had guided them much of their lives.

  Kaanra opened the door straight away. He was awake, alert, and had been waiting for them to arrive. Two small bundles of food and two canteens filled with water sat on the table behind him. Ashta also noticed two small vials of liquid, which she knew were the powerful herbal medicines that Kaanra made. One vial contained his anti-infective and the other his pain reliever.

  Like the twins, Kaanra did not know exactly where they were going or for how long or why, but Kaanra did know they would be leaving that night. Kaanra’s angel guides had told him that Ashta and Anak were being called away to battle. Neither the twins nor Kaanra made mention of the need to postpone the wedding. They all knew it was unavoidable because it was imperative that they depart at once.

  Behind Kaanra, tendrils of smoke rose up lazily and floated out the open window, rising like the enchanted snakes in the marketplace. The master was waiting to perform a blessing ceremony for them with sacred herbs. Kaanra gestured to Ashta to step forward first. He picked up a fan made from hawk feathers that Ashta had known since her childhood.

  One day, a hawk had come to Kaanra. She had perched herself on his bedroom window, looking in at him. She sat with Kaanra for several hours while he looked into her eyes. When he sang to her, she swayed to the soothing tones of his lullabies. Kaanra had never had a bird come so close to him and stay for so long. He dared not move for fear that she would leave, but finally, exhaustion took hold of Kaanra, and he lay down in his bed. He fell asleep looking at the hawk from his bed while she remained perched on his windowsill.

  Kaanra woke several hours later and his first waking thoughts were of her, the hawk. His eyes scanned to the windowsill. He was relieved to see she still stood there. But in that very moment when he locked eyes with her again, she drew her last breath. She shut her eyes forever and let herself fall. For an instant, her body lay precariously balanced on the sill, but then gravity took hold, and she tumbled to the ground.

  Kaanra emitted a long and resounding “Noooooo!” as he flung his legs out of bed and ran down the hall. He wanted to find her body to see if there was anything he could do for her, but within his heart, he already knew that there was not. When he found her on the ground, illuminated by a waning moon, he wept.

  Kaanra cradled her body as the life evaporated from it. Finally, he accepted her passing. He understood that the hawk had come so that she could transmit her medicine to him before leaving the earth plane. That night, Kaanra performed a ceremony of gratitude and received the gift of hawk wisdom.

  In the tradition of his elders, Kaanra had taken the hawk’s tail feathers as a reminder of the hawk medicine that he now carried within him. With some of these feathers, he created a fan for ceremony. It was this fan that he used to bless Ashta and Anak. The golden children of the prophecy were bestowed with hawk wisdom that brought with it the ability to see the bigger picture, to see things unfolding as part of a greater plan.

  Kaanra methodically fanned the sacred herb smoke around Ashta, beginning at her head, moving down the front of her body, and then repeating the same along her back. Next, Kaanra blew the smoke into Ashta’s heart center, sealing it with his own breath, his own life force energy. He stood on his toes and Ashta bowed her head so that Kaanra could reach her forehead. He kissed her there and said, “May Creator bless you and protect you always. Remember that you are here under the divine protection of prophecy. I love you as if you were the child born from my own seed. Go now with my love and blessing. I will await your return.”

  Kaanra repeated the same ritual with Anak, and, as the twins turned to go, they all knew that there was a chance they might never see each other again. With that heaviness threatening to enter their hearts, the twins quickly walked out the door and left behind the man who had been as much a parent to them as their blood parents had.

  * * *

  Elena and Marco walked to the reception desk of the inn to ask the innkeeper about the phone message that a member of their staff had given Marco and the note that someone had delivered to Elena in Marco’s absence. The innkeeper told them that neither the phone message nor the note had come through the inn. He was sure of it, he said, as he looked up over the rim of his round glasses. The innkeeper had been on duty during the times of both deliveries, and he would have been the one to answer the phone and to arrange for the delivery of any note to a guest.

  The man who had called their room to give Marco the message about his sister had identified himself as part of the inn’s staff, but hadn’t given Marco his name. His voice had been unremarkable. Marco thought the man was middle-aged. The innkeeper told them that he, his wife, and their two unmarried daughters were the only staff. The unknown caller was not associated with the inn.

  Elena showed the innkeeper the envelope the note had been delivered in, with its logo suggesting it had come from the Linden Harris Detective Agency. He said he had never heard of the agency before, but looked up its contact information on the computer. The agency was based in Phoenix. The man slid them a piece of paper with a phone number and address on it, but everyone there knew it would be another dead end.

  Marco asked him if any of the staff might have witnessed anything. Perhaps a security camera captured the person delivering the note. At the mention of security cameras, the innkeeper became alarmed.

  “Would you like me to call the police, sir?” he asked.

  Marco assured him that was unnecessary, and the innkeeper visibly relaxed. Besides, there were only security cameras in the lobby and the front parking lot. This was the same view the innkeeper had, and he was certain nothing unusual had happened over the last few days. There would be no point in reviewing any of the footage.

  Marco and Elena walked away from the lobby with the innkeeper’s assurance that he would ask the staff if anyone had noticed anything unusual around their room. Thanking him, Elena and Marco left feeling as if they hadn’t accomplished much. Elena exited in a huff. She put her hands on her hips and looked up and down the street in front of the lobby. “Now what?” she asked.

  Marco shrugged and smiled, “Dinner?”

  * * *

  Ashta and Anak walked in silence as they left the grounds of the Temple of Laresu’u Kal and the river shore where they had spent so much of their young lives. Each was in a state of stupor at the sudden turn of events. They walked inland, skirting the desert, looking for the narrowest strait between their island and the foreign land where they would cross the water.

  The twins put one foot in front of the other numbly. They stopped only to enter each pyramid they passed. They were both reluctant to abandon their duty of light emission. It was important to lift the spirits of the people. Now though, they had no choice but to postpone that duty until their return. They would fill the area with as much light as they could before leaving it. The blue light that each pyramid emitted swirled and pulsed through the night as the twins of the prophecy of light left Laresu’u Kal behind.

  It was together that Ashta and Anak embarked on the journey that marked a new stage in their lives. They had never before crossed the borders of Arnaka, leaving the sweet waters of their river that merged into the sea. They had never left the soft grains of their sands or the breezy shade of their palm trees.

  But on that night, they steeled themselves to cross the threshold into the complete unknown. Anak reached out, grabbed Ashta’s hand, and squeezed it. Then, under the cloak of night, they stepped into a small boat they found at the shore. It was barely big enough to accommodate the two of them
and their satchels.

  The little boat rocked as they grew accustomed to rowing in unison. But before long, their rowing improved and the boat glided along seamlessly, allowing the twins to enjoy the soothing repetitive motion of their rowing. They had distance to cover and were soon in a meditative trance. The time passed quickly. As they rowed, they shifted into a space of complete trust in Creator’s plan. They allowed themselves to relax and accept the ultimate perfection of it. They breathed this trust and perfection in, one breath at a time.

  The twins were stepping into their destined roles as light warriors. Ashta and Anak claimed Creator’s light as the source of their power; they knew themselves to be instruments of divine action in every movement they made. Their focus on light conferred a magical power on the twins that those who sought victory in temporal powers or the lure of darkness could not access. Light carried with it final supremacy. When darkness was confronted with it, the light prevailed every time. There could be nothing more powerful within human life than alignment with Creator.

  Though imbalance could exist between the light and the dark, just as it did in these times, light held power over darkness—always. That power tipped the scales as light inevitably broke through the dark. Sometimes slowly, but more often, light broke the darkness by shattering it to pieces.

  With their connection to Creator as strong as ever, Ashta and Anak sat in their little boat, rowing in rhythm. They felt calm. They trusted in the path that was opening up before them. Their journey had begun.

  30 To the Moon

  Elena and Marco popped back into the lobby to ask for a restaurant recommendation. They had settled on a Greek restaurant because of its “spectacular views of the mountains” and now sat on its rooftop deck watching the glowing sun set over the red rocks, painting the sky a wild array of colors. They sat in a corner behind a potted tree, shielded from the eyes of the other patrons. Elena was grateful for the privacy.