The Prophecy of Arnaka (The Arnaka Saga Book 1)

by Lucia Ashta

  A group of three ambled up, shy in all the ways that Carn was not. They were cousins, two young men and one young woman, all fresh-faced and excited to be on a great adventure. The two boys had brown hair that was short and shabby. They looked like brothers though it was their mothers who were sisters. They were athletic and strong, with boyish bodies already on their way to manhood.

  The girl was lovely, with long, brown hair that fell in a braid down her back. Her name was Mana, and she was Dahn’s sister. Marn was their cousin. Together, they walked toward the line of people headed by Ashta and Anak. The cousins were dressed in plain, comfortable clothing chosen for freedom of movement. They all carried swords at their sides, sheathed in intricate leather casings they had made. One by one, they moved down the line, giving each person an embrace.

  A straggler, the last of them, neared the group. He walked alone as if he were out for a stroll, took a wrong turn, and ended up at the gathering of spiritual warriors. He had the small frame of a boy of twelve or thirteen years, but as he loomed closer and Ashta was able to see his eyes, she realized he was more likely eighteen or nineteen years of age.

  His eyes revealed a wisdom that was beyond those years he had spent in his physical body. His eyes spoke great truth and Ashta found herself drawn to their depths. She wanted to know more about him, to understand his wisdom. The young man’s name was Thom, and he walked up to them empty-handed. He brought nothing but himself in preparation for etheric battle; that was all he needed.

  Thom was the last to join them. Once the group realized it was complete, they all gathered around in informal greeting and exchanged names. They relaxed. They quickly learned they spoke many different languages and that verbal communication would be challenging. They would communicate telepathically, a skill they had all developed before arriving at the gathering. In the space of the mind, there was no barrier of language. Telepathic communication arrived in the mind as images and thoughts. The person processed things in his own language and in his own way. There was complete understanding.

  In little time, those gathered there knew more about one another than most people could learn about them in a decade. Because they all shared a similar calling, they understood each other in ways that others could not. It was a gathering of light warriors, but they were largely untested light warriors. Surprise was in store for them all; the battle that loomed ahead would begin to reveal their full potentials.

  The social exploration drew to a natural close when it became apparent that they were all waiting for something—or for someone. They were waiting for somebody to guide them on this journey into the unknown. All the warriors had listened to their guidance and followed it to the clearing. But they all expected that someone would lead them into action once they had arrived at their destination. Until that guidance arrived, they decided to set up camp there.

  Nightfall was quickly approaching so they divided the necessary tasks for camp preparation. Baldub and Carn would hunt for meat. The cousins, Mana, Dahn, and Marn, left in search of fruits, grains, and any other growing foods that could nourish them. Thom left to collect firewood. He meandered off by himself, comfortable in his own company. Ashta and Anak, always drawn to the water, went off in search of running water to replenish their supplies.

  Area and Arien did not choose a task and stayed behind as if it were the most sensible thing for them to do. So, no one questioned them. They did not know one another well enough yet to understand what each could contribute to the group dynamic. Area and Arien watched everyone walk away, standing next to each other in stillness, as the others became smaller and smaller and, finally, disappeared from view.

  It took Ashta and Anak quite a while to reach water. They walked steadily, following signs of increasing green and lushness. The sun dipped lower in the sky until they eventually reached flowing water. The water ran quickly with a strong current, but Ashta and Anak still dropped their clothes and jumped into the water. For them, it was instinct. The water drew them to it as if it were part of them.

  Without intending it, Ashta and Anak made their way to an inlet where there was reprieve from the current. In seconds, Anak found himself merged with his beloved. Just as they were drawn to the water, they were drawn to each other. It, too, was instinct.

  Though neither had anticipated this sudden rush of passion, it provided a welcome sense of comfort and thrill that took them away from thoughts of the battle that was beginning to take shape around them. Ashta gave herself over to the man she loved. All of her was with him, in total rapture.

  Anak laid Ashta on the sandy bank where the water lapped over their legs. He kissed her wet neck. He kissed her bare breasts. He ran his hands over her stomach and her thighs, all the while moving within her. Ashta closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensations and to her beloved.

  39 Surreality

  It was afternoon when Marian and Victor surprised Elena and Marco with a ceremony. The teachers led their students down to the creek bed where Marian presented Marco with Victor’s sword, representing the divine feminine giving to the divine masculine, and Victor presented Elena with Marian’s sword, representing the divine feminine receiving from the divine masculine. The symbolism of the gift made the ceremony a powerful one.

  The swords were double-edged battle swords with intricate engravings on the hilts. Marian and Victor instructed the twins to spend time with the swords; they were to explore the swords’ energies and bond with them, making the swords theirs. Elena and Marco separated, heading in different directions.

  Elena sat against the trunk of a tree. She folded her legs beneath her in lotus pose and placed the sword flat across her lap. She closed her eyes without a specific intention and soon found herself witnessing a young woman in the midst of a chaotic battle, bringing the sword Elena held now down on a man with eyes that glowed with malevolence and demonic possession. Elena was certain that the young swordswoman was Marian in another lifetime.

  The young woman brought the sword down on the man’s neck and then swirled around, gaining momentum, and stabbed him in the heart. The man gasped, knowing death was seconds away, while the demon fled his body. The man regained the soft eyes of a human a breath before death. Blood splattered the swordswoman’s unruly copper-colored hair.

  Then the scene shifted. Elena saw an old woman with Marian’s eyes, mustering all the strength that remained in her aged body, storm out of a weathered cottage tucked away in the clearing of a forest. Two men with possessed eyes ran toward her, their worn and disheveled armor clinking with each movement. Elena watched the eyes of two children peek out from the threshold of the door. The children were twins, a boy and a girl, and they were terrified as they watched the men attack their grandmother.

  The men did not believe the old woman was a threat to them. They taunted her and laughed at the children hiding in the cottage. The men were jeering crudely when the old woman attacked with efficient prowess. By the time the men realized they had underestimated her, the old woman had slashed at them both in a whirlwind of motion. While the men doubled over in pain, the woman followed up on the attack and stabbed one of the men in the heart, inflicting a fatal wound.

  The woman turned her back on the man she had just stabbed to kill the other. But that was a mistake. The fatally wounded man stood up, gasping in pain, and drew a knife from a sheath on his leg and slit the woman’s throat in the same moment that she ran her sword through the other man’s heart. The children watched as the woman who loved them, their only surviving family, took in her last breaths amid a gurgle of blood. The two men bled to their deaths next to the woman’s body.

  The vision of the woman and children began to swirl into another, but Elena shook her head no, keeping the vision at bay. She could not take any more of this right now. It was too powerful, too real. She had seen enough to know that her sword had defended against darkness and fought for the light many times before.

  Marian had lived many lifetimes, and the sword had found its way
to her every time. Marian had now gifted that sword to Elena. A feisty spirit that was willing to die defending what was right had carried the sword with honor. Now, Elena would carry it into battle. She would treat the sword with the same honor and respect, and with it, she would fight for the light.

  At some point, weapons of this earth would be unnecessary. That’s what Victor had told them. There would come a time when Elena and Marco would only need the love and light in their hearts. When that time arrived, Elena already knew she would release the sword she now held on her lap. It would return to Marian in her next incarnation. Marian and Victor would leave this world before Elena and Marco would be able to fulfill their missions.

  Both Marian and Victor were nearing the completion of their purposes for this lifetime. They would teach Elena and Marco all they could and then leave the earth together. Elena already knew it; she had seen it in a flicker of recent vision. Elena didn’t always understand what she saw in these new waking visions she had begun having, but she knew what she saw was real.

  Elena’s life had become so full that she rarely reflected on the growth she was experiencing. She flashed to visions of her life as Ashta so often now that she had begun to believe that she could bring those powers she possessed as Ashta into her present incarnation. Each day, Elena believed more in the seemingly impossible. Now that she had seen it, confirmation of the supernatural was everywhere around her. Once she recognized magic for what it was, she saw that it was ubiquitous.

  She realized then that she believed so much in what she had begun seeing and feeling that she wanted to affirm it to God and the universe. It was surprising that believing had come so easily to her when it was so contrary to everything society had taught her as a child. There had always been a part of her that had known that what her family taught her wasn’t real, but she had not concerned herself with it. The doubt and questions lay dormant within her. Now that she saw and accepted a new reality, it resonated deeply within her. It felt right.

  Elena coined a new term. She no longer lived in the reality of mainstream society; she chose to live in surreality. Surreality was reality that was so wild, intense, and beautiful that it seemed surreal and other worldly. From then on, Elena knew that she would live in this place. The world of magic was now hers to explore.

  Over the last dizzying weeks, Elena had found the truth, discovered her real nature, and learned to trust herself. She was ready to do something very important. She was ready to step into what she had come to this earth to do. Over the last few weeks, she had found the strength to accept the challenge. Today, she would announce her readiness to the heavens.

  Elena grabbed the sword from her lap and uncrossed her legs. She stood and was immediately in motion. Now that she had decided what she wanted to do, she was determined. She held the sword by its hilt and walked toward the creek. Though the distance to the shore was not great, she noticed something happening as she neared the water.

  The quality of the air changed, as if it carried a different electric charge than it had just seconds before. The air was alive, and it became heavy in that way it did when it was about to rain. Elena looked up and saw that the sky which had just been a typical Sedona sky—bright blue with some fluffy, white clouds—was now dark and torrential. Lightning crossed it in jagged lines and dazzling flashes. Thunder rumbled and shook the earth. The lightning was close by. The storm was forming directly overhead.

  Lightning crackled again and struck the water just in front of Elena. Exhilarated, Elena closed the distance that remained between her and the creek. She felt a strong desire to be as close to the storm as she could be. Even remembering what her mother had always told her—that lightning would electrify water—she felt this terrible urge to enter it, even with lightning striking all around her.

  Elena’s intention in walking to the water had been to stand in it and declare to God and all those other magnificent beings that assisted her that she accepted her life’s purpose, that she was ready to do whatever they asked of her. Now that she stood so tantalizingly close to the water, electrified and charged so full of life, a sudden knowing filled Elena.

  Without further thought, she kicked off her sandals and leaned the sword against a tree. She pulled off the summer dress she wore and flung it to the ground. She kicked her underwear off to the side. In five long strides, she was in the water.

  Elena did not wade in; it was not a day for wading. She dove in. The water overpowered her senses, but she welcomed the strong sensations. Even though the days were warm already, the water was still shockingly cold from the thawing snow in the mountains. The water instantly transformed Elena’s world, and she could feel the other realms surging and swirling all around her. She had never experienced anything like this before. She could feel the raw power of the water. It was foaming with life and movement and had become an opalescent blue that she had never seen.

  Lightning continued to strike all around her, but Elena was unconcerned. She had stepped into the world of the supernatural, and she knew she was protected. No harm would come to her while she was in the water that day. Elena stared down into it and watched it froth around her body. It was amazing. She knew then that she could access any information that she needed while connected to that water. But although all information was at her disposal, Elena realized that she didn’t need to know anything. Everything in that moment felt perfect, even the seemingly imperfect, and so she didn’t need to ask to see anything at all.

  Elena’s thoughts must have wandered to Marco because an image of him began to crystallize in the water. Elena saw Marco sitting next to the water, further down the creek from where she was, staring into its turbulence. He sat in lotus pose with his sword against his legs. Marco held the sword’s hilt in his hands while the sword pointed straight out.

  Elena saw him in the khaki colored shirt he wore that day. Tears rested on his cheeks, traveling the length of his face slowly. Marco was seeing all that Victor had done with his sword just as Elena had seen what Marian had done with hers. Elena knew that what Marco saw was just as powerful and moving as what she had seen, and she understood his tears.

  As if on cue, the pregnant sky let loose its waters and the rain pelted down. The raindrops were thick and heavy, and they washed the tears from Marco’s face. The rivulets of water disturbed the mirror surface of the creek and wiped the image of Marco away. Elena shifted her gaze upward. The rain was strong. She had to close her eyes against the stout drops, but she could not turn her face from it. It was intense! The rain, the thunder and lightning, and the turbulent waters around her were surging through her like a power source.

  Just as suddenly as the rain had started, it turned into hail. Elena laughed aloud at the transformation. Water was incredible in its ability to transform into so many different states. Elena stood strong and happy to be a human—one of God’s amazing creations—and let the hail pelt her naked body. She welcomed the almost painful stinging sensation.

  She allowed herself to be fully free, to forget anyone else’s judgment, and she shouted a cry of freedom that rang out through the storm. She knew that Marco heard it, but she didn’t care. It was important that she express herself. She shouted again. Akin to a lion’s roar, her cry vibrated powerfully.

  Elena laughed. This was whom she had been all along and not known it. She wiped the matted hair back from her face as the hail transformed back into rain. Thick drops of water splattered all over her body. She couldn’t remember when she had felt this alive. She tilted her face toward the heavens and closed her eyes to shield them from the rain. She stretched her arms out and faced her palms toward the sky. She breathed in the smells of the rain, of the parched earth quenching its thirst, and of the electricity in the air.

  An ear-shattering crash followed lightning so bright that Elena saw it even through closed eyelids. A tree fell to the ground. Mother Nature was mighty, in both her beauty and giving of life and in her capacity for destruction. Elena went deep within herself. She brea
thed in the thick wet air and felt herself expand. Then she said aloud for anyone to hear:

  Mother Father God, Creator of all that is and ever was, I thank you for giving me the wisdom to see my life’s purpose. I thank you for the life experiences that have made me the person that I am. I am strong. I now know my constant and eternal connection to you. I know that you guide me, and that, with your help, I will be able to accomplish what I have come to this earth to do. I understand that you do not ask more of me than I can find strength for.

  Today I accept that which I am here to do. I accept all that you ask of me, and I ask, in turn, for your assistance in doing what I need to do. I trust in you, and I trust that I will find the way to do what I need to do with grace, love, and compassion. Mother Father God, I am ready, and I accept my full life’s purpose now. Show me the way.

  Elena’s words reverberated with the sounds of the rain. Elena’s words carried power; she had not just spoken, she had made an agreement. What she said there that day set in motion a whole timeline of events. The movement was already beginning; events were changing and falling into place. It was as if Creator were rearranging and adjusting a long, convoluted set of train tracks so that Elena could now head in a different direction.

  Elena opened her eyes slowly, feeling light-headed at the intensity of the energy that ran through her; the power of the thunderstorm added to the sensation. As her eyes opened and adjusted to what they were seeing, Elena’s jaw dropped open. What she saw was incredible.

  Not even twenty feet in front of her spanned a brilliant rainbow. It vibrated with luminosity of color and stood like a miracle. Elena followed the rainbow’s curve and discovered that it began by her left hip, where it met the water. Incredulous, she followed the arch of the rainbow to the other side and saw that it ended at her right hip where it completed its infinite circle, fading into the turbulent creek. Of all the things that had happened to Elena in her life, this was one of the most phenomenal. She hadn’t even known this was possible, yet it was happening for her. She had her own personal rainbow.