The four words did not come from a single voice, but the entire crowd. It sounded less like adulation and more like worship on the scale of a religious experience. They see me as a goddess?
How?
Why?
Am I a goddess if I’m in the clouds?
But she never got any answers to her questions. Chrystos had provided her with a glimpse of the future, not a full viewing.
Instead of exciting her, though, or making her feel rewarded for the praise, it terrified her. It reminded her of the praise Rufus commanded. And she would become that?
No. She would not allow it. No matter what, she could not become a name so great that the generations down the line would praise her as such. What got praised one generation might get scorned the next.
She reached out first for the essence of Indica. She grabbed it with both hands and worked to break it into three pieces. Unlike the essence of Ragnor, this one shattered with almost shocking ease.
When Zelda opened her eyes, she saw two pieces strewn on the ground. She looked back at Eric and remembered that he held the third piece. She could live with that. One piece of three would give a man power, but it would not make him immortal or indestructible.
She pulled out the essence of Bahamut next. This one, she hesitated on. She really would destroy the essence of Chrystos, mostly on the guess of what felt right. Chrystos, give me a sign.
But she got none. He wants me to make my own decision, I suppose. The battle against Iblis is won. There is no need for him to speak to me anymore.
He’s earned some rest, I would say.
She held the crystal with both hands and sought to use her power to break it apart. It had a little more resistance than the essence of Indica, but in the end, it broke with ease as well.
Three pieces of the essence of Bahamut spread through the ground, leaving eight pieces in total, the ninth on Eric’s neck.
“Our job, now, is for us to scatter this as we must,” Zelda said. She could feel the magic leaving her as she spoke, though she still had a remarkable amount of power left in her. The essences had supplemented her power, not made it. “But we must not know where the other pieces lie. At least, I must not.”
“Someone should, Zelda,” Eric said. “If someone were to ever gather power and become a threat as Artemia did, we need to gather forces. A temporary centralization of force may someday be needed.”
“But…”
Eric didn’t back down. His posture remained almost defiant to Zelda. Forced to reconsider, she lowered her head in thought.
But after only two words, Zelda already knew the answer.
“You will,” she said. “You are not a mage. You cannot abuse this power. You can make sure we only gather it as needed.”
Zelda spoke without hesitation. Her pitch did not change. Her mind did not doubt what she had said.
Eric had not guided her wrong at any point. Unlike her, he didn’t have doubts about if he fought for good or used his skills for good. He just fought, and all his battles had resulted in gains for Hydor.
“OK,” Eric said. “Let me grab a map from Mathos. I will use it to mark the location of the smaller crystals. I will distribute mine, and then I will ride on the back of the dragons of you two as we spread the magic throughout the land.”
He departed quickly and returned even faster, barely an hour passing with his absence. During that time, Yeva and Zelda barely spoke a word to each other. The gravity of the moment, the potential of the magic present, and the necessity of their duty weighed on them, rendering any words pressed down into their throats.
Eric’s dragon landed with a quick thud. Eric hopped off, holding a map that he rolled out like a scroll.
“It’s the most expansive map I could find from the guild,” he said. “But I have a feeling that it’s going to need to be expanded. If we’re serious about spreading these across the world, I think we need to go beyond what we know.”
“To the lands never touched or even seen by man,” Yeva said with a smile. “We’ll explore what we don’t even know exists. That’s exciting.”
Even Zelda allowed herself to smile. If she couldn’t let herself escape the meaning of the moment, she could at least derive pleasure from its secondary meaning.
“This will take some time,” Zelda said. “To distribute nine total pieces of crystal through the land, with only two of us at most going, will not happen tonight. I think we should do this over a period of time. Perhaps each of us will do one piece per night, changing the type of crystal that we grab.”
Zelda felt her stomach roil when she suggested the idea. The longer those crystals sit there, waiting for someone who doesn’t want to hide them…
But the more we spread this out and make it less likely someone remembers all of their locations… and the more we take trips with different types, meaning no one knows where one type of crystal is in its entirety…
“Then we’ll do that,” Eric said. “Tonight, we will all take one crystal.”
“I’ll take Indica’s,” Yeva said.
“Bahamut’s,” Zelda said.
“Very well then,” Eric said. “I’ll go first with Ragnor. I’ll fly until I feel certain that neither of you know where I’m going. You’ll have a general idea, perhaps, but even that I can switch.”
Eric grabbed a piece of the red essence, looked at it, examined it from all angles, and then pocketed it as he headed to Margol. With a shout, he lifted Margol to the sky, flying east—a direction that humanity had not yet ever bothered to explore. All of the maps showed the peninsula upon which Caia sat leading to a very wide sea before hitting the main continent, but as far as Zelda knew, no one had ever gone as far east as the main continent with Mathos. She didn’t even know what the land east of Caia on the peninsula looked like.
“You’re sure of this.”
Yeva had not asked a question. She had sounded rather impressed, and her gentle smile and folded hands confirmed that.
“Not at all,” Zelda said with a resigned laugh. “But it seems like the right approach. If someone goes to the effort of finding all of these essences for their own purposes, well, I suppose they deserve the power.”
“Maybe so,” Yeva said. “But you won’t have to worry about that for a long, long time. We’ll be long gone by then.”
“Maybe,” Zelda said.
“No, no maybe. Don’t worry about that. Let the burden go, Zelda. You can relax.”
It didn’t come easily. It wouldn’t come easily for a long time.
But for the first time in ages, Zelda could seriously contemplate it. The distribution of the crystals would mean that the burden requiring her work would not appear for quite some time.
***
Over the next week, Eric, Zelda, and Yeva flew far across the land of Hydor, burying their crystals as necessary. They did it in places spanning from a mountain to the south that they had to work on quickly before behemoths appeared to an unexplored desert to the northwestern part of the world. They followed the forest east of Mathos as far as it would go, and followed the smaller mountains near the one they had fought Artemia at.
They placed one on the far northeastern and southeastern side of the newly-formed world. They placed one near where each legendary dragon had fallen. They placed one just south of the mountain where Bahamut had fallen.
They ended their journey with one final piece, a piece of Indica’s, the very first dragon they had killed, in the spot where their battle against a common enemy had begun.
The place where the imperial palace once stood.
“Seems appropriate,” Zelda said. “Bury the danger of the crystal with the danger the empire brought.”
“Bury the past,” Eric said. “But don’t forget the past. I won’t.”
“I know you won’t, it’s why you’ll make for a great leader.”
She patted the ground one last time, using a small bit of magic to harden the area where she had buried the last bit of essence of Indica
’s, and stood.
“So what now?” Eric asked.
Zelda had a general idea, but she didn’t know specifics.
She saw what a brief meditation had given her—an insight into her potential status as a perceived deity in the future. What more might such moments bring? What insights would she get that could help her and the magi down the line?
How long would she need to be alone to do such things?
“I don’t know,” Zelda said. “But I promise I’ll be around. After a long nap.”
Eric let out a snort of a laugh.
“You’ll be around?” Eric said questioningly. “As in, you’ll come every so often to be by our side? Or you’ll make permanent residence of the castle we’re building?”
“Castle?”
“Yeah, we’re building one across the sea from where Dabira once stood,” Eric said. “The graveyard isn’t completely visible but I think it’s a good reminder. We can rebuild but not forget what awaits us on the other side.”
“King Eric,” Zelda said, reflecting on the words as she spoke them. “I think that would work wonderfully. But… well, I’m sure you’ll see me. But I need to learn more about the magi. The spiritual realm. All of it. A castle, unfortunately, won’t provide the most conducive environment for that.”
She nodded to a building behind Eric.
“Somehow, the library still stands,” Zelda said, a smile coming to her face she could not resist. “I need to find Garo’s journals and meditate on them. Maybe even add to them. If a magi made in the image of Chrystos comes every couple hundred of years, I want to make sure they know everything I know.”
“Ensure the knowledge piles up each generation.”
“Exactly. Let no information slip through the cracks.”
As Zelda spoke, though, the reality of the moment hit her.
The group that had helped her so much in the past couple of weeks, the group she had worked with the most to save the world, the group with whom she could most relate to was falling apart—entirely of her own accord. She had worried so much about fitting into society, and now she had made the decision to only be around sporadically in the name of research, knowledge, and helping generations to come.
Perhaps in the short term that would work. But in the long term, would the loneliness get to her? Or could she balance her duties as the most powerful mage with her own personal desire for connection?
“Can you at least come back with me?” Eric said, offering his hand.
But as Zelda looked beyond him and to the library, she knew she’d waited for this chance for far too long. The chance to use the skill that Garo had first given her in that library many months ago—the chance to read. To study. To become wiser without the burden of running somewhere, fighting someone, or saving something.
To ensure history did not repeat itself by recording everything that happened, the better to help future magi.
Zelda looked at Eric with watery eyes.
“Not right now,” Zelda said. “But I promise at some point, yes, you will see me.”
Eric dropped his hand, biting his lip. But then, to her surprise, he smiled.
“You better,” he said with a laugh. “And I want to read what you’ve discovered. Even if it’s not something I would use, it sounds entertaining enough.”
Zelda, relieved he wouldn’t take it harshly, laughed as well. Her eyes stopped watering, and her skin crawled with the warmth of relief.
“Thank you, Eric,” Zelda said. “Yes. Let me take care of a few things. And then I will come and see you.”
Eric nodded. A brief pause came, and then the two hugged tightly.
The mage and the hunter, the girl made in the image of a god and a king, embraced for all that they had done. Saving the world. Saving their souls. And saving their loved ones.
And their lives were just getting started.
EPILOGUE, PART 1
Two Years Later
Eric stood with his wife, Yeva, at the base of the former Dragon Hunter’s Guild, now converted into a military base for his kingdom. Before him, perhaps a hundred men stood, those who had sworn they would fight for Eric if the need ever occurred. The king could not possibly imagine a scenario in which they would need their fighting skills. In the time since he had become king, the worst that had happened was a quarrel between two men over a woman, and they all let the two men fight it out themselves.
But he understood the necessity of an army, and in some ways relished the chance to train one. He had seen what a good soldier could do, yet he had also seen what a twisted soldier could do under Rufus Syrast or General Arthur. He became determined not to let his army fall into disarray as the empire’s had.
The part that gave him the most pride, however, was how magi had began to come out about their status. What had started as the fear that only two magi remained in the world—Yeva and Zelda—had dissolved, revealing nearly two dozen magi who still lived. Compared to the number of humans alive, they seemed dangerously low on numbers, but no longer did men seek to kill or harass them. Many, in fact, seemed relieved to not have to fight them on the basis of their status as magi, choosing instead to either welcome them with open arms to simply treat it as a non-factor.
He cleared his throat and held his hands up. Yeva folded her hands, assuming the posture of a queen. The crowd, which had already watched with only the fewest of murmurs, went completely silent. Not because I demand it. But because I’ve earned it.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said.
A loud grunt came from the side. Everyone turned and laughed as Margol had belched. Eric joined the laughter, bemused at the sight.
“Now that my dragon has shown his approval, allow me to explain today,” he said. “This building has long served as a place of darkness. First, the empire built it to house itself. Then the Dragon Hunter’s Guild took over, and we all remember what that produced. Artemia.”
Just the very name sent shivers down every spine in attendance. The only question that time would have to answer was who had done more to harm humanity—her or the last emperor.
“Perhaps we are taking a risk by using it once more. Perhaps we should choose, instead, to tear this building down and start anew. But I believe that would send the wrong message.”
At this, he grabbed Yeva’s hand, though he did not do so to make a public point.
“We cannot rebuild our world by destroying that which we hate and building over it. That will only create a cycle of destruction and chaos, which I, for one, would like to escape. Instead, we must find a way to repurpose that which has been used for evil.”
He thought of the relationship between magi and humans at that moment. He hoped that his marriage to Yeva, which had taken place just six months ago in front of the majority of the city, would serve as a shining example of that.
“Today marks our first example of using an army for good. Rather than using it to hunt down those who we do not understand or that which does not pose an actual threat to us, we will use it to protect what we cherish. This town. Our new capital, Reatha, to the west. Other places.”
Though he knew he could never send guards south, he thought of what it would be like for them to protect the remains of Caia. And Zelda. How long has it been? Since the wedding? Come back. We need you here. We miss you.
“You will learn to fight. You will learn to use magic gleamed from the crystals in your swords.”
Some of the guards looked down at their weapons, embedded with the power of Indica. The power did just enough to give a slight boost in elemental strength, but not enough for a fire spell to burn a house down or an ice spell to freeze a man.
“But you will do so for the right reasons.”
Now came the moment of public display. Eric raised his hand with Yeva’s. He felt her fingers curl tightly around him.
“Today marks the beginning of our kingdom’s forces,” Eric said. “The forces which will be used for good of mankind and magi alike!”
The crowd erupted. Eric turned to his beautiful wife, who simply smiled as she closed her eyes and kissed him.
***
The light of the sky had begun to fade behind the forested mountains. One could hear the flapping of wings of the creatures of the night but rarely see them. The temperature had dropped several degrees, following in the path of the sun from the high point in the sky.
Eric Garland, an eighteen-year-old boy with more victories over evil than any non-magi in history, with his newly growing kingdom, and his beautiful wife, knelt before a small gravestone. The stone had received recent refurbishing over the years, located in a cemetery that now nearly everyone in the empire knew. The stone bore the words “Here Lies Reah Garland. A Mother Who Protected the World, Even in Death.”
Behind Eric’s mother’s tomb was another monument of similar structure and age, cracked over the years. This one, however, had more markings, perhaps a testament to the grief that people had felt over the fallen soul it identified. And this one, like the other, had new words. “Here Lies Rey Garland. A Sister Who Inspires a Kingdom With Her Kindness and Heart.”
And then, next to the two graves, two new graves appeared with far less cracks and other signs of age compared to the first two. The first one, directly to the right of his mother’s grave, a tombstone read “Here Lies Auron Theros. A Man Who Found Salvation in the End.”
And then, to the right of his sister, Eric read the last stone. “Here Lies Abraham Wallace. A Mentor, a Leader, and a Hero.”
Eric crouched in silence for many minutes as Yeva stood just a couple of feet behind him. His eyes would sometimes shut, thinking of his family resting here and what lay ahead. His breathing would sometimes quicken, remembering who he fought for and what he fought against. His emotions would sometimes volley, from the sadness of those buried underneath the ground to appreciation at all that the fallen had done for him in his life.
And throughout, his face willingly showed how he felt. Warm, optimistic, and open emotionally by a second chance from the gods, Eric had learned the art of compassionate expression. He understood it benefited his kingdom to display the hope that he had. If his face showed belief, his people would believe.
Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 41