by Leyton, Bisi
“Why? The blood serum we gave her will treat the Nero. Beloved, she will be fine.”
“Mother—”
“That’s what you want Bach, to have her with you? Answer me.” Placing her hands on the sides of his face, she looked into his eyes. “Is that what you want the most in all the realms?”
“Yes.” He saw in the reflection of her eyes, an image of a girl standing at the end of the corridor. Turning back, he saw Wisteria standing there, holding their daughter Oleander.
Now, in this vision, Oleander looked different to Bach. She wasn’t the traitorous sixteen-year-old who’d tried to murder Wisteria, but an innocent young girl with wild curly hair.
“Father, I’m so scared.” She ran to him.
“Oleander.” He lifted her up.
“I was scared when you left us,” Ollie whimpered.
Hugging her, he kissed his daughter’s forehead. “How did you get here?”
“Your mother cured me and found a way to reverse Ollie’s aging.” Wisteria smiled as she sauntered up to him. “She fixed everything.”
In seconds, Wisteria was in his arms. Tiptoeing up, she placed her plump lips on his. Leaning down, he consumed her burnfruit lips hungrily. The taste of her sweet essence took over his mind. The anxiety and uncertainty of his mother’s revelation vanished and he felt complete.
“I want to have another child for you,” she whispered between kisses. “A son.” Then unexpectedly, she faded away.
Reaching toward her, he found nothing but air. Looking around, he realized Oleander was gone too. Shaking his head to clear it he realized he was still standing, looking directly at his mother while her hands probed his temples. “Where are they?”
“It was an illusion Bach, but you can have her back for real.”
“I want to see it again.” He knew it wasn’t real, but his heart felt torn up when the vision vanished. “Please, make them come back.”
“Then, follow me and they will be with you every night,” promised his mother.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hands glowing with a bright yellow light.
“Follow me,” she repeated.
“I will follow you anywhere. If you promise she’ll be here.” Bach surrendered his mind, as the bright yellow light flowed into his mind.
“Then, serve me forever Colista-Bren-Navida-Dor-Elson-Elsner-Havash-Razerobar-Calshina-Holan-Visnasu-Ornay-Latarn-Kinta-Barsee-Misnash-Hol-Mikitesh-Maz-Sustin-Loul-Rinta...” His mother recited his full name.
“You’re renewing me?” He realized with alarm. “It’s not possible. I’m the Sen-Son of the Third Pillar, I can’t be renewed.” Even as he shouted, there was no sound. Instead, a shadow seemed to fall over his mind, fighting to take control of him. He wanted to speak, but instead, a strange deep voice came from his mouth. We are Bach of the Dy’obeths. We are the darkness and we are the good. “No, no,” Bach screamed in his head.
“My beloved.” His mother kissed his cheek. “You are perfect. Now you do not have to be afraid or tired. You now have access to the power of your true self. I have given you the strength you never comprehended you had.”
The world spun around him and everything went from a bright yellow to an infinite black.
Chapter Four
Destroy Something Powerful
“I’m confused,” Bach finally spoke as he opened his eyes in a dark chamber, lying on a massive bed.
Sitting next to him, his mother placed her hand on his forehead. “Beloved, you have slept for days. I was afraid you would miss the arrival. How do you feel?”
“Weird.” Inspecting his hands, they didn’t feel like his own. “What have you done to me?”
“You are perfected.”
“You tried to renew me and turn in me into a Thayn.” Family often to turned humans into servants or Thayns by using their blue light or pulse. Once done, the humans were devoted to the person who’d renewed them. Bach never renewed humans as he’d never wanted to have a Thayn, but he’d seen it done enough times to realize his mother tried to do it to him.
“A Thayn? Never. The perfection is not a renewal. I have freed the dark within you. It will make you strong and no one will ever be your master. If I had renewed you, you wouldn’t remember your own name. Say it and see.”
“Colista-Bren-Navida-Dor-Elson-Elsner…”
“If you were a Thayn you wouldn’t even recall that much.”
He looked down at his fingers as a strange energy pulsed through him, turning them bright yellow. Streaks of lightning escaping from his fingers struck the roof.
“Careful, unless you want it to catch fire.” She laughed.
“I need time to get used to this.” As he spoke, another streak shot out.
“We’ve brought you supper. Come.”
The stone doors to his chamber opened. Felip entered carrying a tray. “You look—well? Yellow eyes suit you.”
“What is this?” Bach asked.
“This is supper,” she said. “Roasted—”
“I will not eat anything Felip brings.” Bach then caught sight of his reflection from the shiny marble wall. He looked the same, but his eyes were now yellow. “I’m a Dy’obeth now?”
“Perhaps, after you have wrapped your head around this change, you’ll eat,” Felip suggested.
“If you speak again to me—or come in here again, I will crush your neck,” Bach promised.
“Bach,” His mother interjected. “Do not. Felip isn’t to be harmed.”
Make the insolent fool bleed. Bach heard a voice within him say. Yes, Bach wanted that, but felt at that moment he couldn’t disobey his mother for some odd reason. “Fine. I’ll leave him for now.” Bewildered, he wanted to get away from the both of them and he rushed to the window. Diving out, he descended into the dark forest below. Landing with a thud, his eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness. Walking through the shadows, he suddenly felt hungry.
The forest seemed to rattle and shake around him.
Overhead, he spotted a skrell. It was a one-foot thick snake with two heads and six-inch fangs slithering across the trees around him. He estimated it to be at least thirty feet long, but couldn’t tell for sure as it was mostly hidden. The animal hissed as it slowly circled him, its saliva dripping down, exposing its long, jagged teeth used to devour its prey.
His stomach rumbled in response. Sorry skrell, you are the prey today. As a Famila, he never dared hunt a skrell. The beasts were vicious and poisonous, but we are no longer part of the Family. Things are different now. The dark voice informed him. This creature is now no match for us. We need to destroy something powerful. The hot night wind rushed against his hard skin and he jumped up at the skrell.
The animal shot at him, biting into Bach’s shoulder, attempting to eat him.
Gripping the snake-like creature’s jaws, he plied the skrell’s jaw open and tossed the beast to the ground below. Jumping down on top of it, he smashed its head into the dirt. “Bite me again, vadda.” He spat.
The skrell slithered free and raced through the trees, away from him.
“Do not leave. I am hungry.” Bach mocked. Barreling out of the woods, he raced after his supper. He stopped right at the edge of a cliff.
The animal dove over and plummeted toward the waters, over forty-feet below.
In seconds, Bach grabbed the animal’s tail, snapping it back toward him.
Roaring loudly, the monster fought for freedom, clawing at him, but it was no match for a Dy’obeth.
Two hours later, the animal roasted over an open fire. No way would he be able to eat the whole thing, but he’d needed to hunt. Seeing blood now relaxed him the way water once soothed his lesser Famila form.
“I am disappointed. I expected you to have slaughtered a bigger one.” A deep voice boomed as Bach sat eating his supper.
“Next time it will be bigger.” Wiping the excess onto his ripped shirt he now noticed his bleeding chest. Grinning, he gazed up to the source of the voice.
&nb
sp; Lluc stood across from him.
“Hungry?” Bach offered a chunk of flesh to his brother.
Lluc took the lump of flesh and stuffed it into his mouth.
Rising to his feet, Bach examined the remains of his supper; most of it was gone. He’d actually eaten a majority of the animal on his own. “Tell me what you want and go.”
“Mother wants you present for the arrival. She sent me to find you.”
“I was just there. Tell her, I will see her when I am ready to return. I am not a child.”
“Bach, you have been gone for three days.”
“Three? It felt like seconds.”
“Eating skrell messes with your mind.” Lluc snatched another piece of meat from him and dropped it to the ground. “Try leviathan next time, and try not to eat so much.”
“Do not speak to me like I’m a child. I do not—”
“I’ll talk to you any way I want to.” Lluc struck him across the face, sending him careening over the cliff.
“You bloody qwaynide,” Bach screamed, as he splashed into the waters below.
“Stop whining like a woman and get up here.”
As Bach climbed up, he spotted Malcolm and his mother in the distance, standing miles away on a rocky cliff in front of an oval shaped threshold. When he got to the top, he saw Lluc was gone, so he headed toward his mother’s location and found him there along with Felip. Joining the cohort, Bach couldn’t help but feel happy seeing his brothers and mother gathered, strong and proud, but Felip stirred up Bach’s need to see blood.
“You’re late, Bach. Any later and you would have missed the party,” Felip snickered.
“Nothing has changed Felip.” Taking Felip by his neck, Bach dangled his cousin over the side of the cliff. “If I drop you, the skrells will rip you apart before you hit the water. That’s the part I want to see.”
“Lady Coia, stop him,” Felip screamed. “I have your protection.”
“Bach, stop,” she called. “We need him alive.”
“For now anyway.” Malcolm chuckled.
“I promise I’ll leave him alive.” Bach tossed his cousin to the ground and kicked him in the stomach.
Lluc dragged Bach away. “Stop, this is not the time.”
“Get off me.” Bach flung Lluc over his shoulder.
The massive figure flew through the sky and vanished into the night air.
Bach froze when realization hit him. That was Lluc I threw as if he were a feather! A fog cleared in Bach’s head. He could have hurt his brother. He wanted to go after him. The darkness inside stopped him. Our brother is a Dy’obeth and more than able to take care of himself. Stop acting like a infant.
Minutes later, Lluc raced out of the trees and gripped Bach’s neck tight. “You ever do that again, and I will rip your head off your shoulders.”
“Next time, don’t stop me. Felip is my business and not yours. I don’t care if he saved your life. The Vadda tried to kill me more than once and he will pay.”
“Pay? You should bow down and thank me for everything I’ve done for you.” Felip rasped as he stood and backed up toward Bach’s mother for protection. “I got the dark glass that opened the threshold and freed your mother and will free the rest of the Dy’obeths. I found the obsidian crystal needed to allow your people to pass through. I found a way into the Room of Ages and retrieved the charts that will lead us to all the locations of thresholds to Ajana. Me, not you. All you did was to constantly get in my way. You owe me everything.”
“Shut up.” Bach slapped him, sending him falling to the ground. “When you see the devil, you can tell him the whole story.”
“Enough,” his mother ordered in a low voice. “Like it or not, Felip is on our side. If you hurt him, you are hurting me.”
“Be patient,” Lluc said quietly. “You will get your chance to make him pay.”
Felip scampered toward Bach’s mother like a wounded animal and the brothers laughed.
“Are you all right?” His mother crouched down next to him.
“I’m fine. Once this first one is done, I will regenerate.” Forcing a smile, Felip handed her something. “Here.”
She took a tiny black tile, dark glass and placed it on the shimmering threshold. “I can feel them. They’re ready to be freed.”
Taking a large crystal jug, Malcolm approached the threshold.
“Where are Jason and Yordi? Why aren’t they here?” Bach wondered. “They should be here too.”
Coia turned to Bach with a pained look. “Jason resisted the perfection somehow. He preferred to be—as he was.”
“How could he? Didn’t anyone explain to him the freedom perfection brings?” The heaviness and stress Bach felt about his father, his child and Wisteria seemed to be gone now. He didn’t have all the answers, because he didn’t need them. He’d simply take what he wanted and kill anyone who stood in his way.
“I feel the time he spent with the humans damaged him,” she explained. “As for Yordi, he would never meet me without an army of sentinels which would make perfecting him at this stage difficult. I also could not risk a sentinel trying to notify the Seven Elders,” his mother elaborated. “Let us begin.”
Malcolm splashed the red liquid from the jug over the blackened glass. It smelled like watered down human blood.
The threshold vibrated and cracked.
The aroma of one particular human filled the air.
Wisteria? This was her blood. Bach felt a thick fog lift, like he was walking out of a dream. This is a nightmare—they’re actually using her blood to free monsters! Fleeing from the creatures surrounding him, he raced back toward the woods. He needed to get away and warn someone about what was happening.
“D’cara.” Malcolm scoffed. “What is wrong with him?”
“He needs to find a way to balance the perfection and the Mosroc bond,” Coia explained. “Lluc was skittish too when he was first perfected.”
“I was never that bad,” Lluc replied.
“This is not your Mosroc’s essence, like it is for Bach, so you do not react. He will find balance in time, but for now Lluc take him up to the top of the hill, so he can see this happen, but not smell his mate.”
Running from their voices, Bach sprinted through the trees, but felt himself lifted off the ground and thrown down onto his back.
“Stay down,” Lluc commanded.
Rolling over, Bach got on his feet, but his brother kicked him back down.
“Either you stay down or you will wear my marks on your face, till you die.” Lluc ground Bach’s face into the dirt with his shoe.
The dirt now packed into his nostrils, replacing Wisteria’s aroma. As she faded from his senses, he felt the thick malevolence of the perfection returning. You let him treat us like this?
“Do you understand me?” Lluc barked.
“Perfectly.” Rising up, Bach grabbed his brother’s foot and hurled him to the hard ground. “Did I not warn you about touching me?”
“Good to see you are back in control.” He grinned. “The longer you are perfected, the less hold your emotions will have over you.”
“Raltour, Raltour,” their mother called from the edge of the cliff.
The entire cliff trembled violently.
Rising up, Bach raced to the edge of the forest to see what was happening and arrived in time to see a tall man with long silver hair emerge from the oval threshold. The man was dressed in a ragged shirt and ripped trousers. He stretched, seemingly breathing in the fresh air for the first time. His mother embraced him. They exchanged words, but the conversation was too quiet for Bach to hear. Then the silver haired man looked up at the brothers with his yellow eyes.
Three more yellow-eyed men with very long hair emerged from the threshold, equally ecstatic to see their mother.
Bach noticed all the people emerging had shana. Shana spots weren’t very common among the Family and the only people Bach knew who had them were his mother and his brothers.
She signal
ed for Bach and Lluc to join her.
“You ready to go back down there?” Lluc asked.
Bach nodded.
They made their way back.
“These are my two younger sons,” Coia introduced them.
“I am Anab, the High Father of the Dy’obeths.” The silver haired man said as the brothers approached. “I am your grandfather. Thank you for helping us. I promise you will be highly honored among the brethren for this.”
Bach was unsure what to say. A year ago, he knew Wisteria hated him, but found she was trying to protect him. A month ago, he knew his mother was dead, but actually she was alive. Three weeks ago, he knew the Dy’obeths didn’t exist and now he was one. Today, he was face to face with the Dy’obeth grandfather he didn’t realize he had.
“First, I must feed, then we will find my throne and deal with the Dogs that left me in Ajana for so long,” the High Father growled.
“Eminent, we cannot return until we have found the rest of the thresholds.” Felip interrupted, showing High Father a map. “Biel Zey buried hundreds of them in this forest and made sure they had to be opened at the exact location where they were sealed. It could take days before all the Dy’obeths are released High Father. It is unwise to return to the Family home realm—”
“Coia, why is this Dog talking to me?” High Father gripped Felip’s neck and squeezed. “No Dog is to ever address me directly.”
“Yes Father.” His mother glanced at Felip and simpered.
“Beraz, deal with him.” High Father tossed Felip like a toy to a Dy’obeth with long wild brown hair streaked with red.
Beraz snatched the map from him, snapping the bone in Felip’s arm and dropped him.
Felip screamed out in pain.
“Beraz kill him for his impertinence,” High Father dictated.
“My pleasure.” Beraz picked Felip up by his broken arm.
“D’cara,” Felip wailed.
“High Father, the Dog is right. We must set more of our people free before returning to the Family’s home realm. Once you have hunted and fed, we can take over opening the rest of the thresholds. Right now, I trust the Dog to continue releasing them.” His mother took her father’s hand. “Every girl needs a Dog. Please let me keep mine.”