And the tail lashed towards her face. She realized it was a serpent. This beast was a chimera, though the bat wings indicated a manticore. Either way, it was terrible.
Petra swallowed. Even more terrible was who this was. “Yes, we do. Be gone! I have nothing to do with you! I serve Alphego, and He has given me far more grace and power than I deserve.”
“And such an excellent power it is, too,” affirmed Lorkon. “Yet you haven’t even tested the slightest bit of it.”
“I am expected to act responsibly with it,” Petra answered. “It was given to me to aid in my rule of Rizkaland – not to be used for my idle pleasure.”
“Ah, but isn’t that Alphego’s way? He gives you such great power but never lets you use any of it. He pretends to give you freedom, but what you receive is nothing but a list of rules.”
“Rules that are there to assure that everyone is happy – if we’d only follow them,” Petra answered. “Be gone, I say! I have nothing to do with you.”
Petra…
Petra relaxed at the touch of Reuben’s mind. She could feel the ghost of his arm slide around her waist. She latched onto his thought and held tight.
I can’t get out, and … there’s someone in here with me.
I feel him. Hold on.
Lorkon gave a low chuckle. “Do you really believe that? You know, I can give you power, too, and actual freedom to use it.”
“False freedom that will only lead to eternal bondage and my destruction and death,” Petra retorted. She could feel Reuben pulling at her mind, but he couldn’t budge her. Indeed, she felt him slipping.
Stop, she ordered, or you’re going to fall in here with me. We … we can’t face this on our own. He’s too powerful for us. Perhaps if I had my staff…
“So you will stay in your constrictions and rules, Petra? The so-called freedom?”
“Freedom without rules is chaos. There are stupid rules, I’ll admit that without a doubt, but Alphego’s aren’t stupid. His creates true freedom. Yours is the so-called.”
Reuben pressed not just hers, but also his staff against her stomach, both in pencil form. A sense of peace washed over her. She closed her eyes, although that was nearly pointless in the blackness.
Alphego, we don’t have the strength to fight this Lorkon. Lend us some of Yours or come save us from his lies.
Whiteness exploded around them, and the darkness recoiled as if in fear, save for the shadow that was Lorkon.
Alphego himself stepped forward, his white wings outstretched. One covered her, protecting her.
“I have chosen Petra as my child. How dare you interfere with her?” Alphego demanded.
“She came to me,” Lorkon argued, a sneer in his voice as he spread his batwings wider – as though he thought he could intimidate Alphego. “And I’ve only offered her the joy that you deny.”
“You offer her lies,” answered Alphego. “I gave her sister into your power for a season, but that season is over, and Petra has no part in you.”
“Are you sure that you want her? I’ve never met another soul as proud as hers, not even her sister. She toes the line now and says the words that she knows will please you, but what will you do when she rebels against you and twists her power for her own gain?”
“I have chosen Petra and Reuben for the task I set before them. They are imperfect, but my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Lorkon made a noise that might have been laughter. “That’s because you know that perfection will turn on you when it has the chance.”
“Be gone, and tempt neither Petra nor her sister again.”
Alphego curled Petra into his wing and lifted her out of the terrible place. Her vision swirled again, and she was once more staring at the charred wall and dragon scale.
“She’s out!” Reuben shouted, and she winced because he was very close to her ear. “Hold your wife so she doesn’t interfere again.”
His hand closed around hers, and together they plunged the knife into the scale. It immediately dissolved into black dust which fell like hourglass sand to the floor. As Petra had predicted, she felt the mental link with Sylvia subside, so that it was just the knowledge that she was there, as it usually was with Reuben and Spiraldream.
Sylvia gave a strangled cry, and Petra turned to see her tear herself from Richard’s arms and throw herself at what remained of the scale. Even as she dug at the black dust, it dissolved still more, and she held nothing.
Petra took a shaky breath, as her spirit felt sapped, and fell to her knees beside her sister. “You’re finally free from it,” she whispered. “Free to follow Alphego. Doesn’t that feel wonderful?”
“I…” Sylvia whispered, closing her eyes. “I feel like I’ve just been shattered into a million pieces.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Petra admitted. “I feel the same way, though probably not quite as badly. I think it bonded a bit to me while I was in it, or when it bonded me to you … or somewhere in there. But now it’s gone, and we can move forward and rebuild Rizkaland.”
“I did so many terrible things…”
“We can move forward and rebuild,” Petra repeated.
Richard was now at Sylvia’s side, helping her back to her feet. Petra accepted Reuben’s offered arm of support.
“They both need rest,” said Reuben, pulling Petra closer to him. “That wasn’t easy for either of them.”
“And you…?” asked Richard.
“I’m all right and should stay that way,” said Reuben, shaking his head. “I merely provided Petra with some strength there at the end. She did the worst of it.”
But even as they spoke, Sylvia swooned forward, unconscious. Richard caught her without hesitation. Petra darted forward and placed a hand against her sister’s cheek, flaring the bond between them back into life.
She didn’t like what she felt.
“Is she all right?” Richard asked.
“I … I don’t know,” Petra shook her head. “The loss of the dragon and her immortality so close together seems to have been more than her body can handle. I don’t know…” She swallowed, meeting Richard’s eye. “Reuben’s right. She needs rest. I do too. At the moment, all we can do is wait and see.” She withdrew her hand. “And hope and pray.”
Richard nodded and scooped up his wife, cradling her against his chest like a precious treasure. “Thank you. Yesterday, I had run out of hope.” A smile spread across his face as he stared down at his wife, revealing dimples a mile deep. “Today I have all the hope in the world. Maybe three worlds.”
Petra smiled herself as she leaned back into Reuben. “That’s your brother all right.”
Part 5
The
After
math
Chapter 1
Summer squinted at the strip of yellow on the horizon that was RivMi, the barrier between Rizkaland and Klarand. Reuben and Petra were on the other side of the Riv fighting against the terrible Amber and her husband inside the very castle where Tyler and Summer had been imprisoned for two long weeks. Summer would have felt a bit better about the situation if they hadn’t come up with that harebrained idea that Amber and Granite were their imaginary long-lost triplets and that they might be able to save them.
There’d been no dissuading them. She’d tried.
Now over three days had passed since the harandas had taken Reuben and Petra away for the Final War. They’d not been heard from since, but neither had there been any sign of action from Amber. There was no way to know the outcome of the Final War. Crazy though they were, Reuben was her brother, and Petra was Tyler’s sister, and they were supposed to bear the brunt of Rizkaland’s rule. Summer was worried about them, and she knew she wasn’t the only one.
Downstairs in the council room, Noraeto and Ashna were discussing the silence with her aunt and the king and queen of Klarand. Summer and Tyler had been invited to the meeting, but Summer wasn’t interested in another boring conversation of what-ifs.
Summer wasn’t a
lone on the tower. Laura stood on the opposite side, gazing silently at the strip of orange that was RivRe. Just a few feet away from Summer, Robert and the strange Karyn were talking in low tones.
Even after a week and a half, Summer was having a hard time accepting that this man was her brother. It was just too weird. But she’d talked with Reuben about it, and since he was actually of the same opinion as she was – despite the fact that he was usually gung-ho for anything weird – she supposed she was in good company.
“Tell me again why it had to be our insane brother and his even crazier girlfriend who went to fight Amber?” Summer spoke up, tired of the mind-numbing quiet.
“Because Petra happens to be the one who wears purple,” answered Karyn, biting the words. “Alphego chose them to be the King and Queen of Eliue. We just have to trust that He knows what He’s doing. All that.”
“They’re going to be all right, I’m sure,” declared Robert. “Rizkaland will be free from the Dragon, winter will be reinstated, and we’ll have our lost ones restored to us.”
“We’re asking a lot of them, you have to admit,” said Karyn. “Despite their fancy sticks and telepathy, Reuben and Petra are only human, after all.”
“Alphego uses mere humans for many great works,” Laura spoke up. “Reuben and Petra are fine. The Final War has been fought, but it wasn’t easy.”
“Perhaps we should go check on them?” Karyn then suggested. “If the battle is over, why have they not returned to tell how things transpired? Are they injured? Perhaps they need assistance.” She tilted her head to the side. “Though I imagine that if there were problems, they could have sent for their harandas.”
“Well, if Reuben and Petra are immortal now,” suggested Summer, “they might not be reacting well. Maybe it takes a while for them to adjust or … something like that.”
“They’re … what?” said Karyn, whirling around to face her.
“Amber and Granite’s immortality cannot be destroyed,” Laura explained. “Merely transferred to the person who kills them.” She muttered something else, but Summer didn’t catch it.
“I see.” Karyn bit the words again.
“But I can assure you that Reuben and Petra are totally fine,” said Laura. “The final battle has been fought.” She shrugged. “And soon, Rizkaland’s seasons will be restored.”
“And that means that you’re getting Linette back, right?” said Summer, glancing at her brother. “Still can’t wrap my mind around the fact you’re married.”
“There are days I feel the same,” Robert admitted. “Linette made me a very lucky man. I think you’ll like her when you finally get to meet her. She’s no Petra, I’ll admit, but we can all agree that I never had a chance with Sarah.”
Karyn gave a bark of laughter. “No, you never did.” Then her face sobered as she turned back and leaned against the parapet. “She was no Petra, and you are no Reuben.”
“It’s a good thing that there were a Linette and Ritis here in Rizkaland waiting for us,” said Robert.
“Yes…” agreed Karyn.
Robert put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, we’ll get them back soon enough. And…” he gave Summer a sidewise glance before he added, “and your husband, too, Karyn.”
“Things won’t be as they were,” answered Karyn. “Amber has left scars that won’t easily heal. Now that she is gone, I say good riddance!”
“A sentiment that all Rizkaland will agree with, I’m sure,” said Robert.
Summer glanced at Laura, who was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation’s turn. Given the fact that Robert and Karyn didn’t know that Petra and Reuben had made that last-minute decision to not actually kill Amber and Granite if at all possible, it was understandable. Summer wondered if she ought to say something, but found herself reluctant. Karyn already disapproved of Petra.
“Ah, hello Tyler, so good to have you join us,” said Robert, interrupting the uncomfortable silence.
Summer turned to see that Tyler had emerged from the tower door. He glanced awkwardly about, and finally focused on Summer. “I was told that I could find you up here. I’d hoped you’d be alone.”
“She is alone!” Robert declared, as he took Laura by the shoulder and guided her through the door from which Tyler had just emerged. He only paused to give Karyn a pointed glance. Karyn rolled her eyes but then disappeared in a sparkling cloud.
“I’m, uh, surprised to find you here,” began Tyler. “At the top of a spiral staircase. I thought you were done with them.”
Summer shrugged, uncomfortable with the fact that they were alone together. Sure, they’d been alone before … but that was before she knew he liked her.
“I got bored,” she told him. “And we can almost see Rizkaland from here, so it’s a convenient place to worry about Reuben and Petra.”
He nodded.
“Laura says that they’ve won the battle,” Summer continued. “Or something like that. They should be back soon. Maybe.”
“Good.” Tyler inched closer. Summer had never felt this awkward around a guy before. But she normally wasn’t anticipating a marriage proposal. “There’s, ah, a reason that I wanted to find you alone.”
“Really?” Now he was getting to the point.
“You see, apparently there’s a law in Rizkaland about those boxes we opened.”
Summer nodded. “I know. Petra told me about them.”
“Oh.” He gave a sigh of relief and seemed to relax for a moment. “Oh … so you already know?”
“I know about the Tying Ceremony and what it means for the two of us,” she answered. “So you don’t have to worry about explaining that to me. I know that you’re talking about more than just casual dating here.”
“Yeah.”
“So…” Summer had done what Petra had asked and made it easy for Tyler, but now it was his turn to talk.
“I’ve never been interested in casual,” he finally said, with a shake of his head. “That’s why I’ve hesitated to talk to you, because I knew you weren’t ready … and I wanted to make sure that I was ready, too.”
“So … are you ready?”
“No.” His jaw tightened, and he shook his head. “I was planning to wait another year at least before I suggested dating, even though Petra has been encouraging me to ask you out sooner than that, hypocritical though she might be given that she was still refusing to even acknowledge that Reuben liked her. And … then I was going to wait until your twenty-first birthday to actually propose – I had it all planned out, well, more or less … but now it seems that this world has other plans.”
Summer nodded. “We shouldn’t have opened those boxes.”
Tyler shook his head. “That’s the wrong way to look at things. Look, maybe things would have been better if we hadn’t … but this is the world that needs us. And even as unready as I feel, I think things are different here.”
Summer turned away, frowning. “Yeah, here we’re forced into things before we’re ready. Here we have magical weapons and power over animals. Here we’re expected to be king and queen. Here … Reuben and Petra … have a ton more expected of them.”
“Yeah,” Tyler agreed. “They do.”
“And they seem to have been forced even faster than us,” Summer continued. “We still have a couple weeks … maybe a month. They had a couple hours.” She tilted her head to the side and offered Tyler a grin. “But we’ve known for years that when those two did go, they’d go hard and fast.”
Tyler managed a smile in response. “And they did, didn’t they?” He glanced away. “I wonder if they ever talk about us like this.”
Summer shrugged. “Knowing my brother … brothers … and my mom, probably. To be honest, I wouldn’t put it past Petra, either, even though gossip isn’t really her style.”
“But we are her family,” said Tyler. “She’ll talk about us.”
Summer laughed and shook her head. “Yes, she will.”
“I think we’ve strayed off the topic we we
re supposed to be talking about,” said Tyler.
Summer swallowed. “We did, didn’t we?”
“Look, I’m not going to push you, but … if you’re willing to move forward in our relationship…”
“Was that part of the speech you’d planned to propose with when I turned twenty-one?” Summer asked.
Tyler glanced away, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “Um, kinda?”
He was so incredibly awkward. Petra had asked Summer to go easy. Perhaps she should loosen up a bit more.
She didn’t give herself a moment to think about it. She kissed him. Right on the lips.
To be honest, this wasn’t her first kiss – that had happened at a friend’s party when she was fourteen. The last party her parents had allowed her to attend. This wasn’t even her best kiss – Tyler was far too stunned and stiff. Still, there was something different about this kiss, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Perhaps it was something different about her. This wasn’t an act of rebellion, and she felt no guilt for doing this. This was the man the Rizkans already expected her to marry, the guy who grew up across the street and had loved her for years without saying a word. There wasn’t the romantic rush of risking her heart, but perhaps that rush wasn’t worth the pain.
Rocking back onto her heels, she smirked up at him. “You’re going to have to get used to that if you plan to marry me.”
She’d have to get used to it herself.
He stared at her, raising a hesitant hand to his mouth. Finally, he managed a quiet, “Okay.”
Applause escalated the awkward moment. Summer spun around to see that the culprit was a smirking Karyn.
“I thought you had left,” said Summer, folding her arms over her chest.
Karyn shrugged. “I occasionally mix up teleportation and invisibility. Besides, the two of you are clearly in need of a chaperone.”
“We are not!” Summer declared.
“Your behavior just now says otherwise,” Karyn stated. “In Rizkaland, kissing before your Tying is considered inappropriate behavior. Until your Tying, you will henceforth be properly chaperoned at all times.”
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