by Walls, Devri
That is not true, Arturo thought. This path was laid long before you stood up to Dralazar.
“Since you have been listening to me think, Arturo, is there anything else you would like to expound upon?” she asked tightly
No, I am sorry but that is something Eleana must do for herself.
“Can you tell me if I am justified in feeling betrayed at least?” An angry tear leaked out of one eye, she hurriedly swiped it away. “I have risked everyone’s lives on a feeling.”
There was a longer silence this time, not the silence of Arturo reading thoughts, but the silence of him trying to compose his own. Kiora, feelings are all we really have to go on. Making decisions by them is the only way to ensure you are not being deceived by the silver tongue of another. Regarding your sense of betrayal— it is an understandable reaction to what you have learned. All I can tell you is that her reasons were not that of Dralazar’s and that in the beginning, she thought she was doing right. Beyond that, I am afraid, you will have to wait until she chooses to tell you more. It is not my secret to tell.
She sighed deeply. “So now, I fight Dralazar?”
I am sure that is what is coming, yes.
“What if I can’t defeat him?”
Then we are no worse off than if you wouldn’t have tried at all. But you have become powerful Kiora, I don’t think you realize. Arturo’s sides shook beneath Kiora in a chortle. I don’t think Dralazar realized fully either, it was a foolish risk leaving you there without any concealment. And when you finally let him have it, he was very shaken with the amount of power you issued.
“But he knew I had changed, that’s why he took me.”
Yes, he knew that. But he had no idea exactly how dangerous you had just become. Of course, now that he knows... Arturo trailed off
“He will be here even sooner, won’t he?”
I am quite sure.
Chapter Twenty-five
THE EXODUS
THE SUN HAD SET, leaving the world in the dark, which was oddly appropriate. Arturo and Kiora flew back over the land. Trees had turned into seas of black beneath them, mountains silhouetted against the night sky and the lights of the castle twinkled like distant beacons.
Soon they were flying over the roofs of Kiora’s village. Below them, tiny disembodied lights bobbed along the paths.
She peered at them, “What are those?” Kiora asked.
The king has sent out messengers again, via Eleana’s request, trying to assure them that you are indeed the Solus.
Kiora started to reach out for the threads, but the results were so varied she tuned them back out. Far too many had listened to Layla.
Arturo dropped gently out of the sky into the back courtyards of the castle. Kiora jumped off before he had fully come to a stop, heading straight inside. Pushing open the back gates Kiora dropped her bubble.
She hadn’t made it far down the first hallway before Eleana appeared a few feet in front of her. Kiora screeched to a halt. She was as beautiful as ever—a glittering gold gown, copper flowing hair and those knowing blue eyes. She lit the space from the inside out and the thread that emanated from her was as calming and peaceful as it always had been. Despite all that, the flame of anger Dralazar had so carefully lit within Kiora flared in response to Eleana’s presence. Eleana flinched and Kiora was quite sure she had felt Kiora’s anger as well.
“I sent Morcant to find you,” Eleana said softly, her eyes lingering on the ground at Kiora’s feet. “I suspected Dralazar might take you there.”
Kiora thought she had control of the anger, she thought that she was fine. “You sent MORCANT!” she shouted. “You knew I was there, KNEW I was with Dralazar and you sent Morcant?” She took a step closer, one shaking finger pointing accusingly. “Why didn’t you come? How could you leave me alone with him? He could have killed me!” She was practically screaming now. “You let him take me to that… that… horrible gate that YOU helped... you let him take me and you didn’t stop him... you didn’t...” She stood gasping, fists balled and shaking at her side. Finally she shouted the only phrase that was clearly coming to mind. “HOW COULD YOU?”
Eleana bowed her head further. “I’m sorry.” Those two words carried more pain and conviction than should have been possible and it washed over Kiora’s anger like a bucket of water, extinguishing the flame. “I’m sorry,” Eleana repeated, a tear trickling down her cheek.
Usually when Eleana spoke of the past, or was feeling an emotion deeper than the calmness she usually exuded she looked older, as if the years had caught up to her. Her face darkened, the lines deepened. But today, at this moment, she looked so much younger, like a child who had done something they hadn’t meant to do and realized all too late the harm they had caused.
“Kiora,” she continued, folding her hands in front of her. “I knew if I went to help you that Dralazar would use it to feed your anger. I knew if he took you to the gate that he would tell you parts of the truth he wanted you to hear, having me there would have only made it worse. I needed to send someone who would not make you feel…” she gestured to her, “the way you are feeling right now.”
Kiora was still breathing heavily despite her efforts to calm down. “I still don’t understand how you could...” She couldn’t even form the words.
“I will tell you everything,” her voice cracked, “but I need to ask for your understanding.”
“For what?”
Eleana’s head finally rose, pleading, “I need your understanding in why I did what I did. And worse, I need your understanding that an explanation must wait.”
Kiora’s mouth open and shut in stunned silence. “You-want-me-to wait?” she punctuated.
“Yes. Dralazar will be here by morning I suspect. The Rockmen have already begun moving this direction. There are things I need to show you, things that need time.” She sighed, looking wilted, looking ever so much younger. “So I need to ask you,” she said, wringing her hands together in front of her, “no, I need to beg you… Will you fight for your people on faith alone that what we are doing is right, despite any grievous mistakes I have made in my youth?”
Kiora stood, not moving. She had given Eleana her full faith once, and what good had it been?
Eleana looked up at her silence, “Out of everyone, I had hoped you could understand that sometimes things are not as they seem... I thought maybe...”
Kiora held up her hand. “Stop... please.” Holding Eleana’s gaze Kiora asked, “Do I have your word that as soon as this battle is over, you will tell me everything?”
“You do.”
“Everything!” she insisted more strongly, “Not just what you think I need to know.”
Eleana looked at her with a peculiar look in her eye as she said, “Yes, I think you will need to know everything.”
Breathing in deeply, she closed her eyes. ‘Listen to your heart,’ is what Morcant had said. Her mind was screaming at her, but her heart was calm, and even. Kiora had to do this. “Alright. I will fight.” Standing to her full height she announced, “We need to make plans, have everyone meet me in the throne room.”
Eleana’s face cracked into a smile and the peculiar looked changed for a second to one of curious excitement. “I will call Drustan and the Guardians. Aleric and Emane are there already speaking to the King.”
***
Emane stood stifling a yawn. He hadn’t slept the night before— Kiora’s screams had kept him wide awake. And he certainly wouldn’t be getting any tonight, not until Kiora was home. His father and Aleric were talking, but Emane had tuned them out forever ago, hearing only a droning in the background. Staring out the window he wondered where Kiora was, pleading internally that she was safe. Emane had begged Eleana to let him go with Drustan to find her, but she had insisted he stay here.
A tap on his shoulder jolted him, “What?” he blurted, looking around.
Aleric was smiling and jerked his head towards the door.
Turning, his heart thudded in pure re
lief. “Kiora!” he yelled running over to her. Skidding to a stop he whirled her around before pulling her tightly into his arms. “Are you ok?” he murmured his face in her hair.
“I was,” she said with a grunting laugh, “but now I can’t breathe.”
Pushing her back from him, Emane’s eyes ran from her head to her feet, examining her for damage. “What happened to you?” he asked running his fingers through her hair, separating the white strands from the dark.
She shook her head. “Not right now. We have a problem that needs to be addressed.” Her voice was firm, resolve set in every inch of her. With a loving pat to Emane’s shoulder, Kiora made her way to the King. Emane turned, watching her as she walked away. Something had happened while she was gone. She stood taller, straighter. And that underlying current of determination he had seen, was now as visible as if she were flying a banner.
“Dralazar will be here, probably in the morning,” she announced. “Eleana is sending word for Drustan and the Guardians to meet us here. I expect they will arrive shortly.” The King stiffened and Kiora addressed it without fear. “Your Majesty, if you do not think you can support us in working with the magical community I would ask that you not be here when they arrive.”
Emane’s eyes widen at Kiora’s bravado. The sole hint that she was nervous was visible only to him. Her fingers, hidden behind her back, pulled at the lace of her dress. A smile crossed over Emane’s face, whatever Dralazar had done had clearly backfired.
The King’s chest puffed up and he opened his mouth before Aleric grasped his shoulder.
“I know that you are not used to taking orders,” Aleric said firmly, “but she is right.” Aleric glanced back to Kiora with a bit of pride. “If you cannot openly support those we are working with, you will offend the only hope we have in saving this people, your people. Your Majesty, choices were made that must now be amended and that responsibility falls on you. You must be supportive or not be here at all.”
“I have already removed Ciera from the castle and sent word of the Solus to the people,” the King blustered. “What more do you expect me to do!?”
“We need you to not be disgusted by magic, your Majesty.” Aleric clarified.
“I am not disgusted by…”
“Yes you are.” Emane called from the back of the room striding forward. “And you always have been.” Emane crossed his arms in front of himself “Why?”
Before he could get his answer, the doors opened and in flowed a host of somewhat humanish looking Shifters. ‘Humanish’ because they all had added a bit more, flare, to the human shape and coloring. Their hair was too bright, legs a little too long, eyes too big, and so on. For some, the adjustments had made for an exquisitely beautiful human. Others had created a bizarre beauty that made one stop and stare. Flying above their heads and intermixed between them flew the Guardians.
The King shifted uncomfortably. Rolling his eyes, Emane grabbed him, steering him to his throne. If there was one place that made his father more comfortable, it was sitting on his throne.
***
As the Shifters poured in they barely noticed the king. Instead they gathered themselves around Kiora, congratulating her on her survival, which was a bit uncomfortable of a sentiment to say thank you for, but she did anyway.
Eleana flowed in a few minutes behind them, and silence draped the room. She wisely acknowledged the King, who relaxed slightly with the gesture. The King wore a stiff smile, Kiora assumed it was the best he could fake.
“Thank you for coming,” Eleana said, her voice silencing the room. “Kiora,” she said, reaching her hand out to her, “has some things she would like to say.”
Kiora made her way through the crowd, looking to Eleana questioningly.
Quietly, Eleana urged her onward, “Tell us what you would like us to do.” She moved away, leaving Kiora standing with all eyes on her.
She cleared her throat. “Dralazar is coming. He has already sent the Rockmen to surround the village, and we expect the rest of his forces to follow by morning.” There was a murmur throughout the room.
“Who will fight,” Drustan asked from the crowd, “besides us?”
Kiora faltered, “No one.”
Another murmur moved through the room accompanied by a few gasps.
“What of your people?” one of the Shifters questioned. “Will they not fight for their own homes?”
Kiora hesitated, searching their anxious eyes. “My people know nothing of magic, of fighting, or the lies.” Praying they would understand she continued, “My people would be at such a severe disadvantage that they would be slaughtered.”
“So you want us to fight for them?” yet another Shifter questioned in near disbelief.
Kiora could see the King squirm in his chair. “Yes,” she said loudly. “I would like to spare my people from fighting in this battle in order to preserve them for the next, for one where they could be properly trained.” She saw the Shifters moving, murmuring one to another. “But no,” she continued, “you are not only fighting for them. Regardless of if they fight or not, you know as well as I do that you are not just fighting for my people. You are fighting for your families and your freedom from a man whose reign of terror you have witnessed. A man who was so vicious and cruel that you left his side the last time before the battle was even over. You know as well as I do that this people are in no shape to fight, and I apologize that we did not have time to train them so that they could add to the ranks, but with or without them, it does not change what is at stake for you and yours.” Kiora scanned the crowd to judge their reactions. Most were nodding, albeit reluctantly, in agreement with her words. Drustan was looking at her with a glint of pride. Breathing out slowly, Kiora smoothed her dress and tried to not let them see her ragged breathing.
Drustan cleared his throat. “We agree with your argument, but we will not save them all, Kiora. I know you must feel their threads. Some have sided with Dralazar.”
“How is that possible?” A Guardian asked midway to the ceiling, her long hair fluttering gently in her self-created breeze, “If Dralazar would have been in the village, we would have felt him.”
“Dralazar isn’t here,” Kiora explained. “He is using…” she hesitated, knowing somehow that speaking the truth would bring it crashing into a horrible reality, “my sister.” The words stung. “He is using my sister.” She had expected a murmur to move throughout the crowd, or maybe a gasp of disbelief. Instead she was met with silence. “Layla has been telling the people that I am not the Solus, but that I am the Evil that had been prophesied about.” She finally forced herself to let in the threads that she had been blocking since the change. They slammed into her with the force of oncoming wall of water. Her heart sunk further, there were more than before. Layla had been busy.
“But how...” a Shifter with orange and red striped hair asked, “would she possibly convince them of that?”
“Because…” there was no use being embarrassed or ashamed about it anymore, she understood it now for what it was, and so would they. “When I was a child I used to have visions. Nobody understood it. They didn’t know magic, all they knew was that I would say bad things would happen and then they would.” The words come out in a rush. “I saw my parents’ death before it happened, I tried to warn them but they left anyway, and they never came back.” Kiora wrung her hands together in front of her, feeling the pain all over again. “Layla never forgave me. She thought and still thinks that it was my fault, that I killed our parents. That is what she is telling the villagers, and some believe her.” The murmur she had been waiting for ran through the room.
Of course they believe her, Kiora thought, she is telling the truth. Blinking, Kiora nearly laughed out loud. The truth. She had been so worried about the lies, but Dralazar wasn’t using those. He was using nothing but the truth, and twisting it in a way to suit his fancy. He hadn’t lied about Eleana, and Layla wasn’t lying about her. Not really.
The murmur died down be
fore Drustan again spoke up, “What would you like to do Kiora?”
A plan had been quietly formatting as she had been speaking— one that she hoped they would agree to. She started to bite her lip before mentally yelling at herself to stop. No one wanted to take orders from a scared little girl. Pushing her shoulders back she said, “I want to remove the people who have not been convinced by Layla to a safe location until after the battle is over.”
The King blustered at this and Eleana addressed him, “You cannot assume that your people are incapable of lies, now that evil has been reintroduced.”
“How are we going to do that?” the King asked, sputtering, “There is no way of knowing what side they have chosen!”
“Yes, there is.” Kiora said, “All we need to do is listen to their threads.” She could see the King ready to object and she hurried onward. “We go tonight, before the sun rises and move from house to house. If those inside have chosen to believe Layla and Dralazar, then we leave them behind. If not, then we escort them out, bubbled to a safe location.”
“And where would that be Kiora?” Aleric asked earnestly. “There is nowhere that Dralazar will not feel their threads.”
“I was hoping that Eleana might be able to help us with that, something along the lines of the Hollow.”
“Of course,” Eleana agreed immediately.
“And what of the people we leave?” The King demanded. “What will happen to them?”
She knew the answer, but could not get it to come out of her mouth. She tried, opened her mouth in hopes that it would somehow fall it, but the thought made her sick. Drustan could see her pain and rescued her, “They are Dralazar’s people now,” he said. “We will leave them for Dralazar and if they are lucky he will see a need to keep them alive.”
“And if they are not!?” the King demanded.
“They have chosen their master,” Dralazar said quietly “and where their loyalties lie. We cannot change that and we cannot change what Dralazar chooses to do with them. To take them with us would risk exposure and death of a good majority of your people.”