by Jacob Cooper
Don’t you remember and love her?
“Yes.”
We do not lose ourselves when we die, little one. Who we are remains.
“That’s not what the Changrual—”
Fools!
Reign was taken aback by her father’s sudden outburst. “But I thought—”
I’m sorry, Reign. There are many good people in the Changrual Order. However, their understanding of the greater knowledge is far from correct. I suppose “ignorant fools” is more apt.
Reign chuckled. With what little she had learned in the past day, she knew her father’s words to be true.
Now, let’s recycle some of that frustration friction you were feeling into more flexibility and stamina and continue.
“Not now, I’m too tired.”
Reign, time is slim. We must press on.
“I’m just tired. Can that be recycled?”
No, unfortunately. That’s not an emotion but rather a state. You must find the energy to continue. You can create more by conjuring emotions that are genuine.
“There is not much I can really do. I mean, these abilities are beyond my imagination, but I don’t really know what I’m doing. You realize I’m only a fifteen-year-old girl, right, father?”
We are all more than we appear. Most never understand or even realize this truth. We are all either agents of the Living Light or the Ancient Dark. There can be no middle ground.
“Does middle ground have a bed?”
Reign felt Thannuel’s frustration growing at her flippancy.
“Well, then, I’m going to rest for a little while.” Reign felt like she was about to be sent to her room like had happened many times when she was younger.
Not an option, Thannuel said sternly. We’re going to continue—
“Jayden said I can control the access, if I remember right.”
Reign—
With that, she shut the mental door on her father, leaving him sequestered in a deep recess of her mind. She felt his agitation but ignored it, knowing he could not communicate with her unless she let him. He would probably let her know later how he felt about this little stunt, but for now she would rest.
“He’s like a slave driver sometimes, you know?” she said, looking at the large white wolf. Crimson Snow turned away and huffed.
“What, now you’re mad at me, too?”
The wolf replied by lying down on the ground. A breeze came through and he closed his eyes.
The vibrations that came through the forest were strange. They were more pronounced and numerous than she would have thought normal here in northern Arlethia. Whatever produced them was not very close, and they were too muddled to be discerned properly. They almost felt like a massive herd of large animals, like buffalo or elephants, but those creatures lived only in the plains of the Eastern Province. The vector felt directly east of her. The curiosity inside her beckoned her to get up, but she was so weary that her legs ached just from the thought of standing up. She did anyway.
Taking a portion of the intrigue she felt, Reign recycled it into enough energy to scale a tall grouping of white pines, a species more common in the Northern Province. Atop the trees, she scanned east and saw what appeared to be a cloud until she focused with the clarity of wood-dweller eyes. Thousands of the winged animals with riders saddled on their backs flew southbound in formation. Though she did not witness the battle at Jayden’s cottage, being so wrapped up in terror as she related the past events she had witnessed to the old wolf shepherd, surely these were what Aiden and the wolves faced. She knew, however, these were not the source of the vibrations she felt. Without being closer she could not see the ground level from her vantage point, but she guessed the numbers there to be many times greater than what she saw in the air. She thought of Hedron and Aiden and prayed they were far from this horde she saw before her. Regardless, she knew her brother was in harm’s way and had less than a day before the Borathein would be deep into Arlethia. As best as she could see, the invaders were headed in the general direction of Calyn.
Crimson Snow whined and barked below her.
“I know!” she called. Sighing, she allowed her father out into her mind again.
“I think I’m ready to continue, Threyil.”
FORTY-FIVE
High Duke Emeron Wellyn
Day 3 of 2nd Dimming 412 A.U.
HE SAT UPON HIS GRANITE THRONE in the chamber hall where he met with the Ministers in council. None were present now save for himself, Mawldra and two Khans, one of them Hadik. Emeron Wellyn sat with apprehension, fidgeting constantly.
“Traitors!” he yelled. The empty hall sent his words back at him. He would execute Lord Hoyt and his entire family for this. He had to know his life was over and the end result would still be the same. The Arlethian army was devastated and the Borathein were in the borders of the Realm. Soon, he would have the Western Province for his people, those still loyal, and discover this power that Tyjil spoke of. Perhaps he would even marry finally and produce an heir.
But the knowledge of Lord Hoyt’s defection pulsed through him, hot and unrestrained. He needed to appoint new leadership in the army, see to the contingency plans and prepare for their migration into the West. His focus, however, continued to be elsewhere.
Someone came in the large doors, opening them without invitation. Wellyn stood with indignation, preparing to berate the intruder with lashing words, until he saw the figure was clad in a thick hooded robe.
Rembbran, he realized.
Finally.
Mawldra lowered her head and growled. This was nothing uncommon for her in the presence of a chase-giver. Rembbran continued to advance.
“Excellent!” the High Duke said. “You have fulfilled your Charge and advanced our efforts. As a reward, Rembbran, I have another Dahlrak to lay upon you—”
High Duke Emeron Wellyn never spoke another word. The fist that flew into his chest felt like an iron ball, sending him back hard against the Granite Throne that his family had occupied for over four centuries. He tried to scream but found no breath. He could not even inhale as his ribs folded inward, crushing and piercing his lungs. The sound of steel rang in the air as his Khans drew their swords, followed by curses and cries. Mawldra attacked the Helsyan, clawing and biting ferociously at her master’s aggressor, but Rembbran cast her aside with a powerful kick that sent her sprawling through the air. When she hit the hard floor of the chamber, she whimpered but did not move.
The High Duke saw Hadik dance over his slain counterpart and deftly engage Rembbran. His sword was knocked from his hand by Rembbran, twisting his wrist, but Hadik fluidly worked himself free from the hold. To his credit the Khan parried the Helsyan’s blows with great skill and landed several on his own. Wellyn’s vision blurred but he still saw clearly enough when the chase-giver landed a debilitating palm thrust to Hadik’s neck. The Master of the Khansian Guard struggled for breath in reflex as Rembbran moved behind him and grabbed his chin. With a forceful downward thrust, he brought Hadik’s back down upon his knee. A crunch sounded as his torso went one way and pelvis another.
“Whimper now for me! My leash is broken!” Rembbran gloated.
“Now you’re just a stray dog, then!” Hadik said with a tortured voice from his crushed larynx. Tears ran from his eyes at the pain of his injuries.
“Perhaps,” Rembbran admitted. Then he grabbed Hadik’s jaw and pulled up, slowly, forcefully. Hadik’s frantic grasping and clawing with his hands, trying to find Rembbran’s face, accompanied the screams. Before long, the skin of his neck tore and Hadik screamed louder. Still, the Helsyan pulled with a controlled strength that was purposefully slow. Muscles tore, tissue ripped, veins separated. The screaming mercifully ceased with the head coming free of the body. Attached to the base of the skull trailed Hadik’s spine. Rembbran held the head up to his face.
“You were always small to me. Pathetic.” He threw the head and string of vertebrae to the side.
Wellyn tried to react bu
t the pain was debilitating. Even as his body shrieked with a pain he had never comprehended, his vision was interrupted by streaks of lightning before him. Blackness edged into his sight.
He knew he was dying.
Rembbran pulled the chain around Wellyn’s neck out from under his royally embroidered tunic and stared at the gold amulet with the sigil of House Wellyn engraved thereon.
“For too long have we been slaves to your kind. Weaker beings. The Ancient Dark bids us rise again as we once lived. The Urlenthi cannot stand in our way.”
The amulet hung in the air. Turning it, he saw the square carved glass-like stone embedded in the amulet’s backside and marveled that such a thing ever had such hold upon him. It was milky in appearance and almost luminescent. It seemed childish now, a similar thing to how a youth is infatuated by a toy of colorful create.
“No more shall this work of the Light hold sway over my people. Helsya shall rise again.”
Wellyn’s vision clouded as he struggled against the pain for breath, but none came. His eyes bulged and were bloodshot. The last thing he beheld in this world was the Helsyan before him wearing his typical predatory smile.
FORTY-SIX
Hedron
Day 4 of 2nd Dimming 412 A.U.
“WE ARE WASTING TIME,” Hedron complained. “We’ve already lost a half day by coming this way.”
“We’re not wasting time,” Aiden said. “This is important. You’ll see.”
“Where are we?”
“You’ll see, lad.”
Ehliss pointed. “Look! There’s a clearing. Well, sort of. I can see stone peeking through the growth. It looks like a wall heavily overgrown with flora of the forest.”
Hedron stopped.
“And there!” Ehliss continued excitedly. She sounded like a child in a toymaker’s shop. “It’s a pathway that juts up and curves through the trees. Oh! It leads to a tower or battlement of sorts!”
I know this place, Hedron thought.
“Why have you brought me here?” he asked Aiden angrily.
“Have you ever been back, Hedron? Have you ever seen what your family’s hold has become?”
The structure came more into focus as Ehliss pointed it out. Vines, ivy, shrubbery and trees grew everywhere, concealing the once magnificent home in which he grew up. The small company walked through one of the arched entryways on the west wall. The three wolf cubs stopped there and whined. Hedron felt the change in the terrain under his feet when he left the forest floor outside the hold walls and stepped on the decrepit stone floor of the inner courtyard. Leaves the color of bark and fire crunched under his otherwise silent step. The wolves overcame whatever hesitation had beset them and entered the courtyard behind Hedron.
It was smaller than he remembered. The forest had reclaimed almost all of the area. Hedron guessed that in another few years no evidence would remain of his childhood home. He walked over to where he knew a door had once been that led to the living quarters. Pulling back the ivy and growth there was revealed no door, just an opening. He tore down the ivy and birds escaped from some unseen nest, chirping loudly in protest. Hedron felt small vibrations of scurrying things hiding from the disturbance. Exposed was a short tunnel that led into an enclosed foyer of sorts that was the beginning of the living quarters. The stone and rock was charred. His hands came away with old soot after dragging his fingers along the wall. When he emerged into the foyer, there was more of the same. Leaves, vines, overgrowth, charred stone. No evidence of the Kerr family’s centuries-long occupancy of this hold remained.
“There’s nothing here. I want to leave.”
“You’re wrong. Everything is here,” Aiden replied.
Hedron glared at Aiden. “There is nothing here,” he repeated. “Only ruin and memories long faded.”
“This is your home, lad.” Aiden pointed to a stairway that lead down to the ancestral crypt. “Your father rests down there, with all the Kerrs for centuries past. Your lovely mother was deprived of her resting place by vile men.”
“Hedron, I didn’t know,” Ehliss said. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for!” he exclaimed. “This place is nothing! It died with my parents, with our name! There are no Kerrs left, nor should there be!”
Aiden remained calm. “Hedron, I know what you saw, what you felt—”
“No you don’t! You couldn’t know what I felt!” Tears formed in his eyes.
“Aye, I do. You don’t know what I had to surface through as a child. Your father is the reason I’m likely still alive.”
At this admission, Ehliss looked at Aiden questioningly, but he did not explain further.
“It’s time to stop running, son. It’s time to rise up to who you were born to be. You are the last heir to the Kerr name. Your family ruled before the Senthary, even before the Hardacheon Age. Your people need you now.”
“They aren’t my people! Not anymore! I’m not my father and I’m not your son!”
“Lad, I know, I’m just—”
“Well don’t! This is none of your concern!” Hedron spat. “What do you want from me? I have nothing to give. I am nothing!”
“Hedron, you don’t understand the power your name holds,” Aiden said calmly. “People will rise to your call—”
“My name?” the Kerr boy interrupted. “Do you know how many people died because of my name? Because of my father’s? Does their blood not stain my hands because of my name?”
“Lad, that’s just not—”
“Yes it is! This place is cursed by the Ancient Heavens! Can you not see it? Are you blind to it? What do you want from me?” Hedron had tears streaming down his face as he raged on. He wanted to run away and hide himself from this place, from who he was, as he had done for the better part of a decade.
“I don’t know how you can say that after what you have seen happen with Reign,” Aiden said. “Therrium is dead. The armies are destroyed. Arlethia cannot survive without something to believe in, Hedron. If they knew a Kerr still lived—that the son of Thannuel still lived—they would rise behind you! You are what they need. You cannot turn your back on them.”
The young Kerr heir did not respond for several moments. Alabeth rubbed up against his leg and whined softly.
“Your faith is devastatingly misplaced, Master Aiden. I am not Arlethia’s savior.”
“You do not need to be. The people can save themselves. But, they need you to believe in them, even if you can’t in yourself.” Aiden walked briskly out of the foyer back to the courtyard after he had said all he would. Ehliss followed.
Hedron stood there with so many emotions flowing through him that he did not know how he felt. No one feeling emerged as the most dominant, which left him confused and tense. One thing he was certain of: he could not stay here, not where the air was still so charged with pain from the not-distant-enough past.
Hedron walked through the debris littered streets early the next morning, weaving his way with his companions through the masses that crowded every sector. His night had been restless, tossing and turning with irritation that Aiden had stirred up inside him. The whole city of Calyn was in a frenzied state. Word of the army’s destruction had reached the people in all quarters of Arlethia. Looters and bandits had taken to the streets, helping themselves to the spoils left behind by those deserting. Too few struggled to keep the peace and maintain order. Though their efforts were valiant, they were failing. Families were seen everywhere hurriedly packing their belongings and fleeing. Most seemed to be heading west, toward the shores. Quarrels erupted frequently, often turning into brawls. Ehliss grabbed Aiden’s arm and huddled close as they walked. He did not push her away.
Groups of armed wood-dwellers, some with women and older children amid their ranks, made their way to the city center where a large gathering was taking place. People were yelling that the Senthary were coming from the east; others reported flying armies in the north approaching and within a day’s travel. Calder Hoyt’s men
also were quickly advancing from the south. Tensions were high, like a taut mooring line holding a sail amidst a hurricane. A pervasive feeling of doom charged the air.
Anyone who approached too close to Hedron’s company received a vicious warning from the three wolf cubs. Their snarls were generally enough to send anyone in reverse. Where a more convincing message was needed, Aiden brandished his sword.
“They are driven by fear,” Ehliss said. “It is infectious once it takes hold of a group and only continues to rise until an apex is reached. It’s usually never good.”
“You learn that from your fancy upbringing, did ya?” Aiden asked.
Ehliss chose not to respond. They saw two men forcibly take provisions from an elderly couple and young child, probably the elderly couple’s grandson. Aiden broke from the company and rectified the situation at the point of his sword. Decadence was everywhere.
“They act as if they are already defeated,” Hedron said. The boy was trying not to look too closely at what was happening.
“They do not have a leader, Hedron,” Aiden reminded him.
“Someone will stand up. Someone will lead.”
“You must lead.”
“Don’t start with that again! That birthright ended long ago. My family name is broken. Besides, you heard Seilia. People will not follow a boy during a time of war.”
Without breaking stride, Aiden grabbed Hedron by the back of his neck and forcibly pulled him off the street into an alley, leaving behind Ehliss and the wolf cubs. Huksinai, Alabeth and Thurik encompassed Ehliss, ensuring no passerby came too close.
“What are you—”
“Shut up!” Aiden spat as he shoved Hedron. “Why do you think we’re here?”
“So you can help! Ancient Heavens, what’s wrong with you?”
“And how are you going to help, Hedron? Seilia is right, but you’re not a boy anymore. You’re a man. We are here for you to take your rightful place as leader among these people!”
“No I’m not! I’m no leader!”
Aiden slapped him. Hedron was stunned.
“Don’t do that, Aiden!”