by Swanson, Jay
Rendin left his wounded at the inner gates to Albentine under the care of the military physicians with the garrison and continued the rest of the way with his bodyguard. The green grasses and silvery-white mountains drove him to reflect on the long lineage of Renaults that had borne the very crown he returned to. It caused a lonely desperation to grow in his heart to realize he would be the last of their line.
Rain, he thought as the walls of Islenda grew above him. Whatever will I do without you?
The massive white gates swung open smoothly on their ancient hinges, and to his surprise and disbelief, Rain stood on the other side in glistening green, waiting for him.
“Rain?” He said as she smiled to see him. “Rain!”
He leaped from his horse, his light armor clattering dully as he ran towards his sister. She came running then too, tears streaming down her face as she threw her arms around him and held him close. He almost collapsed from the weight of her, but somehow he kept his feet as he wept in her golden hair.
“I thought you were dead...”
“I was worried for you too, brother.” She smiled. “Though I never thought I'd have to wait so long for your return.”
“How did you get here?” He took a step back as he studied her, dressed in their family green with the wolf running over her breasts. “How...”
“Brother.” She took his hand to walk him inside. “Don't fret, it's me. I want to introduce you to someone. This is Ardin.”
A young man dressed in strange white armor and cloak stepped forward and bowed with two fingers on his brow. “It's good to finally meet you, your Majesty.”
Rendin took a knee before the man in white as everything came together for him. Waves of relief washed over him as he felt the burden of his nation lighten infinitely in his presence. “It is of the utmost honor to meet you, Ardin, Demon Slayer.”
Over the coming weeks Ardin made his way among the soldiers at the fortifications below Albentine, healing them, shaking their hands, and receiving their praise. His newfound understanding made healing the simplest expression of his power possible. Had it not been for that, Rain would have certainly died under the Relequim's fortress. The soldiers were glad to have him, but he found facing their cheer a difficult task. He knew it was his duty to do what he could, but every time he visited the hospitals or barracks, he felt lonelier and more distant from them than the time before.
His link to the stone had been effectively severed, but the connection it had made to the spiritual realm had stuck. There wasn't such a readily available source of power as the Relequim's weapon, but now he found himself fully connected to all three planes of existence. The sensation of his even greater vision only caused him to feel more out of place than anything else.
He sat at the king's council as the realm was reorganized in the following months. Lands and titles were removed as tribunes took their offices directly from the king, forfeiting family rights and willingly swearing new oaths to the effect. It was easy for Rendin now, since so many of the lords had died in the fighting, but the only task that Ardin busied himself with for which he really cared was writing down everything he had learned over the course of the last year. There was more than just what he had experienced. There was knowledge of history and his world that he knew was on the verge of being lost forever.
He had been changed, altered and transformed until he no longer resembled the boy he had once been at even the most foundational of levels. To know this about himself, and to know the place he now held in the world with the might of his power left him deeply saddened. There was a vacuum in the world, and he had no way of filling it. The Brethren were dead, and though he hoped they would one day return, the words of the Demon haunted Ardin and he feared the monster too might not be gone forever.
But those fears he kept to himself as he copied down the knowledge imparted by Caspian and Tertian, Cid and Hevetican, Charsi and Alisia.
Nine Demons are to come, he wrote as a warning in the tome that he had bound for his writings. Lesser in being than their predecessor, but powerful and fearsome to be sure. Their arrival will not be sudden, or simultaneous, but in secret and sequentially. They must be hunted and killed when they cross into our world, and they must never be allowed to take power again.
He gave the book to Rain before he left, unable to stay in the Spring Vale but unwilling to say goodbye. He had no intention of telling anyone he was going. Life here was easy and pleasant to be sure, but it wasn't home. Then again, he wasn't sure there was a place left on earth he could call such.
A few nights after he finished the book and the ink had dried, he slipped past her guard into her chambers in the Citadel and left it on the table in the entryway. He looked at it in the torchlight, its plain simplicity deceptive to the wealth of knowledge and the lore he had inscribed within. He turned then to leave, to vanish into the night.
“Where will you go?” she asked before he had walked through the door.
He stopped, lowering his head as he put his hand on the post.
“I know you've been meaning to,” she said with a sad smile in her voice. “You aren't happy here, I can see it. I wish you would be...”
“I left you something,” he said, unwilling to say more but hesitating to leave. “Don't... don't let anyone forget what happened here.”
“I won't.” She hesitated. “Ardin.”
He didn't answer, but he didn't leave.
There was so much he had sacrificed, so much he had given that she would never even know. All she wanted was to reach out and give him something in return, as if she had anything that could replace what he had lost. In the end, all she could say was, “Thank you.”
He nodded, then stepped into the hall and out of her life.
EPILOGUE
ARDIN WANDERED THE HALLS THAT REMAINED IN TERTIAN'S HALF-DESTROYED HOME IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE NORTHERN RANGE IN THE EARLY STAGES OF SUMMER. The massive peak still stood, though it looked at a distance like it might topple over at any moment should the proper breeze arise. He took to hunting down the boulders and stones he could find from the fateful night when he had killed the Mage, carrying them back to the mountain and placing them within it to rebuild the home.
He didn't know how long he would be there, but he had as little of an idea where else he should go. This was his act of mourning, he realized, as he piled stone into the mountain for the third week now, melting it and reforming it into a useful shape as he resurfaced the mountain slope. The monotony of seeking out the stones and the labor of repairing some of the destruction he had wrought in his life gave him both the time he needed to think and some sense of conclusion he needed where his failings were concerned.
Levanton was gone, his family and everyone he had ever loved dead, and he had taken so many lives along the way... but this mountain he could repair. This he could mend. He avoided the long bridge out to the lower peak from where he would be able to see the ocean inlet. He wanted to go out there so badly. It was the place where Alisia had once told him they could be together if ever they were separated, and yet he couldn't bring himself to do it.
He knew she couldn't be there, and though he wanted to call out to her on the Plain, he still feared the use of any cognitive extension. More than that, he feared confronting the release of pain that seeing her would bring. Instead he busied himself filling, molding, and carving out the halls in Tertian's mountain. He wrote more books, putting down the lore he had stored up for the Renaults in books of his own as he left them among Tertian's half-destroyed library.
There was so much to read, but he didn't lift a page. He had given everything for this, for a calling he had scarcely realized was his. Loneliness was his constant companion and darkness his closest friend. They ate at him and burned him but never dared to ask his secrets, never threatened to abandon him for the monster he knew dwelt beneath the surface. His monster.
Until one night he went to the chest where he had placed his and Alisia's Uriquim. Her soul stone still gl
owed its gentle green, while his lay dormant and dark among the twisting silver cage cast around it.
“This is no place for you,” he said as he closed the chest.
He walked out through the halls, both new and old, finished and rough, and along the new hidden balcony he was forming to face the lake. He came to where the bridge had once connected with this mountain, its long, slender suspension broken and gone a quarter of the way from where he stood. He put his hands out and gave himself a push, swirling the air beneath him and mingling the white mist that streamed out of him with the dust off the side of the mountain.
Landing on the bridge was easy, but walking the rest of its length was not. The small castle carved from the peak in front of him hardly showed from this side, but the path that ran around it at an incline was easy enough to see. He swallowed as he began to walk, and found himself suddenly talking as if Alisia were there.
“I didn't mean for all of this to happen...” he started as he looked down at her Uriquim. “You feel so close. I just, there are so many things I wanted to say. So many words and feelings that never got the chance to be said or straightened out.”
He walked around the path to the right, entering the castle on his left and laying the Uriquim in an intricately carved box of crystal and polished stone. “I never meant to fail you, Alisia. I never meant to let you die. And now the only way I can see you is in some fantasy world that I create for myself in my own mind... all I want to say is how much I miss you.”
He closed the lid on the box and sighed as he lowered his head. “What I mean to say...” How could this be so hard when she wasn't even here? He stood and stared at the ceiling in the orange light of the setting sun. “What I've wanted to say this whole time is that... I loved you. How can you love someone who isn't here? Someone you've never even kissed?”
He walked back outside to the north-facing rail where once he had been so happy with her. Where once their hands had met and not been moved so quickly. He watched as the water broke on the jagged shoreline and sighed as the weight in his heart only grew with the words he had spoken.
“What I mean to say is that I love you still.”
He closed his eyes as the dull roar of the ocean floated up to him. The rhythm of the waves continued like a song, never-ending in its mournful melody. It sounded like it was calling to him, drawing him in as if it knew his name and sent it along to him on the wind.
Ardin. He smiled sadly. There was one way he could be with her.
“Ardin.”
He stood up straight, eyes wide open as his heart tried to break free from his chest. It's not possible.
“Ardin.” Soft hands pulled him back by his arms and suddenly he felt her hugging him. “It's all right, Ardin. I'm here.”
He turned, disbelieving what he saw as she smiled and pushed back a strand of his hair from his face. “You're... is this the Plain?”
“No, Ardin. This is me, this is real.”
And he knew in that instant that it was the truth. He had called to her. He hadn't let himself believe it, but he had been calling to her through the Uriquim and she had responded. He was certain even to what purpose she was serving as he turned and grabbed her, capturing her like a fleeting dream on the verge of waking. He held onto her, his forehead resting in her hair, and swore silently that he would never let her go.
“Alisia...”
“I know,” she said softly into his chest as the ocean droned on behind him. “I heard.”
He took her by the arms and kissed her then, pouring himself into the kiss like he had so often poured himself into the fight, into survival. His passion for her brought the warmth to life with a flare, and as it churned in him they began to float and turn in the blues and purples of dusk.
He didn't let her go, he wouldn't, not for the rest of time if he could help it. And as they rotated in the air they slowly disintegrated, disappearing from the feet up in a brilliant array of sparkling dust. He smiled as it happened and held her by the cheek to look at her one last time in this world.
“I love you,” he said, and as he kissed her once more they vanished in the air.
The Uriquim, in their box atop that mountain, glowed brightly that night, one a twinkling green, and the other a steady blue. And from that day onward, Ardin was no more.
THE END
COMING SOON
ORACLE OF THE DREAD GODS
DARK HORSE
BY JAY SWANSON
NEW CHARACTERS – NEW THREATS
SAME WORLD
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Thank you so much for reading the Vitalis Chronicles trilogy! This is just the launching point for a greater story as we follow the history of this world we've created together. It's yours now, and I hope you enjoy every bit of what's to come.
Please share this book with your friends, family, and complete strangers! And don't be a stranger yourself. I'd love to hear from you on my website, Facebook page, or via carrier pigeon.
Thank you so much for sharing this story with me! It would never be the same alone.
-Jay
www.jayswanson.me
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As usual, this is a process that could not be completed without the help of a number of people. I'll do this in the order of who touches the books first (so you know who to blame when).
To Caleb, Jefe, Jenna, Nils, Peter, Rob, Sam and Shelby, thank you for your profound mix of cheer leading and criticism. These stories would never develop and hold together as well if you didn't point at all of the gaping holes, and I would never have finished any of them if you hadn't believed so strongly in them yourselves.
To Jenna directly, you make me look so much better. Thank you for finding all of my faults and sprinkling some love on the details along the way. It's hard to decide which I like more, reading the things you spot that I need to fix or the little notes of encouragement and underlined favorites scattered throughout your edits. Then you, Ali, make me look like I actually know how to use commas (please try to enjoy this section without marking it up). I don't know what I'll do without you moving forward.
Nimit Malavia is one of my favorite artists alive today, and I was lucky to snag him for this project. Thank you for capturing one of the darkest and most crucial moments in this story with such depth and clarity. I'm looking forward to working with you more in the future. And Tom, oh man what a cool guy you are. Thank you for visiting me in Paris and taking so many photos of me. You actually managed to trick a few people into thinking I was handsome, not an easy feat. I'll see you on another continent soon.
But the majority of my thanks and admiration goes out to my parents this time. They're the most supportive and loving people in my life, and have been consistently so through the entirety of my existence. Mom and Dad, if you hadn't let me daydream, tell tall tales, and wander off into my imagination so much as a kid, I don't know where I'd be today. Thank you for always believing in me, and for supporting me through every circumstance. I really couldn't have asked for better parents. I love you very much, and am eternally grateful for you.
Finally I want to thank every person who has loved the characters and world I've laid before you, and for sharing them with the people around you. These books wouldn't truly exist unless they were shared, regardless of the medium in which they wait to be consumed. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift a creator can receive: your love and your time. I'm not being mushy. I am really, truly grateful.
Won't you join me for the next adventure?
A little about me, since you still seem to be scrolling through. I've always been a dreamer, and to answer the question I most frequently get asked: I don't know where my ideas come from. They come from daydreaming and listening to music, from wandering along without any plans and stumbling on a scene that sparks something. I do my best to write the ideas down, but sometimes they escape me.
I really love writing. When I was a kid I wanted to tell stori
es. That was practically the only thing I did (some might say I'm a talker). I made up tall tales and wrote down fantastical stories with my friends. I fell in love with video as a medium and made them ever since I was in the fifth grade. I just loved trying to convey how I felt to people, how the world made me feel.
I think that's why we copy what we see and hear and read and watch, why we take them and put them down on paper with our own twists and tweaks. Sometimes you have something happen to you in real life, or you see something happen in a movie and you think, “I have to share what I'm feeling right now.” That's ultimately my aim, I think. I don't want to go through this life alone, I want to share it.
This is why nothing we create is ever truly unique or new, because it is always linked to so many different shared experiences. But if we can be honest with ourselves, and how we not only feel but how we see the world, then uniqueness and beauty will be born in the midst of sharing ourselves. That's my hope. Never be afraid to share yourself with the world as you are. We're all missing out until you do.
The Vitalis Chronicles is a fantasy trilogy by Jay Swanson, and is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. All elements to the story - including any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead - are entirely fictional.
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Copyright © 2013 Jay Swanson
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN #978-0-9834699-4-0