by J. D. Wilde
“How interesting,” Kenley says as he appears from the trees he hid behind. If he has been behind there the entire time, he should have at least tried to help. He isn’t talking to anyone in particular, but he walks over to Grace and kneels down.
“Did I kill her?” I ask solemnly.
“Of course not,” he responds, “You would know if you did, but take a look at what you did do.” He softly rotates Grace’s body to where it faces us and pulls down her shirt enough to expose her shoulder, and we can see the wound clearly. Or, we would see the wound if it were there, but it has vanished. Her skin is red and agitated, but blood is no longer gushing out of it. “How incredibly interesting,” the priests repeats. “Your gifts truly are above what this world can offer.”
I am speechless but overwhelmingly happy. Grace is still alive, and not only that, I can no longer sense any darkness in her. I hear Adira whisper to me how amazing it is, and I wholeheartedly agree. This is amazing! Kenley picks Grace up without any sign of a struggle, and I cannot help but think for an old man, he sure has kept himself physically fit. This makes me a bit sour as my point of him offering to help is valid. It’s not like he is some helpless elderly old fart.
Kenley tells us to follow him back because there is much to discuss and little time to waste. We will have to inform Grace later when she wakes up, but at least she will be waking up. That little bit of sourness is gone, as I’m seriously walking on the clouds over here. I am not the only one feeling significantly better so is Adira. The two of us exchange smiles and follow Kenley back to his cabin to wait for Death’s daughter to wake up, so we can really get started on saving the world.
Chapter 16
When we walk inside Kenley’s cabin, it is instantly apparent the small appearance from the outside is a fluke. The interior is spacious, and its style is posh and rich. As soon as we walk in we are in the living area, which has a blue velvet couch and two large grey velvet armchairs in front of an enormous fire place. They sit on top of a soft gold and white carpet rug. Obviously Saphira’s sophistication was not lost on the life priest when he left his shop. I would argue this is actually more elegantly decorated than the capital building was, and that was decorated for royalty and their guests.
The first thing I notice after the initial shock of the décor and size is how much natural light floods into the space. The entire side of the house facing the lake is multiple thin yet long floor to ceiling windows, one of which appears to be a door. Towards the back of the room is a small kitchen with a single metal stove painted a deep blue and a wood burning oven next to it. While all the cabinets and drawers are a clean and pristine white with golden handles, only the top cabinets have glass on either side of the middle wooden plank to show off expensive dishes and glasses.
Kenley says to make ourselves at home and that if either of us need to rest we can do so in one of the two bedrooms in the back. Neither Adira nor I want to nap right now, so we wait patiently as he lays Grace down on the sofa and checks her breathing and heartbeat. He says she will be fine; she needs some rest but should be back to normal soon.
Kenley then pulls one of the blue cushioned seats from around his small round dining table and brings it to the living area. He asks to see my bow with the magnifying glass still attached. After I hand him my bow, he begins murmuring under his breath about it begin exquisite and extraordinary. Adira and I both take a seat in the other chairs and patiently wait to see what he is going on about.
He has been studying my bow and the magnifying glass as Adira and I watch him long enough for me to become anxious. He pensively runs his fingers down it for the hundredth time, and while I do not want to interrupt him, he is taking a profound amount of time. I have questions I would like to start getting answers to. One of which is when exactly Grace will be waking up. She has not moved in the slightest since Kenley laid her down on the sofa.
I am about to break the silence when Adira starts talking first, but her question is not for the man taking his sweet time looking over my bow. It is for me.
“How did you do it, Lux?” she asks. “How did you make and unleash such a powerful attack? When I put the other two together, they did nothing like that.”
“That is expected,” Kenley answers for me, and I’m interested in what he has to say. I certainly was not expecting it. He looks up to see both Adira and I have no idea why it was expected and sighs stating we have much to learn in a very small amount of time. “Lux is the anchor,” he says, “All of your so called sisters who have already died have transferred their powers to her. You will not be able to use the armalos to their fullest.”
“What? Why?” Adira questions, but I understand.
“It is because Jo’s power is in me. Jo was the other daughter of Jenesis,” I reply.
“Yes, exactly. Lux is the true master of light. She has all of Light’s gifts, but Life’s and Death’s are still separated. Jo’s power is in Lux, not you my dear, which unfortunately means you will not be able to use Life’s powers to the fullest so long as this remains true. It is remarkable though how much more powerful you would be if you could,” Kenley excitedly says. He is loving this. His excitement as he talks about us and the armalos is unrivaled by anything I have ever witnessed.
“So will this work?” Adira asks softly. “Can Grace, Lux, and I continue to live at the same time and win?”
“I am not sure,” Kenley answers honestly. Adira sighs, but Kenley continues and finishes his thought, “Life and death pair up to form half of the balance and the other is light and darkness. You cannot have a perfect balance without all four of them if three are present, but light directly contradicts darkness, not life or death. Theoretically only light needs to reach its full potential to push the darkness back and create harmony again.”
“So, it all falls to Lux?” Adira asks, and her tone is not helping my confidence. She does not think I can do this, and I cannot really blame her. I have not done anything to show I can save this world, and I’m seriously questioning the dragons’ decision in naming me the anchor.
Both Adira and Grace are stronger than me, and both are better fighters in my opinion. I may have been able to save Grace from darkness, but that was only after Kenley enlightened me with how the armalos can work together. If he hadn’t, chances are at least one of us would be dead.
Kenley starts laughing like Adira told him the best joke in the world, and that little confidence I had remaining is pretty much gone. Time to go dig a hole in the ground and jump in. Adira tells him to stop after she notices how down I’m feeling, and Kenley quickly retracts. He claims he wasn’t trying to make it seem like I wasn’t important or necessary; however, there is no way I can do it alone in my current state.
“Look, let me show it to you like this,” he says as he pulls his sleeves up. Magic slowly manifests in his hands and he makes two tall bars appear in the air. “This is Grace and Adira’s fighting expertise,” Kenley explains. “And here is Lux’s.” My bar appears in the middle of them and is almost exactly twice as tall. I think he is lying. There is no way my bar is twice as big as theirs. Grace and Adira fight incredibly well.
I tell him directly to his face he is wrong, but this does not deter him in the slightest. In fact, he looks pleased and says he is happy I have already noticed even if it is only sublimely. He snaps his fingers and the bars switch positions. Now, both Grace’s and Adira’s bars are twice as big as mine. Adira asks him what these are supposed to represent, and the priest smiles.
“These do not represent a single thing; they represent a multitude of things- traits, skills, intelligence, characteristics. Things you and Grace have gained by living within this world. You two are tied to it. You understand its nature far more than Lux does because you grew up here. The people’s roles, how the plants and animal’s fit in, where technology and magic come to play. You might not be able to explain it. I doubt you’ve even noticed that you know, but the truth is you understand an incredible amount more about how to
protect our world than Lux because you live here. It means so much to you to protect this world, to protect your homes, your lands. Your mentalities are different. You have a purpose, a reason to fight. That feeling is something that you, Lux, currently lack,” he tell us.
“I know my purpose,” I argue sternly. I know what I am here to do. This priest has no right to state to me with such certainty I lack it. Everything I’ve done so far is for a purpose. “I’m here to prevent darkness form overtaking the entire world.”
“Why?” he asks me with a shrug of his shoulder.
That’s a stupid question—why. Why? Because it is what I am meant for. It is what I am supposed to do. Because if I don’t, nobody else will. No one in this world can match my light power. Not even Linette came close, and she was the other half. I tell him all this through gritted teeth.
“You have no personal stake in this,” he replies simply to my annoyance.
“I have them,” I argue as I point to Adira and Grace, and I mean it. Everything I have done so far is because I didn’t want to have to kill my sisters. I’m sure not about to let darkness take them away.
“It is a start,” he acknowledges I have a point as he nods his head, but then he makes eye contact with me to let me know he isn’t done. I meet his eyes with my chest rising from deep breaths, and he continues, “But you of all people know that isn’t enough, Lux. You said I was wrong about Adira and Grace, that their skill levels are just as high as yours. You are wrong. It isn’t that they are close to your level, far from it. They have not spent the past twenty years being personally trained by the elder dragons. They simply fight with more passion. Every hit, every strike means more to them than it does to you. They truly care for this world. It is their home, but you have no personal ties to it. Tell me; when this is all over, where will you go?”
I do not have an immediate response because I have not thought about it. I guess I just assumed I would go back to the Otherworld. That is my home. I do not answer, and before Kenley can speak again, Grace shows signs of awakening. We get up to take a closer look, and Grace grunts and rolls over shortly after. Her eyes open and she abruptly pulls her head back hitting it against the back of the couch when she sees all three of us staring at her. I’m sure Adira’s and my overexcited expressions are coming off a bit creepy, but I cannot help it. I am overjoyed to see she is awake!
Kenley tells Adira and me to back off a bit while he double checks some things. We sit back down and watch as he helps Grace sit up and asks different questions to see how Grace is feeling. After he is comfortable with Grace’s recovery, he declares he is going to go out to the garden and pick some vegetables leaving the three of us alone.
Adira’s expression has calmed a bit though she is still happy, and I still have a stupidly cheerful grin on my face. However, Grace does not appear to be the slightest bit happy to see us. It is crushing me a bit if I’m being honest. I expected her to at least be a little relieved she is alive and back to her old self, but her slumped shoulders and head hanging low say she is feeling anything but.
“I’m sorry,” Grace whispers barely loud enough for us to hear her. Tears are dropping from her face onto her legs. Adira bends down to comfort her. I sit down on the arm of the chair and pull Grace into a hug. At first she is tense, but slowly I feel her body release all the negative energy and relax.
She is still crying, but that is all right. I much prefer this to the absolutely mad Grace. The sun's light has turned from bright white to a calmer orange, but eventually the tears stop. Grace looks up at both of us and repeats her apology. Adira and I quickly accept her apology, and I also apologize to both of them for keeping a major secret. Without any hesitation, they in turn accept mine.
And with that settled, Adira asks Grace what exactly happened when she ran off into the forest. We sit back down in our own chairs and make ourselves comfortable as Death’s daughter goes over how she lost herself to darkness.
Chapter 17
Grace sits back a bit as she scans her mind for the answer. She starts by saying she was infuriated when she realized she was lied to even though she knew I was hiding something from them. She could not accept me being the one chosen to live, and the possibility of dying at my hand. She needed to protect Elsen and what is left of her family. Grace admits she felt the darkness surround her when she wandered around the woods, but she did not realize what it was doing until too late. At that point, she had already begun fighting Adira.
“It was eerie,” she explains. “I could see what I was doing for a little while, but after a certain point everything stopped. I don’t know what happened exactly, just that I caved to the darkness and started attacking you,” she says to Adira. “The last semblance of consciousness I have is when you stabbed me after a struck you; then I lost it entirely.”
“Then we have a great deal for you to catch up on,” I say, and Adira agrees. Adira and I take turns telling Grace about everything new we have learned and discovered so far. It is actually quite a bit. By the time we are done, the sun is about to vanish beyond the horizon. Kenley has been gone for a while, but he reappears when Adira takes a foot outside through the side door towards the lake. He has a basket full of fresh vegetables and offers to make a quick meal if we give him a few minutes.
We thank him, and I hear Grace’s stomach growl. When I look at her, she smiles sheepishly before stating that all that rage fighting must have made her hungry. I ask her if we really are good and if she is still going to help us. Grace huffs an “of course”, stating she is not about to leave the fate of the world in a crazy religious nut and other worldly being who just arrived.
After some lighthearted banter and discussion, Kenley calls us over to grab a plate. The three of us get up, but I stop Grace before she can walk past me and start scarfing down food. I reach into my pocket and pull out Elizabeth’s orb armalo. I have no idea how Grace is going to use it with her scythe, but that is for her to figure out anyway. I grab Grace’s hand, open it so the palm is open, and drop the clear ball into it. She clutches in her hand and smiles at me. I do not have to tell her what it is; she already knows just by feeling it.
When we sit down, Kenley starts talking about a way he thinks we will be able to confront and beat Sethos. Grace asks if he knows where Sethos is, and Kenley gives a resounding maybe. The life priest believes Sethos is neither in this world nor the Otherworld, but somewhere in between. Adira then asks if Viroca will be necessary in defeating him. He claims not to know what she is talking about until Grace brings up one Elsen’s citizens buying a necklace from him with it.
Upon hearing this, he stands up and walks over to one of his drawers. He pulls out another necklace, and Grace claims it is identical. Kenley explains this is dragon stone, remnants of when the dragons first created the world. This was their original solution to bringing balance throughout the world. Whenever one power grows too large, the very nature of the world reacts to re-harmonize itself, or that is what it was supposed to do. Over time the rocks abilities became weaker as the dragons distanced themselves and their magic away from the world. Now because the dragons resided in the Otherworld and Sethos went rougue, the rocks uses were limited and ineffective on a large scale.
It explains why my attacks in the cave in Briza were much more effective than when we were on the streets of Saphira. The rocks weakened the powers of the devilins, while increasing mine to regain the balance that was lost when they arrived. I ask him how we are going to find and beat Sethos, but he says we are getting too ahead of ourselves. He declares we are nowhere near prepared enough to win a fight against him.
I’ll give the old man this, he is stubborn. No matter how much we argue that we need to save the world as soon as possible he stands firm. Though he agrees we need to settle this matter quickly, he claims we will die and lose if we fight in our current state. He wants us to train here with him, but there is no way that is happening. Grace and Adira might lose their homes if we take too long.
“Come on old man. What do we have to do to convince you we can do this?” Grace questions through clenched teeth.
“You think you are ready?” Kenley asks, and the three of us quickly respond yes. Truthfully, I do not think we are, and I can definitely see us dying in the process. However, my goal at this point is not to win, it is to prevent a massive loss. If we spend too much time waiting, the world might be in such a dire state it will not be worth saving anymore.
Kenley closes his eyes and thinks. When his gaze reaches us again, we know this is not going to be an easy task. “Become priestesses,” he says.
Adira quickly voices she already is one, but Kenley shakes his head profusely in disagreement. He stands up and motions for us to follow him out the side door of his house toward the lake. The sun has completely set, and the world’s lone large moon is peering out through the mountains’ peeks. Stars illuminate the sky, and with the exception of a few insects, it is silent.
Once the three of us join him outside he points to the mountains barely visible in the distance and says, “Within those great mountains are the ruins of the temples of life, death, light, and darkness. There is also the main temple which connects all of them. If you wish to become a priest or priestess you must complete two journeys. The first will determine if you can become a priest at all; the second will make you prove you can teach the ways of either light, darkness, life, or death. The road to the main temple is where you three will begin, but once you arrive at the main temples gates you must separate.”
“You know you’re crazier than her right?” Grace asks as she points to Adira.
“Grace,” I say her name with some disbelief that she would so quickly return to her usual nature. Then again she is Grace, but even if she is right, we need him to help us.