The Raiden

by Shelley Cass

  “Aye,” agreed a second stocky warrior, peering about himself.

  “It could be her,” commented another brawny man who squinted around the trees. “Or it could be those things …”

  “I tell you they were Elves. They looked exactly like the pictures in story books.”

  “And those littleuns with wings? The ones that shot light and fire from childlike fists? How do you explain them?” queried a different soldier.

  “Much the same as you do anything else these days,” another said wearily, scratching his beard. “It’s magic. Good or bad.”

  The sixteen surviving Krall soldiers had haphazardly encircled me by accident, and I had no way to escape. Yet strangely, as I beheld them now, they didn’t look like the brutal enemies I remembered.

  They were formidable, but I could feel nothing foul about them. They were just men, as if they had been transformed or I was seeing them more clearly.

  Nevertheless, human or not, they were still after me.

  “Well, if we don’t find anything we can rest here for the night,” said the bearded soldier, who looked to be the eldest and the leader.

  “And if we do find her?” asked the youngest looking one.

  Some of them shifted in what appeared to be uncertainty or discomfort.

  “You know any prisoners were meant to come with us to Krall …” the bearded soldier replied, but with lack of conviction.

  “We take her back to our King, Darziates? So that he can befoul the only pure thing any of us have ever come across?” the youngest glowered.

  Now they were all shifting in nervous unease.

  “Enough … we’ve discussed this,” the leader sighed.

  “The only way we could get back to Krall without Darziates blaming this disaster on all of us is to have her with us,” finished the youngest for him. “But I know none of us feel any love lost when it comes to the Sorcerer.”

  “Shh!” hissed the one with his helmet off, glancing around as if Darziates was listening. “Just because you don’t have family alive for him to threaten doesn’t mean we don’t.”

  The younger one stalked angrily away from them, closer to where I stood as it were.

  “Thorin, enough,” the leader said again, more firmly. “We catch her first. Then we decide what to do with her.”

  I inwardly cursed. As soon as they inspected the area closely I would be found. There would be no chance of me being able to slink away quietly.

  There was nothing for it.

  Despite nauseating waves of pain, I wrenched myself up from a crouch and into a standing position, my sword raised to readiness while the majority of my would-be captors yelped or growled in startled incredulity.

  “Well you’ve caught me,” I told them resignedly. “But last time you had trouble keeping hold of me. Care to try your luck again?”

  I was confronted by stunned silence, and when nobody – not even the open mouthed, staring leader moved, I went for the closest warrior. The youngest they’d called Thorin.

  Impressively, he was quick to jump to attention and unsheathed his blade when I drove at him in attack. He hastily deflected each of my strokes as I forced him to give ground.

  “Don’t hurt her!” the leader roared over the clanging of our blades. “Disarm her!” he shouted at Thorin. “Form a barrier!” he called to the others, placing me in a tighter, more purposeful ring.

  Thorin was concentrating hard, but I drilled him with such intensity that he was growing breathless and panicked while he sought only to defend.

  I feinted a jab at his ribs and had him disarmed in a moment, and not waiting for him to stop blinking in surprise, I delivered a high kick into his chest that sent him sprawling.

  I felt more exhilarated by my situation than I should have, and found that the pain drove me on.

  “Your turn,” I told a curly haired soldier, and he had no choice but to raise his blade and engage with me as I stabbed and parried.

  I had him disarmed and rolling away from me even quicker than I’d managed with Thorin, and I was grinning wolfishly as I chose my next victim.

  I felt good.

  Until, when I had engaged my fourth warrior, I felt a burning pang of fire inside and I stumbled.

  “Don’t hurt her …” I vaguely heard the leader calling as the agony crashed back over me.

  It came clawing through my flesh, my chest, my shoulder, my arms, as if Agrona herself was raking sharp fingernails under my skin.

  The tip of my sword dropped downward as my grip weakened with the stunning shock, and my opponent’s sabre nicked my arm.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” he gasped with wide eyes, and quickly flicked his blade away from me in confusion.

  The rest of the soldiers had frozen in bewilderment too, baffled by how fast the flurry of my attack had stopped.

  “I told you not to hurt her, Phobos!” the leader said accusingly.

  “I didn’t mean it, she didn’t block my blow,” my opponent protested anxiously.

  A familiar trickle of weakness began to seep throughout my body like a cold draught. My mind whirled and I felt my knees buckle while my sword slipped from my fingers.

  Sixteen concerned enemies from Krall came rushing forward as I collapsed, but for a moment everything was gone.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Thorin propping me up in his arms. His fingers were pulling at my shirt and flitting over my chest, checking the wound.

  Then I heard Dalin roar in outrage from somewhere out of sight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Noal

  In a blink of time we raced toward sounds of commotion that had broken out in the Forest.

  Dalin hardly slowed, even when he broke contact with Vidar to launch himself through the wall of Krall warriors looming over Kiana. I kept by his side and the warriors seemed to give way before our blades like parting waters.

  Dalin didn’t risk using his sword against the soldier who held Kiana. Instead Dalin bunched and drew back an infuriated fist, before crunching it into that warrior’s forehead with such a solid impact that the contact was audible.

  The warrior slumped backward to lay unmoving on the Forest floor, and Dalin sheathed his sword, letting the Elves and Nymphs pursue the other soldiers while he now pulled Kiana to himself, hugging her warmly.

  All around us I heard the Krall warriors being driven off – chased into the trees by explosions of Nymph light while the Elves remained to carefully guard us.

  “I’m so sorry Kiana,” Dalin told her as he pulled back to meet her eyes.

  “Kiana, why did you go without even a word?” I asked in concern.

  She swallowed before she answered. “I … I think the Lady was right,” she whispered at last. “I feel it is all true.”

  “What do you mean?” I questioned.

  “I think I am a Larnaeradee.” She looked away from us as Dalin helped her to move into a sitting position. “In fact, I’m terrified because I know I am,” Kiana admitted. “It was all too much.”

  “Oh Kiana!” Dalin sighed, supporting her gently. “Do you think it really makes a difference if you are?”

  She frowned up at him, surprised.

  “You’re not exactly normal anyway,” I pointed out, and she glared at me, but with a glimmer of a smile.

  “Kiana, it doesn’t matter if you are magical,” Dalin told her seriously.

  “It doesn’t matter?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “You are still our Kiana. To us you have always been incredible.”

  She shook her head in wonder. “It is my turn to apologise,” she said softly then. “I should have accepted you too. Nothing is different between us simply because of your titles.”

  Dalin regarded her with relief. “I will never again hide such a thing from you.”

  “I should hope there is nothing else so surprising to know about you,” she replied, wincing as Dalin helped her to her feet, wrapping his arm about her waist in support.

  “Told you you
’re the Three,” Asha purred smugly, whirring contentedly back to hover beside Vidar’s smiling face.

  The always fiercely intense Frey stepped forward then.

  “One, can you walk?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered firmly. “And with my returning strength has come my returning senses. I apologise to you all for leaving without thought and dragging you all after me.”

  For once Frey’s serious face seemed taken aback. “You have nothing to apologise for, Tru Larnaeradee. You are not a prisoner in our City, but a friend. You are free in this Forest. And we only pursued you to defend and protect you that we love.”

  Kiana’s posture softened at the reverent, genuine expressions of all of the Forest dwellers who had joined us.

  “I am blessed beyond measure to have such friendship, and I thank each of you,” she told them, mollified as she took Frey’s proffered hand.

  “Alvar,” Ace rumbled at the quiet Elf, who was standing over the fallen Krall warrior now as we readied to leave. “Will you carry our new guest back to the City?”

  Alvar knelt to bundle the warrior up, hoisting the man over his shoulders with incredible ease, armour and all.

  And after Quidel took my hand, in what seemed like a blink we were all flashing through the Forest and coming to a stop near Kiana’s tower. The City continued to buzz with night time activity as if nothing had happened.

  “Please don’t go out hunting so late at night again, Kiana,” Asha yawned suddenly, sagging down in the air. “I’m tired all over.”

  Flash laughed and whirred through the air to wait underneath her with his arms outstretched. Her eyes closed and she sank down into them, already dreaming.

  “She’ll wake in a few moments wanting to do something or other,” he told Rebel.

  “We could pester Silvanus and Chloris,” Rebel suggested, and drifted off towards the poor Elves’ tree tower. Flash followed, carrying Asha with him.

  “Is all well with you now Kiana?” Vidar asked, standing aside with Frey, Dalin and I as the Krall warrior was carried off and the rest of the group dispersed. “I’m guessing when we found you that you hadn’t been overcome in combat.”

  Kiana’s face grew troubled. “You are right. I was revelling in the battle, and it was only Agrona’s poison that stopped me.”

  My heart sank at the thought that, while her strength was returning, she may forever be haunted by crippling internal attacks.

  “That is one reason that I would like to be taken to see the Lady now. Another is that I must hear everything else that she has to say about ‘the One’ of the prophecies.” She turned to Dalin and I. “And I would like the both of you to be with me.”

  “Of course,” Dalin replied at once.

  “It is a good idea,” Frey conceded. “The Lady never truly sleeps, and is probably waiting to see you. But you would do well to rest.”

  Kiana shook her head. “It is time I heard the full truth and accepted it. I need to do this.”

  “Very well,” Frey accepted, offering his hand to her while Vidar offered his hands to us.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dalin

  The Council room was glimmering with soft golden light and the model of rotating spheres turned continuously above us. The Lady was waiting as we entered the magnificent room, and for a moment I felt as if I’d lost my breath.

  I blinked as the dazzling silvery green of her gossamer robes shimmered while she beckoned for us to come forward in welcome, and unlike the short, motherly looking woman we had encountered so far, she now appeared in the form that I had seen inked across many artworks and history books.

  Her richly tanned skin glowed as if it held the life of the earth itself, and auburn hair spilled down her smooth shoulders to brush her waist – all trace of silvery age gone. She was suddenly tall. Her stance strong. Poised. And her spectacular green eyes were both youthful and wise, and I felt almost giddy with the feel of the enchanting aura that surrounded her.

  “Lady,” Kiana inclined her head respectfully, coming forward. “At last I have come to hear and accept the truth.”

  “Welcome once again,” the Lady told us kindly, her musical voice as captivating as before. She stepped gracefully aside and I saw that there were now four cushioned chairs surrounding a merrily burning hearth where the Council had been seated earlier.

  Wordlessly we came to take the chairs she offered, Noal and I both trying to remain unperturbed as the timeless Messenger of the Gods took her chair.

  “She, in particular, has missed you,” the Lady continued, and Noal guffawed as a hand sized spider pranced quickly up the leg of his chair.

  “When you all left Gangroah together I found it almost impossible to trace your steps,” the Lady informed us thoughtfully. “It was Granx who worked tirelessly to follow your progress. And it wasn’t until the Willow sent two messengers that I was even sure the Three were coming to Sylthanryn.”

  Kiana straightened where she sat then, her face clearing with dawning realisation. “It is good to see you again Gloria,” she said thoughtfully.

  I frowned in confusion. “You’re the eccentric lady who lived in the second Gangroah cottage?” I remembered the old green eyed woman, and realised the Lady’s previous form had been similar – if less human in appearance.

  The Lady lifted her shoulders in an elegant admission in return.

  “But everyone knew about peculiar old Gloria who lived in the Gangroah cottage!” Noal said in consternation, and then added: “no offense.”

  “I recall that we overheard a story about Gloria, and the ‘empty’ cottage, through a green eyed, auburn haired Palace maid,” I turned to Noal, suddenly feeling a rush of awe. “The maid’s chatter was what put the idea of heading to Gangroah in our minds in the first place.”

  “So,” Noal eyed the Lady incredulously. “Your youthful self was the one who informed us about your elderly self?”

  The Lady regarded him patiently. “Time and place does not restrain me,” she told him. “I can be everywhere, though it is harder outside the Forest now. So while I manifested to present yourself and the Raiden with the idea to Quest towards Gangroah, I also manifested as Gloria to keep watch over the last of the Larnaeradee and to make sure she would be ready and waiting for you.”

  “You watched over and felt Kiana to be a Larnaeradee,” I remarked then. “But the Fairies in the stories graduated into a Larnaeradee on their sixteenth birthday, and Kiana has now reached her eighteenth year.”

  “Yes,” the Lady acknowledged, watching Kiana attentively as she responded. “While I could feel the magic about her, her earth stone is the key to accessing her wings and powers. And though Kires and I found the earth stone he would present Kiana with for her birthday, I believe he never had the chance to explain the gift to her.”

  The colour seemed to have left Kiana’s cheeks as she listened. “He put it in the Unicorn figurine?” she asked, more questioning herself than the Lady.

  The Lady nodded. “As ‘Gloria’ I saw the figurine in your cottage, and felt certain that was where it was hidden.”

  “Yes,” Kiana was nodding now. “There is a line, like an incision around the figurine’s body, as if it were just a case that could be opened. But nothing I have ever tried has opened it.” Her brow creased with a puzzled frown. “Why has it never opened for me?”

  “Your situation is different to that of the Fairies who once lived,” the Lady explained. “You knew nothing of your ancestry, of your powers, of being a Fairy when you were given that figurine. It did not open because you were not ready. It still may not open for you even now, until you have fully accepted who and what you are.”

  Kiana sank back in her chair.

  “Yet your situation is also different, and quite incredible, as you have already clearly begun to develop your powers, even without your stone,” the Lady reassured her. “Confirming that you really are the One. The most powerful of them all.”

  Kiana still didn’t respond, bu
t I was remembering scenes where her powers must have revealed themselves without us having been truly aware.

  “You have been able to do things in desperate need,” I reminded her. “When we entered the Forest you escaped the beasts when a flash of light burned them. We thought it was lightning.”

  “Your power hides you,” the Lady added. “You were able to wake the Willow, to speak to the Forest birds, and to use Aolen,” she went on warmly. “And you even began to awaken men of Krall, who since birth have been poisoned to be unquestioningly loyal to Darziates.”

  Kiana’s face was pensive.

  “You can develop your powers further,” the Lady continued. “But this will only be when you have your stone, and are ready for it. Then you will be endowed with the wings and powers of a true Larnaeradee. And only then will your body have the ability to fully heal itself of Agrona’s magic.”

  “Gods,” Noal breathed.

  “I believe you,” Kiana replied quietly. “I can no longer hide behind being sceptical because I can feel that all you say is the truth. And I think I’ve known something was unusual about myself for a long time.” Then she held the Lady’s eyes with her own. “But I do not understand why, if my family was so powerful, they did not use their magic to defend themselves.”

  I saw sorrow etch itself across the Lady’s delicate features. “You were the One chosen by the Gods. Upon their deaths, your parents’ powers and the power of all of your ancestors went to you so that you could gain the strength needed to face Darziates, as the Gods have selected you to do. It is much as Kinrilowyn and Sylranaeryn were destined to give their lives to end the Sorcery of Deimos.”

  The Lady seemed to reach toward Kiana without ever moving.

  “While your parents did all they could to protect your family, hiding their identities and power so they were not found by Darziates, this left them vulnerable to mortal deaths. And they could not undo what was destined to be done, just as they could not predict or withstand such a surprise attack with dormant powers.”

  “It had to happen?” Kiana whispered.