I took a deep breath, possibly the last one I would ever take, and said the words. The Eurikayl glowed and the Eurikaya, my darkness, disappeared.
I heard a screaming inside me, as the creature was drawn back into the dark place it had come from. This creature that had attached itself to me before my birth.
That was the secret of the Molecha, they weren't half and half, they were a whole person squashed by another presence, an independent presence. Some people would fuse with it entirely; allowing it to act for them and be at one with them, others would fight it without realising what they were fighting. I was peaceful in the knowledge that the dark place wouldn't be waiting for me, only for my dark friend.
Then blackness swept me away before I could give way to my grief.
The End
Moonlight hit my closed eyes and I realised that we were above ground. I was light inside, my light mingling with the light of the moons. I was being carried back to the treetop city.
The singing in my head told me we would not make it that far before I was beyond reach.
I sent a thought to Khalashaya and they stopped and laid me down. I could smell the soft springy ground, so different from the charred earth of Zafiya. It was comfortable enough for the corpse my body would shortly become.
He was there, in front of me and in my head.
"I am not Eurikaya" I whispered to him.
"I know." He said.
"We all know" said Woodarch. Kneeling beside his brother in arms, he touched my face and smiled sadly.
"Was it right? About the deaths, about my father?" That was the thought that haunted me.
"It lied" said Khalashaya, his voice breaking. "It worked independently of you and your soul, you needed it to survive but it was not you. You were not it."
I reached up, the effort costing me so much, I touched his beautiful face, looked up at him.
"You saved me" I said, hardly believing what I was about to reveal, right there at the end.
"You saved me from the Eurikaya, and you saved me from everything else that was destroyed inside me."
I could hear the singing get louder and louder, peace entered my heart as the words healed me even more. He was there for me now, as I went on the next adventure.
"Oblivion" said Khalashaya, "tell me you do not still believe".
I nodded, "so much wonder here, so much beauty. Oblivion is not possible."
He leaned in, I could smell his hair and his skin, feel the tear that fell on my face as his warm lips brushed mine gently, confirming my love for him.
The light was getting brighter.
"It comes, the singing."
"I can hear it through you." He said. "You are so beautiful. I would do this all over again just to know you for a single day. I-" he broke off as his voice broke again.
I felt his fingers on my face that said more than his words ever could. I saw the children we would never have and the sunsets we would never see.
I felt the Queen next to Woodarch.
"You saved your people from a terrible fate. Go...join the peaceful ones. We are with you and we will look after you."
Such beautiful words. I could not help but obey. I felt myself pulled from the living world.
I was back in the dream.
No stick was needed to hold me up, I was no longer sinking into the mud but standing in top of solid springy earth. My wound was gone and the pains that had plagued me since the death of my mother were gone, leaving lightness and happiness in their place.
The singing was louder than ever, no chanting of words this time, just joyful singing. I knew I must swallow the last of my fear and enter the water to be at one with them. I hesitated still, thinking of Khalashaya and the others. I could still feel them but they were ghosts to me now.
He was telling me he loved me, the emotion shining through into the dream and glistening in the stars above me. He was talking to me still but his words were getting fainter and fainter.
A hand found mine, Leeh was there.
"I waited for you sister" she smiled, her black hair alight in the moon fire.
I looked out to the far side of the river, it was all making sense now at the end of everything. They were there, my father and my mother, even a brother I had lost in my infancy.
The Falaira and my loved ones sang to me, no Oblivion there. No evil, no darkness.
"Together" said Leeh. I nodded, letting the last of the fear leave me.
"Together" I said. Goodbye Khalashaya, I will sing to you and call you when it is your time to join me.
We held hands firmly in the moonlight and walked into the water.
I felt light and love surround me and felt particles of myself becoming one with the force that held it all together, held the whole universe together.
Goodbye my love. Goodbye Khalashaya.
The Beginning
Khalashaya:
She breathed in and then out, and then she moved no more. I stroked her hair, hoping that she would still feel it right up until the last possible moment. Then it was over. She was dead.
She was still, her face pale in sharp contrast to the blood from her stomach wound that darkened the grass she lay on.
Her eyes were closed and her mouth parted softly as if she slept, but the look on her face as she rested there was peaceful in death, like she had seen something wondrous at the riverside before passing away.
Grief took me and I was burying my face in her hair and letting it all out: my fear that this would come to pass and the realisation that I would never have a chance to show her what she had meant to me.
The Queen knelt beside the body and stroked her face gently, her own face full of grief and sorrow.
She looked up at me.
"She's gone".
Woodarch was silent, lost in his own world of grief. I felt it emanating from him in waves.
The next few hours were a blur as we made plans to bury the dead, not as many as we had initially feared and yet terrible still, and discussed what our next move was to be.
Auriana's body was taken to a beautiful room in the Queen's house, laid on a table and covered with a sheet. There were already arguments between Woodarch, my mother and others about who would be awarded the honour of preparing it for burial.
In that time, no one left her to lie there alone. She was always with someone who loved her. We buried quickly in our forest city because of the heat and also because we were anxious to let the body have its final rest and not lie in limbo between life and the grave for too long. Auriana was being buried the morning after her death.
My grief was indescribable, I spent that first night without her with Woodarch and my mother and they let me release what was feeling into the still night. So much death and loss. How was I going to get through saying goodbye to her?
Now that the danger was past, we could move forward, my mother and I, plus the rest of the city. The Gleema had lost their leader, the only one of them with magic enough to stop what we planned would happen.
It was time to come out of the shadows and show the Gleema and citizens of their countries who had gone through the Dream that magic had saved the world as well as hurt it. We would tell the story of Auriana and hope that her legacy of love, hope and sacrifice lived on for generations, centuries.
And me? My mission was clear. We did not know the full scope of Ericl's dark plan. Auriana's sacrifice had rid the universe of any existing Molecha and Eurikaya, but could not protect against any not yet born either on the Blue Planet or this one.
Auriana had been born for a reason, a Molecha and yet the only one who could handle the Eurikayl and destroy the enemy. We had to hope that another like her would also be born someday. My role was to watch for him or her.
The next morning, I said one last goodbye to the woman who had healed me from the inside out.
I was allowed to see her one last time. She had been washed and wrapped in a shroud by my mother, her face was covered.
Laying my han
d on where I knew her face was, I traced the outline of her nose and mouth and said goodbye in the old way. She was on a new adventure now and this corpse before me had been shed like a flying creature sheds its outer layer before becoming beautiful.
Woodarch and I buried Auriana next to Gleema Leeh but not before speaking about her to the masses that turned up at the graveside to say goodbye.
I gazed down at the still shrouded form. Mother had won the battle and had looked after Auriana in death. I knew I owed her this.
I spoke of the life she had lived on New Earth, I spoke of Herena and the other women she had saved from suffering. I spoke of her father, of the death of her mother. I spoke of her friendship with Gleema Leeh. I spoke of her bravery at the end and her determination to save us all, knowing that it would cost her everything.
Then we laid her into the grave.
Later that day, mother and I walked away from the lake and discussed our plans.
"Will you do it? Will you go?"
I pondered the question that had been plaguing me all day.
I nodded and mother cried.
The next day, I went to the Orb after having said my goodbyes and I left Deloran; going to a place where I could watch for any Molecha and also do something to help the oppressed.
Blinking in the sunlight, I stepped out onto New Earth, the tall spires of Zafiya were visible from the forest I stood in.
I pulled my hood up and walked toward them, knowing I had a lot of work to do.
The end.
A Note From The Author
Thank you so much for reading “The Long Lost”, I hope you loved getting to know Auriana, Khalashaya and the Falaira as much as I did.
Writing this novel has been an incredibly cathartic experience for me in so many ways; doing it allowed me to explore wonderful feelings and ideas in a fun and hopefully interesting way as well as also deal with anxieties about some things in our current society.
I am currently writing books two and three in this story. I realised when writing it that there was no way I could fit it all in to one book without creating something thicker than two of the latter Harry Potter novels put together.
Watch this space! Keep up to date with news on upcoming books by following me @kimarir
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