“Marry me,” she sighed.
Chapter 28
Gabriel appeared on the coast, cutting his shift a moment before his boots ended up in the water. The black horizon spread out before him in a beautiful ribbon meeting the dark blue sky. The sun sank long ago, leaving only the stars and a crescent moon above. The broken star had finally faded into obscurity, and with it some fears from the population. However, Gabriel’s title as the Star Breaker still remained.
He walked, listening to the crash of the waves to his left. It was cool here, the air heavy with moisture, and other than the waves, it was blessedly quiet. The faint wind brought no sounds of revelry. Save for a few nearby animals, there was little kinetic energy nearby. Finally, he could be one with himself.
The wet sand squelched under his boots as he plodded on, his head bowed as he lost himself in thoughts of his impending battle. He wished to avoid a battleground, rather striking in unexpected moments like he had with Pike. But they would know he was coming now. He would have to stay one step ahead or suffer the consequences.
Something strange caught his attention, and he stopped.
Beneath his feet were tiny blue lights. He took a step back, and lights illuminated under the pressure of his boots. It alarmed him and made him quickly step back again only to achieve the same results.
“What under the st….”
His hands came to his hair suddenly, and he exhaled as if punched as he realized what it meant. “The stars will fall where his feet do tread.”
“I wondered when you would figure it out,” a faint voice said in the wind.
He snapped his head up and looked around him. His hands ready with a doldrums-pattern, but there was no one.
“Do not be afraid,” came the gentle voice. He took a step back as something moved in the sand before him. Wind whipped around him, spiraling up to attain solidity. It dissolved into the figure of a slender woman walking towards him. Her hair was silver and blew around her lithe shoulders. She moved with expert grace, clad in a dress of starlight that slipped off her pale shoulders and split up the center to reveal long legs and bare feet.
She stepped up slowly. Gabriel surveyed her beautiful heart-shaped face, and he sank to a knee.
“My lady.”
“Rise, Head Mage Gabriel,” she said in a smoky voice that sent chills through him, speaking in an accent almost like his. “I am called Liliwen in this Age, but you know me as Air.”
“I have been looking forward to our meeting.”
She smiled. “I have been watching you for some time, waiting for the right moment.” She turned her back to him. “Walk with me.”
He stepped alongside her, watching the stars illuminate with each of his steps, but he noticed she did not affect them, nor did she leave footprints. “Do I frighten you, Head Mage?” she whispered.
“Should I be frightened?”
She chuckled in her throat and turned her pretty face to him with a warm smile. “No, I certainly hope not. I have watched you long enough to know how you have fared with Air Mages. I assure you I am not here to cause you grief. I come with news. Do you know who Mage Barbrielly is?”
“The woman who destroyed Roshenin, but I think there is more to her than that.”
“You are correct. It is time to understand one of the reasons we made you. Barbrielly is the Element of Earth.” Liliwen paused so he could draw in the revelation. “She has been trapped in her stone coffin for Ages. She put herself there along with Mage Tollen. It must be strange for you to think a woman as powerful as Earth would incase herself and her lover in stone. She had but a moment to save him.”
“Save him? He was on the edge of death.”
“No, Head Mage, he died in her arms, but she knew if she could preserve his body, she could find a Mage to put him back together and summon his spirit. She incased the both of them with the intention of saving him.
“The problem was, in her anger she destroyed Roshenin and blotted it off the map. It was hundreds of years before anyone found her statue.”
“Why did you not revive her yourself? Why did Spirit not help?”
She raised a slender finger. “A noble question. Long ago when Spirit killed Void, we all took a vow never to alter each other’s plans, never to help nor hinder. Spirit would have hindered her, and even though we pleaded, he refused to help. He is not like Sofiya or I. If he sees no profit for himself, he will not aid.
“We needed a Mage who could break stone, free Barbrielly, put Tollen back together and summon his spirit. To do that we needed an Earth, Spirit and Void Mage. But to fully restore a body one needs all the Elements at a Class of Ten. I fear when we made you, we were not able to give you everything you needed.
“What I mean to say is, we created you to restore Barbrielly to life and mend Tollen.”
He walked silently, watching the light dance under his feet.
“What causes this?”
She looked down. “Tiny clams.”
“How am I to restore Barbrielly without Air?” he asked after a moment.
“Ryker has the Air Silex piece. I suggest you bargain for it.”
Something slowly rose out of the water beside him. The lovely Sofiya lifted from her Element and glided out of the surf, her dress of smoke trimmed in froth. “Greetings, Head Mage. Restoration of Barbrielly is not the only reason we raised you,” she said in her beautiful sing-song tone. Her face glistened under the starlight and her red hair sparkled.
Gabriel stopped, and Liliwen wove her long arm to the forest to bring a spark of fire from a faraway camp. As soon as it touched the ground, Arding appeared in a flash of fire, striding towards them as flames licked around his boots. “You stayed behind Jaden’s walls too long, my lad.” He smiled warmly behind his neatly trimmed beard, his eyes dancing.
“He knows of Barbrielly, but not Spirit,” Liliwen said quietly.
Arding stepped closer, standing before Gabriel. “We raised you for three reasons. One, our children are dying. Our race of Mages has become weak thanks to Ryker starting the Mage Wars. It was always his plan to break our children down so he could take over them. You have already strengthened it, as you will continue to do.”
“Secondly,” Liliwen said gently. “You were created to revive Earth and her lover. Without her, the line of Creators falls away. It took all the energy we had to make you one. Thankfully you came from an Earth line. Without her, the land is untamed, and her children have no direction. Patterns are lost with every generation, and few are capable of replenishing them.”
“Lastly,” Arding whispered as he stepped closer. “Lastly may be the most important. I am sure Liliwen explained we cannot interfere with each other’s plans, no matter how dire or terrible they are. That is why we cannot fight against Spirit and his plans.”
“Spirit?” Gabriel asked, then slowly felt the color leave his face as he realized.
“Ryker is Spirit.”
Gabriel opened his mouth but found no words until, “I cannot fight an Element!” sputtered out.
Arding smiled fatherly. “We gave you everything you needed to succeed. Influence, power, intelligence, every Element we could manage, and a Creator’s talent.”
“Why not Air?”
Liliwen sighed. “We had the opportunity to give you either Earth or Air, and we chose Earth. Despite your bloodline coming from two powerful families, you could not handle all six Elements. It would have driven you mad before you had a chance to fight Ryker.”
“This is why you need the Silex Air piece,” Sofiya replied.
“What if I recruit a Class Ten Air Mage?”
They shook their heads. “You can never trust an Arch Mage.”
“What of Mage Shaun with the Excellyon?”
Sofiya shook her head gently. “The Excellyon does not make him a Class Ten.”
“Do the Arch Mages know who Ryker is?”
Arding shook his head. “No, they do not.”
“Does…Ryker know who he is?”
Liliwen tittered a happy tune. “He is not as mad as he appears, dear Gabriel.”
“Why now? Why not destroy him when the Mages were powerful?”
“We could not launch an attack until he was released from the Excellyon’s pattern. Hibernation stops everything. That is why he speaks differently than us. We have adapted over the Ages, but he remains trapped in the Second Age.”
“What about a fourth reason?” Gabriel asked with his brows furrowed. “What about leading as Head Mage for a prosperous life?”
Arding glanced at Liliwen with a sad expression. She looked to Gabriel.
“Ryker will claim your life.”
Gabriel gulped as if he always knew, “You know this?”
“We see pivots. We do not know for certain, but Ryker plans to ask for your life in exchange for the safety of your Mages. If you live, it will be by a force we do not yet see.”
Gabriel closed his eyes. This was what he suspected from the beginning. “Why is Ryker doing this?”
“He wants to rule this land. Tintagaelsing and Cinibar have fallen, and Arconia may soon collapse once knowledge of Virgil’s treachery spreads. Next will be Aidenmar, then Parion. Once he has conquered all, he will go across the ocean and take Shalaban, Desuldane, Bodelane, and the hundreds of small kingdoms that span between here and Tintagaelsing.”
“What of Anatoly?”
“As long as the Queen lives and Nolen stays off the throne, she will stand. Keep her Grace alive at all costs. The other kingdoms will crumble if the greatest falls. Also, Queen Robyn is bending too easily to the desires of her people. She wants to make them happy by giving them all they ask, but they will ruin the land if she continues to please them. It is exactly what Maxine did in Echoveria. Give people everything they desire, and they will become fat with dissatisfaction and turn on her,” Arding explained. “Maxine has already been stirring the people of Anatoly to ask for things they never knew they wanted.”
Liliwen put her cool hands on Gabriel’s arm and held it tightly. “Do not think this will be the end of you. We do not see the future, for it is ever changing, nor can we guarantee your life or death. You very well may succeed in not only vanquishing Ryker but also saving your own life.”
“Wait,” Gabriel cut in. “I cannot kill him. When he killed Void, all the Void wielders died with him. I would lose every Spirit Mage in a moment.”
“That is true. You will not be able to kill him. We are the only ones who can kill each other,” Arding nodded. “You will be able to damage him enough to capture him.”
“In a Castrofax,” Gabriel whispered. “They have a failsafe built into them.”
“Have you ever read of a Mage being put in more than one Castrofax?”
“I was.”
Liliwen tittered. “No, at the same time. It renders them comatose, as it would with Ryker.”
“What do you mean by your previous comment?” Arding asked him.
Gabriel remembered they could not enter Jaden. “I was put in Glittering over a week ago, but I broke it off.”
Liliwen’s grip on his arm tightened. “I wondered why your body has been so altered.”
“Pike and Dorian broke in and killed three Council Members, which compounded on Prince Virgil coercing Queen Robyn to marry him unwillingly. I broke out when I could no longer take it.”
“We are grieved for you,” Sofiya said quietly. “Whom did you lose?”
“My mother, and Lewis and Penny.”
“Stars,” Arding breathed. “We wondered why you suddenly attacked Pike. That was quite cunning.”
“Dorian is next. What if I fail to vanquish Ryker?”
“You cannot,” Liliwen said ardently. “We have placed all our tiles on you. If you fail, the world will fall. It will take another twenty years to create another Mage to match you, and by that time Ryker will have become too powerful.”
“I have ten children that have yet to be born. You could start with them.”
“Creating a Mage as great as you is no easy work. We were weak for years after your conception,” Arding answered. “We will need to be as strong as possible. Even then, we will have to be careful not to go against Ryker’s plans.”
“Can you not break your vow?”
“It is not possible. We are bound to a higher level than Mages. It is physically impossible to break the vow.”
Gabriel’s mind reeled. Barbrielly, an Element within his own walls waiting to be freed. Ryker, an Element raging outside who needed to be vanquished. A Silex piece to be retrieved, and three Arch Mages and Nolen to kill.
He stood a little straighter and looked each one in the eyes. “When do I begin?”
-End
Book six coming soon!
Other Books by Jenna Van Vleet
The Father of the Fifth Age series
The Castrofax
Breaking Stars
Unlocking Void
Chasing Bloodlines
Felling Kingdoms
About The Author
Reality is boring, and Jenna realized that very early on. If she was not reading fantasy, she was writing it. As an artist she dabbles in everything from costuming, portrait art, and leather crafting. She currently resides in Utah with her husband, and is 15 cats away from being crazy.
Table of Contents
Edited, Produced, and Published by Writer’s Edge Publishing 2014
Other Books by Jenna Van Vleet
Dedicated to: Justin Morrill, because high school English teachers don’t get enough credit for the pr...
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7“What—is—WRONG WITH YOU
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27“
Chapter 28
Other Books by Jenna Van Vleet
About The Author
Felling Kingdoms (Book 5) Page 21