The Lotus Effect (Rise Of The Ardent)

by Bridget Ladd

  Xander slowed, looking at me over his shoulder. “Lily, are you all right? You seem . . . intoxicated.”

  I laughed. “Not drunk, just supremely happy.”

  Xander assessed me curiously for a few moments more before he took my hand again. I couldn’t help but smile as he led me through the dark forest; it was just so fascinatingly wonderful and better than I had ever hoped.

  The Outlands were not a myth.

  Never a myth.

  Chapter 16

  A Time Of Discovery ~ Familiar Hands

  I had seen this before. A mural only—I had thought—to exist on a washroom’s wall.

  Xander and I stood marveling at the immense power before us, practically falling from the sky itself as it came rushing down from the top of a mountain’s slope and clashing with the still waters below.

  “What is it?” I asked, my voice full of wonder.

  “Exactly what it looks like. We call it a waterfall. This one is NaTu. Its twin, a couple klicks away, is NaRoo. Glory and Freedom my father had called them. There are a couple more like it that I know of, but this one is my favorite,” Xander replied, his gaze transfixed by its translucent beauty.

  “It’s . . . amazing,” I gasped, staggering back from the tumultuous force that rained down before us. Little droplets blew onto my face from the wind. “Do you mean to tell me there are more of you? More Outlanders?”

  Xander reached over and took my arm, steering me to the right of the waterfall and pointed into the trees surrounding it. There, slightly off the ground and supported by stilts, was a circular wooden house. I had to squint to see its shape for it blended so well into the blanket of trees. From what I could tell, it appeared to be in good condition.

  Someone had been taking care of this place.

  “You lived here?” I asked, almost a whisper.

  Xander nodded. “Until I was about sixteen, I was eleven when my parents—”

  He was cut short by a rummaging in the shrubbery near the cottage’s entrance.

  “Stay here,” he said. Moving stealthily at a crouch, he disappeared into the night’s shadows.

  Everything had become so quiet, and Xander was gone so quickly, I had the slight trepidation that maybe I was only dreaming. That none of this was even real. Before the first thrills of panic had a chance to set in, I heard a man grunt in the distance.

  It wasn’t Xander.

  The other voice started bellowing a hearty rustic sort of laugh. “Xander, you dog! You near scared the wits out of me boy!”

  The next moment Xander and an old man emerged from the shrubbery, their forearms clasped in a warm embrace.

  “I thought I heard you out there, but then I heard another. I thought the worst, and decided to investigate,” the old man said to Xander, grasping at his shoulder. Feeling the situation was now safe, I approached the elderly man and smiled at him in greeting.

  The stranger turned to me. “I knew it! These ancient ears are just as good as a newborn babe’s!”

  I smiled as I reached my hand out to accept his vigorous handshake. The old man’s distracted eyes gleamed on mine in recognition, and his handshake slowed to something more meaningful before he finally released my hand.

  “Lily, this is Old Man Teizel. Teizel this is Lily Emerson, my partner,” Xander said.

  Teizel’s brow creased as he looked from Xander to me. “Is that what they’re calling it now?” he asked, bursting into hysterical laughter, before succumbing to a fit of hacking coughs.

  Xander, looking concerned, went quickly to his aid and helped him to the nearest stump of a broken tree. “I’ve brought the medicine, Teizel. Please, don’t be stubborn. Just take it.”

  Teizel shook his freckled old hand in dismissal. “Nah, boy,” he scoffed. “How many times have I told you to stop bringin’ me that drat stuff? You need not be risking yourself for me like that. Besides, like my name states, I’m an old man and I welcome when my time comes. You better not try to stop me from my next life’s journey with that Council-made poison.”

  “It’s not poison, Teiz.” Xander’s use of the man’s nickname implied that they had been, and still were, very close. “Please, just try it. You never know, with this to help, you may even out live me.”

  Old Man Teizel laughed again. “At the rate you’re going, sneaking out the city like you do, I suppose this ancient fossil will be outlasting you.”

  Xander sighed and rolled his eyes at me, and I smiled in response. They obviously had this same speech many times over. He risked his own life on multiple occasions to help an elderly man in need?

  Now I felt like a prick, interrogating him as I had.

  Old Man Teizel looked up to me then and winked. “Look at you, even risking the life of pretty little Miss Lily there. You should be ashamed.” He shook his head at Xander.

  “I asked to come,” I said quickly. My voice felt odd to break into their moment of reunion, which felt, somehow like a sacred thing.

  “Well in that case, I couldn’t have refused a pretty face like yours. Lily . . .” he tested the name experimentally. “Yes, I think it suits you.” He picked up a brown fallen leaf from the ground. He gazed upon it with some sadness as it slowly crumbled within his fingers. “In myth, the Lily was created from the nursing milk of Juno, the queen of the gods, as it fell from the heavens. The same milk that was said to have created the Milky Way,” he said quietly. “Lilies, such delicate yet strong beauties they are.”

  In that moment, as he lifted his clouded eyes to the sky, Old Man Teizel’s face transformed from senility to serenity, and a mantel of wisdom shrouded him as gently as the shadows of the night.

  I hadn’t the slightest clue what he was talking about. Juno? The Milky Way?

  Many would’ve thought him crazy. But somehow—even I felt a cold shiver seep through my spine from his words. There was a hidden truth in what he said, even if I couldn’t understand it.

  Something about him felt familiar.

  Xander stood quietly beside him for a moment to allow Teizel his private thoughts. Then he reached up and squeezed the old man’s shoulder in an act of comfort. Xander really cared for him. I knew it was breaking his heart, knowing he couldn’t convince him to take the medicine he so desperately needed.

  Xander would not push him. He respected the man too much for that.

  “Teizel, do you mind if we go inside? I need to show Lily something,” Xander asked quietly.

  “Of course! How rude of me!” Teizel scoffed, pushing Xander’s offered hand away as he stood from the cracked stump on his own. I squinted, taken aback by the sudden change in his mood.

  “I may be old, but don’t you forget I taught you everything you know, boy. I can walk with no help from you, thank you,” he said stubbornly.

  Xander gestured for me to walk before him, so I complied, eyeing the sway of Teizel’s dirtied, likely once green robe, and the brown sandals that he wore upon his withered feet.

  Teizel slowed unexpectedly as we continued our unhurried ascent up the wooden ramp that led to the cottage. “I see a lot of Lady Everette in you.”

  I stopped. My hands fell to my sides in disbelief. “I’m sorry?”

  The wooden boards of the walkway creaked beneath Teizel’s sandals as he resumed his steady pace towards the door. But I stood paralyzed—as though I’d been hit in the face with a bushel of bricks.

  Teizel slowed again and turned his white head to acknowledge me. “I’m sorry dear, what is it that you’re referring to?” he asked carefully.

  “My grandmother, Lady Everette. Amelia Marie Everette. You just said I reminded you of her—”

  I was cut short by Xander’s assertive grip upon my shoulder as his tall frame came close beside me. He looked at me intently with his bright gray eyes and shook his head in warning. Frowning, I ignored him, and turned hopefully back to Teizel. He looked as though I was spouting madness. Desperate, I glanced back and forth between the pair. “You’re hiding something from me. Both of you.
”

  Neither Xander nor Teizel responded.

  “You knew her, Teizel! You just said so yourself!” I couldn’t suppress the mounting urgency in my voice. All these years since her disappearance, this was the first time I had heard anyone speak of her personally. I must have answers. “I need to know what happened to her. Please.”

  Teizel’s brow creased for a moment before he turned his back to me once again and continued up the moonlit pathway.

  I could not give up on my grandmother this easily. Shrugging Xander off, I caught up to Teizel in a few quick strides. I reached for his shoulder to make him face me. To face my questions.

  Xander apprehended my hand before it reached him.

  “Lily, let it go. It’s to no use.”

  “He knows!” I hissed through my teeth. “He’s avoiding my questions.” I stumbled over my thoughts. “He’s not forgetting. He’s just not telling!”

  Xander nodded and frowned. “I know. It’s never a point of memory loss with him. His mind may be old, but it’s still quite lucid.”

  “Then why—” I started, but stopped. Aggravated and hopeless, I rubbed the side of my face with one hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Xander said quietly. “Patience, Lily. Your time of discovery will come.”

  I’ve been patient for ten years now. I suppose Teizel’s mention of her was better than nothing. But still, it hurt. Like reopening a wound inside of me, a wound that never truly healed.

  Xander stood before the circular wooden door that Teizel had already entered through, and ushered me inside. I met his silvered eyes as I continued past. “I’m tired of waiting,” I said with quiet fervor, before stepping over the cottage’s wooden threshold, getting my first glimpse into a past not of my own . . . .

  ~

  My keen gaze struggled to pierce through the thicket of the forest, but it was too dense and unyielding to the eye. I didn’t need to see, however, to know there was an unidentifiable threat that lingered just beyond.

  My legs, moving of a will not of my own, leapt over rocks and roots—my footfalls deft and swift, making no noises as I turned from my current course.

  I needed to get back to the cottage.

  Mother would be inside cooking the lentil stew, waiting for my arrival with the edible mushrooms found near the great NaRoo. Just starting to get back on her feet again after our fall—I wanted to surprise her with the best. I didn’t mind the trek, for it was filled with creatures and wonders that I had never encountered back in Prosper. My father would be out back with axe in hand, still cutting the wood for tonight’s fire, his eyes ever watchful on Mother.

  Again, I listened. I crouched low and opened my satchel while I stretched the sense. Perhaps I had misheard? Silently, I looked into the satchel at the five large mushrooms gathered there. I smiled, knowing Mother would be proud.

  Suddenly there was a sound. Then nothing.

  A crack of a branch followed by the quiet stillness of the birds.

  This time, I trusted my senses: we were in trouble. I could feel the danger that neared behind me. I had to divert it—I had to lead it astray.

  Quietly I dropped the mushrooms, knowing that the danger was close, so close I could now hear the muffled voices of men, the crunch of leaves beneath inexperienced footfalls. Readying myself without thought, I took off in a direct path before them, attracting as much attention as I could, breaking limbs and tearing my clothes as I ran. I didn’t care as they tore into my flesh, for I had a sudden fear driving me forward.

  We knew this day would come. We knew they would find us. We just didn’t expect it would be so quickly after the exile.

  We were not prepared.

  Feeling the full stretch of my limbs, I sprinted through the forest. My heart leaped anxiously when I heard their cry of alarm in pursuit. They spread out behind me like predatory cats, cutting narrow paths through the tall grasses. I led them to the top of the ridge, the furthest most place that I knew from our cottage.

  I searched my mind quickly. I could now hear the roar of the waterfall, its tumultuous waters pounding into the earth below.

  I had no weapons, only a weapon of nature: The cave. The cave from which I always kept my distance. The cave that sheltered something far more dangerous than even these men.

  I could see its hollow opening now as I ran my way up and over the ridge: a dark mouth cresting the horizon. Reaching down with barely a halt in my step, I snatched a loose stone from the ground.

  But slowing even that brief moment had cost me valuable time. A large man sprinted up beside me then, his shadow running in step with mine. He reeked of death, his hair plastered to his scalp and as I turned my head—I could see that blood and sweat were both caked upon his face.

  Please, let me not be too late.

  He barreled into my side, sending me sprawling. I skidded sideways over the dirt, scraping the side of my cheek and stomach. But I was on my feet again in a flash, narrowly missing a kick to the chest.

  This was my only chance. Looking the man straight in the eyes and gripping the stone as if it was my only lifeline, I hurled it deep into the cave’s dark interior.

  Something moved within.

  Small stones and pebbles rained from the cave’s entrance as the beast quaked with rage. Two more men ran up the ridge just now, cornering me between the brutish man and the waterfall’s ledge. They looked into the cave for a moment and ignored it, focusing their attention back upon me. Their accents were thick, and they spoke with words I could not make out. They laughed and spat at me.

  I was trapped.

  One of the smaller ones rushed me, knocking me back into the largest man, who then pushed me forward, laughing a deep guttural sound. I knew they were toying with me, but I didn’t care. All I cared for at the moment was concentrating on the noises within the cave. The barely discernible trotting echoes that became louder and louder . . . .

  I whipped my head, focusing my attention on the smallest man. Lunging forward, I grabbed hold of his shoulders and dug my heels into his hips, crawling my way up his back. Steeling myself, I bit hard into the flesh of his dirty skin, caring not when I started to taste the bitter mixture of both sweat and blood. He screamed and his nails tore into the flesh of my arm as he tried to throw me from him.

  The big man laughed to my right, amused by his partner’s inability to remove such a small foe. To my luck, the big man had not moved from his original spot in front of the cave.

  He could laugh all that he wanted—as long as he didn’t move.

  Suddenly a thick hand grabbed at my neck, hauling me backwards. I ignored the pain that sprouted like a flash in my head, for that’s when I heard it. A high pitched roar and then—a thud of two large masses hitting one another.

  Both men holding me stopped. They turned and saw the empty space where their larger companion had been a moment before. In their curious fear, their grips loosened. Falling to the ground, I took the opportunity—and ran.

  I sprinted, ignoring the shrill screams of the beast’s luckless prey behind me. The blood coursed through my veins just as quickly as my feet paced over the ground. I kept the waterfall to my right as I soared and leapt over the uneven ground along the ridge.

  Please be safe! I cried out in my heart. Please be alive!

  I leapt over stumps and swatted large leaves out of the way as I took the swiftest course back to the cottage. Just as I came within sight of my home, I stopped. My stomach turned, and the bile of the dirty man’s blood rose hotly in my throat. Where the cottage should be was nothing but a raging bonfire.

  Pulling my shirt over my nose and mouth, I filtered the debris and smoke that choked its way into my lungs. Frantically, I searched, and searched, and searched some more, disregarding the tumultuous heat that bore into my face and eyes.

  No. No. No.

  I threw up when I saw the bodies. They were charred and unfamiliar, but I knew without a doubt that they were what remained of my parents.

  I was too lat
e.

  I stumbled away, forced by the wave of heat that burned and bubbled away the top layer of skin on my arm. The fire swirled around me, but the intensity of the heat did not match the level of shock and pain that built its way into my chest. In a daze, I made my way aimlessly back through the forest. Away from the blaze, away from the horror.

  At my best, I would’ve heard the danger sooner.

  At my best, I would’ve evaded the danger faster.

  At my best, I would have saved them.

  As if imprisoned in a dream, I spun around. Time slowed as the forest was consumed by the blaze, swirling ash above me into a whirlwind of fiery death. It reminded me of the early snowfalls, the quiet time just before sunrise when the delicate flakes fell from the sky to land upon my cheek.

  I blinked as a flake of ash landed on my eyelash.

  It was hot. It held no childlike wonder.

  The simple action brought me back to reality. Suddenly—I heard another man who I had not seen previously on the ridge. He approached me from behind and held a very large rock in one hand.

  I didn’t even try to stop him.

  I heard the crack of my skull before I felt it. I fell to the ground as a searing pain throbbed in my head. I knew I was near the waterfall’s ledge. It was all I could gather as my vision blinked in and out of focus. I hardly registered the kick that followed as it barreled into my ribs, cracking them with the force.

  “Bader surne! How did a filthy waif manage to kill two of my men? Two!” the stranger bellowed as he kicked me again.

  I knew tears trailed soot-less paths down my face.

  I could not give up.

  I could not let them win.

  So I rolled. Once, twice, a third time, and then nothing. I was flying.