by C. A. Sabol
BACK IN DIAMOND CITY, Sulfas was calling upon one of Obsidian's well-known contacts of the human world. Though he was one of the spirit world, this woman was said to contact the dead constantly.
He was there, in her house, pictured in one of her dark magic objects, known as the Gateway to the Grave. It was a mirror-like object that allowed passing sprits to look in on the mortal world, and, for those humans who had been deeply absorbed by dark power, to look back and talk to them.
The old woman never moved an eyelash as she listened. She was old and wrinkled, and if she were not a human, Sulfas would say that she would have been the bride of Obsidian. Her hair was thin and white, flimsy in nature. Most of it was piled up in a large turban decorated with beads and various jewels. Her eyes were sunken and a dark black color, as though it was bringing her mystical power into her very body. She, like a true Demon Chaser, wore dark colors, and she also had painted her long, scaly fingertips a gloomy shade of black.
“Our Lord Obsidian has called upon me to ask of you a favor, Seer Melantha,” Sulfas said. “I have come at his biding, that you might do this favor for our side.”
She still did not move, but merely stared at him. He continued on, saying, “He wants you to go to the palace, and get an audience with the Princess herself.”
It was this order that caused Melantha to cackle with laughter, her old, scratchy voice causing a sinister laugh to rumble within her throat. “I see then. Lord Sulfas, I take it that I therefore can assume that the time has come?”
Sulfas grinned evilly, knowing that it was a celebratory time. “Yes, you are correct, Seer. Obsidian has broken free of the Celestial Prison, and taken refuge in the Deserts of the Continent. The Great War is upon us.”
Melantha smiled, making her ancient face more twisted and more distorted than before. “I was hoping it would come, that Our Master would finally over throw the Guardian and take his seat on his throne in Crystallon.” She stood up from her chair, a new sense of anticipation and eagerness taking hold of her. “Where is the Pure Light? Where is he?”
“He has come to reside in the light of beautiful dreams,” Sulfas explained. “The Princess Selene is where he is residing now.”
“But she is only a child,” Melantha sneered. “Why would he choose to bridge the worlds through her? She has no strength. She will fall easily into our hands.”
“Lord Obsidian has witnessed her loyalty to the Light himself. He feels that she will need a more focused persuasion in order to stumble and fall away from the Light, although he says that it will take only a little to render her useless for the Light. He has waited patiently, watching for any sign of such a weakness in the princess.”
“So, since you are here, he has found it?”
“Yes. Indeed he has,” Sulfas nodded. “This is what the Master has commanded that I tell you to do.”
Melantha eagerly listened to the plan. When he was finished explaining it to her, she laughed her wicked laugh. “What genius!” she exclaimed. “I shall prepare to go at once.”
“I will inform Lord Obsidian of your intents, then,” Sulfas agreed, and with that, he hurried off, his image disappearing from the Gateway in a twinkling of an eye.
THERE WAS A SOFT KNOCK on the door a while later. Selene looked up from her position, as Kadrianne opened the door.
“Your Highness? May I come in?” Kadrianne asked.
“Yes,” Selene responded, a feeling of regret coming over her. “It is time to leave then?”
“I’m afraid so,” Kadrianne nodded solemnly. “Your doctor was kind enough to inform me of your whereabouts. He told me that you had been here for a while. Are you all right?”
Selene nodded. “Just a little tired, I think,” she said. “But also sad.” Her lip quivered as she said, “I wish he was all better, Kadrianne. I wish he would wake up for me.”
Kadrianne nodded sympathetically. “I wish it were so as well, Your Highness. He brings you so much joy that it really is a shame that he is not awake. I’m sure that he will eventually wake up. Don’t worry about him, Your Highness. I have no doubt that he would be the last person on Sapphira to give into death when he has you to see when he wakes up.”
Selene gave Kadrianne a small smile. “Thank you for saying that, Kadrianne,” she said, her voice hushed. “I’m very grateful ... but you can call me Selene, you know that right?”
“If it is your wish,” Kadrianne said, “But tradition usually calls for formality between royalty and commoners.”
“There are two things wrong with that statement,” Selene said as she turned to face Etoileon once more. “One, I am your friend. Friends do not use titles, even in Court, except in public. And two ... ” She turned and looked over her shoulder at Kadrianne, “There is nothing so very common about you, Kadrianne.”
Kadrianne bowed low. “Thank you. It is very kind of you to say so.”
“You will become a great Lady of the Court one day,” Selene told her. “I have no doubt of that.”
“Thank you, again.”
“Now why don’t you go and get Aura and all of them ready, while I say farewell to Etoileon?” Selene asked, smiling as brightly as she had all day. Kadrianne nodded and left, leaving Selene alone with Etoileon once more.
Leaning down, she placed her head on his heart and gave him a hug, although it was awkward and a small embrace. “Please wake up soon,” she whispered. “I ... I care so much for you, Etoileon ... but honestly ... I wanted to tell you that I’m -”
“Princess, are you coming?” Aura’s voice called out as the door opened partially. “We have to leave right away if we’re going to be able to get back to the palace on time. We wouldn’t want His Royal Majesty to worry, would we?”
Selene scrunched up her face in a sad, annoyed expression. “No, Aura,” she responded. “I’m coming.” She remained there for a moment longer before she got up and left the room, glancing back for only a second. He had not moved, nor was there any indication that he had heard her.
CYERRA AND RONAL WERE enjoying one of the rare times when they both had time enough to spare for each other. Since being knighted, Ronal had been attending not only strategy classes, but also strategy meetings. Cyerra was only free because she had been given time off as the Princess made her way to Silverton City and back again.
They talked as they strolled down the streets of the city. It was near noontime, but there was little sunshine out. The days of late had been gloomy and dreary, due to the weather of the monsoon season. There was some rain, much more than at any other time throughout the year. It was humid until sundown, and then it grew chilly.
Cyerra had invited Ronal to come and meet with her Aunt Rou for lunch, which he had accepted hesitantly. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to meet her family yet, considering he had just been assigned to fight against Cyerra’s brother in the war. But Cyerra had convinced him that her aunt would love to meet him. She had also agreed not to bring up the subjects of Aemon or the war. He had settled for that. Ronal also agreed because he had been at the palace much too long and he wanted to get away for a while before he left it for the North.
“Are you sure I should wear this?” he asked, pulling at the formal cloak Cyerra had insisted that he wear. “Isn’t it a bit too ... dressy? What if your aunt’s just wearing a housedress or something? Won’t that be showing her up or something.”
“Auntie Rou is excited to meet you,” Cyerra insisted. “I want her to be impressed with you. I want her to like you.”
“Oh.” That really didn’t answer all his questions or address all his concerns, but he let it slide. If nothing else, he decided, he could just attribute the formality to Cyerra’s insistence. “Okay.”
“Relax, would you? She’ll love you.”
“Okay,” he said again, his voice clearly telling anyone who was listening that he was still not sure about that.
They arrived at the shop to find it closed. “That’s odd,” Cyerra said. “I guess maybe after she heard we
were coming, she wanted to close the shop for today.” After a moment of thought, she gestured toward the alleyway. “Let’s try around back.”
“Sure,” Ronal agreed. He wondered if anything was wrong or not. It didn’t feel too suspicious, but his feelings had been wrong about certain things before. He was suddenly glad that he was with Cyerra. He wouldn’t want her to get hurt. He looked up and all around at the enclosing walls of the alley, glad to find that nothing seemed amiss. “Cyerra, I don’t see anything -“ He broke off as Cyerra gasped in horror.
“Oh no!” she cried.
“What? What is it?” he asked, his hand reaching for his hidden dagger in his belt.
“The door!” Cyerra pointed as she shrunk back next to him. “Someone’s broken in!” Ronal looked to see that the back door had indeed been thrown off of its hinges and the doorframe mutilated. Looking past that into the house, he could see that the house had been ransacked. When or how, he could not say. All he could tell from where he was standing was that it looked like the intruder, or intruders, had done a thorough job.
Her eyes suddenly grew wide as she was struck with a sudden thought. “Oh my! Auntie Rou!” she exclaimed. She hurried off to find her aunt.
“Cyerra, no!” Ronal shouted after her, quickly running after her. “It could be dangerous still! There could be burglars still inside!”
She did not hear his warning as she jumped over the mess on the floor and wove her way through the building that had once been her home. Well, we were going to move soon anyway, she thought, but this was terrible. “Auntie Rou? Are you here? It’s me, Cyerra!”
Ronal came up behind her. “Cyerra, hang on,” he said. “Be quiet a moment.” He strained his ears to listen. There was nothing. “She’s either not here or she’s unconscious,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else is here, either.”
“How can you tell?”
“There are no subtle movements, or even any motion at all in this house,” he explained. “Let’s check upstairs.”
“Okay,” Cyerra agreed. “The steps are over there,” she said as she pointed.
Ronal bounced up the stairs as stealthily as he could. Right away he knew that there was trouble. All of the doors he saw were opened, and all of them except one were turned completely upside down. He wanted to take a look, but Cyerra interrupted his thoughts.
“Auntie!” she screamed, as her eyes fell to the floor in one of the looted rooms. Ronal had not realized that the pile of flower-printed robes on the floor was a real person. Cyerra pushed past Ronal and hurried over to her fallen aunt’s side, to see if she was still alive or not.
She was, but she was very pale and her breathing was shallow. Ronal saw that her careworn features were stressed and there was a large bump on her head. “Careful,” he warned Cyerra as she started to try and move her aunt. “She’s been attacked, and I think it’s been more than a couple of hours since it happened. It might’ve happened this morning.”
“But why?” Cyerra asked. “Who would do this?”
“I have an idea,” Ronal muttered as he looked back to the spotless room once more. “Is that your brother’s room right there?”
“Yes,” Cyerra looked up. “But I don’t think it was Aemon who did this, Ronal. He was raised by our aunt, the same as I was. How could he turn on her, and to this degree?”
“Didn’t you once tell me that he found out that he had been lied to about his father?” Ronal asked. “And that he was angry about it?”
Cyerra’s eyes dawned with understanding. “I don’t know about this, Ronal. Why would he try to attack her now, of all times? He isn’t even here, is he?”
“There’s only one person who can answer that question now,” Ronal said, looking from Cyerra down to Auntie Rou’s face. “Let’s get her to the Palace Medical Ward. It was just finished about two weeks ago. It should be running now.”
“Yes, let’s hurry,” Cyerra agreed. She watched as Ronal leaned down and scooped up her aunt, cradling her in his arms. Cyerra stood up and led the way out of the house towards the royal hospital.
IT WAS HOURS LATER that Selene was sitting once more at her desk, trying to read. She suddenly realized that she’d been attempting to read the same page for the last twenty minutes and sighed. She stretched, breathing in deeply as she tried to concentrate.
A few moments later, she gave up on it. The little silver book had proved to be a wonderful book, but there was too much on her mind to let her pay any attention to the words. And anyway, she’d discovered that the book was full of blank pages in the back of it. Hundreds and hundreds of blank pages. What was she supposed to do with that? She shrugged and looked away.
Selene’s eyes caught sight of the note that she’d been given as she’d left the dinner table. Looking for a temporary distraction, she picked it up and read it again.
It was from Cyerra. She’d written to tell Selene that she would be spending the night in the Medical Ward with her aunt. Selene hadn’t been told anything in regards to what had happened, but she understood. It was only natural that Cyerra was worried about her aunt; from what Selene had gathered from her small talks with her handmaiden, Cyerra regarded her Aunt Rou as a child would her mother. She put the letter aside and frowning down at her workspace, she did the same thing with her book. She would not be able to give it her full attention; at least, not while she was distracted. Selene silently promised herself that she would return to later.
She got up and stood at the window, very much like the night she had become friends with the Pegasus in her dreams. It was not raining, but it was cloudy out as she looked up at the night sky.
It was then that something caught her attention, and she felt her mouth drop open in surprise.
There was a star missing. “Where is it?” she asked, squinting into the dark blue sky. She could find no trace of the familiar sparkle. “How unusual ... ” her voice trailed off as she turned her thoughts back to the night when she’d noticed that the star was flickering. She’d been with Etoileon then.
Her eyes left the star’s empty spot to look over at the High Tower. Should she go look from there? she wondered. A moment later she shook her head. I can’t, she thought. I can’t face the place where too many memories of Etoileon are. Not yet.
She forgot all about her concern for the blackened star as her hand went up to her heart and thoughts of her cherished friend came to her mind. “Oh, Etoileon ... ” her voice was soft and full of unspoken pain. “How I wish ... I wish you were here.”
Selene turned away from the window and subdued her oncoming tears. She was growing impatient for him to wake up, she realized. The belief in his eventual recovery was weakening. She’d resolved that she would never doubt his getting better, but now, with her heart nearly empty of conviction, she considered the possibility if he did perish. She did not have to dwell in her dark thoughts long to know that she would no longer want to live without him in this world.
She buried her face in her pillow and tried to quiet her mind. She wanted to see Pegasus. He always brightened up her days. In many ways, she thought, it was almost like he had come into her world to replace Etoileon. She suddenly regretted that thought. No one would replace Etoileon, and she should not have even thought that. “What kind of love gives up so easily?” Selene asked softly into her folded arms. “How dare I think such a thing.” She sighed. “I am not worthy of anyone’s love.”
“No one is ever worthy of a perfect love,” she heard Pegasus whispered, tickling her ear with his mane as he bent his head to look down at her.
She found that she was lying on the sand of her dreamland, her arm shielding her eyes from the bright, yellow sunlight as she lay there. Selene removed her arm from her face and looked up, realizing that she must’ve fallen asleep. “What?” she asked.
“Not one human on all of Sapphira, since the beginning of time, has there been a human being worthy of perfect love,” Pegasus repeated. “All humans have been infected with the Dark Plague. And wh
ile they are sick, no one would love them. No one would love their sickness.”
Selene sat up and brushed the sand out of her hair. “But what about you?”
Pegasus flicked his tail. “The only one who can love them even though they are sick is the one who created them, who has known them since the beginning.”
Selene wasn’t sure if he had answered her question or not. “What about when we are healed?”
“There will come a time, a time that is fast approaching, where all the humans will be able to be cured,” Pegasus told her. He smiled. “You should know that better than anyone, Selene.”
“Huh?” She looked at him, not sure what he was talking about before it clicked. “Oh, you mean the prophecy.”
He nodded. “You are the one who will bring peace into this world,” he said. “But you are not the peace itself.”
“I wish that was so easy to explain to Dorian,” Selene muttered, her cynical remark almost a reflex reaction.
“Tired of hearing about it?” Pegasus asked.
“Very,” Selene agreed. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do! Or how, or when, or any of that ... how can I be expected to do something I don’t even know what it is? I mean, I could’ve already missed the chance to bring peace to the world by rejecting Aemon’s marriage proposal.”
“It is hard to be faced with fear,” Pegasus said. “But I tell you, it is not fear that shows our true characters. It is by fear we test our faith.”
Selene said nothing, merely nodding. “I wish that people would not look up at me for a solution, Pegasus. I can only do so much. I will not refuse my heart and be married to someone all for the sake of peace. I want ... ” She trailed off, turning a slight shade of red.
“Go on,” Pegasus smiled kindly down at her. “I will not laugh.”
“Well ... ” She hesitated for only a moment, before continuing on. “Well, I want to fall in love, like anyone else. I might have a title and live in a big house, but I am the same as everyone else. I want to be happy, but I do not consider that top priority and I know that it may not be the case. I want to have a family of love someday, but I know that I can be happy without it if I don’t get that. I want to have adventures, and dream ... just like everyone else, I have dreams.” When she looked up, she saw that Pegasus was nodding, silently agreeing with her. “The only thing that’s different about me, besides the prophecy, is my title. How can that be something to cause me to be a hero to someone, especially for something that I might not choose to do in the first place?”