by Carli Castle
“What is going on here?” Althea was finally able to say, her voice trembling a little. “What are these creatures doing here?”
“So you know what they are,” Lucas said quietly.
“Of course I know what they are, you idiot child,” Althea snapped.
“How about we all exercise respect with each other,” King Patrick said and Althea had the grace to blush a little bit. “Lucas was a witness to another murder, Althea.”
Althea looked at Lucas, frowning. “And you saw the killer. Tell me you saw the killer.”
“I saw someone doing it, but not the face,” Lucas said and told her everything he had seen.
“And how did these creatures end up here now?” Aali asked for the first time since Lucas woke up.
He’d been afraid of talking about it all night, but it was time he did. There was no use in hiding anymore, he needed this out in the open, no matter what happened. He was tired of having secrets.
“I trapped them there.”
The reactions in the room were interesting. Most people looked at him like he’d gone nuts, except for King Patrick, Caleb, and the four High Priests, all of whom looked at each other, then at nothing in particular.
He hesitated, wanting to ask why it seemed like these six people knew about his powers, but he didn’t. He had to focus on the matter at hand. He took a deep breath, but it didn’t stop his stomach from going into knots. “I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t mean to trap them.”
“Then what did you mean to do?” Ash asked from where he was sitting on the corner of Caleb’s desk.
Kill. You meant to kill. You wanted to, badly.
Lucas closed his eyes and took another breath to shut down the voice. “My first instinct was to kill,” he admitted in a low voice that carried just as much as if he had been shouting it.
“But, kill them how?” Harper asked him, her face showing every bit of confusion she must have been feeling.
“According to the literature, you can only kill them with fire, as that was the goddess’ power before she went dark,” Aali said, and for the first time, he didn’t sound snide. “How were you thinking of killing them?”
Lucas hesitated. “I have fire powers.”
He swore he would have been able to hear a pin drop at that moment.
“I’ve had it all my life,” he continued when no one said anything. “It happens mostly when I get angry, and that’s how I got away the first time.”
“The first time you saw them, you mean,” Ash said.
“Yes. I said I ran from them before, but the truth is I killed them.” Lucas avoided looking at anyone. He didn’t want to see the horror on their faces, and he certainly didn’t want to feel worse than he already did.
However, when he finally looked up, it wasn’t disgust he saw. Some looked shocked, a couple looked skeptical, but the rest looked sympathetic.
A smidgen of hope broke through his nerves.
“What do we do about these creatures?” Daniel asked from his corner. He was looking at the Shadows with an expression Lucas had never seen in him. It was a mixture of sadness and anger, something Lucas could understand very well.
“If they’re full Shadow, there’s nothing we can do,” Althea said, going closer to the Shadows and inspecting them. She looked like a hawk as she looked at them. The Shadows stared back, eyes completely black from corner to corner. “Their claws are fully grown,” she said when she was done, and turned back to the group. “They’re too dangerous to keep alive, we must dispose of them.”
Kill. Now it’s your chance to do what you wanted to do back in the forest, Lucas. Kill them for the greater good.
Lucas ignored the voice, because he was not okay with the way Althea talked about killing three beings that at one point were fully human. Yes, they were Shadows, and they were dangerous, but they were not things. They were not animals. You don’t just dispose of people.
“There has to be another way around this,” Lucas said before he could stop himself. “We can’t just kill them.”
“But they’re monsters,” Prince Noren said, throwing side glances at Princess Harper, as if he fully expected for her to snap at him again. It would have been comical if he hadn’t been so preoccupied. “If we don’t kill them, they will go out there and kill innocents.”
Lucas stood on unsteady legs. He was still shaky, and as he stood there, his head took a turn. He took a breath, looked at the Shadows, and then at the rest of the council members.
Kill. Kill. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Lucas shook his head, angry. “If you’re looking at me to—as you said—dispose of them, you’re out of luck.” Kill, Lucas. You know you want to. “I killed the ones before because I had no control over my power, but I will never purposefully use my power to hurt anyone. Not if I can help it, or them, for that matter.”
“But, Lucas, there is no way to help them,” King Patrick said. “They’re too far gone in their possession, and as far as we know, there is no way to bring them back from it.”
“You said it, sir, as far as we know,” Lucas said. “We don’t know anything for sure. You do what you need to do, but I know I will not be used for murder if I can avoid it.”
With those words, he turned and walked out of Caleb’s office. Once outside the building, he teleported home, went to bed, still shaking and sick to his stomach, and fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep until the sun was high on the sky.
Chapter Sixteen
Caleb didn’t hear from Lucas the following day. He didn’t send notice that he wouldn’t be at work, and when Caleb knocked on his door a little later in the day, he didn’t answer. It worried him, but he knew Lucas was a man who liked being on his own to examine his thoughts.
Still, he wished Lucas would talk to him, because being on his own at a moment like that was not, in his opinion, ideal.
Deciding to let his brother have the solitude he needed, Caleb went home to his mother instead. He’d wanted to go the previous night, but meetings ended far too late. As he appeared in front of his childhood home, he prepared himself for what was to come. He knew his mom would not be receptive to what he had to say and what she needed to do, but it was a conversation they had to have.
He didn’t knock when he got to the front door, just stepped inside.
“Mom,” he called, walking toward the kitchen. It was likely she was making potions, but he didn’t hear any noise coming from anywhere inside the house. Noah was probably in school, so there would definitely be no yelling of any kind.
Finding the kitchen empty, he stepped outside through the back door, and saw her in her garden, tending to her herbs. She had an amazing talent for plants, his mom. It was like she could make them grow just by wishing them to do so.
“Mom?” He came closer to where she was currently talking to one of her plants, and she turned around and smiled widely at him.
“Son! What are you doing here?” She stood and hugged him. She smelled of earth and flowers. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
“I am here on official business, actually. Sort of,” he told her and watched her face change. She knew what he wanted to talk about, because he’d been wanting to for a while. She had avoided the issue long enough, it was time to face it head on.
“If you’re here to say the same thing as always, you’re wasting your time,” she said and turned her back to him to continue pruning her plant, but her movements were jerky now. It was the same every single time he wanted to talk to her about Lucas.
“Mom, it’s getting out of control. You can’t ignore me, or it, anymore.”
“I’m not ignoring it, I’m putting it off until it’s important that he know.”
“And it’s not important that he know now,” he asked her incredulously. “He already killed Shadows with his fire, and last night he came close.” With that, he got her attention. She lifted her head, her back going very straight, and the shears pausing over the plant. “The only difference
was that this time he didn’t kill them, but captured them in a cell of rock.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Exactly that,” he said. “Earth. It’s starting to manifest even more strongly than before, and if last night is any indication, it’s coming with the force of a hurricane.”
“But that’s not supposed to happen at all!” She stood, leaving her shears on the ground. “This is why I bound his powers when he was a baby, so he didn’t have to go through this.”
“And yet, it’s still happening,” he said. “You can’t shield him from the truth anymore, mom. He has a right to know why he was called into the council, which is going to be a hell of a thing to tell him, since he never wanted the job anyway. I kept him from pursuing his dreams by creating the job for him.”
“No, King Patrick created the job, you just followed orders.”
“And you think he’s going to see that part of the whole thing? I’m his best friend, I should have told him from the beginning that he was called so we could keep an eye on him.” Caleb wished she had somewhere he could sit. He was not completely recovered from his injuries, and his leg was bothering him quite a lot.
His mom was silent for a while, and he tried to be patient. He never really understood why she would want to keep the powers hidden from Lucas. It was his right to know where he came from and why he had those powers. It was terrible to be kept in the dark about things that were a part of you as much as the hair on your head.
“I can’t just tell him, Caleb,” she finally said, her voice hollow, her eyes far away. “If I do, I would be sentencing him to death. I might as well kill him myself.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that there was a very valid reason why I bound his powers so long ago,” she explained. “When Lucas was a baby, his powers were completely out of control, since a baby can’t control anything they do. I bound them with the agreement from the High Priests, for his own safety, and the safety of those around him. If I tell him, they will unbind, and Lucas is not a god like I was.”
“And why is that a big deal? He inherited the powers, he can handle them if he can learn to control them.”
“It doesn’t work that way. When the powers unbind, and Lucas gets the full extent of them, he could be consumed by them. They are too much for his mortal body.”
Caleb let that sink in for a moment. This was information he would have appreciated having this whole time, because it complicated everything that much more. He swallowed down a vicious curse, because his mother would not like that at all.
“But, he’s not just a mortal,” he pointed out. “And if they are too much for him, then we must find another solution for this problem we’re having. Mom, he saw the person that’s been killing, and they had a sword that consumes souls. I believe it is to make the person wielding it stronger, otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason for it.”
“Other than not letting them return to reveal who the killer is,” she asked him without looking at him. Her nose was pink, just like it looked when she was about to cry.
“I don’t have all the facts here, but it would really help me to have your support. We can’t let this person keep killing and do nothing to stop them. We have a duty to protect, not just ourselves, but the rest of the innocent people of Esmeralda. It would have been really nice to know about the other goddesses a long time ago, too, you know.”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Look, I know it’s hard for you, mom, but sometimes things need to be said.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I cannot talk about it. Literally. Once my godly powers were taken away, I swore to never speak of the things I saw as a goddess. I am not allowed to, and when I try to talk about it, my head goes fuzzy. I start to forget everything until I stop talking. It’s part of what happened to me when I gave up my powers.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Caleb was annoyed now. “It would have been very useful to know the stories were true, because we would have been better prepared before.”
Mom said nothing, and neither did he for a while. He tried to calm himself, though it was difficult to do so. He was president of the council, there was no reason why the High Priests hadn’t told him about the prophecy. They had left him grasping at straws and he didn’t appreciate it.
“How did you tell us of the stories of the four goddesses, if you couldn’t talk about them,” he asked her, because he was curious, not because he wanted to challenge what she had just told him.
“If you recall, each time I talked about it, I was reading from a book. They can’t stop me from reading to my children,” she explained, looking down at one of her flower plants. “I always wanted you all to know about my past, about everything, especially Lucas. But I was always afraid of what would happen to Lucas if the powers unbound.”
“So there’s a chance he will be fine.”
“Sure, but it doesn’t really seem that way. Every time a power manifests, no matter how small the manifestation, he lands in the healing house. That only tells me the powers are going to end up killing him if they come full force. Telling him will just make it that much worse.”
He turned from her, because he was starting to understand where she was coming from, even though he still knew they had to talk to Lucas. Lucas was his brother, his best friend, but he had a right to know why this was happening to him. He had a right to understand why he felt the way he did when the fire power came. And they all had a duty to protect the people of the realm.
“You might not be a goddess anymore, but you understand what protecting the greater good means.” He turned to her, and she was watching him with stunned eyes.
“So you’re asking me to use my son to save the realm. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Don’t make it sound like I’m asking you to sacrifice Lucas, mom. You know what I mean, you know what all of this means to every single one of us.” He almost yelled it, so he took a couple steps back and let out a shaky breath. “This is not just my duty, mom, but yours as well. Time to take responsibility.”
Her eyes were full of tears by the time he finished talking and he went to her and hugged her because he felt guilty, and because he wanted to cry, too. He hated not having the answers to things, he hated not knowing how to help Lucas.
Mom lifted her head, and when she did, her eyes were dry, her face set.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “I will talk to Lucas, but you have to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“You will help me find a way to save Lucas. Whatever we have to do, when this is all over, help me save your brother from Udyia.”
Caleb nodded once, it was jerky and brusque, but he meant it. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure the people he loved were safe.
“Let’s go,” she said with a strong voice and began walking away from him. He followed her when she teleported as soon as she reached the front of the house, and they reappeared on Lucas’s front step.
She stood back as he knocked, and said nothing as they waited for the door to open. He only hoped Lucas was there, since he hadn’t answered before.
When the door opened, Caleb just stood there, unable to move, because it wasn’t Lucas standing in front of him, but Elle. He stared at her until her face wavered in front of him.
“Princess Eleanore,” he murmured, unable to put into words how confused he felt at seeing her standing there. And as to why she was opening the door when it could have been anyone knocking.
“President Sillen.” She wasn’t looking at him when she said it, but at his mother, who was also staring at her like she had two heads over her shoulders. “Mrs. Ferrin, hello. Thank goodness you’re here.”
His mother composed herself long enough to curtsy to her, then she darted a wide-eyed glance at Caleb.
“Please, come on in,” Elle said and stood aside to let them walk through. Caleb stopped right inside the door, unsure of what t
o do, or how to react. He knew his brother liked Elle, and that they contacted each other from time to time, but he had no idea their relationship had developed to the point where she visited him at home. “I’ve been hoping that someone would come.”
“And why’s that,” his mom said, her voice a little curt. Caleb wanted to shrink, because he knew his mother would not stand back and accept the fact that a princess was in her son’s home. “I’m going to apologize in advance for this, Highness, but what are you doing in my son’s home?”
Elle paused on her way across the room, her eyes as wide as saucers as she stared at his mother. “Mrs. Ferrin, I would really like to explain that, but I think you need to come back and see your son right now,” she said, not quite looking at either of their faces. He found it a little comical, if a little strange.
“What’s wrong with my son?”
“I don’t know,” Elle said as she led the way. “I came to see him, but he didn’t answer the door, and I knew he was home because he had written me to let me know he would be here all day. I let myself in since I have clearance, and found him like this.” With those last words, Elle opened the door to Lucas’s bedroom and led them inside.
Lucas was lying on his bed, a heavy blanket over him. There was a white piece of cloth over his forehead, and the entire room smelled strongly of herbs. He was shivering so hard the entire bed was shaking, and he was sweating like he had just ran a marathon.
His mom went straight to his side and put her hand on his forehead after removing the cloth Elle had placed there.
“I found him in bed like this, and no matter what I do, or what I give him, the fever doesn’t go down,” Elle explained, worry lines creasing her forehead. Her hair was pulled up high on her head, probably to keep it out of the way as she tended to Lucas.