Secret of Words

by Allyson Huber

  Just then, the waiter came with a huge chocolate cake with white frosting. Another waiter came to stand next to her and placed laid eight forks at the end of the table. Carmel sauce was swirled on the top of the cake in elegant motion. I cut the cake for the group, putting slices on everyone’s plates.

  The cake was a perfect indulgence for any chocolate lover. Chocolate was not my favorite type of cake, but every bite I took lured me to take another bite, and then another. I ate very slowly, enjoying each bite at my own pace. Meanwhile, the others took seconds to eat each piece and finished the cake off. I didn’t mind because the piece of cake I had eaten was enough for me. It was pretty late when we left the restaurant. I found it pretty funny when they figured out they had extra money and didn’t know where it had come from. In the end, they evenly divided the leftover money among themselves while I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  We walked back to the Kartica under the rapidly darkening sky. Sybra was starting to get very cold at night and during the day. We hadn’t seen snow yet, but I knew that it wouldn’t be long before we started to. The traffic on the streets of Aughmortor was starting to clear up, and shops were closing for the night. Lyte used magic to teleport the gifts into my room back at the Kartica so that we didn’t need to carry them as we walked back. Each step we took made me more eager to test out my sword and try on the armor, but I knew I needed to be patient.

  “Thanks for everything guys, it was great,” I said when we finally reached the Kartica and were splitting off for the night.

  “You’re welcome!” Emilie said, hugging me. I gave all of them hugs, realizing that I was a lot happier than I had been on Earth for a long time. Being here and having such great friends made it all worth it. I missed my father every day, but I couldn’t deny that being here was a huge improvement to my life on Earth.

  “I don’t want to go to bed yet.” Emilie pouted, and Kat seemed to be reading her mind.

  “We could stay up late…” Kat fed into Emilie’s excitement, winking at me.

  “Sure, I’m not really tired,” I replied, laughing at their expressions. It wasn’t hard for them to persuade me to stay up late. The excitement of today would make it impossible for me to sleep anyways.

  “I knew you would!” Emilie opened her door and motioning for us all to join her. We sat down on her bed, and she pulled out a huge bottle of wine and cups. My eyebrows raised at the sight of it. I had never been much of a drinker, but since getting to Aughmortor and being around older members I drank every once and a while on the weekends or after a long training day.

  “…And Natalie will try on her armor…” Emilie was listing off ideas of what to do while pouring the bubbly wine into the cups. “C’mon, we’re celebrating!” She added when noticing my skeptical look.

  “Try on your armor!” Kat threw a piece of it at me. I’m not sure when it had gotten into Emilie’s room instead of mine, but I didn’t mind. I barely managed to catch it in time before it hit me in the chest. Kat mouthed an apology to me, her eyes sparkling with laughter. I put on the armor over my clothes, leaving the helmet on the bed, examining it in the mirror. The more I wore armor, the more comfortable I felt in it.

  The armor fits me like a glove; it wasn’t too big, and it wasn’t too small. Its pale blue jewels seemed to make my eyes pop. I felt unbelievable, standing in armor that was my own, and was so proud to see the Ones of Within symbol on it.

  “Oh, it looks good.”

  “It does look nice,” I confessed, admiring its pattern again. The armor fits me as though it was meant for me. I held up an arm, looking at the swirling pattern that circled around my arms and shoulders. I grabbed the scabbard and withdrew the sword, holding it properly in my hands.

  “You always look so dangerous with a sword in your hands.” Kat mused.

  “Dangerous?” I couldn’t help laughing; I still didn’t feel very strong or powerful in comparison to the other Zeleti members, but I did notice improvement at least.

  “Swing it,” Emilie said, “Swing the sword.”

  I swung it, looking at the mirror to see what it looked like. The look of determination on my face was foreign to me. I smiled, reassured when I saw the familiar sight of my upturned face in the mirror. I put the sword back in its scabbard and then quickly took off the armor.

  “I’m so excited to try out the armor and sword in training!”

  “You’ll be a force to be reckoned with,” Emilie replied, grinning at me. She moved closer to me and grabbed Dominic’s necklace from around my neck, examining the charm. “Now, I get to see this close up.” She winked at Kat.

  “What?” I asked, my eyes narrowing at her. Emilie let go of the necklace, exasperated.

  “Honestly, Natalie. And I thought you were the thoughtful one. He gave you a necklace.”

  I knew she was teasing me, but my skin flushed at her insinuation. Sure, I had a crush on Dominic, but that didn’t mean I wanted to do anything about it even though I knew I hoped something would happen. That didn’t mean he was interested in me either. Still, he had chosen a necklace for me. That meant something, right? Emilie put her hands in the air, giving me a look of pure innocence. I raised my eyebrows again, telling her that I wasn’t falling for her little act.

  “Hey Emilie, I’ve meant to ask you. Do you remember the day when I met with James and Shay wanted to talk to you about something? What was it about? Just out of curiosity,” I asked, purposefully changing the subject. Emilie didn’t look surprised by my question, just sad. I remembered the conversation every once in a while, thinking back on their expressions and feeling weird about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them. I was just curious.

  “Shay believes that there is a traitor among one of the groups with less experience. She told me to carefully watch all the members, to see if anything mysterious is going on. She wants me to inform her if I did see something.” Emilie’s face turned still as she looked away, almost guiltily.

  I realized that Emilie shouldn’t have told us that. What if one of us had been a traitor? If we had learned that she was watching us, we would have killed her! Luckily for her, we weren’t traitors, or at least I didn’t think we were. I glanced quickly at Kat before looking away. Kat would never do that! She just didn’t seem like that kind of person; if anything, she seemed the most innocent out of our group, all of her emotions plain as day on her face.

  “Was it about anything else?” I asked.

  “No, nothing else.” The way she didn’t meet my eyes made me realize she was lying. What was she hiding about the conversation? Emilie knew something that Shay knew, and she was doing her best to hide it.

  This place was full of mystery and secrets. Ever since I’d seen the prophecy, I started to understand the careful manner everyone in the Ones of Within interacted with each other and the worry on many Ones of Within member's faces. Eventually, I would learn the answers to my questions. Right now, it was the calm before the storm. I knew soon that everything would start coming together or falling apart, one of the two.

  It ended up that Kat and Emilie’s excitement didn’t calm down for hours. We spent the night as many teenagers probably did on Earth, drinking wine, gossiping, and talking about life. Eventually, we split ways, and I found myself still awake in my room, ruminating over the night.

  I held my sword in my hand in my room, swinging it once more, and almost hit my mirror. I decided that it wasn’t a good idea to continue, especially tipsy. I stared at my sword, marveling it, and then took out the book I had been given by Adam. It was full of Jakost words that were useful, including lines of spells and their iterations. He had told me that the best way to get stronger in magic was to become fluent in Jakost. I couldn’t help the fact that I didn’t trust the magic that was apart of my world now. The concept of magic existing seemed ridiculous to me even though I had seen it many times face to face.

  I then studied the moon necklace in my hand. Would it enhance my magic? I didn’t sense anything as
I wore it or held it in my hand. Perhaps, I would feel its effect more when I finally performed magic. I walked over to the torch in my room and blew it out with one swift puff of air. My birthday had been great, and I had received some gifts that characterized me as true Ones of Within member. I still had doubts about the organization, but I had never been happier in my whole life. I couldn’t help wondering if I would ever go back to Earth and see my father. Or if I would ever be able to leave the Ones of Within if I decided I didn’t want to continue training there? As Dominic said in the prophecy room, we didn’t have a choice while the Ones of Within were at war. When would that change though? When would the war end?

  I sighed as the depressed thoughts of earlier crept back in my mind. More than ever, I missed Dad and wondered what he was doing. I felt guilty and torn up about leaving him. After all, I left after we got in a huge argument that morning. I hoped he hadn’t dwelled on my disappearance. After Mom left, he sat with it, hardly doing anything at all for a whole week. About a week later, he got up to his feet again, declaring that our new family would be better than our old, and we didn’t need my mother. He burned all of her remains, even her gifts, and effaced her from our lives permanently. The only thing left was my necklace. Despite his strong words and actions, my mother leaving forever changed him.

  Most of his time was spent in his office or encompassed by work, rarely on me. I didn’t mind it; I think I was even suffering a little with her around sometimes. Life without her was very different. Dad used to complain a lot about still being in her house, that he could still feel her years later. When we moved, it felt like another step farther from her. My dad thought that forgetting her was the best way to deal with the pain of her loss; he thought it would be good for me too. Trying to forget her drove us apart, and forgetting her was impossible. Where was she?

  Birthdays should be spent with family… it ran through my head over and over. Where had my family gone? The one I left two weeks ago certainly hadn’t felt like a family. That argument that morning would have been the start of many. While Dad was set on forgetting her, Shay and Emilie had given me the idea that I had a right to remember her. And I would remember her, always, no matter how hard I tried to forget her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was the very end of December, very close to Christmas. For the past week, snow fell from the sky and coated the ground in a thick blanket of white. Sybra looked beautiful with its rooftops covered in the powdery white specks, even more, beautiful than I had imagined it would. Aughmortor was very cold in winter, which was fine with me. Even though I walked around with a red nose and a cloud of foggy breath, I was happy here. The month had been very uneventful, minus the fact we had started using armor in agility classes, which wasn’t a good time, to say the least. I thought that I had made impressive progress by walking with armor on, but wearing armor while running a full agility course a whole new experience.

  The training was ramping up, and I knew why. The volcano was starting to calm down, and the Larta had not laid their hands on it in a while, so everyone was anticipating their next move would be soon. My group still hadn’t gone on a patrol, much to my displeasure. Not that I found camping out in a tent during wintertime enjoyable, but I was still impatiently waiting to explore outside Sybra’s gates. Patrick told me all about what you did on patrols. Basically, you patrolled the land until it turned dark and slept out in tents during the night, organizing watches to last through the night. The whole patrol was forced to wear full armor during the whole patrol just in case they were attacked. The following morning, the group would patrol the area and then return to Sybra once it got dark. I wanted to contribute to the patrolling system. If other groups of Ones of Within members patrolled every day, then I should be out there patrolling with them!

  We were all sitting in the meeting room with some other groups, just relaxing really. I lay slumped in a chair next to Dominic and Patrick, my head lazily reclining on the back of the seat. It was nice to chill out with everyone after a long day. Emilie, Austin, Patrick, and I were playing a game of poker and using small coins to bet. So far, Emilie had won every single round we played, and I had gotten the worst hands out of all of them. Lyte was staring at our cards with barely concealed amusement in her eyes.

  “I might as well tell you this while I can,” Lyte said, interrupting our game of cards. “It’s not a big deal, but Shay just informed me that I would be heading on a mission in a few days, so I will be gone for a couple of days.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The location has to be kept a secret.” Lyte looked at us with her deep brown eyes, smiling at our curiosity and nervous expressions. “You don’t need to worry about me. I doubt the job will take me more than a day at most.” Patrick shrugged and turned back to the card game, but he looked slightly disappointed he wasn’t going as well.

  “Well, while we’re at it, I have something to announce as well,” Dominic said to us all. He had his right hand wrapped tightly around his necklace and a serious expression on his face.

  “What is it?” Lyte asked, leaning forward in her chair with a newfound interest in her gaze.

  “I have discovered my Vatra. It happened out of nowhere this morning. I was just waiting to show everyone until the right moment.” Dominic seemed to think it was nothing special, but an immediate stab of jealousy struck me. He was so lucky. Everything came to him easy, and he got his Vatra already? Patrick gave him an unsure look.

  “In only a month? Most Vatra’s take at least a few months to show.” He seemed hesitant to believe Dominic, which made me a little angry. Why should he doubt Dominic? He was telling us the truth!

  Dominic nodded, all eyes on him. He raised a hand while his eyes closed. Suddenly, water appeared on his hand, encircling it in an orb of water. The water was crystal clear and a light blue color.

  “Amazing!” I said, reaching out a hand to touch the water.

  Patrick looked ecstatic and patted Dominic on the back with a smile. “I think that I’ve discovered something.” He announced, his eyes wide. Suddenly, he was whispering words of magic, so soft I could barely understand what he was saying. My mind reeled. Why had Dominic discovered his Vatra so early? It didn’t make sense! Was he special or something like that? I felt the magic stream from Patrick’s body. Flames licked the floor near my legs. I jumped back, shocked. “It’s okay; they won’t hurt you from where you are. They also won’t burn the wooden floors,” Patrick turned to Dominic. “I want you to touch the fire, please.”

  “If you are truly burned, I can cure you easily,” Lyte promised, somehow understanding what was going on.

  Dominic did not hesitate at all. He was always ready to do things, no matter how rash. After a few seconds, he began closing the gap between his hand and the fire. Was he crazy? I wanted to somehow make him stop, but I was too uncomfortable. He touched the flames while I waited for the classical yelling of pain that fire would cause. I think I even imagined a few cuss words flying out of Dominic’s mouth. But nothing happened. I stared at the flames, wondering why Dominic’s hand could stand the heat.

  “Dominic! Come here, quickly!” I’d never seen Patrick so excited. He literally dragged Dominic in the direction of James’s room while Lyte whispered Jakost to get rid of the flames.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Lyte turned to me, light brown eyes shining with mystery and happiness.

  “Dominic is the Ones of Within member we have been waiting for! He can touch fire without getting burned. He can control the volcano!”

  I stared at her, perturbed. It still didn’t explain the fact that he had gotten his Vatra so early. It just seemed so… unreal. My fingers rubbed against each other, almost feeling the water that I had touched on Dominic’s hands. After all this time, Dominic had been the Chosen One, meant to save Earth. He was meant to save so many people. Was he excited? Scared? Happy?

  “So Dominic is the Chosen One. Are you surprised? How does it make you feel?” Emilie ask
ed me, looking for signs of expression on my face.

  I wasn’t surprised. As I had told him in the prophecy room, I thought out of all of us that he would be the Chosen One, and it looked like I was right. The Ones of Within needed someone strong, and they had one. He already showed vast improvements over our training and was outperforming all of the new recruits on Group Zeleti.

  “How does it make me feel?” I asked, confused, “I feel bad for him. He didn’t want to be the Chosen One.” I thought more about the conversation in the prophecy room where we were talking about the Ones of Within being a life sentence in some ways because we were tied to the organization at least until the war ended, if not longer. But who knew when the war would end? We could be at war for the rest of our lives.

  “You can give me more than that, Natalie.” But Emilie didn’t push further. “Fascinating that he got his Vatra so soon. Hopefully, you will get yours soon as well. I can tell you’re dying to get it.”

  “How can you tell these things?” I asked her. Somehow, she managed to have a better grasp on things then I did, and I was supposed to be a deep thinker.

  “It all shows in the eyes. They are the windows to the heart.” Emilie shrugged, pulling out a quote I had heard before but had never taken into consideration. “And I’ve always been perceptive. I pick up on things.” She winked at me, and I assumed immediately she was talking about my crush on Dominic.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Aren’t I always?” She replied, which was Patrick’s quote. If he had been here, he would have been complaining profusely about her use of his favorite saying.

  Just as I thought about it, Patrick and Dominic walked back up to us. I could see a real smile on Dominic’s face, for once a smile that wasn’t hiding anything. He seemed truly happy. Maybe he wanted the Vatra he had gotten now. Maybe he had changed his mind. We hadn’t talked much recently due to the busy schedule and always being around the others.