The hardest ones to deal with were the innocent ones, sacrificed before they could actualize their harm. Children. A mother gives birth to a serial killer. A young child who will grow up to be a tyrant and cause the next great world war. Their very lives were the anomaly, and Cobra served as protection from chaos, anarchy, and destruction.
As the others settled into the guest quarters, Marcus continued to meander through the empty hallways on his way to Ahn’s quarters. It was Ahn, not Seff, who had sent them on the three-year-long journey in search of Jerome. He wasn’t sure if that would delight or anger his older friend.
Ahn charged them with the mission because the former Cobra squad member had been away long enough, given enough time to find the meaning of life—or whatever philosophical, granola-eating shit Ahn had spouted. It was time for Jerome to come home.
He raised his hand to knock on Ahn’s door, but then he remembered Ahn was probably waving candles, torching a lake, and singing “Kumbaya”—the Academy graduations were always weird.
Pushing the door open, he crossed the huge library to Ahn’s desk. He eyed the surface of the sturdy hunk of wood for a sheet of paper, intending to leave a simple note, something like, Jerome’s back, do something with him. He caught sight of a writing pad and picked it up.
It was jotted with lines and lines of notations and drawings.
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. When coupled with a certain strain of spiritual power, a phenomenon called Soul Step is known to occur, and is often only seen in the strongest of vessels. The last known carrier of this rare condition was the Lioness of Caeli…
Marcus’ brows rose. Synesthesia? He shrugged. None of his business. He flipped through the pages in search of a clean sheet.
A sentence scribbled at the bottom of a page caught his attention. His fingers slowed as he processed what he’d read, and then he snatched at sheet after sheet until he landed on the line of interest.
Aria Jinni’s blade was forged by Geng, the weapons master of Caeli, in the Earth year of 1360 AD, during the bloodshed of the Second Red Turban Invasion. It is said that the black blade was composited largely of the hard-to-forge metal tungsten…
His eyes roamed the page, digesting it line by line.
Studies have shown that Synesthesia often lies dormant until… Tungsten, a hard metal alloy used as a test to diagnose…
The heart…
Nephilim gene…
His eyes widened as he caught a sentence circled over and over again, scribbled in Ahn’s neat handwriting.
“Oh my god—” Marcus pivoted on his heel and sprinted from the study, racing for the guest quarters. He grabbed an attendant cleaning a table in the hallway by the shoulders and spun her around.
“Which room is Hugo’s?” When she looked at him, confused, he shook her once, hard. “Where is his room?”
“T-the third room on the right. But, sir, he said he was not to be distur—” Her words tapered off as Marcus took off running down the hall, counting as he went. One, two, three—
He threw the door open without knocking. “Hugo…?”
Hugo was strapped in a pair of inversion boots. A cigar hung from his lips and his eyes were closed. He hummed something atonal and Marcus groaned. He didn’t have time for Hugo’s pathological weirdness.
“What did I tell you about disrupting me when I’m feeling batty?” Hugo laughed at his little joke, only stopping to take a drag from his cigar.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your…whatever, but we have to get to the Dome. We have to stop Ahn.”
Hugo cracked open an eyelid and managed a deadpan expression even while hanging upside down. “Last time I tried to stop Ahn from doing anything, he read me Canterbury’s monologue from Henry V. Do you even know how long that is? And he made me listen to it with my head in his lap. It was terrifying.”
Marcus’ leg shook from anxiety. “Well, if we don’t stop him, like, right-now right now, you’ll have to deal with Baji’s wrath and I’m sure an hour of listening to Ahn drone on about Canterbury’s invasion advice will pale in comparison.”
“Oh Creator, you are dramatic these days. Help me down and you can explain.”
Marcus ran to unhook him and backed away as Hugo dropped to a handstand and righted himself. “No time for explanations. We gotta grab Jerome and Spencer and go.”
Hugo inhaled deeply and blew out slowly. “Very well.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Jin rested her chin in her palm as she waited for the page to come get her. Aiden and Jon had received their introductions to the crowd and taken their places next to The Above. Their reception had been a bit lukewarm, but Jon seemed to eat it up nonetheless, waving to a coliseum full of strangers like he’d won a pageant.
They—and by they she meant the pushy court ladies who fussed over her like squabbling hens—had covered her in a cloak of some sort. More costuming, she mused. They’d also strapped the black tachi to her back with a leather strap that ran across her chest, like a warrior set out to kill in the middle of the night. If it weren’t for her rising unease, it might have been cool.
The only thing she had to do when the drums started was to cross the lake— which, after she saw it set on fire, she’d decided to give a pass. She shook her head, began yanking off clothing and telling all and sundry, “I’m not doing this!” Even with the court ladies wrapped around her, digging their heels in, she had still managed to power toward the exit, on the premise that she wasn’t about to fricassee herself to death. The chief court lady’s scary-ass smile was the only thing that got Jin back into position.
The whole spectacle was a lot more ritualized than she expected. When she thought of angels and ceremonies, she thought of flying cherubs with rose-tinted cheeks and harps. The dark lighting, the lake of fire—Because that made sense. Not.—and heavy robes spoke of another sort of ritual, dark and ominous, and she didn’t know what to make of it.
The rest of the ceremony continued on without issue. They were now at the point where the initiates were being pinned with different swatches of color on their shoulders, much like the ones she’d seen earlier today. One of The Fallen—Reem, she thought—was preaching on and on about something called The Battle of Blood Bay, a place where a woman named The Lioness had died.
His words brought back the funny feeling. There was a sense of polar displacement, stronger than before. Before, it had been just unease creeping along in quiet murmurs, now it was everywhere.
A woman’s blurry profile kept dancing in her vision, a hazy outline of brown eyes and brown skin, a pert nose, a radiant smile, perhaps the brightest smile she’d ever seen. She had long, dreadlocked hair that swayed when she walked. Her aura was courageous. And that was the thing. It was like Jin could see her courage— red, with tints of orange and beige surrounding her like a halo.
And that was what was making her the most uneasy. Not that a vision of this woman kept reappearing to her every time she closed her eyes, but that things that shouldn’t be seen by the naked eye kept appearing to her in tangible ways.
In a fleeting vision, she saw this woman backed into a corner and although she displayed a smirk of confidence, Jin saw flashes of yellow. Fear.
In another, she saw the woman staring at an opponent. She read them like a book, using all of her senses to see through them and any move them planned to make. Next, she was standing with a man dressed in thick layers of war garb.
It was the guy…from the mausoleum. Choe…Choe Yeong?
His long, white hair was tied back and the planes of his face were stern and hard. Still, Jin could actually taste his love for her on her tongue. She clenched her jaw and shook her head, willing the images to go away. Her ears picked up the faint beat of the drum the page had warned her about. Above the door was a clock. The numbers glowed brightly in the dark of the antechamber and the
time caught her attention.
11:32 p.m.
A door opened in front of her and Jin squared her shoulders. She walked through the small door that fed to the right side of the coliseum. None of this made sense, but it was too late to back out now. A huge spotlight crashed down on her, highlighting her in a wash of white for the audience members. It was bright, and she had to shield her eyes. A huge screen behind the stage showed a hazy outline of her. Miraculously, she was able to catch Aiden’s steady gaze from the stage. He winked and warmth replaced the chill in her veins. She smiled.
The lake, although lacking the fire that had scared her to death earlier, still glowed red in the dim arena lights. She eyed the water, reluctant, but the beat of the drum sped up, and she made herself move faster. Ahn met her at the edge with a reassuring smile, and Jin tried to match his warmth but the palpitations of warning still thundered in her chest.
Something felt wrong.
Jin took a cautious step into the lake, the edges of her robe drifting over the surface. She briefly wondered if she should still be worried about the lake catching fire. Angels might be immune to flames and heat, but she wasn’t.
Jin reached the center and waited patiently for Ahn to give her the word. He was giving a speech about the past and the present working together to secure the future. Jin wondered if this was an annually revisited history lesson for the people of Caeli, a constant reminder of where they came from and where they had yet to go.
Behind Ahn’s shoulder she could see Baji, the woman she’d met yesterday, leaning toward Parker, the one who seemed really nice…sort of. Baji’s brows were drawn together, and her eyes flashed darkly in Ahn’s direction. Jin ignored her. The last thing she wanted was to be in the middle of an argument between two powerful, high-ranking angels.
Her focus shifted back to Ahn, who’d come to stand on her left. He tapped her shoulder, the signal for her to unsheathe the sword and hand it over, hilt first.
As she pulled out the sword, the sound of it clearing the scabbard rang throughout the coliseum. She laid the hilt in Ahn’s hand and waited for her cue to step back, but Ahn grabbed her wrist and lifted it—and the sword—over her head. The crowd cheered as the two of them stood in the center of Incendia.
“Do you hear these cheers? These wonderful cheers? They are for you,” he said close to her ear. “All of them.”
Jin frowned. “These people don’t even know who I am.”
“You’ve got a point. They don’t know. But they will soon.”
Jin stared out at the crowd. It seemed she was being presented to the crowd like a gift, and the thought pleased her. She didn’t know why. Her eyes touched the cheering faces and she felt a strum of associative pride.
For exemplary service to the realm of Caeli, The Fallen, and The Above, we award the Fire of Isis to you, Aria…
The memory was abruptly drowned out as the door behind her opened with a bang. Jin whipped around. Four strange men bounded through the opening and ran for her, one of them waving to the people on the stage.
Jin’s attention was stolen yet again as Ahn’s grip on her wrist tightened to the point of pain. She tried to jerk away but Ahn held fast. She swung her glare at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Jin frowned, her anger rising. “Let go of my hand!”
“I’m sorry, Jin. If there were any other way...”
A bird’s call filtered through the air, only heard for a moment before being swallowed by the rising noise of the coliseum.
She followed the noise, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Aiden jumping up from his chair, over the tables and onto the coliseum floor. His smile from before had melted into fear. His eyes were dilated with terror.
“AHN, NO!” Baji’s horror-filled scream carried to every corner of the coliseum.
Jin frowned. “What is she—”
The pain was fierce and white hot. Her chest felt like it had been set on fire. Jin coughed once, her hand flying to her lips and as she drew her hand back, she saw her fingers drenched in the color red. She looked down to see the hilt of a sword flush with her chest.
The sword she was presenting to Ahn. Why…why was it…?
The pain flashed and pulsed again, horribly. The warmth she felt was a spreading splash of vibrant red. The tip dripped rivulets of blood into the lake.
“W-why?” she asked. She blinked at Ahn through the spots as white fogged her mind.
“To find out the truth, Jin.” Ahn stood there, frowning. She didn’t know why and she didn’t care. Her eyes fluttered as she lost her grip on the world. She couldn’t hear anything.
Someone called her name, and Jin looked up, over Ahn’s shoulder. Peering over his white clothing was a familiar pair of eyes, dreadlocked hair, and bronzed skin. She gazed at Jin patiently as she walked from behind Ahn to stand in front of her. On her shoulder sat a phoenix. In her hand was the tachi.
“Have courage, young lion. It’ll be over soon.”
Jin’s knees buckled and hit the ground.
She was having trouble making out the woman’s face. She reached for her, touched her hand, and calming warmth radiated through the pads of her fingers.
Jin’s eyes slid closed and she slumped into the water, the blood fingering out over the water like a red ghost.
A warm light—the woman—cushioned her fall. The light’s soft hands reached for her and wrapped around her, whispering soft words in her ear.
Ahn’s excuse faded out as she heard the woman’s voice for the first time. She recognized that voice. Her face…hovering above her.
She knew this face.
It was her own.
“To find out the truth, Jin.”
The woman smiled.
Hi! It’s over! Whew! Well, almost. There is more to come! I wouldn’t leave it like that! I really hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, I would greatly appreciate a short review on Amazon or your favorite book website. Reviews are crucial for any author, and even just a line or two can make a huge difference. I appreciate you more than you can ever know for purchasing this book!
And now a chapter excerpt from the second book of halation…
A Third of the Moon and The Stars Struck
HALATION #2
JADE BRIEANNE
Hello, Gaiain.
Ah. Does that name seem unfamiliar to you? Does it taste funny on your tongue? Heavy? Does it bother you? I could see how it would. That is what ignorance does to you. Oh, relax. You cannot be considered willfully ignorant if I hide the truth from you! You are not ignorant.
Wait. I take that back. I do not want to lie to you.
Who am I, you ask?
I am I and you already know who I am. You have known me all of your life and you will know me forever.
See! You are such bright little beings!
I see you are excited, now! Curious, even! Alright. Here is the truth you are so anxious to learn. I keep things from you because…I love you. Because I know you. Because you do not take news, or change, or…anything well.
Oh, you do?
Okay, a test then. How would you take the news that you aren’t alone? How would you take the news that you aren’t the most important thing in the universe? That you that there are things that are just as important to me as you are?
What was that?
Oh. “Gaiain”? Well, that is what you are. You may call yourself “human” yet that word means nothing to me. You are of the Gaiain realm, therefore you are Gaiain. My little Gaian creations. Not a magnum opus by any stretch of the imagination, frail with an affinity of destroying yourselves before time does, but still very precious to me. Since I created everything and anything and…nothing, it is at my disposal to call you what I want and call you what you are.
But…but that’s not what this is about, is it?
Your…prophets, they write a lot. I sometimes engross myself with it. Words. Language. Meaning. Sometimes their words make sense, while other tim
es, they do not.
This was interesting. From your apostle…John was his name?
Then the fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun and moon and stars were struck. A third of the stars were darkened, a third of the day was without light, and a third of the night as well.
Very well makes sense that a fever dream would speak of darkness. Because you are very much in the dark, my child.
Oh…your face is doing that funny thing again. That is anger, right? I would apologize but…I do not care that you are upset. I care that you know. Light is what I offer you. Enlightenment. Limited as it may be, it is…something.
Here is another truth: A third of your moon will be struck. A third of your stars will be struck. Your sun, as well.
I know why. I know how this will end. And you must know it will end.
One way or another… it will end.
Darkness again, I’m afraid. Are you comfortable? That is fine. Seeing you shake and wither and complain as the light shone upon you was rather…annoying.
So, I’ve told you what I’ve wanted to tell you and concealed what I’ve wanted to conceal. Satisfied?
Oh. One more thing and remember this. It is so very important.
Purpose is the string that holds everything together. Without it, nothing exists.
Hm.
That’s enough for today. Let us, and by us, I mean you, find out more about what I already know.
Blessings, Gaiain.
We will speak again.
ELYSIAN CENTRAL
MISSION MEMORANDUM
TO:KITHLISH, SON OF YUSHIVA AND KOFI
SUBJECT:AIDEN CHOI
The Halo of Amaris Page 33