The Torn Guardian (13 page)

At the last moment, I grasp onto the edge. I quickly pull myself up and sit on the stairs. Sweat is streaming down the entirety of my body, and it is impossible for me to resume normal breathing. After what feels like an eternity, I am calm again, and I begrudgingly glance up to see how much further I have to go to the top.

I blink several times to make sure I am correct, and it is true. I am already at the top. I look down too and discover the mountain of steps from before are now only five or six tiny steps. I groan. All of these tricks and games are beginning to take a serious toll on my body and mind; however, I stand again and push forward. It is not long before I hear him. Oran is calling my name, and his voice is coming through a pair of doors. I pull them open and am finally face to face with my father.

He greets me and says I have done well. That is good and all, but the sight of him brings my emotions to a boil. I start yelling him, accusing him of abandoning me. No hellos, no how are you, just pure rage. I shout about how many times I have nearly died trying to do this, and I’m not even close to being ready to face Sethos. Some people might have been deterred from yelling at a great immortal being, but I find it exceptionally easy. It actually feels really good to let him know how I feel about everything I have been put through.

Oran is not angry at my sudden outburst; he actually looks entertained and slightly curious. I have to know. I ask him why he looks at me the way he does despite me hurling every insult I can think of at him. He answers I have defied expectations and acted differently than either he or his brothers thought I would. And when I ask him what he means, because I thought I was acting in a way they at least thought I might try, he says it is not about what I have done. It is how I am handling it.

His explanation is brief, but he starts at the very beginning. He wants me to imagine that my sisters and I are all pieces of a single puzzle. We, my sisters and I, were designed to fit perfectly together, and at one point we did. However, as my sisters experienced the world for themselves, their shapes changed.

While in the Otherworld, I adapted to this by simply changing my own shape to allow for a seamless transition, but now my shape is changing on its own accord just as my sisters had done. Because of this, the memories that I used to be able to access like an archive are all exceptionally harder to find and recall correctly. Which basically sums up to because I am in the world myself, my own personality and thoughts are forming pushing the things I never actually experienced out.

This has led to further complications. I was created to hold this information, and meld it together. My personality, who I was supposed to be, was going to be balanced combination of all of my sisters. Part of me somewhere in my subconscious, or maybe my actual conscious, still wishes to fulfill this function, so I am beginning to experience unexpected side effects. The random visions, nightmares, the illusion on the stairs. All of it. That was me fighting who I was designed to be. There is an internal struggle going on inside of me, and I need to figure it out. I will not be able to fight with full force if I continue to doubt myself.

I ask him if in doing so, I will be able to strike Sethos wherever he is. Oran shakes his head and clarifies. Sethos has created his own world with his own rules. If I wish to continue down the path I am currently on, he must be brought back into and dealt with in Nilohm. I try to get him to tell me how, but he changes the subject stating there is not enough time.

Instead, he instructs me to put my hand on his head. He needs to unlock my full light potential, something that would have been done automatically had I killed Adira and Grace. I do as I am told, and a flashing white light pulses through my arm. It blinds me, and I find myself back at the entry archways in the center temple. My hand has a bold white dragon mark extending form my thumb and index finger down to my elbow. I am the first to return, so I take a seat on some of the crumbled fallen stone to wait for Grace and Adira. I suspect we will have much to discuss.

My patience is dwindling. I feel like I have been sitting her forever, but I know it’s only been a few minutes. Finally Adira arrives, but Grace is nowhere to be seen even though she entered first. Adira wants to talk about everything as soon as she sets foot on the ground, but I insist we should wait for Grace. It will probably make the most sense if we all talk together at the same time instead of only getting bits and pieces.

Shortly after our brief conversation, Grace appears, but she initially does not wish to speak about whatever she and Mors discussed. Both Adira and I take turns trying to coax it out of her, pointing out we need to share all the information we gathered as it can prove useful in saving the world. With some minimal probing, Adira and I convince Grace to share. We allow her to go first since she did not want to speak at all.

She met with Mors, and they discussed her affinity for death and Elizabeth. It was awkward when he brought up the similarity of both his daughters losing to darkness, and Mors sternly warned Grace to watch it. She says she asked why she hadn’t been chosen as the anchor, and all Mors told her is they deemed she was too impetuous after one of the tests.

I do not know what tests they are talking about, but Adira offers more information as she asked why she is not the anchor as well. During a test they deemed her incapable of mastering a useful weapon. Apparently, these tests were given to all of us after the dragons created us in the Otherworld. After one of us failed or performed poorly, the dragons sent her to the world of Nilohm to begin a new life. They administered several of these, and sometimes we all passed. This caused the process to take years of time in terms of the Nilohm world. However, the dragon brothers gradually narrowed the selection until I was the last one.

Grace and Adira ask me what I discussed with Oran, since it obviously had not been our origin. I fill them in on everything and show them the white mark on my arm. Both Grace and Adira also have a mark. Adira’s is a pretty pale green colored dragon like Kenley’s, and Grace’s is an intense black.

              “So how are we going to get Mors to leave this world he’s created?” Grace asks as we start to head back to Kenley’s cabin.

“I cannot tell you,” I reply honestly. “Maybe Kenley will have an idea?”

“Well, Elsen is getting hit the hardest,” Grace says, but Adira interjects that Briza might be the best as the Viroca can be used to increase the intensity of light energy. I bring up Saphira, and both Adira and Grace bite their tongues. This has to be hard on them. Elsen is deteriorating at a rapid rate, and we are completely clueless on the current condition of Briza. They are yearning to get back to help their own people.

After spending a few minutes trying to find comforting words, I give up. Nothing I say will reassure them. The remainder of our walk is quiet until we run into Kenley on the path near his home. He was about to come and search for us for it had been too long since we left. He observes our injuries as much as he can without removing the bandages, and states he will have a closer look at them when we get back.

When we get back, the four of us talk while Kenley goes over every inch of our wounds. The alcohol he dabs around my head causes my skin to burn intensely, but this sensation is replaced shortly thereafter with a cooling feeling from some other ointment he puts on it. After he is done, he focuses on determining a plan with us to rid the world of Sethos’s overwhelming dark power.

Grace again brings up going to Elsen to aid her country. She insists since it is being hit the hardest, we can do the most damage and even the battlefield. Adira mentions the Viroca on her island might be more useful since fighting might not be necessary if I can channel enough light energy through it.

It hurts me to see them like this. I want to help, and I wish we could go to Elsen and Briza. However, something very wrong is going on in Saphira, and we all know it. Their solutions are temporary. I can feel it within my bones Sethos’s power stems from somewhere in the corrupted city. With the amount of dark energy we felt, to only encounter two devilins is impossible, and their sole purpose for being there was to dispose of us.

The city should be overrun, but its people can still walk around at night without the faintest hint of worry. Both Grace and Adira sigh and look down at the floor refusing to make eye contact with me when I bring this up, and I feel even worse. But we cannot cast aside the facts simply because they want to go home.

Kenley offers to help either Grace or Adira contact their people since they are agonizing over the current state of their lands. He has a small hawk named Fin that will carry a message to one of them. He only has Fin though, and the countries are in polar opposite directions. Only one will be able to be contacted at a time.

              I brace myself for ensuing battle between Grace and Adira. Both of their homes mean the worlds to them, and I hope they don't drag me into it. I cannot pick sides, especially over something so important. Elsen is being overrun, and Briza's state is a complete mystery. They both have valid reasons for wanting to check in, and I have no right to determine which is more important.

Although I was braced, the fight never happens because Grace surprises us all. She gives Adira permission to send her message first. I guess I am more astonished than Adira, as she quickly recovers and gives her thanks. Grace shrugs it off stating she at least already knows the state of her country, but I know her well enough. Grace is dying on the inside and desperately wants to send them a message. I half expect her to tear the pen and paper away from Adira as she writes, but Grace shows great restraint. After Kenley gently assures her she can send a note to Elsen when we arrive in Saphira, Grace sarcastically responds.

She doubts they will let us back, reminding Adira and me that we are not exactly welcome. This is true, but Kenley offers to help us sneak in and keep us hidden in his shop. He asks if we are ready to go and walks to a decorative tall mirror behind us. He touches the mirror, and his reflection is replaced with a dark room filled to the brim with cabinets, chairs, and other household items. His mirror is a portal back to his home is Saphira.

“You had a portal the entire time?” Grace asks. The annoyance evident in her voice.

Kenley says he would not have been able to make it all the way out here if he did not; he is an old man after all.

“So why not leave instructions on how to use it from the other side? We spent days traveling in that hot, musky forest when we could have been here in a matter of seconds,” Grace continues.

“In a way I did, Jo knew how to get here. Her power and essence are within Lux,” Kenley says before he swiftly jumps through the portal. He thought that would be enough to get us here timely.

Both Grace and Adira look at me like it is all my fault we were struggling in the forest for so long, so I kindly remind them about the issues I’ve been going through since I got here. Sure, Jo’s memories might have probably been enough if I had accepted my role of anchor in its entirety and just murdered Adira and Grace. No big deal.

Grace tells me to quiet down; she gets it. I spared her life and whatnot. After she goes through the mirror, I lose sight of her temporarily. I follow after her and nearly fall through the portal again as I jump back because a desk goes whizzing past me. Adira is behind me, but I cannot move out of the way in time. She lands on top of me, and although she picks herself off of me quickly, I think I sustained another head injury.

Grace is plastered against a wall as furniture continues to fly by in, out, and around the room. After Adira helps pick me up, I try and maneuver around without getting hit, and it looks like I am aggressively performing some kind of intricate dance. I finally arrive next to Grace with a huff against wall, leaving poor Adira alone in the middle of the room. She is dancing around crazily trying to avoid getting smacked by chairs. Grace starts laughing, so I nudge her to stop even though I too have a large smile spread across my face. It is amusing to watch.

When the furniture finally stops trying to fatally injure us, Adira scowls at Grace and I with spite. We could have helped her, but that would have meant endangering our own livelihoods again. Grace jokes with the proper music we could have called it an artistic performance and charged money, and I cannot help but laugh. Adira pounds both our arms in retaliation, but neither Grace nor I care. It was worth it.

Kenley reappears out of nowhere asking us why we are all huddled down her. Grace quips the murderous furniture might have been a reason to which the old priest smiles apologetically. He begs us to forgive the sudden redecorating; he needed to put everything back in order. After he leads us out of the room and up a flight of stairs that had magically appeared after being nonexistent during our first visit, we see the shop has been completely restored with jewels and everything.

But this is not the only new difference. The stairs we came up continue to the second story which is more than likely the actual living area. Kenley explains he always anticipated coming back, so he safeguarded his things to ensure they would not be stolen or broken. I look through all the massive stock of jewelry he has in see through cases. Most of this stuff looks fit for only kings and queens, and I surely cannot see myself ever wearing any of these.

It takes Grace a few times of calling my name for me to respond because I was so distracted by own thoughts. She, Adira, and Kenley are heading up stairs and wish for me to join them. I can stare at the pretty things later.

Upstairs is Kenley’s living area, and it is decorated more extravagantly than his cabin. It really should not surprise me as much as it does because of course he would decorate his actual home more elegantly than a safe house in the woods. I guess it throws me off how much more extravagantly decorated a place can be. Books line the majority of the walls left uncovered by expensive paintings. Soft, fur rugs line the floors, and large cushioned chairs in front of a fire place provide a perfect reading nook.

When Kenley opens a door and motions us to follow him in, I walk in and recognize this room straightaway. It is the room from Jo’s memory. Not the room she was in with the queen, but the one she was going to. The only difference being no uniformed people stood around the large redwood round table surrounded by eight chairs. There is a large board along the back wall with a map of the city pinned to it. “X”s and circles are drawn all over it.

Kenley informs us this was Jo’s special guards meeting place. She knew something was brewing in Saphira and had hoped to stop it before it escalated out of control and destroyed the city. The problem is Kenley has no clue what exactly Jo was looking for or whether she found it because he left before everything erupted into chaos. My guess is Jo did find whatever she was looking for because I cannot imagine a devilin being sent after her unless she was at least close to solving it. While Kenley cannot tell us, surely there are documents around here in the shelves and drawers that can assist us.

Reading all of the maps, letters, and other documents is no small task. We have been going over everything for hours and are no closer to understanding what is going on in this city than when we began. We started our search with the map on the wall, but all of the circles are already crossed out. So, we moved on to studying all of the papers. Unfortunately, when they left, it must have been in a hurry. The documents left behind are in an utter disarray. I am reading things that do not follow any chronological order, and it makes absolutely no sense. All I have been able to gather so far is Jo most likely found something or someone in the city, which we already knew.

None of us can find anything, and it is late. We are all feeling droopy, so Kenley recommends we get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow. He will go into town to buy fresh produce and ask around. If there is one thing the people of Saphira love to do, it is gossip, so it should not be too hard to figure out what has happened since he left. We agree and call it a night.

The next morning I am the second to wake up. As soon as I put on fresh clothes, I went to see if Kenley was in his room, but he left before I any of us woke up. He probably went to the market early to get a head start.

I decide to comb over everything again since there is not anything better to do, but there is still nothing to found. I lean back, close my eyes, and sigh as I hope Kenley discovers something that can actually help us while he is out. We are not going to get anywhere fast utilizing pieces of the past we have no idea how to connect.

After a few minutes of shuffling through information I know we cannot use, Adira joins me unable to sleep through Grace's snoring. It never bothered me, which amazes Adira because Grace snores as loud as a bear in a cave with the echo magnifying it.

As if she knows when we are talking about her, Grace walks in, though she is not entirely awake yet. She sits in one of the chairs and lays her head down on the table. We ask her if she is going to help, and Grace responds by pretending to read papers by holding them up but not even so much as glancing at them. I don’t really blame her. We read everything in here multiple times already, so it is highly unlikely we will find anything new.

Kenley arrives back to see three young women who have essentially given up. Grace is in the same position as before, Adira is leaning back in her chair with her feet on the table, and I am sprawled out on the soft rug. None of us are looking at any of the books, papers, or maps anymore. The old priest expresses his disappointment in how we are handling the situation. We are supposed to be heroes, and we are acting like a bunch of despaired teenagers. Grace lifts her head and sticks her tongue out at him, which leads me to suffer a laughing fit. Kenley is not amused by Grace’s response and practically pushes us out of the room saying we should at least be training before we head out tonight.