by Cara Violet
“I have waited for this moment,” she spoke tenderly, reaching forward. She kissed his immobile face, from his ear, down the side of his cheek, to his lips. He was still. He placed his hand on her chest and she moaned.
His eyes fell shut. Was this it? Was this the moment he was going to give it up, give up his sole aura connection, to her? To share for a lifetime?
What about Kaianan? What about her?! Anger burned in his chest, his aura sparked and filtered outward. Aggressively, he whipped Kydra round, turning her backward like a hostage, pushing her face into the bed. She cried in the silk fabric as he pulled her hair tight, jerking her head upright.
He didn’t look at her directly, but instinctively her red aura flared up, then began burning around him and intertwining with his crimson aura. Before he could resist, he felt a shift in his mind; he felt Kydra in there, felt all the things she was feelings, her lust, her determination, her want of him. And it dawned on him, they had just experienced their first connection in the Siliou.
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Rivalex Conductor
Kaianan felt the thick muggy fog press against her airways as she entered the highest room in the watchtower. The smoky room kept Jahzara well-hidden, Kaianan barely heard the woman claw her nails into her black-stained Miry chair. A prickling ran up her spine at the quiet. After a few short moments, things just seem to scatter back into place and the air cleared. Jahzara’s long orange hair bordering a pale face with widened, surprised brown eyes, shot back and forth to Kaianan and Caidus in scrutiny.
Kaianan cleared her throat.
“Good evening,” the Conductor said to them both, leaving her eyes on the half-bloodied and muddy tunic and chestplate of Kaianan. Maybe she was staring at her manic hair, a lot wilder than normal? “How did the most unlikely of people end up on the same path, in my not-so-accommodating watchtower on Rivalex?” It was Caidus she stared at now. “Look at you, back again, Mr, blonde-curly-hair, blue-eyed preform.” Jahzara got up out of her chair.
Kaianan had no idea why she felt threatened, but she did. Had Jahzara not seen a Necromancer as a preform before?
Jahzara brought herself to Caidus, her long pale fingers under that lace mustard dress swiping his Necromancer robes across his chest. “I can’t read you dear boy, what are your intentions with Kaianan?”
Disgruntled by the display, Kaianan stepped forward. “We are journeying to Croone.”
Jahzara creased her eyes.
“Now,” Caidus said.
“Are you sure?” Jahzara asked Kaianan.
Kaianan nodded. “I need to get to Chituma.”
“Or you need to get free?”
“She wants this just as much as I do,” Caidus interjected.
“I’m not so sure if you do,” Jahzara said, trying to poison Kaianan with her stare, “Kaianan, do you know who will be there?”
“Aye,” Kaianan said strongly, “Chituma. I know.”
Jahzara cocked her head sideways, “so you are prepared, at least?”
“Aye,” Kaianan responded, short and sharp, trying not to give away anything to Caidus.
“Well as long as …” Jahzara trailed off, “shh …” she whispered, walking in a pace to the window. She was searching the place, looking for something –
An eerie presence filtered through the room. Another sharp tingle tickled Kaianan’s vertebrae.
Then—all of a sudden—blue and purple light exploded. Loud, piercing sparks made the three of them drop and cower. Kaianan intuitively unsheathed her Rapier as two loud thuds, one after the other, hit the floor. Only when it completely faded to nothing did Kaianan glimpse two bodies grappling one another on the floorboards. An azure robe, platinum blonde hair flying about: Xandou? Adrel?
“Move!” It was Caidus in uproar. Then, looking to Jahzara with panic in his eyes, he said, “Get the Vector up now!”
Kaianan ducked away from friendly aura fire from … Adrel; Kaianan couldn’t believe how much they looked alike. It was like looking into an angry mirror.
“Kaianan, watch out for Adrel!” Xandou was now up and pushing through the commotion. White smoke now lingering at the edges of the room.
“Watch, Jahzara!” Kaianan warned them after another aura beam flew and the Rivalex Conductor fell back. “No!”
The beam must have hit her. The space was too small. If this aura was Kan’Ging, like Kaianan thought it was, the beam would have stung Jahzara.
“All of you, step in line!” Adrel emerged from the smoke and was definitely pulsing in Kan’Ging. Kaianan could feel it, sense the Siliou turning with the girl. Shock was an understatement. She must be a Menial. Was that other Liege, Ferak Jarryd, her Liege?
A gurgled noise reached her ears. The wounded Conductor was holding her stomach sitting against the wall, a trail of fresh blood lining the glass at her back.
“Screw this.” The sound of Caidus’s crimson aura expanded, the same moment Kaianan raced and dropped down to Jahzara.
“Caidus now is not the time!” Kaianan tried to get his attention, but the Silkri aura was burning around him in bright burning red flames. This was Kan’Ging versus Silkri, were they going to blow up the Rivalex watchtower?!
“Stop!” Kaianan said weakly. She stood in front of Jahzara and stuck her hand out, somehow, in her state, igniting her own Kan’Ging aura.
Caidus and Adrel were facing each other with their hands out toward one another, pushing the elongated flames out of their fingers toward each other. Huge conflagrations, red and purple aura attacked. All Kaianan could do was protect Jahzara with her aura …. where was Xandou?
“You’re going to blow up the tower and kill us all! Drop your auras!” Kaianan was unsure how strong either of them was but this was a Drake and a training Liege going at it. The wind had picked up, objects started vibrating. The area wasn’t big enough for this. Kaianan felt hopeless. There was no way she could come between them. Not with that substance still lingering in her veins and slowing her down via her bloodstream.
Another violent burst of auras, had Kaianan bracing her arms out in front of her. Was this it? Was the watchtower going to blow—
Then everything stopped.
It was like time stood still. The whole scene, including Adrel and Caidus were frozen; their auras solidified, burning from their fingers and palms.
Kaianan somehow could see, the Conductor, Jahzara behind her, dripping blood down her mustard dress and managing to pull herself upright. She winked at Kaianan and moved through everyone else’s immobility.
Had Jahzara just stopped time?
The Conductor then gyrated her hands in billowing black aura. A combusting bubble of black smoke blew up around them, and Jahzara forced smoke into every part of the room, blinding them.
Kaianan couldn’t move, she watched Caidus and Adrel disappear in Jahzara’s mist; the black also clouding her vision completely.
“Evil deeds are lurking,” The voice, that was more of masculine and menacing sound, one Kaianan had never heard before, hissed, “and you are all on the path of tyranny, don’t you see?”
“Who – are – you?” Kaianan was able to get out, squeezing her hand and gaining some of the control of her body back.
“Me!”
And then Kaianan saw her emerge like a wraith through the night and slice open the smoke directly in front of her—Jahzara.
Jahzara’s voice wasn’t the only thing that had been reworked. It was a monster that had rematerialised when the smoke cleared—not a young woman.
Kaianan swallowed.
Glowing white eyes, hair of sprawled and flying midnight black down to her ankles and out to the windows, radiant white skin, a huge black pinafore that was cut in strips and spread out like an octopus flapping along with the strands of her airborne hair; Jahzara had morphed into some type of huge confounding witch wraith. What the holom was this?
The Conductor stood taller than the ceiling and had to crouch her head to reach them.
“Cease!” That
manly voice of hers boomed. “You wretched fools. I am keeper of the gate of the strongest Siliou world in the universe and I will not be bent against my will!” As she said this, she spun her hand and latched onto Kaianan.
Kaianan felt the thick, rough hands of Jahzara on her forearm. Kaianan had no control, she couldn’t stop the beast of a woman yanking on her arm. The black smoke had them all poisoned. Caidus and Adrel no longer had their auras and they were frozen. Kaianan also spotted Xandou in the corner, kneeling. What was he doing there?
Suddenly a Euclidean Vector split open on Jahzara’s command. Kaianan couldn’t stop the beastly woman.
“Please,” she said, “Jahzara—”
Kaianan was thrown into the Vector. On her knees wheezing from the smoke on the Vector floor, she turned back; time had switched back on, Caidus and Adrel were fighting, Xandou was up and running to the Vector.
“Wait!” Kaianan shrieked to the gap closing in time. Jahzara was in Xandou’s way. Would she let him through? It didn’t matter, Adrel and Caidus had fired up in aura again and wrestling each other, they fell into Kaianan’s Vector the second it zapped shut behind her.
Kaianan turned forward, stuck her hands out and swung her palms horizontally outward, opening the exit to the Vector. Without looking back, she jumped.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Back on Croone
A swish of air passed her watery eyed face and then, crash, Kaianan’s frame sprawled awkwardly under her. The skin of her cheek had reddish brown dirt pressed into it, but it was the hot beams of the sunrays that awoke her.
Another two thuds reached her ears.
Through fuzzy eyes she glanced at the two half-conscious assailants a few metres off in the distance—Caidus, face down in the dirt, and Adrel with her knees to her head, wrapped in a ball.
The blood orange sun above the dead habitation of forest was in contrast to the wintry she’d just left back in Rivalex. Sucking in the sticky, humid air, she realised she had no idea where she was. When her vision completely returned, she spotted her blade.
Movement drew her eye.
It was Caidus awakening, stumbling around with his arms outstretched. As soon as he gained his balance upright, red sparks shot out from his skin, the forcefield of crimson Silkri locked around him and he suddenly transformed; grey skinned, grey haired and red eyed—Adrel, who had also regained consciousness and stood up, quickly raised her blade to him.
Kaianan automatically played dead.
“You made me come here!” Adrel said to Caidus’s glowing Necromancer figure, holding her blade steady. “Where have you taken us now? Ferak is going to kill me!”
After a few moments of his head turning back and forth, his aura absorbed back into him and his physique fell back to preform. “You know, the invite didn’t extend to senseless Felrin.”
“You fool, Ferak will kill you.”
“Who?” he said sarcastically. “Where’s your Congress now, Shiek?” Caidus stalked off. Kaianan watched as Adrel ran after him and saw this as her opportunity to get up and run for the dead habitation across from them.
“Where are you going?” Adrel said rather loud from behind Kaianan as she snatched up her blade and ran.
“To find my friend.” Caidus answered and by this stage Kaianan had lugged her body against a dead tree and had hidden herself from them.
“What – er – about the Queen?”
Caidus turned back around. “Isn’t that for you to worry about?”
Adrel showed her teeth in a smile. “Aye, but I am not capable of holding her on my own … I need your …”
“My what?” His voice was light and condescending and Kaianan could tell Adrel was angered all the more by it.
“Are you even listening?” she snapped. “Shouldn’t we at least stick together?”
His eyes lingered away from her, in the distance over her shoulder. “You needn’t worry about your ability to retain the Queen.”
Adrel followed his sight by whipping her head around—only to see a landscape of red desert at the base of the dark and dreary forest. “Where did she go?”
Kaianan hoisted herself behind another bigger tree truck; a half-flaking, half-alive Gapian tree. They were the biggest trees she had ever seen. She remembered the lesson on them, but seeing one in real life made her marvel at it even more. Leaning back against the huge trunk, her senses heightened:
A faint chanting reached her.
It had to be those little minions, it had to be them conglomerating on Rook Mountain. She was on Croone.
Impatience grew within her. When Adrel and Caidus were in profound conversation, Kaianan set off, darting through the edge of the forest; deep enough for the lifeless trees to keep her camouflage but scarce enough to keep her direct sight on the growing mountains ahead. The landscape flashed by her and after a few minutes she overheard commotion to the left, further inside the forest—she stopped, let out a breath and was contemplating if she was being followed.
Who would have gained on her movement though? She was lightning fast and agile. Perchance, Adrel could keep up? No, she was too busy with Caidus. She shook her brain and kept running.
It felt like she had run for hours.
She only slowed down when the height of chanting seized her ears and Rook Mountain was in bold sight. She hid herself well in the broken and dead trees and regained her breath. Louder voices began conversing over the top of the chanting and she turned her head back to the rocky mountain and platform that had become all too familiar. Only this time, Kaianan’s bottom lip creased at the sight as shock pulsed through her. There she was, a gigantic serpent covered in gold armoury and green-scaled flesh, and snakeheads, slithering about and tackling Daem-Raal. Jahzara got her right back to where she needed to be—but she was still here. Her Gorgon form was still on the planet and had not disappeared. She was in bewilderment.
“Kaianan, you leave everything until the last minute.” The voice startled her. She rotated.
Who the holom was this?
Kaianan scrutinised the Felrin man with the shaggy hair twirling his fingers round on his raised arms like a court jester—Dersji Brikin. He was violently shaking his head. Then his frown lines lessened as his face changed and he clutched his hands to his white chestplate with amusement.
Arlise was nothing like this. He possessed no humour at all. But the long dark hair and prominent jaw and cheek bones they both held were almost identical. Dersji Brikin was just extremely unkempt and had a lot more weight on him than Arlise did.
But this was apparently her Liege.
Dersji was muttering something under his breath.
“Excuse me?” Kaianan said, while she’d turned back to her Gorgon form on the platform hissing mad.
“On the contrary, besides the bloody tunic, you look well …” he pulled a sickening face at her Gorgon form, “I’m not so sure how well you look up there though.”
“How do you know that’s me?” she said in haste, but then lowered her voice, “It’s not possible for us both to be here.”
“Ah, you see the possibility is in your mind, and you are at this place in two bodies. Interestingly though, I much prefer the smell of your hair now.” He inched closer to her and took a whiff. She grimaced and tried to slap him but he dodged away from her.
“Cuki can help!” Kaianan saw an abnormally small Daem-Raal with giant ears flapping, hurrying their way. The smile on his face was unbelieving. Kaianan cocked her head in apprehension. What the holom was this thing? And what was he happy about?
“Not now, Cuki! Look what you’ve done to her? She’s a stunned Mugadeer!” Dersji said, and with those words Cuki bowed his head in disappointment and jogged away. “Sorry about that—he is a friend—well more like a helpful acquaintance…” His fingers were fiddling about in the air in front of him again. “… actually, he is proving to be neither at the moment …”
His words had trailed off. Kaianan had retreated and cowered herself behind a Gapian tree to prioritise h
er thoughts. She needed a plan of action. To develop a way to covertly retrieve Chituma without alerting the entire mountain to her presence as preform. But how was she going to do it?
“Still lost, are you?” Dersji’s voice jolted her again and she observed him retrieve an onion from his robe and take a bite out of it.
“What is it you want from me?” She said, not sure whether she wanted to know his truth about her as much as anyone else’s. “Your son Arlise is up there.”
He shrugged, slightly holding in his stomach as he chewed. “The element of surprise you have, your ability with the Siliou and Kan’Ging would also be an advantage.”
“What’s wrong with your gut? And I don’t have the slightest knowledge about what you are saying.”
He immediately let go of his abdomen and his posture stiffened. Kaianan saw patches of blood on his tunic under his robe.
“You know,” he said closely to her. “I thought you would have grown in the amount of time we have parted.”
It was a right insult. “I don’t remember, I can’t …” Kaianan tried to explain the things she was trying to find in her mind. His voice sounded so familiar to her, but she couldn’t pinpoint why, there was just no recollection of ever meeting him. How was she to even be comfortable around him?
Dersji waved his hand and rolled his eyes. “Don’t deliberate on something that is not there, you’ll strain your mind, focus on the now.”
She grunted and tried not to focus on him jumping about like a hapless Harpy.
“I’m sorry I don’t remember you. How long were you my Liege for?”
Dersji laughed, “we don’t have time for the idle chitchat, do we?”
“No, I suppose not.” Kaianan had caught sight of Adrel and Caidus finally catching up and stalking off toward Rook Mountain, pointing—pointing at her Gorgon form.
“Amateurs,” she mumbled.
“Ah, friends of yours?” Brikin said.
“No, isn’t that your Felrin comrade?” she said referring to Adrel, who, Kaianan hated to keep reminding herself, looked scarily like her. “You know that, don’t you?” she paused, dissecting Dersji’s blank expression toward the orchid-plated Shiek. Clearly, he had no idea who she was. “Look I don’t know anything about you just yet, so I’m learning not to trust people I don’t know. Let’s idle chit chat later … and what say you move out of my way and leave me to my own devices?”
