The Jestivan (Erafeen, #1)

by David F. Farris

  As Agnos ran up the stairs, thankful to receive instructions that did not involve fighting, Buredo bolted from one Dev soldier to the next, effortlessly slashing his sword across the chest of each one. Occasionally, he found himself having to casually dodge a random object hurtling through the air, but his speed and quickness made it easy. As he hacked down the Dev soldiers, none of them skilled enough to even witness his approach, he wondered … Where are the big guns?

  ***

  Yama, unlike Agnos, was heavily involved in the action, and the Dev soldiers were just as helpless before her as Buredo. She moved fast and killed swiftly. And there was no hesitation as she dealt her fatal blows. This was her job, and the deaths didn’t lay guilt upon her shoulders. In fact, even as civilians fell dead by the hundreds, she felt joy. Finally, real combat. Actual enemies who gave her the freedom to fight without holding back. For the first time in her life, she was feeling an adrenaline rush like no other as the blood of her victims sprayed across her face like war paint. This caused her Adrenergy to surge to a new level, giving her speed an extra push.

  The only problem she encountered was her lack of knowledge and experience of fighting Dev soldiers. She was not accustomed to their Dev Energy and psychic abilities, so the telekinetic attacks frequently caused her to stumble. Twice she almost had her sword completely pulled from her grasp. Yet she continued slashing down endless numbers of foot soldiers as their insides spilled over the seats.

  She came to a halt near the middle of her section. Breathing heavily and looking around, she noticed the vast majority of the corpses were enemy soldiers, not civilians. Some bodies that were draped in burgundy moaned as they clung to their lives, but the attack was over.

  Then she felt someone’s presence behind her. A fist struck her in the back and she stumbled forward from the unexpected blow.

  Not even bothering to turn around, she bolted away, but when she came to a stop, a man of average height with brown hair appeared in front of her … out of thin air. This time he shoved his palm into her face, causing her to crash over the bench behind her.

  As the man yanked her up and stared into her bloody face, he frowned in disappointment. “Same purple hair, but you’re not her.”

  Yama couldn’t comprehend what was happening as they studied each other. I couldn’t see his movements. Is he really that fast? No, he’s wearing burgundy. He isn’t from my kingdom … but he’s different from the others.

  She sprung away at her fastest speed, and this time, she noticed something. The moment she’d left her spot, the man closed his eyes, and when she stopped, he appeared with his eyes closed for an instant before reopening them. He wasn’t moving—he was teleporting, and he was using clairvoyance to track her.

  “You’re tracking me through an extra sense,” Yama said.

  He looked impressed. “Intuitive,” he remarked. He glanced at her hair for a moment before saying, “However, you are not my target.”

  Then he dissipated, and Yama fell forward as the toe of his boot connected with her spine. He had teleported behind her. Her sword rattled in front of her as she fell on all fours. When she scrambled to it and whirled around, the man was gone. Her violet hair draped her face as she stared at the ground. Fists clenched, she let out a scream of failure.

  ***

  On the opposite side of the arena was another swordsman fulfilling his duties. Slashing through the stands, he looked out of place in his white dress shirt and silver tie. Even when on a mission, he wanted to look good for the ladies.

  Normally Toshik would have been enjoying the opportunity to display his swordsmanship in the defense of beautiful women, but only one girl was on his mind—Jilly. He simply wanted to clear out his section as quickly as possible, which was not proving to be a difficult task. The soldiers were slow and clumsy, so he was making swift work of them. However, much like Yama, he struggled to fend off the telekinetic objects flying around. He cursed at a rock that slammed into his forehead, but not because of the pain—it was going to leave a noticeable blemish.

  After quickly scanning the area to make sure all of his enemies were defeated, he immediately shot toward another section. On his way, he dodged blazing flames as he passed Director Venustas—who was replacing an injured Lilu.

  Once Toshik arrived to his destination, he was almost pulled into the sky as winds tugged him in every direction. Unbelievable. She’ll never understand, he thought to himself.

  He found Jilly at the bottom of the stands, and to his unsurprised dismay, she was standing still with her eyes closed and hands holding down her billowing dress as her blond hair whipped violently in the wind.

  Jilly not only lacked control of her power, she completely lost awareness when using it. Dev soldiers, Intel soldiers, and civilians alike were being hurled into the air and dashed against the stone bleachers.

  A man dressed in burgundy climbed over the arena wall behind Jilly and raised his sword. Toshik shot toward her, stumbling as the gusts knocked into him. As the Dev soldier’s sword descended, Toshik slashed off the man’s arm at the elbow. Then his howl of agony was cut short as Toshik ran his blade through the man’s stomach.

  Toshik pulled out his sword as the man collapsed. He gave it a flick to remove the blood before sheathing it again. As he put his hand on Jilly’s shoulder, he whispered into her ear, “Jills, that’s enough.”

  Jilly’s eyes opened as the wind subdued. She turned to look at her towering friend and beamed at him. “Toshy!”

  ***

  Olivia was effortlessly taking out opponents with an expressionless face. She threw powerful punches and kicks, breaking the bones of her enemies. Unlike Yama, Toshik, and Director Buredo, she was not about speed, so most of her fights were against multiple opponents, as she did not have the quickness to dash from one enemy to the other.

  This, however, wasn’t a hindrance. She was fully capable of handling as many Dev soldiers who could fit within her range. With time, she learned that their only ability was manipulating objects through space with their mind. They didn’t have the talent with their Dev Energy to perform any of the kingdom’s deadlier skills. They were merely cannon fodder.

  Olivia had an unusual familiarity with the psychic abilities of the Dev soldiers. In fact, she knew a little too much about them, and if any of the directors had seen her fighting, they would have become curious. With her knowledge of their telekinetic powers, she was fully aware of not only her own fights, but the innocents escaping around her also. She occasionally disregarded her own safety in order to intercept a soaring block of stone from crushing a civilian.

  Now she was close to clearing her section. Five soldiers remained, and they were all baring down on her. One of the men aimed a punch to her face from in front, while another kicked at her ankles from behind. She caught the punch with one hand and jumped over the sweeping leg. The power of her jump slightly cracked the ground as it sent her high into the air. She still had a grasp of the man’s fist, and at the peak of her jump, she pulled his arm under her before plummeting toward the ground and snapping his arm against a stone bench. As he shrieked, she kicked backward, collapsing the second soldier’s ribcage.

  “You like that?!” Meow Meow shouted as the man fell.

  Olivia turned to her left to see an elbow being swung toward her face. This attack was no different than the others—predictable and simple. She caught it, and as she squeezed the bones in the man’s hand to mush, she noticed a female soldier off to the side and a little bit in the distance.

  Once again, Olivia’s knowledge of Dev Energy proved useful. She swung the man she was holding behind her back—just in time to intercept a metal spike with his forehead.

  The fourth man gaped at her and fled. That left one soldier to deal with … the telekinetic. She was shaking violently in fear from what she he had just witnessed. Three of her comrades were wiped out in twenty seconds by a girl who looked to be no older than sixteen.

  Then a brunette man of av
erage height had appeared at the top of the stands—the man who had bested Yama. He looked at Olivia from afar and closed his eyes.

  Suddenly Olivia was no longer striding toward a frightened Dev soldier, nor was she surrounded by sounds of chaos and screams. She was no longer in the stadium at all.

  She was standing somewhere straight out of a dream—nothing but a haze of purple and burgundy in all directions. Olivia stopped breathing and heard the faint echoes of screaming and clashing swords. She realized she wasn’t in a different location. To anyone else, Olivia would be looking aimlessly around the stadium. She was caught in the net of an extremely powerful clairvoyant—someone far stronger than the woman she’d been about to strike down. But who? Who did I miss?

  Realizing there was nothing she could do, Olivia sat down inside of the lucid hallucination. She stared into the endless obscurity with an expression of stone.

  “We’ll be okay,” Meow Meow muttered, his voice trembling.

  ***

  The suite of the Royal Intel family was now packed with unwelcomed guests. King Vitio stared gravely at the Archaic King, who, like his entourage, glared back with pure spite. Many, many years of history had led up to this …

  Lilu was crying tears of many different emotions—anger, hopelessness, and fear were just a few.

  Vistas watched her claw at her face in frustration and pull at her hair. “Lady Lilu, may I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead,” she answered through her hands.

  “What is the weight of the situation unfolding over there?”

  She slid her hands down her cheeks, smearing her tears. Eyes red, she stared angrily at the ceiling. “Weight unlike anything that we’ve ever seen … Weight that this kingdom cannot withstand.” …

  King Vitio spoke carefully. “Itta, this was not our doing.”

  “How dare you lie to me!” King Itta bellowed as he threw a punch from across the room. Again, it transformed into a pillar of wood as it shot through the air.

  Vitio quickly sidestepped the attack, but he didn’t counter. He wasn’t going to give them any reason to blame him for this terrible day.

  The onslaught continued as Itta sent endless attacks in Vitio’s direction, who continued dodging all of them. Beams of wood were ramming into walls and clattering on top of Bryson, Himitsu, and Princess Shelly, who were hugging the ground.

  “Fight me, you wretch!” Itta thundered. “You let others do your dirty work, and now you’re too cowardly to fight me hand to hand!”

  “I don’t want to fight you,” Vitio said, “and what happened had nothing to do with me or my kingdom.”

  “You expect us to believe that?” the Archaic Prince laughed. The young man strode into the room. His laugh only lasted for a brief moment before his face abruptly switched back to an evil leer.

  Princess Shelly rose to her feet with a menacing glare of her own. She, unlike her father, would fight if need be.

  The prince looked at their group. “Your kingdom, which has been used to getting what it wants, was finally failing in a certain area.” He paused. “And what was that area?”

  No answer. Expecting this, he answered it himself. “The military. After thousands of years of dominating the rest, your kingdom was finally being brought back down to reality. And every year for the past five years, you’ve had to witness it during the Generals’ Battle as our general proved victorious over and over and over again.

  “You became upset that the Archaic Kingdom was finally getting a bit of attention and you couldn’t handle the sharing of that spotlight.” He gave a death stare to King Vitio. “Therefore, you took care of it.” …

  “Help me learn,” Vistas requested as he took a seat next to Lilu’s bed.

  She gazed at him—the man who played a vital role in her growing up to be the lady she was. To think a man from the Dark Realm could be so lovely … She had learned to trust Vistas over the years, so she decided to tell him a story of a tainted history.

  “There was an era that marks the start of Kuki Sphaira’s recorded history, nearly 1,500 years ago. It was a time when two kingdoms held sway over the Light Realm—the Light Knowledge and Light Morality Kingdoms … Known today as the Intel and Archaic Kingdoms. Both were very proud and known for their powerful minds, but for different reasons. While the Intel Kingdom’s specialty was technical and intellectual thinking, the Archaic Kingdom’s specialty was more geared toward philosophy and mysticism.

  “The two kingdoms’ symbiotic hatred stemmed from this difference. Refusing to accept the ideas of the other, each thought its own method of thinking should rule all five kingdoms of the Light Realm.

  “While the Intel Kingdom focused on learning about topics that could technologically advance the future, the Archaic Kingdom studied the history of people and tried socially advancing the future based off those studies.

  “However, slowly over time, as other kingdoms began adapting based off the ideas and research that the Intel King and his royal family had developed, the Archaic King realized his people were falling behind. Nobody paid attention to the philosophical side of things because inventing things provided all the tangible results.

  “But even with all this animosity, not once did anyone try physically attacking the other. It was always a restless battle of differentiating ideas and opinions, and that was it. This passive—yet heated—rivalry has existed for the past 1,500 years, and it is known as the longest war ever … a war with no spilt blood.” …

  The Archaic Prince lunged at Princess Shelly, but she shot him into the ground with a bolt of lightning that slashed through the ceiling from the sky above. Bryson’s jaw dropped. It was the most amazing display of Intel Energy he had ever witnessed.

  “Manipulating lightning in the clouds …” the prince remarked as he staggered to his feet. “Considering the amount of overcast this kingdom suffers through, I guess you could call that home field advantage at its finest. However, I’m impressed. Even for a royal, that’s not an easy ability to accomplish . . . even if a single bolt is all you’re able to muster up. You should have saved it for later.”

  The Archaic Prince wound his arm behind his head before swinging it forward in a throwing motion. Three balls of a pure white substance exited his hand at an alarming speed. Each made contact with Shelly. One struck her face violently, while the other two simultaneously struck her stomach. King Vitio lunged for her, but was felled by a tree trunk to his torso.

  Now the two kings were back at it, but Vitio still refused to attack. Every move he made was an evasive one. Meanwhile, Shelly lay on the ground, clutching her face as she grimaced from pain.

  The Archaic Prince flung more balls at her, but a wall of black flames erupted in front of her and absorbed them.

  The Archaic Prince looked stunned.

  “Fire beats snow,” Himitsu said, matter of fact.

  The prince, just now noticing the bystander, was outraged. “And who are you?”

  “From the looks of things, I’d say your weakness.”

  The prince’s face twisted. He opened his mouth wide and inhaled deeply. Himitsu suspected what the prince was readying, so he decided to do the same. They exhaled at the same time.

  A flurry of rock-hard pellets shot out of the prince’s mouth as a wave of black fire expelled itself from Himitsu’s. The two crashed into each other headlong, and at first the flames pushed back against the melting snow and advanced toward the prince. But Himitsu was soon exhausted while his adversary continued to attack.

  Himitsu snapped his hand upward as he tried to protect himself with another barrier of blackened flames. Most of the pellets melted instantly, but several still made it through, pelting the tall Passion Jestivan all over his body.

  Then Himitsu’s flames extinguished, and the Archaic Prince charged. As his blow was about to land, something tugged hard at his neck, fiercely yanking him backward.

  He wasn’t prepared for it. He hadn’t even seen anyone move. As his back bent, h
e got a glimpse of the boy who had grabbed his scarf. The boy’s hair was a sunny yellow, but he couldn’t read his eyes with his bangs swaying in front. All he needed to see, however, was the thin, resentful line that his mouth formed.

  It was Bryson, and with a member of his team in danger, he had finally entered the fray. Bryson tried finishing him off by slamming him into the ground, but the prince grabbed his wrist, encasing it in a shell of ice-hard snow. Bryson lost his grip and shrieked at the pain that reached into his bones.

  Princess Shelly struck the Archaic Prince with a string of electricity from her palm, causing him to whirl around toward her. Himitsu grabbed Bryson’s arm and released a moderate amount of black fire to melt the ice. As they turned to help Shelly, two other men stepped in front of them—one with the insignia of an Archaic Corporal on his collar, the other that of a Major.

  “Stay away from the big boys and girls,” the corporal teased.

  Bryson didn’t acknowledge the corporal’s taunt. He sidestepped to the right at his fastest speed, extended his left arm, and clotheslined him. The man crashed to the floor, gasping desperately for air through his damaged windpipe.

  The action inside the suite was escalating at an even faster pace. A weird sensation took over Bryson’s body and he didn’t know what was causing it. It felt as if his body was becoming lighter. He searched around for a cause, but nobody seemed to be focused on him. There were two glowing lights beginning to manifest near Princess Shelly and the Archaic Prince; Himitsu was taking care of the major; and King Vitio had fallen to his knees and was coughing up blood. Before Bryson could even think to stop him, the Archaic King hurled another wooden beam …

  “So with the murder of Archaic General Inias, it looks to be—at least in the eyes of the Archaic King—the first physical blow dealt between the two kingdoms after a millennium and a half of pent-up hostility.

  “Vistas, I can only imagine the tension being felt inside of that suite. A bitter kingdom, which had already been losing for centuries, now believes it has a reason to unleash its repressed and spiteful fury.” …