“It’ll be nice to have the king back,” one of the men said from the other side of the wall.
“Tell me about it. His advisers have made a botch of things.”
“He never should have left in the first place. What if he had been killed? He has no children.”
“Have faith. He’ll return to the capital soon.”
“How much longer?”
“Not long. He’s in Shreel, or so I’ve heard.”
The group fell silent for a few seconds. “Then something’s got him spooked. He’s not the type of man to rush when he doesn’t have to.”
“Well, if he’s still in Shreel, we have plenty of time to make it back to the capital before he does. He won’t even know that we were here.”
“Not as much time as you’d think. I heard he’s going to cut through Necrosis Valley.”
“What?!”
“Like I said—he’s spooked.”
“Then we must leave tonight.”
“No need to panic. He won’t be leaving Shreel for at least a day. He has to allow his group time to mentally prepare for such a journey.”
“Room 207.”
Bryson and Himitsu jumped, startled from their eavesdropping. It was Vistas.
Bryson slid out of the booth, satisfied. His group had at least two days of rest before heading west to cut Storshae off in Necrosis Valley.
Jilly also decided to call it a day, but Himitsu stayed in the bar to have a couple more beers—and keep an eye on Toshik.
Vistas unlocked the door to a rather dingy room. There were two twin-sized beds, and to their surprise, a bathroom. It even had faucets. It was a mystery how such a poor and tiny town could have indoor plumbing.
“A shower!” Jilly shouted before darting in and slamming the bathroom door closed.
“I’m going to go to sleep,” Vistas said in a dull, empty voice. He curled up on a mass of blankets that he had laid out on the ground. Bryson plopped onto the stiff bed with a wince. He allowed his mind to wander with the pattering of the shower water as a backdrop. He thought about his all-too-frequent dream—sitting underneath a cherry blossom, staring at Phesaw’s campus below. He thought about the two mysterious messages he had received in the past three months from—what he could only explain as—the illusion of an unknown woman …
When the time is right …
Which is almost in sight …
It was so cryptic, but there had to be a reason for that. Stressing about it helped nothing. If he hadn’t come up with an answer by now, he never would. So he allowed sleep to creep upon him.
A few hours passed, and the tavern finally was quiet. It was two a.m.—two hours into first-night—and the room of the Jestivan was bathed in moonlight.
Jilly slept in a bed to herself, Bryson and Himitsu occupied the other, and an inebriated Toshik was passed out on the floor in a puddle of his own drool, his limbs awkwardly splayed in all directions.
The door unlocked.
Being the light sleeper that he was, Bryson lazily opened his eyes at the sound of the door unlatching. He closed his eyes again, attributing the noise to his imagination.
Then the door creaked as it opened.
Bryson sprung out of bed. Standing in the doorway was the soldier who had stared at him in the bar. He instantly bolted toward the man with a punch readied. This foot soldier had made a grave mistake by trying to confront the Jestivan—
Or not. Not only was the man prepared for Bryson’s speed, he had the strength and reflexes to catch his punch. Bryson followed with a kick, but that was blocked by the soldier’s forearm. Black flames erupted where the man had been standing, but he dodged it with a simple side-step. By this point, everyone in the room was awake except for Toshik.
“Stop it,” the man snapped. “I know your methods of fighting.”
What kind of infantryman is this? Bryson wondered. “And how would you know that?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead his face and body morphed into someone else, causing jaws to drop around the room.
Lines began crowding his face, and his skin tone lightened from tan to pale. His hairline crept backward, revealing more of his forehead and scalp. His black goatee transformed into a long pure white beard. Then there was the most notable feature—eyebrows sprouted until they hung in tails down the sides of his face.
It was Grand Director Poicus.
25
Debonicus
Jilly hopped up and down. “That was so awesome, Grand Di—”
She was cut short by a chorus of hushes. There was no end to her cluelessness. Some people in the tavern might not have known the Jestivan by name, but they definitely knew who Grand Director Poicus was.
“After not seeing the lot of you for so long, I would typically display my excitement with a fit of warming pleasantries,” Poicus said quietly. “But I must say these weren’t the circumstances I had envisioned. What are you doing down here?”
“Rescuing Olivia,” Bryson said, not bothering to lie.
Poicus sighed. “I should have known. I suppose your plan is to take on Prince Storshae, his general, and his Bewahr—a Gefal?”
Bryson didn’t respond. The Grand Director gazed at all of their faces, then landed on a man lying awake on the floor on the far side of the room. A look of understanding graced his face. “Vistas,” he mumbled. “The directors would not have sent you on this journey. King Vitio sent you.”
No one spoke.
“It’s too late to get in touch with the directors,” Poicus continued, “but at the break of first-day’s dawn, we will have a sit-down with …” His voice trailed off as footsteps sounded outside the door.
The Grand Director morphed back into the young soldier as the door swung open. A Dev soldier stared at his comrade with a skeptical look.
“It was getting late,” the man said. “I heard noises, so I came to take a look.” He studied the faces in the room and then looked at the disguised Poicus. “Why are you in a roomful of children in the middle of the night?”
Poicus staggered and slumped against the wall. “Wrong room? I was wondering what they were doing here.”
The man rolled his eyes and grabbed Poicus’s arm. “Let’s go, dimwit.”
The door slammed shut. “Repack and get ready,” Bryson said. “We’re heading west within the hour. If we stay, Director Poicus will be dragging us back to the Light Realm by morning.” He looked at the passed out Toshik. “Wake your buddy up,” he said to Jilly.
***
At eight a.m., a distressed Poicus was standing in an abandoned building in the outskirts of Rence. He was accompanied by a pale brunette woman.
“Get in touch with your son, so we can broadcast,” the director commanded as horses neighed and men shouted in the distance. “And make sure Debo is with him. He’ll be wondering why half the Jestivan aren’t showing up for school.”
After a couple minutes, her right eye turned burgundy while her left eye dilated and projected a hologram. Debo was sitting in an office that looked rather familiar.
“Is that my office?” Poicus asked.
Debo smiled. “Makes me feel important.” Then he registered the look on Poicus’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you know where Bryson’s team has been the past few days?”
“Trying to mend bonds. I think they went camping.” Debo’s face clouded. “Oh.”
“That’s right. They’re here, at a tavern in Rence. Vistas is with them.”
“Vistas?!” Debo repeated. “So Vitio’s behind this. Get them out of there. I’m not losing four Jestivan to try to save one.” The volume of his voice was controlled, but the aggression was unmistakable.
“About that,” Poicus said carefully. “They’re gone. By the time I was able to get away this morning, their room was deserted.”
Poicus winced as Debo slammed his fist into the desk. “What was that fool thinking?” the Intel Director muttered. “He’ll get his, I swear it.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know what to do,” Poicus said. “I think they may be headed west, but I can’t leave my unit.”
It took a minute for Debo to respond. “You continue the task I asked of you. Follow your fleet to the Dev capital. Make sure that he’s really dead.”
“And the Jestivan?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Debo said in a tone that sent chills down Poicus’s spine.
The broadcast cut off, and Debo instantly formulated the steps he needed to take before crossing realms. There was no time to waste, but he knew how important it was to pace his energy.
First stop was Passion Director Venustas.
Debo headed toward the Emotion Wing while effortlessly weaving through Phesaw’s halls. Students stood dumbfounded as their books were blown from their grasp by sudden gusts of wind. To their eyes, there was no cause.
Debo barged into Venustas’s office without knocking. She didn’t jump at the intrusion, but her eyes widened as she stared at her guest while brushing her hair. “Director De—”
“Talk to the Dev servant,” Debo said, cutting her off. “He’ll explain. I’m leaving for a while.”
“Why?” she asked. “What is this about?”
“I apologize, but time is of the essence. Just do what I ask of you. Hopefully, I’ll be back.” He paused and stared at her before saying, “Good bye.”
Without waiting for a response, he disappeared. He exited Phesaw and ran to Telejunction, where he ordered an escort to commandeer him a teleplatform at once. The young man wisely obliged.
When Debo arrived in the Intel Kingdom, he hopped off the platform before it even stopped spinning. He headed west to his home and, once there, stopped in front of the light-shielded door for a brief moment. Then he took a deep breath before crossing the threshold.
He turned the handle and pushed it open, and as he looked at the opposite wall, his stomach dropped in horror. The mantle was empty. He disappeared as his fist ended up in the wall. Who had gotten through the light?
But there was no time to dwell on his anger. He darted to his next location—Dunami Prison. He sprinted at a speed that approached recklessness. He blew over a traveling carriage, its occupants tumbling from the doors onto the street. Once in the capital, he headed toward the west end of the city, slicing through the midmorning crowds in the markets.
He didn’t want to fight, so he picked up speed when he saw the prison building. He scaled the forty-foot-wall with ease before falling into the grounds. He flew by the guards and even snagged a loop of keys from one man’s waist.
That’s not to say that the staff didn’t know what was happening. They had been trained for this sort of thing—a man capable of high speed percentages. But this was far beyond anything they were capable of dealing with. There was, quite literally, nothing they could do. You can’t catch what you can’t see.
Debo skated down multiple flights of stairs to the most secure floor of the dungeons. He stopped on the landing to compose himself. He wanted to hunch over and breathe, but he forced himself to stand tall with his back arched and hands on his hips—a much better position for replenishing his lungs with oxygen.
Two very big men approached him down the torch-lit stone hallway. They were built like boulders and even taller than Debo. An electrical wave lit up the space.
Debo didn’t bother to dodge the attack. His body flickered as it absorbed their energy. Then he popped up behind the guards before their brains registered that he had moved. He pinched the base of their necks with each arm and gently guided their bodies to the floor.
Continuing down the shadowy hall, he walked between prison cells of some of the vilest and most notorious criminals in the Intel Kingdom. Crazed men and women reached through the bars in a desperate effort to grasp onto him. There were cries for help, shouted death threats … one even vowed to have him for supper. Eventually, he reached the final cell at the dead-end of the hallway.
“Go away,” muttered the curled-up ball in the cell’s back corner.
Debo fumbled with the keys before unlocking the gate and walking inside. “I need you.”
“I’m the opposite of what anyone needs. I hurt people.” Her voice was shaking.
“Your team is in trouble. Your friends are in trouble,” Debo corrected himself.
The girl finally looked up, exposing one bloodshot eye, her brown bangs sweeping across the other. Her face was oily and her shirt was somehow dirtier than usual.
Debo held out his hand. “Please, Rhyparia.” A few seconds lingered past before she grabbed his hand and was pulled to her feet.
“Let’s go,” he said as he picked her up, holding her in his arms. “We need to travel faster than you can run.”
Debo ran north to the Intel Palace, but he was slowing down. Fatigue from already sprinting countless leagues and the added weight of a fifteen-year-old girl were getting to him.
Nevertheless, it was still well before noon when he reached the palace’s first wall of defense. He set Rhyparia down and yelled, “I advise you let me in!”
“I think not!” A soldier yelled back.
“I’m being polite! I could easily let myself through!”
A chorus of laughter rained down from the tower. “Go for it!” one shouted.
Shrugging, Debo prepared to run up the wall, but a command from the other side stopped him. “Open the gate!”
The man had authority, for the gate opened immediately. Debo’s face softened as he saw a young man with greasy red hair. “Suadade,” he said quietly.
Princess Shelly’s Branian walked slowly toward Debo and Rhyparia with a reminiscing smile. “It has been entirely too long,” he said before coming to a halt a few yards away, careful to keep a certain distance. “I assume you’re off to save Bryson.”
“How could you let that man send him on such a mission?” Debo asked.
Suadade pursed his lips. “My job is to protect Shelly. You know that. However, trust me when I say I warned Vitio of what an awful ideal it was.” He briefly went quiet. “I imagine you’re here to confront him. However, I’m not allowing you beyond this point.”
Debo sighed. “You’re lucky I can’t waste any time or energy confronting you, someone who is not the enemy.” He picked up Rhyparia, readying to sprint out of the city. “Be well, Suadade.”
“I helped Bryson get into your closet.”
Debo turned around with a look of utter shock. “I did it out of spite,” Suadade said. “I wanted to get back at you, but believe me when I say I would never allow my spite to get so bad that it would put that boy in danger. Infiltrating the Dev Kingdom is stupid, and I know how much he means to you … You made that obvious when you abandoned us for him.”
“I had to.”
“Spare me the rubbish,” the Branian snapped.
“I’m sorry for what I did. I really am,” Debo said. “Well, so long.”
“Will you come back, Debonicus?”
Debo froze. This question was dangerous. He couldn’t go back to that place. He had made that final decision a long, long time ago. He hadn’t been Debonicus for eleven years. Unwilling to answer, he simply bolted out of sight.
Branian Suadade wandered aimlessly through the palace grounds, thinking back to his visit to the graveyard with Princess Shelly …
The sun was setting across a cemetery outside of a small town in the Adren Kingdom. This town sat at the far end of the kingdom, as close to the Edge as one could possibly get. It was hundreds of leagues away from any other civilization, with forests and plains stretching between.
Two large oak trees extended their orange and yellow-draped branches above the center of the cemetery, where two memorials rested, one at the base of each tree.
Princess Shelly and Branian Suadade stood in front of the gravestone on the right. “This is what we came out here for?” she pouted.
here lies a pupil.
here lies a hero.
rest in peace,
leon suadade
Shelly couldn’t fathom why anybody would want to visit their own grave and be reminded of their death.
“You can’t forget who you are,” Suadade said softly as if he was distracted by other thoughts. “You can’t forget your roots. And by remembering that I’ve died before, I realize that I shouldn’t be scared of anything.”
“And what has you, a Bozani, scared?”
Suadade smiled. “I forget that down here we’re thought of as some kind of gods. Just because there is a lack of a physical threat, doesn’t mean there isn’t a mental one. Often times, what scares us the most is internal. And that is humanity at its finest. We aren’t Gods.”
Suadade’s smile was replaced by a solemn gaze. “I’m scared because I’ve lost him. Whether it was before or after I was reborn, he was always guiding me. A best friend and an inspiration. We died together. We were reborn together.”
“Who?” Shelly asked.
The Branian turned and walked toward the headstone beneath the other tree. There were more flowers, a much bigger polished slab of marble, and a more delicately carved message. It didn’t have to be said. The man buried here was the friend Suadade was yearning for.
“I thank you for coming out here,” he said as he knelt by the grave.
Shelly kept her distance, allowing him this moment. But she had another question: “You said he was reborn with you, so where is he?”
“He left.”
She stepped forward to read the gravestone. Engraved on it was the name of a legend. A man who was a hero to all the active imaginations of children in the Light Realm, the hero of The Third of Five. He was one of five people in Known History to attain a Bozani’s power level without actually dying.
She stood in awe as she realized the man she grew up hearing stories about, whom she and everyone else had chalked up to being nothing more than a fictitious character in a fairy tale, was actually real. She wondered whether the story was exaggerated, and if so, by how much. But one thing was for certain … he had existed.
here lies a teacher.
The Jestivan (Erafeen, #1) Page 25
