“And we were supposed to be the weakest ones,” she said.
***
Thusia and Storshae continued to study each other. The prince eyed Debo’s sword lying in the dirt and wondered whether he should bother trying to telekinetically fling it in her direction. Better to go down fighting, he thought.
“Run,” Thusia commanded.
“You’re just going to let me go?” Storshae asked with a suspicious glare, narrowing his eyes.
“I have no choice,” she said, venom in her voice. “Hopefully you’ll die of exhaustion or thirst before you reach safety.”
Storshae’s eyes danced with a delighted scorn. “Scared to commit an Untenable, eh?”
“I know the penalty for such an act.”
Storshae stared at her for a moment longer. “Seeing a Bozani express fear sickens me … Makes me wonder why people pray to the likes of you.” He then turned and purposefully began his journey south.
Bryson had crawled over to Debo’s body during Thusia and Storshae’s confrontation. Somehow, he knew that what Fonos had said was true, that Debo had killed his father, but he still felt a huge hole in his heart for this man—the man who raised him for eleven years of his life. Who had taught him everything he knew. Who provided for and protected him—and above all, loved him.
Debo was still clinging to his final breaths. It was a shock to see the man who had always been the strongest, most assertive person Bryson had ever met appear so frail.
Debo gazed up at the boy and smiled. “I love you, Bry.”
“Why’d you do it? I’m confused, Debo. Execution?”
“I was told to. I carried out an order.”
“Was my dad a bad man?”
He didn’t get an answer. Instead, Debo looked above Bryson as a shadow engulfed the pair. “It’s about time,” Debo said. The life in his eyes faded. He was gone.
A teardrop landed on Debo’s cheek. It wasn’t Bryson’s, so he turned to look up at who was standing over them.
It was Thusia. Her face was perfectly impassive, but a couple of tears were dropping from her bright blue eyes.
Looking back at Debo, Bryson broke down and laid his head on the man’s chest like he did when he was a little kid. When he would listen to Debo read The Third of Five every night—the legend of the same man whose chest he used as a pillow—the only place to properly fall asleep after a night full of nightmares …
Only this time, instead of feeling the man’s chest rise and fall and the warm air hitting the back of his neck with each breath of slumber, he felt nothing …
Nothing but memories of what once was and never would be again.
29
The Void
The sun was setting as second-night approached. A lavish carriage, draped in burgundy, traveled across a barren road.
It was led by the same man who headed the carriage when Dev Prince Storshae was riding in it. He wasn’t a soldier and had no intention of confronting the Jestivan, so he offered to help them get back home by acting if the prince were still inside.
Trotting next to the carriage was a white horse—the horse Jilly had named Bobuel a few days back. Vistas rode atop it, as he allowed the Jestivan and Thusia time alone inside of the carriage.
However, they spent this time together in silence. The mood was glum, and the looks on most of their faces reflected that. The only exceptions were Rhyparia, Toshik, and Olivia.
Rhyparia was still recovering. Olivia was sleeping—still. Meow Meow had woken up for a brief moment to express his gratitude and inform them that Olivia was alright. She was just very tired.
Toshik was leaning forward in his seat with his sword in his hands. Bryson had retrieved it from Debo’s body when he recognized whose it was. Toshik’s eyes were on his blade, but they were unfocused. “I was a fool,” he murmured. “The greatest warrior in the world … and I neglected his training.”
Then there was Jilly. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of the slender woman who had graced them with her presence. Thusia’s golden eyelashes curved long and thick above her cerulean eyes. Her blond hair fell perfectly down the sides of her lightly freckled cheeks, and she wore a white neckband—almost like a collar—with a giant blue diamond at the front. Her entire appearance was bright.
“You’ve been staring at me for quite some time now,” Thusia said, turning to look at Jilly. Several of the battle-weary Jestivan flinched at her voice cutting through the stillness.
Jilly opened her mouth, but the only sound to escape was an awkward half-stutter. She was speechless—a first for Jilly.
“I’m sorry I’m not myself,” Thusia said. “Typically, I’m a lot more fun to be around, but under these circumstances …”
“Are you Thusia?” Himitsu asked for Jilly since she couldn’t seem to ask it herself.
She forced a small, friendly smile. “Yes, I am.”
A dull thud reverberated in the carriage. Jilly had fallen off her seat and onto the floorboard.
Thusia looked at her with a smile, this time a genuine one. “Priceless.”
***
A lone barn house sat in a moonlit field of tall prairie grass. The house was rickety and weathered, and looked to be abandoned—then again, every building in this kingdom looked abandoned. The tall blades of grass stood deathly still in the moon’s deep bluish hue. Wind didn’t exist in this kingdom. The air was cold and eerily thin, and gave no resistance to those moving through it.
Three figures lay still in the field, hiding in the grass. Even the slightest twitch would disturb their surroundings and signal their presence. Normally, speaking would be prohibited as well, but the thick grass allowed them to at least whisper. In this kingdom, if someone were to even breathe while occupying an open space, the sound would carry for several hundred feet, reaching the ears of anyone nearby—and even the dead.
A young man with a bandage circling the top of his head stared intently at the house. All it took was one glance at his face to realize the wear and tear this kingdom had done to him over the past few months. His eyes were sunken into his face with heavy shadows of black surrounding them. His lips were dry and split in several spots. And though he looked to be in his twenties at most, his dirty blond hair was greying at the roots.
“Kadlest, I can’t take this much longer,” he whispered.
“We’re almost done, Toono,” said the middle-aged woman lying next to him. “We just have to wait a little while longer. Then we’ll be gone by first-night.”
Toono’s eyes darted away from the house, toward random spots in the field where he could make out human shapes. “Three months in and I’m vividly seeing the dead roam around us.”
“It certainly takes a toll on you,” Kadlest said. “They call it the Void for a reason.” She glanced to her right where a little girl with long black hair hid in the grass. “But Illipsia is experiencing it the worst because of her age.”
“If I keep my eyes closed, it’s not as scary,” the girl whispered. “But I can feel them touching me.”
The barn doors opened with a piercing scream. Every sound was magnified in the Cyn Kingdom’s atmosphere. Candle light filtered through the open doors and spilled onto a dirt path in front of it as horses could be heard neighing from within.
A couple minutes passed before two horses trotted out of the giant barn doors. An open carriage followed behind them. Two people occupied its seats—a woman and a man. The parents of their target.
As the carriage passed by Toono, Kadlest, and Illipsia, Kadlest clamped her hand over Illipsia’s mouth, for the young girl’s breathing hitched at the sight of the horses.
The right side of one of the horse’s face was skinned down to the bones. The ivory color of the bones practically glowed in the lucent light of the moon. Its right hind leg had been stripped of hide, muscle, and veins as well.
The other horse was even more horrifying. Its body was fine—equipped with silky brown hair and all. But its entire head from the neck up was com
posed of blood-lathered muscle. And its eyes were missing.
Toono looked away. He wanted out of this kingdom as fast as possible. He listened for the clacking of the hooves to grow distant. Once satisfied, he stood, finally disrupting the stillness surrounding them. He listened closely, and sure enough, he could hear the faint breaths of slumber from within the barn house. Their target was asleep.
He withdrew his ancient from his robes—a bubble wand. He blew into the middle hole of the three at the top. A bubble with a diameter of about half his height was produced. It hovered in one spot, and Toono climbed onto it. Its surface sank in a bit from his weight, but it was as strong as steel, so it didn’t pop.
Toono leaned forward, causing the bubble to accelerate in that direction. If he walked, his footsteps would wake the person inside. He leaned back, causing the bubble to rise to a window on the barn’s second floor. He shot forward and through the open window. He didn’t jump off once he was inside the room, but the boy in the bed instantly awoke to the sound of Toono’s breathing.
“Who are you?” the boy asked. He was probably in his late teens.
Toono sighed. “It would have been better if you hadn’t woken.”
“Sleep is not easily obtained here,” the boy replied.
Hopping off the bubble, Toono walked toward his target and pulled a knife from within his cloak. “To make what I’m about to do feel less painful for me and you, I would tell you that I’m granting you an everlasting slumber. But I have learned that in your kingdom, your Cynergy keeps a part of you alive … if you can call it that. I must admit, that makes it even harder for me to do this. I hate killing enough as it is.”
“Are you aware of who I am?”
“You are Chelekah, a member of the Dark Realm’s Diatia—a group designed to counter the Light Realm’s Jestivan.”
“So you know I will not simply allow you to kill me as easily as you make it seem,” Chelekah said.
“Titles mean nothing to me. In fact, I despise them,” Toono replied with an unfazed stare. “It’s comparable to the stamp found burned into a cow’s hind parts, designating it for an unfulfilling life before it’s led to slaughtered meat.”
Chelekah stood up. “This kingdom really has gotten to you.”
“You think?” With that, Toono reached back, grabbed his bubble, and flung it at the snowy-haired boy. The collision sent him flying through the wall and into another room as wooden planks shattered in every direction.
Toono strode forward, stepping through the hole in the wall. Chelekah was sprawled face-down on the floorboards. Toono knelt down, straddling the boy’s ribs with his knees. He wanted to get this over with. There was no joy in prolonging a death. He yanked up Chelekah’s head, placed his blade against his neck, and swiftly sliced across.
Blood spurted from the wound as Chelekah made a hopeless gargling noise. His blood saturated into and then pooled on top of the porous wood. Toono let go of the boy’s head and stood as Chelekah’s blood stained his ivory hair.
Toono sheathed his knife back in his pocket and sat down in an armchair. He took out a gem and held it up. Twirling the gem between his fingers, he frowned as it remained lifeless. He started to get up, but the gem’s sudden glow made him return to his seat. His mission in this kingdom was finally over.
Toono sat tucked away in the shadows as he stared intently at the corpse lying in the moonlight. “Poor kid,” he mumbled.
“It was necessary.” said Kadlest, who had just entered through the doorway.
She was tall for a woman, and her subtle muscle definition made her look like she was once a fighter.
“Which kingdom is our next?” she asked.
Toono rubbed his eyes. “An easier one than this, I hope.”
“What did you expect? I had connections in the Prim Kingdom. That won’t be the case anywhere else.”
Toono held his face in his hands. “I underestimated the stories about this place … brushing them off as nonsense. Let’s go back to the Light Realm for a bit. I haven’t been there since September.”
“Has it really been that long?”
“A month in the Prim Kingdom. Two months scouting the Power Kingdom. And the past three months in this disaster.”
Kadlest gave it some thought. “Alright then, how about—”
She was interrupted by a pebble smacking the window. She stared at it for a moment before walking over, opening it, and acknowledging the girl who stood outside.
It was Illipsia. She was tiny—just ten years old. So tiny, in fact, her onyx hair was longer than her body.
“Ms. Kadlest!” the girl half-whispered, half-shouted.
“What is it?”
“Dev Prince Storshae has contacted us.”
Kadlest looked back at Toono, who was still gazing at the corpse. “It’s Storshae.”
He rose from the chair. “About time.”
“Connect us,” Toono commanded as they walked out of the house.
One of Illipsia’s eyes turned a deep burgundy while the other dilated and gazed upward a tiny bit. A holographic display of a charcoal-haired man appeared.
“Hello, Storshae,” Toono greeted flatly.
The prince gave a nod. “Toono. How are things over there?”
“Just killed one of the Diatia.”
Storshae’s right eyebrow arched. “Interesting. Well, I figured I should update you before I visit my father. Need to drop something off.”
Toono forced the conversation forward. “Where is Olivia?”
With an all-too obvious stare of defeat, he replied, “I lost her.”
“How do you lose her?” the young man reacted with calm frustration. Off to the side, Kadlest was shaking her head in disappointment. For a pair of people who had committed some heinous acts, they possessed shockingly composed personalities.
“The Jestivan,” Storshae said.
“You were overtaken by teenagers? What about Fonos?”
“Dead. It wasn’t just the Jestivan,” Storshae rushed to explain. “We had them in hand—although, I will admit one of them was talented enough to take out Ossen. I was on the verge of killing the little pest … until a Pogu showed up, which was my first time of even hearing about such a being.”
Kadlest snickered. “What was his name?” Toono asked.
“You know what a Pogu is?” Storshae asked.
“I’m not an idiot. What was his name?”
“Ataway Debonicus Kawi,” Storshae recited. “From your realm’s little fairy tale.”
“If it were a fairy tale, why would Mendac be a part of it? You, of all people, should know he was real.”
“Yeah, yeah …We killed Debonicus though … well, Fonos killed him.”
“He killed a Pogu?”
Storshae retold the story.
“The boy who summoned a Branian—what did he look like?” Toono asked.
“Messy blond hair. Long bangs. Blue eyes. Strange scar on his chest that read ‘T2.’”
Toono’s eyes widened. “What was his name?”
Storshae let out a single forced laugh. “I didn’t catch it. But Fonos said he was Mendac’s son.”
His mind spinning, Toono went silent for a moment.
“At least we surely left a scar—or several hundred scars—on that girl,” Storshae mumbled.
This snapped the young man out of his trance. “I told you not to hurt her.”
Storshae laughed. “As long as she’s alive, she’s still useful. We can still get King Rehn back.”
Toono’s body swelled, then subsided. “We’ll never get him back with her lost or injured beyond repair.” He gave the signal to Illipsia to cut the transmission.
“Mendac’s son … this changes a lot of things. I didn’t know Olivia had a bond with such a person.” He turned to look at Kadlest. “We go to the Passion Kingdom.”
Her interest piqued as a smile formed. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
He nodded. “It’s time we
find Miss Apoleia Lavender.”
30
Memory Transfer
Somewhere between Rence and the Dev Kingdom’s teleplatforms, Bryson and company gathered near a small pond at the foot of a hill. Jilly was splashing frantically in the water. Although the weather was becoming somewhat warmer, it was still ill-advised to do such a thing. But this was Jilly, and nobody expected anything less.
In fact, Thusia jumped in and dunked Jilly underneath the surface. Her spirits had already lifted. Bryson was quickly learning that having Thusia around was the same as having a second Jilly—just a smidge more mature version.
Toshik was sitting in the reeds lining the stream that fed the pond with his elbows on his knees. He too was observing the blond-haired duo. His eyes had the same empty stare as Olivia’s always did.
Bryson walked up the grassy hill with a satchel of flasks that he had filled to the brim. The stream was a bit murky, but with Olivia and Rhyparia both desperate for water, and with Storshae on the loose and possibly sounding the alarm, he wasn’t going to hazard entering any town.
Himitsu had disappeared into the scattered trees behind the pond. He had said something about needing to clear his mind.
Then there was Vistas, who squatted among the rocks of the stream, as far from the others as he could get. He cupped both hands into the cold water and splashed his face. He did this a few more times before straightening his back and taking a deep breath.
He was doing everything he could to calm his nerves—something he was unused to as he was, by nature, a very calm man. But that was before the foreign memory that now resided in his mind. A memory that didn’t belong to him. A memory that he had to hold onto until the time was right—according to the instructions Debo gave to him the day before …
The Jestivan (Erafeen, #1) Page 29
