by Kealohilani
Suddenly, the white light flickered and disappeared. Raoul wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm.
“You have to keep going!” Erik pled, seeing that Arante was still pale and her breathing strained— almost non-existent. “She’s probably bleeding internally!”
“I know!” Raoul exclaimed. “I’m going to save her! I just need a second!”
Raoul took a few breaths and tried to activate the white light again. It didn’t come.
“Raoul!” Erik shouted.
Raoul ignored him. He didn’t have the energy to argue with Erik and heal Arante.
“Drink this,” Jaresh instructed, handing Raoul a small canteen.
Raoul gratefully took the mixture and downed it in one giant gulp. It wasn’t quite instant, but he felt some strength return to him. There wasn’t time to wait, though. He reactivated the white light and worked his way from Arante’s lungs, all the way down to her legs.
“She’s still not awake!” Erik cried out.
Raoul returned his attention to her head and closed his eyes. He felt the injury he had missed, and pictured it healing. Arante’s dark brown eyes fluttered open.
“I owe you my life, Raoul,” Erik thanked, with a great sigh of relief.
“Happy to help.”
Raoul sat down on a short boulder to rest, breathing hard.
“I’ll take care of healing all of your hands as soon as I can.”
The group nodded their understanding— all except for Erik, who didn’t seem to hear him. Erik helped Arante up and held her close.
“I thought I lost you!” His hazel eyes closed briefly as he breathed in her alluring natural scent that even the dust and blood could not overpower— feeling an emotion so far past gratitude he couldn’t name it.
“You almost did…” She hugged Erik in return— gripping his neck and blonde hair gratefully with her slender brown fingers. She lifted her eyes toward the sky and mouthed, “Thank you,” before closing her eyes and nestling into Erik’s embrace.
After a brief moment, Arante pushed Erik back a couple of inches and froze— his hands still on her waist, her hands still on his chest.
“Wait,” she began in a hushed tone. “Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything,” Justin answered.
“Exactly! I hope we’re not too late! Follow me!”
Arante led them up the gigantic pile of rocks as quickly as they could go. Tired as Raoul was, he jumped up and began to scale the rockslide with the others— grateful that the mixture Jaresh had given to him was allowing him the strength to follow at all.
Lani didn’t know what to do. The dragon had scratched Jharate deeply across his chest and stomach when it threw him off, and Jharate had landed on the rocks. He was bleeding profusely from several places and there was sure to be internal injuries as well.
She didn’t have anything to help her stop his bleeding— and there were so many wounds she couldn’t decide where to put pressure. Lani sobbed and shook as she clutched him closer.
“RAOUL!”
Her agonized voice echoed through the canyon walls as she continued to plead in-between sobs.
“HELP ME! PLEASE! RAOUL— PLEASE!”
Lani’s call echoed through Raoul’s ears. He could hear her from anywhere. The desperate tone of her pleas sent anxious shivers down his spine as panic grasped his heart like an iron fist.
Fatigued as he was from the energy needed to heal Arante, a massive adrenaline rush fueled his body and soul. He hurried over the landslide— harder and faster— overtaking everyone else and leaving them far behind. He quickly slid down the other side and jumped the last six feet to ground.
He cleared the rock pile, ran around a corner toward Lani’s anguished cries, and came to a skidding halt as he saw the enormous corpse of the dragon. He blinked in disbelief.
“Whoa! What happened?”
“Talk later! Heal now! Please! He can’t die! He can’t!”
Raoul saw Jharate for the first time. His root-beer-colored eyes widened with horror. He knew he couldn’t say this to Lani, but he feared it might be too late.
Raoul ran and knelt beside Jharate. He activated the white light and got to work healing Jharate’s badly broken body.
First he stopped the bleeding at Jharate’s head. However, just as Raoul did so, a death rattle shuddered through Jharate’s chest and throat and he fell silent. His breathing stopped completely.
Raoul quickly put his hands on Jharate’s chest.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
Raoul still could not revive Jharate. Critical seconds continued to slip by into minutes. It was over. But he couldn’t bear to fail Lani— so he continued past the point of all reason. Jharate was gone. Raoul knew it.
Drakne knew it too.
He smiled. Then he frowned.
This would not do.
Vranah wanted Jharate alive for questioning. And the fun had not even begun.
Drakne whispered a few carefully chosen words so quietly that he could barely hear himself speak. Simultaneously, he rotated his hand, closed his fingers one at a time, and squeezed the air sharply.
Jharate inhaled sharply and started to breathe again— but he did not regain consciousness. Lani felt as if she had begun to breathe for the first time in minutes as well.
Raoul couldn’t understand what had happened. It wasn’t possible. There wasn’t time to ask questions though— and Raoul couldn’t imagine anyone who could have an answer.
Raoul’s entire body shook from fatigue, but he forced himself to continue working. He moved his hands over the torn flesh and broken bones in Jharate’s body until everything was as good as new. The white light deactivated and Raoul leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his still-bleeding hands— breathing hard.
Jharate’s deep brown eyes flew open and he saw Lani. Tears of relief and love streamed down her face. Her long brown hair was completely haphazard, her eyes were red from crying, and his blood was on her hands and arms. But she was smiling at him— kneeling at his side— holding one of his hands in both of hers.
Jharate knit his brow and his lips stretched tight. He roughly yanked his muscular hand away from her, stood up, and strode over to the dragon. Without a word, Jharate wrenched his sword from the lifeless beast and walked away.
Lani lost her balance and fell back slightly. She stared at him open-mouthed, in silence, with tears still running down her soot-stained cheeks— blinking in disbelief. A heavy weight pressed down on her heart as she choked on her breath. Collapsing across a rock, she buried her face in her arms and convulsed with sobs.
“What have I done?!”
Lani’s heart beat hard against her ribs and her gut clenched tight as she sobbed. She remembered now. Every moment. Every word. Every look. Every touch. Everything. She heard all of the words in her head— words that only minutes ago she had been unable to hear.
Oh his words! They echoed through her mind.
I love you more than the air that I breathe. Did you not hear me?
She cried harder and harder as the missing words kept coming.
I do love you, Lani. You are the most important person in the entire world to me. I value your life above my own. What is wrong, Lani?
More words raced into her mind.
I do love you, Lani. You know that. I have told you that every time that you have asked. Why is this not sufficient for you? What is wrong? What must I say to make you happy? Name it, and I will say it. What must I do? Tell me what you want for proof and I shall give it to you! Lani, what must I do?
And Jharate’s harsh, catastrophic sentence that had spurred her to run away from him and out into unknown danger had not been the way she had heard it at all.
No, of course not! I do not know why you could ever think that... I love you, Lani.
How could inflection, vocal tone, and a small pause make such a crucial difference? And how had she not hear
d it the way he said it?
Jharate had not said that he did not love her— in fact, he had constantly reassured her. He hadn’t yanked his hand away from her in the sanctuary— she had yanked her hand away from him!
He had been perfect! How had she missed it all? How could she have been so wrong? What had possessed her?
“What have I DONE?!”
Raoul felt horribly lost. His eyes shot from Lani to Jharate. What on Earth happened in that sanctuary?
Raoul watched as Jharate cleaned his sword without so much as a glance at Lani, who was obviously in tremendous pain. The fatigue from healing Jharate so soon after healing Arante evaporated. Raoul narrowed his eyes, marched over, and looked up at Jharate— who towered more than a foot above him. Raoul’s jaw was set firmly and he pointed up at Jharate.
“I don’t care who you think you are, or what you think she did. You shouldn’t leave her like that! No man should let a woman cry like that, no matter what his reasons are!” Raoul made quote marks with his fingers.
Jharate looked down at Raoul calmly with no sign of emotion visible on his forbidding face. No anger. No frustration. No compassion. No regret. Nothing at all.
“Thank you for saving my life, Raoul. However, I will handle my own affairs.”
Jharate walked away from Raoul toward Arante, who had just arrived with everyone else. The seven newcomers had the same looks on their faces that Raoul had just had on his. Everyone looked from Jharate to Lani, and back again.
Now that all was silent, Drakne had to put his gloved fist in front of his mouth to hold in his laughter. He was suddenly glad that he hadn’t been able to kill the girl immediately. This was highly entertaining.
No, it was more than that— This is perfect!
“We must depart,” Jharate stated coldly.
Arante saw the unyielding look on Jharate’s face and knew better than to try to talk to him right now. She had seen it before. It meant that he had made up his mind and there was no changing it.
But there was something unnerving about it— some foreign visage was there that shouldn’t be— or rather, something familiar that wasn’t there. It was too cold and distant— lifeless might be a better description. It startled her to see him like this.
She wanted to know what had happened between Lani and Jharate that could account for this disconcerting change. However, she dropped her gaze. Jharate marched past her toward the landslide. Arante slowly turned and followed him.
Justin and Kendra looked hesitantly from Lani to the rest of the party that was heading back. Raoul insistently jerked his head toward those exiting the box canyon. When Justin and Kendra didn’t leave immediately, Raoul pointed definitively for them to go. They quietly obeyed, following the others.
The glint of Lani’s sword caught Raoul’s eye. He walked over near the smoldering dead tree and picked it up off the ground. He brought it back to her and carefully put it back in its sheath at her side. He leaned down, put his arms around her, and helped her up.
“It’ll be alright, Lani,” Raoul consoled, rather helplessly.
Lani didn’t answer. The words had entered her brain but they didn’t ring true. Her tears kept falling and her sobs were making her sides ache.
She slowly stood up with Raoul’s prompting, unconscious of the fact that she was even doing so. He kept his hold on her and guided her out toward the rockslide. Raoul helped her one step at a time as they plugged forward behind the others.
Tears fell from Lani’s swollen eyes as she climbed over the rubble. Her soft sobs slowly subsided but a few rapid breathy shudders overcame her every now and again. The quiet tears kept coming and coming with no sign of stopping.
Seeing her like this nearly made Raoul cry himself. To fend off that possibility, he distracted himself by trying to think of what he could do to help her now.
He attempted to heal any physical wounds that he could reach as they walked without letting her know he was doing it— because he knew she was blaming herself and would not want to feel better. Even though he knew the sanctuary would soon heal her completely, he couldn’t stand to let her suffer any pain that he could take away now.
Drakne followed closely behind Lani and Raoul with an amused smirk on his face— using his power to muffle his footsteps to remain undiscovered in his invisibility. This had become his very own private puppet show. Jharate was doing exactly what he wanted him to do.
Ha! A woman has turned out to be stronger than the famous warrior, Prince Jharate!
This was too good! Watching this pathetic ensemble as they attempted to reach Zenastra before his men over the next few weeks would be most enjoyable.
In fact, Drakne no longer cared if his men even made it at all. Knowing those dimwits, they probably wouldn’t. It didn’t matter anymore.
The happy couple would never sense him now that he had successfully neutralized Jharate. He could enjoy watching this drama play out and still have time to murder them all before they could reach safety.
He could even follow these rebel fools straight into Destavnia and kill them, and any Destavnian allies they rendezvoused with— after they were certain they were safe— if he wanted to. Everyone except Jharate, of course. That kill belonged to Vranah.
Gone was all of his hurry. After all, he had been working so hard for so very, very long. He deserved to have some amusement before returning to Vranah in triumph.
The rebels reached the large glittering ring-shaped portal of the Pure of Heart Sanctuary— and listened to the repeated poetic warning as it also spelled out the warning on its iridescent liquid-looking surface. No one interrupted the feminine metallic watery voice this time.
Ye need not be perfect
But evil take heed
This ring is not harmless
To those who deceive
You will never break through it
Unless pure of heart
For my magic detects frauds
And splits them apart
So if evil is friend to you
And deceit is your brother
Your feet will go one way
Your head quite another
But if you are pure
In your heart and your soul
You will not be harmed
And I charge you no toll
So pure of heart enter
And take your respite
Safety is granted
To those who do right
Jaresh, Ka‘ern, and Ja‘el were the first to enter after the words disappeared and the rainbow colors of the mercury-like glittery surface changed to blinding silver. They were soon followed by Kendra, Justin, and Erik. As Arante moved to enter, Jharate grabbed her arm.
Arante gasped. He was not rough with her— but something felt very wrong. She looked up at him in surprise.
“I am not returning to the sanctuary,” he informed her. “Sundown approaches. It would be unwise begin our journey now. Inform the others that we leave at dawn.”
“Yes, I thought night had already come and gone when I ordered everyone to prepare to leave,” Arante agreed. “I suppose time feels longer than it truly is, inside the sanctuary.”
“Or perhaps time is, in truth, extended inside its peaceful walls.”
“That would make sense. It would give us more time to rest and heal without making us lose too much time out here.”
“Indeed.”
“But why aren’t you coming inside for the night?”
“I desire to sleep under the real stars. An afternoon amidst the false stars was more than enough.”
“At least step through the portal to let the sanctuary mend your clothing and get you cleaned up.”
“No. I will shower out here. The sanctuary will, no doubt, have a replica of my attire. Have new clothing, one of the showers, and my grooming supplies sent to me. Instruct whomever you send to complete this task that they are to return to the sanctuary immediately afterwards.”
“Fine. I will send Jaresh to bring you wha
t you need— and to keep watch over you after.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I wish to be alone.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Before Jharate could argue, she stepped through the ring and he was forced to either let go of her or be pulled inside with her.
Raoul guided Lani through the sanctuary entrance— right after Arante— as they finally caught up.
Jharate’s muscles flexed in frustration as he walked outside of the tunnel and watched the sun begin to set over the mountaintops.
“Smart move, Prince Brilliant,” Drakne scoffed quietly as he followed Jharate at a distance. “With that spell in your heart, the sanctuary might have killed you.”
Actually, Drakne was somewhat surprised the sanctuary hadn’t killed Lani the first time she went through. His spells were anything but pure.
Jaresh returned through the sanctuary portal and joined Jharate outside the tunnel with everything requested in hand— whilst Drakne continued to muse over the fact that the girl had not died.
I missed her heart and hit her in the back. Perhaps that made it so her heart was never tainted…
Temptation stirred within Drakne to drag Jharate back to the portal of the sanctuary and shove him through— for the sake of research. But the risk of killing Jharate before he could finish his game and take him back to Vranah was too great. He needed to choose… And he chose his game.
Vranah sat on the king’s throne. He felt weary. It took a massive amount of energy simply to be able to sit on a physical object without passing through it. But even with all that work, at the moment, it was still easier than standing.
And what was his alternative? Give in to his metaphysical spirit and float? Never! He was stronger than that— he was more than that!
Even keeping up his usual appearance was taking too much effort. Maintaining the illusion of his handsome face and sable-colored hair— his royal silver and black robes with their embroidered snakes— the serpent ring with the blood red eyes on his index finger— all of it was downright draining.
Again, there was no alternative. If anyone saw him appearing to wear anything less spectacular than his usual splendid attire, they would know something was wrong.
