by Amy Marie
When Darcy recovers his balance and turns my way, he sends a stream of dark power out to meet my light.
“Why are you still fighting, Nora?” Darcy screams. “You have lost the ability to break my curse. You can no longer win. It is over!”
“There has to be a way!” I yell back, strength renewed by my pillar of faith, beacon of hope, and power of love. My light has become stronger!
“There is a way!” I hear Dylan shout from behind me.
“What?” I yell back over my shoulder.
“When I grabbed the dagger, I had a vision from a past water soul. In the vision, I was possessed by Lilly. She needed me to do something that she couldn’t do. She needed me to break Flamel’s curse and steal the dagger!”
“How?” I have to shout over the chaos as I hold my power steady.
“I had to use the dagger and stab him in the heart! It had to be me!”
With Dylan’s answer, it’s like the ground falls away beneath me. The shock of it distracts me, causing my power to falter. Darcy’s power shoots past mine, right into my core, stabbing every nerve in burning pain. I fall to the ground, gasping in tear-filled agony.
That’s how Flamel’s curse was broken without the necklace. That’s how Lilly destroyed Talbot. We each have the power to bring down our counterpart. It’s all part of the balance. For nearly three-hundred years, Darcy couldn’t be killed because the only soul that had the power to kill him, if they ever found each other again, would never dream of doing it.
I have the power to break his curse… but it will kill him in the process.
A sob of gut-wrenching pain escapes me from both the pain of Darcy’s power and the knowledge that there’s only one way to save our existence. I thought I could make this choice when I gave Dylan the necklace to save Shkote’Nsi, but to have to make this choice twice? And this time kill Darcy in the process? This gruesome twist of fate is too much to bear.
I roll onto my side as Darcy approaches. With the dagger in my grasp, I stumble away, buying some time. The sounds of battle between Rafe and Lilly continue outside the circle.
I have to hurry, Rafe is risking his life.
Circling the pool, I fear I don’t have the strength for what the world is asking me to do. Tears stream down my face, knowing I have no other choice.
But then Darcy does something I’m not prepared for. He turns and lifts his hands to Professor Besim. A dark stream of light shoots straight into the heart of the man. Besim slumps to the pedestal beneath him, seemingly lifeless, blood running from his nose.
“No!” I cry, stunned with grief.
The screams that fill the circle make up the most awful sound I’ve known to exist.
Darcy turns and takes his aim at Inigo’s heart.
“No! Darcy, please stop!” I choke out my plea.
The dark power shoots from Darcy’s hand, bringing Inigo down to the same fate as the professor.
“I’m… s-sorry,” I can just barely hear Darcy’s strained apology. His face turns the darkest shade of red as he labors against the power controlling him.
“Char! Run!” Tara yells as Darcy turns his hand toward my sister.
“Darcy! Please! NO!” I scream from outside my body. It’s like I can see everything happening from up above.
Lilly disarms Rafe as his dagger clatters to the ground beside him. She forces him down on his knees to watch what’s about to take place. The elements are screaming in fear from their spots, clinging to the stones, digging deep to hold their powers in protection.
Char is screaming like a madwoman after watching the two slain men fall on their pedestals. She grasps her stomach in fear, turning her back toward Darcy in a protective stance, but never wavering on her pedestal.
Disembodied, I watch as I launch myself at Darcy, attempting to stop him, but I fail. The power of his combined darkness with Lilly shoots into my sister’s back, knocking her off the pedestal.
Her body slumps to the ground.
Chapter 30
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
My faith, my hope, my love, all cut down before my eyes. I’ve had plenty of loss in my life, but none like this. I’ve been thrown into the ultimate pit of despair at the edge of this world’s existence.
Darcy steps before me, veins popping all over his face. Even now, when I should be happy to stab his heart after what he’s done, I just want to give up. I can see the struggle beneath the surface — the horrors of what Lilly has forced him to do.
“Fight me!” he snarls.
Tears fill his eyes to match mine as he raises his glowing hands to put them around my neck. I don’t even have the power to resist. At this point, I just want to beg for relief from this battle. It’s a horror unimagined, yet something my soul recognizes deep down. This isn’t the first time, but now I’m hoping it’s the last.
A voice I wasn’t expecting finds its way to me through the chaos.
“Don’t give up, Nora! Use your light!”
It’s Char, crouched at the side of her pedestal.
She’s alive!
I place a glowing hand on Darcy’s chest, pushing against him with my light. His grasp around my neck eases as we huddle in a gripping struggle, dark battling light.
“Are you… still… in there?” I grunt, channeling my light into him, making one last attempt to drive out the darkness.
“N-N-o-ra,” he gnashes his teeth trying to get my name out. Tears streak down his crimson cheeks. The darkness battling inside him has him clenching in agony. “K-Ki-ll…m-me!” His words find their way out in our struggle.
Knowing what must be done, I grasp the dagger and raise it high.
I look into Darcy’s eyes one last time, seeing his soul begging for relief from his prolonged existence. He’s broken beyond repair from the darkness inside that has hold of him. I pray for some sort of divine guidance, begging for another way.
As if by divine intervention, something stops me. I feel a shift of something deep within me as my mind brings to surface a memory of Uncle Mike’s gentle face giving me advice about the changes in my life. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I remember at the time how his words had struck a chord in me:
“Sometimes it takes sacrifice for the balance to be restored.”
And suddenly, the answer is there. It’s been right in front of me all along. In every religion, myth, legend, and good versus evil story. It’s even written on the stones. It’s something our human minds block because they can’t comprehend the magnitude of our true potential. We disconnect ourselves from our source, our energy, numbing us to the possibilities.
It’s love. Not just what we think is love, but the ultimate kind. The self-sacrificing kind. The emptiness has taken our power to love and replaced it with selfishness and fear. The destructors have chased us from one life to the next, keeping our greatest power at bay with the swipe of each dagger. But now I have the ultimate power at hand and the knowledge that my mind has kept disconnected from my soul.
All in one moment, everything changes. Instead of plunging the dagger into Darcy’s heart, I toss it over his shoulder into the pool behind him.
“Nora, no!” I hear the others’ screams, but nothing they say will stop me now.
I feel Darcy take a breath in surprise. Taking advantage of the moment he’s caught off guard, I wrap my glowing arms around him and push with all my power to follow the dagger with Darcy into the primordial waters.
My existence draws to a close as the darkness envelops me as comforting as Darcy’s arms wrapped around me.
Sacrifice is the key. Not human sacrifice, but self-sacrifice. Char called it my greatest power. Talbot called it the elusive element. We are not light and dark, we are so much more. We are self-sacrificing love. We are balance.
Epilogue
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” Rafe says to the full auditorium. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the only thing that stands the test of time is the written word. Richard Grafton
knew it, that’s why he preached about the importance of the ‘engrafted’ word. It’s why his symbol, created nearly five-hundred years ago, is still relevant today.” He points to the printer’s mark that adorns the window of the lecture hall.
The students’ eyes shift to gaze at the decorative window:
“We’re at the dawn of a digital age. Everything can be erased with the push of a button. Imagine, if you will, that twelve-thousand years ago civilization thrived as we do. Developed beyond our mind’s capacity. Back then, they were reaching for the stars, mapping and learning all about them. Mysteries to us today. What if ancient astrologers got their knowledge because they had a technology so advanced, we can’t even imagine it? Much like our grandfathers wouldn’t have been able to imagine the smart phones we carry in our pockets now.” He points to one of the students in the second row. “Ahem, the phones we carry in our pockets.” He glares at the young student who keeps looking down at the screen of his phone.
The young man quickly pockets his phone with red cheeks as the rest of the class giggles.
“Now,” Rafe continues, “if you’re imagining this world like I am, what would happen if something came along and wiped it out? All of this knowledge, advancement, technology gone in one fell swoop. What would be left behind as evidence? What pieces would we find to put the story together? There needs to be something left behind to stand the test of time. Something concrete. Something to pass on. That’s the power of the written word—”
A bell rings, cutting the lecture short.
“All right, next class we’ll be going over the evolution of Egyptian hieroglyphs and the different forms of interpretation,” Rafe announces as the students file out the exits.
“If only they knew how important this all is,” Rafe mumbles under his breath, gathering his things. With a sigh, he glances up at the window and hurries out of Andover hall, anxious to get home to his family.
When Rafe pulls into his driveway, there’s a package waiting for him at the front door of his two-story brick colonial home.
“It’s here!” Rafe calls into the house before he can even get in the door. Once inside, Rafe sets the package on the counter with a smile. When he opens the box, he pulls out a brand new book with his picture on the back cover.
Nothing New Under the Sun by Rafe Clark.
The title says it all. It’s the story of everything he’s learned about the cyclical passage of time, and everything that’s been retold. It’s not just a compilation of the past, but a guide for the future. It’s Statera 2.0. He laughs at the idea.
“Your book!” squeals Char. “It looks great! I’m so proud of you, my published author!”
Rafe flashes a modest smile as his wife joins him in the kitchen. He leans down to give her a hearty kiss. “How was your day?” he asks her.
“Great! We just got home from bible study,” Char says.
It still amazes Rafe that Char stuck with her Catholic roots after everything that’s happened. If anything, it seems her faith has grown stronger than ever.
“Of course, I still believe,” she’d said when they first married and he asked her about it. “I’ve witnessed firsthand how one person’s sacrifice can save the world. How lucky am I?”
He’ll never forget that moment as he stared at his beautiful wife. His heart swelled with a love that words just couldn’t describe.
She’s a woman who lost so much, and nearly died herself. The lingering effects of that fateful day left her body weakened and her legs paralyzed, yet she lived every day of her life after as if she were the luckiest woman in the world. And perhaps she was.
The doctors said she’d never walk again. Most claimed that a trauma like the one her body received meant a high-risk pregnancy. They pleaded with her to abort the baby. They claimed the percentage of a healthy birth was miniscule and she shouldn’t put herself at risk. But Char refused to listen.
Rafe had stood by his wife’s decision, it was her body after all.
Thank God.
“Daddy!” A young healthy boy barrels into the room with arms wide to welcome his father home.
“There’s my boy!” Rafe beams at his son, picking him up to greet him with a hug and kiss.
“We’ve got to be down at the park in a half-hour,” Char says, rolling her wheelchair around the kitchen. “Do you want anything to eat?”
“No, thank you. I’ll just make a cup of coffee really quick,” Rafe says, but before he can get up, Char places a steaming hot mug in front of him. He sighs in relief. “You’re a lifesaver!”
As he takes the first sip of his coffee, Rafe turns on the television to catch the evening news. Char used to hate watching the news. It got to a point where she’d always make her husband turn it off. Everything was so negative in the aftermath of destruction. But after what happened in the temple, slow changes began to take effect. The transformation that’s taken place since has been staggering, and there are only a handful of people that understand the true reason for it.
Every major war that was being fought around the world has ended in treaties. Mass productions of food have been set up in a unified distribution system and there’s an unprecedented lack of world hunger. Cures for diseases have been developing into a monthly phenomenon. Crime and murder rates are at an all-time low. It seems this is just the beginning — the balance has truly swung back into full restoration.
But it wasn’t without loss. About half the world’s population was wiped out in what the news now labels as humanity’s failed extinction. The wake of the devastation after the natural disasters left the world struggling for resources. The only way to survive was to band together in a united effort for recovery.
And then there were the personal losses. The loved ones who were left behind, buried in the garden of the sacred Temple of the Sun.
Tears fill Rafe’s eyes at the thought, he still has a hard time recalling those fateful moments. They all lost so much. Professor Besim. Inigo. He almost lost his wife and unborn child. And then Nora and Darcy…
A single tear slips down as he quickly wipes it away.
Char lays her hand on Rafe’s with a gentle squeeze. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s go early. You stroll, I’ll roll,” she jokes, proving that humor must run in the family.
Rafe pushes his wife’s wheelchair along the park’s trail with thoughtful care. Their son, just over four years old, runs ahead of them as Char calls out, “Careful Donovan, not too far.”
They try to make a habit of coming here, not to bring back painful memories, but to celebrate the victory over an evil that the world will never know about. And to honor the lives of those that sacrificed to defeat it.
As the path takes them along the river, Donovan runs closer to playground by the water’s edge. As usual, there’s a large mixed group of children screaming and playing together.
Rafe sits next to Char on a nearby bench, keeping a watchful eye on their son. Watching Donovan, he’s reminded of his two dearest friends: his wife’s sister, Nora, and Donovan’s namesake, Darcy. Their sacrifice was the greatest of all, though he didn’t understand it at the time.
When Nora chose to hurl herself and Darcy into that pool, it didn’t even take a second for Lilly to lose her power, and the cat wasted no time taking the opportunity to finally defeat the snake. Though, sometimes he still wishes they could have found another way to defeat the emptiness and restore the balance, he would give anything to have the two of them back.
In a way, he feels a part of them is still close by, especially in Donovan’s case. The young boy has developed strange similarities to his namesake for never having met the fellow. Rafe mentally shrugs and assumes that’s what he gets for naming his child something that translates to ‘dark warrior’.
For perhaps the millionth time since Donovan was born, Rafe worries about the choice in name. He sincerely hopes that the young boy never has to reach the potential that his name has set. From everything he’s read on the Bennu legends, it seems
there will be a period of peace and tranquility before the emptiness will have the power to fight back again. The legends call it a golden age. But if Donovan ever does begin to develop the reminiscence, at least his father will be the one to help him through it as his guardian. And he just so happens to have some friends close by that can help protect them…
As if on cue, hands grasp on Rafe’s shoulders from behind, and he turns to see a group of his closest friends that have come to be as good as family. Dylan, Dansé, Joe, and Tara all vowed to settle close by so they could spend time together catching up, swapping stories, and… well, reminiscing.
Though they meet here often, today is a special day. It marks the fifth anniversary of the final battle.
Rafe is pulled from the conversation when a small voice is heard singing softly nearby. His head snaps in his son’s direction as Donovan sings the words to You Are My Sunshine.
He glances at Char in question, but she just shrugs saying, “I didn’t teach him that.”
All of the group falls silent.
Rafe steadies his son by the shoulders and asks, “Donovan, where did you learn that song?”
The little boy shrugs and points toward the river, “The little girl by the river was singin’ it,” he says with a voice of innocence.
Rafe pops up to scan the crowd. He sees the back of a little blond head as a young girl crouches on the riverbank, teetering dangerously close to the water’s edge. Worried that the little girl might accidentally fall in, Rafe directs Donovan into Char’s arms and runs toward the water.
“Oh my God! Sweetie, get away from the edge! It’s dangerous!” The girl’s mother swoops in to pick her daughter up into an embrace, keeping the little girl’s face turned away from Rafe.
Desperately curious to get a glimpse of the girl’s features, Rafe realizes he missed the name that her mother called her.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Rafe says to the woman. “Is this your daughter?”
“Yes,” the woman eyes Rafe suspiciously. “Why?”
