by Jani Griot
I was nearly consumed half a dozen times before I tripped, sliding on my face under the shifting sands. It hurt, and I was furious, but something was different. When I turned around, I felt no fight. No force driving me to draw the sword, nor any sensation leading me to lift the shield.
A ripping sensation in my chest drained every bit of energy, and any desire I had to continue. I pulled down the cloak’s hood. I threw down the sword and shield as the monster came closer. I heard Vola's voice at my side and ignored it as I stared down my impending sleep.
Get up my son, you must not give up. You may be our last hope.
His voice held no weight. Just a whisper in the back of my mind. After all, it wasn’t as if I had been hearing Almarine.
Almarine! It took me until that very moment to realize that when I had returned to Vassilious keep, I hadn't seen her. My eyes flicked to the sword and shield I had thrown on the ground before me. There was no time for me to grab them. My mind zipped through every second of my life, before being swallowed whole.
Suddenly, I cried out a word of power. It was almost as if I were saying it one hundred times all at once.
"FURY!"
The shield flew into my grasp as did the blade. Lighting exploded forth in a fan, tendrils of light punishing the rising form as it loomed over me. The lion’s giant head came at my call. Its form primarily made of light, heat, and sparks.
The louder it roared, the more of the sand beast’s form turned into glass. When the shield stopped, and the spray of light cleared, I looked up. Just in time to see the (now completely glass) monster tumble onto the sword and shatter. A million dazzling, multicolored puzzle pieces, filling a space bigger than most rooms in the castle in which I grew up.
I came to my feet slowly, wondering why I hadn’t seen Almarine. I glanced at the sword and shield I had once picked up with a feeling of interest and excitement. They now lay as they had when I found them.
Vola attempted to speak. I started ripping the armor off my body without hesitation, fear, or regret; not knowing what I lost in that moment. Vola's screams disappeared entirely, along with his ethereal presence as I removed the breast plate.
When I turned to head down the huge open doorway behind me, I saw her, slowly stepping from the shadows.
It was the woman I had seen inside the underground tunnels, after the boy and I had escaped the spinning room. She looked the same as she had then, even shaking her head in the same way she had before.
Normally, something like this wouldn’t fill me with such fear. However, she was so massive she wouldn’t be able to fit through the gates back in Vassilious keep. There would be no running from this, she was already bending over, her giant hand a few feet away from crushing me.
Caged Furies
I woke to a sensation like warm water running the length of my body. I had not quite opened my eyes, and the comforting feeling gave me pause as I was still not used to such luxuries.
“Are you awake already?” asked a voice both familiar and oddly foreign to me.
The sensation of familiarity returned, as a suspicion surfaced that my situation was far worse than I knew.
“You heal incredibly fast, but that is due to the sun heart that beats alongside your mortal one,” said the voice as I opened my eyes and tried to take in my surroundings. It took a while for me to register that I had never been in a place like this before, knowing instantly that I’d never seen most of the objects around me. I wasn’t until I was spoken to again that I was able to look away from the new sights and sounds.
“Welcome to the realm your family calls its own,” said the woman. As I looked her over, memories of where I’d seen her before triggered in my mind. The woman who had watched my escape from the tunnels below Vassilious, stood in front of me with her arms crossed.
“The realm of the Epistemic and seekers of truth,” said the woman. She lifted her arms and flung them about with an elaborate flourish, performing as she spun. I took in everything, still far too distracted by the environment to check on myself.
Buildings flew through the air. Large sections of what seemed like entire keeps or villages rose and fell all around me. The city I was in moved as if it were alive. Runes danced through the air like stars in the night sky. Different magic swirled in every area I looked, leaving my mind overwhelmed.
“That’s how I would normally begin this introduction, my newest nephew, but in your case, I have to change my script,” said the woman with a sigh. She turned her back to me and her hands dropped to her sides. Followed by the slumping of her shoulders and the cracking of her knuckles.
“My name is… never mind what my name is, you may call me PRO,” said the woman. She walked closer to me and her eyes shifted to both the right and then the left of me, over my shoulders. I noticed the gesture and looked to my left.
A man who looked like my father was there, staring at me with bright yellow eyes. He wore armored greaves and leggings, arms naked from the waist up, wearing a pair of Elementalist gauntlets. It was not until the man put his hand against the boundary of his cage that I realized he was floating, cross-legged, within a rippling sphere of light and water. He smiled and I looked away to my right.
There sat another who looked more like me than my father, younger than me, even. I would have jumped back if I were able to. The boy flailed, savagely clawing at the edges of the sphere that surrounded him. The light filling the cage pulsed as the boy roared soundlessly. Suppressed by the effects of the cage that surrounded him. I stared at the boy as he sprouted large hawk wings and spun viciously about, before the woman spoke once more.
“You have been caged, as you have far too many old-blooded traits and normally that would be fine, but the one you share, along with these two, has been directly tied to the fall of the prime realm, Endless, and for that fact alone, I must keep you here. Eternally,” said PRO. I looked over at the boy to my right, then at the man to my left, then down at myself. I was in the same style cage that the others beside me were in, floating as my life-force pushed on the barrier around me, making the water roil like a miniature sun of liquid and light.
I felt the heat rise in my chest as I pushed my hand up against the edge of the barrier. My anger flared and power surged out from my veins as I stared at the woman. For the first time in my life, I felt rage at my captivity and the sensation quickly saturated my senses. I roared.
Unlike the boy behind me my roar was audible as it boomed outward. The boundary of my cage grew as univers filled the space.
My cage grew so large, I found myself floating in the middle of a monstrous vortex of life-force and magic, one that dwarfed the others in the runic cages. PRO’s eyes went wide and the man who looked like my father cackled behind me. Images filled my mind and I grew more furious by the second as pieces of understanding filled me, an effect of the realm I was in, connecting me directly to my ancestry.
In that moment, I may not have been able to communicate what I was feeling, but the emotions were felt no matter how hard I tried to drive them away. The boundary began to crack, and Pro took a step backward. Her face bore only confusion. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to escape such a structure. In fact, she’d practically said so herself. After all, how could a cell made to contain godlings be destroyed by a mortal slave? It was not until Pro saw light cracking free of the cage that she reacted.
I do not know if I would have been able to break free, nor was I able to find out. PRO summoned forth an image made of pure light, showing Ezra and Ochloc speaking within the manor’s library. My anger drained at the sight of my lady. I could hear what they were saying and grew concerned as Ezra coughed, something the girl never did. She’d never been sick in her life. One of the many advantages of being born an Elementalist.
The coughing continued and even Ochloc’s brow creased. He asked his daughter what was wrong and the only response she could manage in that moment was a strangled, wheezing breath. My eyes shot toward PRO once more and I saw the runes traveling down
her fingertips. They were made of pure white light and flickering red distorted air.
“That’s enough of that, young man,” said PRO as I took my hand away from the cell’s boundary. The lights flowing from her fingers stopped and I watched as Ezra took a deep breath.
“I would never do this otherwise, my boy, but my hand has been forced,” explained PRO. She turned her back to me and the image of the king and his daughter disappeared. I closed my eyes against a fierce tightening that stretched across my chest. I exhaled slowly. No air escaped to prove I still breathed.
I was trapped. Without a companion or a shred of hope to fuel me and push me forward. I was left with a cavernous loss, and for the first time, I worried over the direction my life would take. Even after the man behind me spoke, barely able to contain his laughter.
He looked at PRO, with a wide smile and unforgiving glare. “Well. He very well could break our chains but imagine what he could do to you!” the man’s laughter continued. “PRO, you’ve tried for cycles. And even you could not decimate the restraints of the cages you’ve built. The restraints you’ve placed us in.”
The man watched her for a moment, then looked back toward me.
PRO’s eyes, which had been set on some distant point, far from me, finally wandered to where I was caged. A look of defeat and, briefly, fear, crossed over her face before the man, laughing wildly, spoke again.
“But he can.”
Epilogue
The End’s Arrival
The boat was the largest in the fleet. Its master stood at the helm, his sharp eyes scanning the coast as they closed in on the shore. The giant waves clashed violently against the massive vessel without slowing it. The boat’s design was based on the deceased pirate Lord Avery’s battleship, only it was almost twice the size, and held more weapons.
Boats of all shapes and sizes surrounded the man’s battleship. Creatures traveled alongside the ships. Chained to those creatures were tethers leading to both the sky and sea. Gryphons, krakens, and more surrounded the vessels, protecting them.
Sheathe was “practicing” his skills against his crewmates. Carter was displeased at the man’s loss of control. The man’s fury was nearly unparalleled.
Carter wheezed, barely able to walk the short distance from his chair to stop Sheath. He nodded slowly before leaning against his favored bodyguard and tried to look around and take in his whole attacking force.
“Don’t worry, my son, I will let you loose upon the sands soon enough,” said the merchant king. “We will not see the failures of my supposed peers as what has come has come and will come again,” said Carter.
Boat remnants—the detritus of the deceased son of the sea, and the efforts of other Honorborn families—drifted by as they sailed through a now submerged jungle toward their first target.
“All will feel the power of cycles.”
Sheathe nodded in response to Carter’s words. The man knew of the merchant’s plans for the sands and even the skies and seas. None would stop Carter in his efforts to reclaim what he’d lost. As none would stop Sheathe in the reclaiming of his own mind.
Carter and Sheathe cracked their necks simultaneously as the elder of the two stretched his arms wide, taking in sunlight as his hood fell from his crown. Glinting tattoos of sideways hourglasses sat to either side of the man’s forehead on his temples, pulsing as Ark’s luminescence filled his brittle body with overwhelming power. He smiled widely before he was forced to once again hide from the energy his body could no longer process, lifting his hood. The sunheart beating in his chest far too powerful for his weakened physique.
Carter’s time may have once been as endless as the seat of power he now headed toward, but even he could now feel his limited heart beats wane with each expelled breath. He needed a new form. Powerful enough to contain the strength of his life-force. The image of the young fury flashed into his mind’s eye, only for him to disregard the thought, knowing that he could make things far worse for himself if he tampered with beings who shared so many of his old-blooded traits.
Carter thought of PRO and his decision was made. He would bring down every omen of the highest realm to the sands and gain access to Endless, restore his failing body and even conquer the throne of Endless. None would stop him in his conquest, not even himself.
“By the fury of my luminescence, nothing in this realm or any other will escape my Dominion.”
Acknowledgments
This project took a lot of hard work and dedication. I was very lucky to have the support of fantastic people like Derrion Stoveall, Timothy Vaughn, Evelyn Hyrczyk, and I can’t forget the help of my wonderful mother. There are a lot of people who helped me to shape my story into a living universe. I appreciate everyone who has supported me in this effort. It means the world to me.
-Jani
