by Jamie Magee
Fate must have agreed with me. Willow didn’t walk through the gates of Chara; I carried her as she lay unconscious in my arms. The days that passed after that were dark and trying, and each of them pulled us away from this world, telling me in some way that we were not ready for this.
After the Blue Moon, once everything settled down for a few days, I was prepared to bring her here, let her know that we had time to think about this step.
Unknowingly, Perodine had convinced me that I was indeed Guardian. She had done that when she showed me Willow here with Libby in her arms so long ago. It took me a few days to find peace with that, to really breathe in the idea that I was the king that I was raised to respect and honor, the king that we should all strive to be like, the one who ruled with his heart and always put his family before the world, because family is the world.
I planned to bring her here one day when I knew it would be near silent. I had dinner, an entire night planned. But when I came in that night from playing football with my brother, Willow was standing at the door with her travel bags, ready to run. I took it as a sign. She may have wanted to run from the grief of losing her friend or the memory of facing Drake, it could have been a million things, but under it all she wanted out of Chara, and I was—am—a fool for her. I would never have the power to deny a desire of hers. We ran, only telling Brady that she needed time, space.
Until now, we had never been home long enough for me to find the courage to lead her here. Even now, I was waiting on the stars themselves to fall from the sky to stop me from showing her this place.
“Home,” I thought, letting the back of her head go. She looked up from my chest, then very slowly all around her with wide eyes.
We were in the field just before the Radiance. The blades of grass were lavender, lines of blue veined through them. Tiny glowing lights were mingling just above them and throughout the air. I knew that they were nothing more than a reflective light of energy, but to lay eyes on them for the first time, you would swear that tiny fairies were swimming through the air.
The sky was a deep purple. The sun hiding behind the massive trees just behind us.
“This is not home.”
“It is the home I was meant to show you…it’s the only home in Chara you should know.”
I felt her fear rise in her as she squeezed my hand. “Breathtaking…”
I suppose that was a good sign.
“Where in Chara are we?”
“Just before the Radiance.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a place that is well guarded and held to a sacred level.”
“Rampart Warriors,” she thought, intending to no longer let her voice disrupt the silence.
I let my eyes tell her yes. I knew that Justus had not clearly described their role to her, or exactly what they were protecting. That had been left to me, and I wasn’t sure where to start. As I child when I heard the stories, they were just that, stories, fairytales. Standing here now, after everything she and I had been through, I knew they were not just stories. I felt the gravity of every word. I felt the moments that were not recorded for the history of the world. I felt as if I had returned.
“The Radiance is where Aliyanna and Guardian, you and I, first arrived in Chara. There is an immense amount of energy in this place. It has always been cherished, in some ways worshiped.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. She stepped back slowly, looking all around her. In our little talks in the late night hours, she told me more than once how she despised how Esterious was ruled by one person, how foolish she thought it was for everyone to bow down to one thing, to one place.
“The energy is worshiped, the peace of the place; nothing corporeal. People walk through this place in search of themselves or when they wish to find courage. That peace and courage are already within them, but here, because of the energy, they feel it, they find their way.”
I took her hand and led her toward the forest before us. I suppose that was the best way to describe it. These were the smaller trees in Radiance. They were only a few hundred feet tall, and their branches interlocked and stretched out just as far. Moss that was the shade of lavender hung high above, and as it swayed with the wind you could easily imagine a sea above you. The glows of energy were abundant in here as well. You could see them through the thick of the forest, miles in each direction.
There were worn paths around the trees, and white stones across the ground amplified the dark colors of the bark perfectly. It wasn’t dark or light here; it never was. At any time of the day or year, this place looked the same. Serenity.
“Breathtaking,” she thought.
I glanced up toward the towering branches, feeling the eyes of the forest gaze at us with a mix of awe and relief; neither emotion I could agree with right now.
I pulled Willow closer to me on instinct.
“Why did you seem so worried about showing this place to me?” she asked.
“I suppose I was having a hard time placing you and me here,” I breathed in, noticing how her scent of lavender brought life to the colors, how all of nature seemed to sway and bow, acknowledging her presence.
Her pensive stare stabbed my soul.
“To me, knowing that you and I began this world terrified and honored me at the same time. I denied the thought, even when we were sitting at that table in the cabin in Montana, when my father was telling you the story of our world. I knew he had already declared this was our place. I couldn’t take it in, not even when August laid out the charts.”
“When did you take it in?” I felt the doubt in that thought, her wondering why it took me so long, wondering why if I understood my world’s heritage I didn’t embrace it.
I swallowed the emotions that wanted out and simply thought, “Libby.” The moment we both saw that image of Libby, the moment we knew she was ours was an epic one that still stole our breaths; even now as we both remembered it, we were near speechless. By saying Libby’s name, Willow knew the exact moment I grasped the idea that we founded this world.
In the silence after that thought, I struggled to find words, wishing she could just feel my emotions, that she could ask me what she didn’t understand and we could leave the rest unspoken, as we had done with everything in the past.
“Ideally, it’s a fairytale. Who would not want to tell the world they had dreamed of their soul mate their entire life, that they had brought her home—and lo and behold, they discovered this world, this home, one that I dreamed of escaping over and over was one I had created with you?”
“Ideally, but not in reality?”
I could feel the pain in her heart, the rejection she was embracing with fear. I couldn’t figure out why she would jump to such a painful conclusion.
“Everyone in Chara is extraordinary—we are raised to be so—but some families seem to have more insights, strengths that are more easily seen. I came from one of those families, and first and foremost I was taught to be humble about my bloodline, to never boast, but to help people discover what was amazing about their blood, their life. It was…it’s just hard to fathom that I was part of this creation, that something like this came to be because I was lucky enough to get you to run away with me once before—to build a life here.”
“And now you want to run again…with me?”
Those last words were full of uncertainty. I’d asked her days ago to run away and not look back, for us just to fix this darkness and not hurt anyone else. She told me that we had to come home so we could remember what we were fighting for.
Home. To her, home was the four-bedroom house I built for her when I assumed my life would be nothing more than a traveler. Home. A place where everyone in my bloodline was less than a mile away. Home. A place that had the quaintest, friendliest town only miles away. Home. The home I’d given her, the one she thought we all grew up in, was a sham. It was created to give my family some sense of realism. It was created to hide my second coming from this world. It was created to
teach me to be humble, to teach me what really mattered. It had served its purpose, but it was not a home my Willow deserved.
“I don’t think we can run from this anymore.”
“Your eyes look scared. Why?”
I tried to give her a smile, but I couldn’t. “I never wanted to be king…” I let out a sigh. “I wanted that weight to rest on another’s shoulders…I wanted it to be someone else’s fault when everything went wrong, the guy that fixed destruction, not created it.”
“But…you’re not a king.”
I glanced away from her. “I haven’t…we haven’t taken our reign yet, but as far as this world is concerned, it is decided.”
“How could they decide something thing like that? Because they think we’re some kind of supernatural couple? We are just people. They haven’t had anyone rule them before; why would they idolize someone now?”
“They’ve always idolized the dimension’s creation, the beginning…and they have always known that couple would return to protect them.”
I tried to weight the word ‘protect’ as heavily as I could, but I knew she didn’t hear it the way I wanted her to.
“We’re not going to let anyone hurt them. They can idolize us any way they want, but we don’t have to tell anyone what to do or how to do that—you have said as much when you have spoken to crowds before.”
I took her hand in mine and stared deep into her eyes. “Willow, if the stories of my world are true…we are the only ones that can protect them.”
“Then we will.”
She was just going to have to see it. I couldn’t speak what I wanted to say, couldn’t voice aloud the risk; not yet.
“There is more to see.”
Her eyes grew wide with a childlike enthusiasm as I pulled her hand closer.
“Landen, I don’t know what you are doubting right now, but I’m in here. I swear I am. I’m not done. We are going to find peace. We are going to figure out why we so boldly paid the price of hell to be in this place right now. Standing here now, with you…I already think it was worth it.”
I felt my soul shudder, the mark on my chest flame. I felt fire on my arms, across my back. How did she always know what to say and the perfect moment to say it?
I was still as a statue, ignoring the pain in my chest. Right then, she reached her hands for that place as if she could feel it. As she slid them to reach for my face, I leaned my forehead to hers. I struggled to find the perfect poetic words, the perfect promises, and the only words I managed to think were, “I’m yours. Forevermore.”
She stood on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to mine. With little effort, she deepened our kiss and had eased her body against mine. In this place, all energy, every sensation, is amplified. She was nothing less than gloriously intoxicating; the taste of her kiss, the feel of her skin, the scent of her essence—all of it was enough to make me forget where I was for an instant.
I clasped her hands on my chest and pulled away from her kiss, somehow stealing both our breaths.
The grin on those precious lips, the look in her eye, was near sinful. “Too forward? I was just starting to feel the adrenaline,” she thought.
I had to have been blushing when I grinned and carefully whisked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t want an audience.”
“Audience?”
I suppose this was just as good a time as any to allow her to see the souls that now were at my command.
“Descend,” I spoke clearly, holding her stare.
At that moment, thousands of Rampart Warriors fell silently from the branches above. They landed on the white rocks at our feet without a sound, effortlessly in charge of their energy. They had heeded my command without effort, proving once more that I was meant to lead them.
There is an oath, a sacred rumor, that when the Flames rise, their people will sense their every command. If I had the power, I would break that connection. I would release them from any supernatural call they may feel. In truth, they each had the free will to ignore me, but the people of Chara would never ignore my command. The air was saturated with their devotion, their honor to stand here with us.
Willow’s wide eyes looked in every direction at the warriors before her, all dressed in black, all built and bred to defend this place with whatever force or grace was needed.
Wordlessly, each and every one of them took one knee before her.
“Oh my God. How many are there?”
“These are the youngest warriors. They are the last line of defense before the rest of the world. The higher ranking warriors, the ones that are the most lethal, are closer to the Radiance.”
“This isn’t the Radiance?”
“This is only the outskirts of the Radiance. The forest barricades this place.”
“Make them rise, Landen. Don’t let them bow like that.”
No thought to tell them to do so came from me, but they obeyed wordlessly, which only hurt my soul. They were connected to her, too.
The warriors parted, making a path for us to walk through the forest. Though they were on their feet, their heads kept to an honorable bow.
“Why are there so many?”
“In our father’s time, there were only a few thousand. But with my generation, Marc and Brady’s, more and more felt called. That, too, was predicted.”
“More warriors were predicted?” she asked as she hugged my side and we walked on.
“Their call was said to mean two things: their masses would hide the true king, and their strength would guard the Radiance from the ever growing darkness.”
“Is the Radiance like a city?”
“It’s like a wall, a barrier.”
“They think we walked through a wall in the string? To get here so long ago?”
“Fell from the sky, is what most texts say. Their energy made the massive gates that all travelers pass through. Over time, more passages were made like the one by our home.”
“What are they protecting it from?”
“Thoughts, souls.”
“What?”
“It will be easier to show you than explain it to you, but it is said that our energy created this place, then our energy created the rampart, along with the dimension where we went cliff diving today, giving distance between Esterious and here.”
“We used a dimension as a barricade?”
“The very one you faced your fear in today.”
Her eyes grew wide with awe. “That beautiful place stands between light and darkness?”
“In a sense.”
“Are there people there?”
I knew she didn’t like the idea of any souls near Esterious. The very idea of Chara being closer than she thought was bringing that Earth-shattering terror to her once more.
“It’s not a large place. The city you grew up in is easily larger than that place. It is nothing more than water and cliffs.”
“Irony.”
I furrowed my brow at her to question her thoughts.
“You and Drake, kings of light and dark, met on neutral ground and found friendship.”
That was the truth. Yet, since then we had found strife and somehow worked our way back around to a balance, one that he was far more ready to accept than I was.
“That place we were in today is receding…the Veil has overcome most of it.”
Wide-eyed, she looked up at me.
“Donalt has been using the dead in attempts to breach our borders since the day Guardian and Aliyanna left Esterious. Now he is only a breath away.”
“How do we stop him? Can he hurt this place?”
I hesitated, not knowing how to tell her the truth, especially in front of the men that were fearlessly in my command. “There is only one way to stop him—soul to soul. We have to be one.”
Her tan cheeks blushed as her mind clearly took her to the moments where she and I had merged our souls, the euphoric high we both felt in those moments—but that was nothing but a brush of wha
t was expected of us, that was merely temporary. That was something we could walk away from; this ceremony of the Flames was not.
“I thought you said you didn’t want an audience?”
Now I had an audacious grin strapped across my face. “If it were that easy, I would have found the courage to do that by now.”
She was anxious for me to explain, but we had reached the gate that led into the next part of the Radiance.
I doubted she could see it since the trees masked the way. The only way to open this door was with a force of energy from one of the warriors, to literally knock on the door. I sent a nod of energy before us, and when it reached the thousand-foot doorways, what looked like trees with lavender moss began to wave across thin air, mocking waves of water. Within that wave, you could clearly see the heavenly signs: Pisces, the sign of the twin fish, which were interlocking around the scorpion—a sign of protection. This was Chara’s crest of unity.
I clutched her hand as the doorways opened into a new world.
Chapter Twelve
~ Willow ~
Beauty like this was not natural in any state of mind. Once the magical gate had appeared, I’d lost my ability to breathe.
I halfway understood why there would be guards posted before such a place, but I still didn’t understand how Donalt was threatening us in our own dimension, how something so dark and evil as him could even dare to let his eyes rest on this wonder.
I almost dared to compare it to Pelhan’s world. Though the beauty was comparable, they were drastically different. This place felt familiar to me. It felt like home, whereas Pelhan’s resembled a cosmic dream in which I was only a guest in.
The sky was a mix of deep purples and swirls of dark pink. The grass, like the field we had arrived in, was light lavender with shades of blue racing through it. In the distance, I saw a vast waterfall—only it wasn’t falling, it was rising. To my right were trees so massive, I felt as if I were no larger than the golden lights that were fluttering through the air, making it seem as if the stars themselves had descended upon us.
