He was glad it was dark. Glad she couldn’t see him too clearly.
“Come with me,” she ordered him gently. “For starters, we need to find you some new clothes. Yours are wrecked.”
She pulled him into the house and into a room near the back.
“Good thing we’ve got some extra stuff here. The people have been very generous, given us more than we could possibly need.” She rifled through the boxes, searching for something that might fit him.
She turned to hold up a shirt and noticed he hadn’t moved.
“Ivan,” she spoke clearly. “There’s a wash basin right behind you.”
He nodded, turned, and startled himself upon seeing a mirrored reflection.
Whose face was he looking at?
He didn’t recognize himself.
He stepped up to the basin, peeling off the tattered remainders of his jacket and shirt, letting them slip to the floor. He leaned over the basin and splashed the cool water onto his face. When he opened his eyes, his skin was cleaner, the blood from his cheek was gone, but he still didn’t recognize the face in the mirror.
Who was this person staring back at him?
He felt Maria’s delicate touch on his shoulder and turned to see she’d found a set of clothes for him.
Maria lost her grip, letting the clothes slide to the floor.
What she saw in his eyes caught her breath. She reached up, stroking his face affectionately. “A hundred years of worry, in twenty-year-old eyes. That’s what I see when I look at you.”
He closed his eyes, lost in her touch. He had never wanted human touch before. Never desired it. But he did want it now. He craved it. Basked in the simple pleasure it gave him.
After almost dying that night, he had felt it, deep within the very pit of his soul. He wanted to live, to leave his past behind and find the strength to survive the future. But it wasn’t so easy to do. How did people do this life thing, every single day? How did people live? It was so much harder than being alone. And having a plan. A specific purpose that drove him. With an assumed ending that he’d always believed would be an early death.
Living hurt.
Caring about things, hurt.
But in a messed up way, that hurt made him feel alive. And he wanted more of it.
He wanted to love. To understand how to love.
He wanted a completely human connection.
An intimately human connection.
He let out an unsteady breath, opening his eyes.
Maria’s stared back into his.
He didn’t pull away.
She encouraged him closer, realizing now what she could offer Ivan that no one else could. She could be his anchor, the one thing he could trust never to change. His very own private piece of stability in an ever-changing and chaotic world.
Ivan embraced Maria as if his life depended on it, leaning his forehead onto hers, their lips not quite touching.
His chest ached. His entire being ached. He didn’t know if he could give in. Wouldn’t giving in just lead to more heartache, more pain, and more confusion?
She felt his resistance and pulled him to her. “You do not have to carry the weight of the world alone, Ivan Crane. Let me take some of it.”
Her words melted over him evaporating all remaining fear.
Ivan found his reason to live.
He lifted his arm, flicked his wrist and closed the door. Locking them inside, shutting away the world he needed to leave behind.
Deciding to live.
Determined to survive.
And choosing to love.
CHAPTER 24
Colby took an anxious breath and stepped inside his home.
He’d gotten Aloyna to a safe location and had just now returned.
He heard footsteps crunching against glass down the corridor.
His father was home.
He knew what Colby had done.
Colby had questions. A lot of them. And this time, his father wasn’t going to get away with vague answers.
He kept his stride strong, his gaze determined.
His father was standing just ahead, his back to Colby, kicking glass shards against the wall. Without looking at his son, he asked, “What happened here?” His voice was surprisingly calm.
Colby swallowed hard about to speak, when his father turned, standing face to face with him. Courage disappeared, replaced by guilt.
“As I suspected.” Displeasure rang hard in his tone.
Colby stepped closer, trying to regain his hardened stance. He still needed answers to questions his father was going to answer.
Fazendiin, a few feet away from his son, unexpectedly reached out and with great force, slapped Colby across the face, knocking him to the floor.
“You insolent fool!”
Colby clambered back to his feet. His father had never hit him before. He had threatened, but had never done it.
Colby couldn’t find his voice. He could not look at his father.
His thoughts, which just moments ago were focused, clear, and ready for answers, dissolved into candid realization. He no longer needed to ask his father if he had cursed Aloyna into the glass. He knew it to be true.
Did that mean everything else was true? Not just what they had seen in the blood vision, but also the prophecy his father had kept hidden from him.
Aloyna claimed the prophecy was a lie anyway, but still, his father did not know this fact. A fact Colby decided to make his own secret.
“You have no idea what you’ve done here today,” his father scolded.
Colby stammered out his words. “You swore almost daily that you’d find a way to free her.”
“She deserved her punishment.”
“You never told me that. You never told me what she did. If you hated her so much, why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Part of her punishment,” Fazendiin replied heartlessly.
“Her punishment? No. It was mine!” Colby argued.
His father scowled.
“You made me believe that the Svoda cursed her into the glass. I felt sorry for her. For you! You made me believe that you loved her. That she deserved to be free. And that the Svoda deserved our vengeance. How is that not punishing me? You made me kill Jasper Thorndike, the man she loved.”
“She was never supposed to be set free,” Fazendiin finally spouted. “She should have spent an eternity wallowing in self pity. Her only friend in this place being you. Who knew nothing of her plight.”
“So you had me kill Jasper out of spite, to what? Make her hate me?”
“I had you kill Jasper for his power,” his father asserted. Fazendiin’s eyes flashed fury.
“You never stopped to think about what it would do to me though, did you? What else are you keeping from me?” demanded Colby, finding his inner strength again.
His father did not reply.
“I listened in,” Colby revealed. “On your little rant earlier to my sister and her friends. You told me you’d found out about Meghan months ago, and the truth is, you knew she existed the moment she was born.” Colby’s voice grew stronger, more confident.
Fazendiin looked at his son.
His creation.
His greatest and most powerful asset. One he could not lose.
“You know what,” continued Colby. “You are such a hypocrite.”
His father stared in silent defiance.
“You talk about family as if it is something to be preserved and glorified, and yet you killed your own father! You just had Colin Jacoby wipe out the rest of the Grosvenor. Were they not part of your so called family? Talk about betraying your own!”
“There is a reason,” Fazendiin explained in complete coolness.
“What is that reason?” shouted Colby. “I think it’s time you tell me, everything. What is it you want from me? Am I just another pawn in your game? Someone to do the jobs you don’t want to do?”
His father turned away. “I want to show you something,” he told Co
lby. Fazendiin walked towards the backside of the house, saying no more, and exited through a door into the garden.
Colby followed. He didn’t know why. But he did.
Moonlight lit up the garden, casting long shadows as Colby followed, the frosty air biting at his throat as he sucked it in apprehensively.
His father stopped near the entrance to one of his private gardens, one Colby had never entered.
Tall shrubbery made up the squared walls of the garden.
Colby peeked through the entrance seeing nothing but darkness.
“Son,” his father began. “I’m going to start a new family. I’m going to take a queen and together with you by my side, we will create the world in which we are meant to live, and to rule. In order for you to understand your part in this world, I’m going to show you everything.” He knew that only this would quench his son’s demands. And only this would sway his greatest asset to stay. He needed Colby’s invincibility. It was the most important part of his plan.
Colby nodded tensely. He was ready. He needed to know.
His father made a motion with his hand and stepped into the garden.
Colby followed, stepping into the darkness, only to freeze a moment later. It was not a garden inside at all. It was a field. A vast field filled with...
“Mazuruk,” Colby whispered, aghast at the sheer numbers lumbering in front of him.
“This is where it all begins,” his father explained. “It has taken me hundreds of years to rebuild the Mazuruk herd. They were never completely extinct. I saved a few. Bred them. Perfected them. Made them stronger.”
His eyes grazed over the field, greedily.
“What are you going to do with them all?” asked Colby, sounding out of breath.
Fazendiin nodded to his left.
It was the Immortality Stone.
“What’s that doing here? What are you going to do, make it bigger?”
“No. Here it will stay, in my safekeeping. It has served its purpose for the time being.”
“What? Outlived its usefulness?”
“Quite the contrary,” said his father. “It’s a necessity. Without the Stone, you, your sister, and that indignant boy Colin Jacoby, would not exist.”
Colby sucked in a breath. “What do you mean?”
“The Stone is how I gave myself immortality. Its magic courses through my veins, keeping me alive. But for you, it is your blood. Your very life force.”
“So you mean, we could have our immortality sucked out of us and back into the Stone, too?”
“Me, yes. You, your sister or that boy, no.”
Colby just made a sound that expressed confusion.
“You were created with this Stone’s magic in your blood, Colby. It makes you and the Stone, in essence, one. You are a part of it, and it a part of you. The only way your immortality could be stripped from you is if this Stone were destroyed. And it cannot be destroyed,” he explained darkly.
“You’re sure of that?”
“The most powerful people have tried, and failed.”
“So what does the Stone have to do with all of this?” asked Colby, waving his arms towards the field filled with lazily ranging Mazuruk.
“This, my son, is our future.” He stepped into the field. “The stones growing inside their bellies will breathe life into our new world. I’ll create a Stone even more powerful than the one that gave you life. This new Stone will forge a brand new magical world in which you will rule by my side.”
“There isn’t enough magic left in this world to create such a Stone,” argued Colby. “The Stones can’t steal people’s magic if there are no magical people to take it from.”
Fazendiin’s gaze churned in a mixture of deadly excitement.
“Oh, but there will be. That’s where the Immortality Stone comes back into play again. Just who do you think gave crazy Amelia Cobb the idea of using the Stone to return magic in the first place?”
Colby’s eyes opened wide, with a blend of both fear and amazement.
His father really was steps ahead of anyone. He had everything all planned out.
“When Amelia was going to return magic,” said Colby, “she was going to sacrifice Colin and my sister to do it.”
“Someone’s life has to be sacrificed. Do you want it to be yours?” asked his father.
“I don’t get it!” Colby replied, his voice rising. “How can you kill your own daughter? Oh, wait! Right! I’m asking the man that imprisoned his own mother for hundreds upon hundreds of years and murdered his father!”
“He deserved to die and she deserved her punishment,” Fazendiin replied with poisonous finality.
“Because they didn’t agree with you?” Colby disputed daringly.
Fazendiin ignored his son’s comment, inhaling deeply before speaking again.
“Your sister would not actually die,” he clarified, “she’d just be, what do the humans call it... brain dead.”
“Is that all Meghan is to you? A carcass to feed magic back into the world,” Colby roared in disgust at his father’s ability to write off her life so easily.
“What do you care?” asked Fazendiin. “She is nothing to you. She is nothing compared to what I offer you!” He stopped for a moment as if unable to understand why his son was being so difficult. “Colby, I gave you life and unlimited power. The ability to have anything you could possibly imagine. An endless lifetime of everything your heart desires.”
“Why did you pick me?” asked Colby. “Why not Meghan, or Colin even? Was it just, reach in and grab one of us? And I just happened to be the lucky winner?”
“I picked you at birth,” his father informed him. “I knew the moment I looked into your eyes that you were the only one with the strength to lead us into the world I wanted to create. I. Chose. You.”
“I still don’t understand my part in all of this. Why do you need me? You’re already powerful and feared by everyone.”
“Yes, this is true. But I am not naive enough to believe that I will live forever. But I will see my world brought to life, and you, Colby, my chosen son, my legacy, are meant to be its King. You cannot be killed. You cannot be overthrown. You are invincible. You. Are. Forever.”
Colby looked away from his father.
It was the first time in weeks he felt the need to let the Magicante take over. He had always been so certain. So sure. Now, doubts threatened to overwhelm him.
He had been groomed to be a king.
No, not a king.
The King!
He did not want to be on the losing side.
But could he sacrifice his sister to be on the winning side? Could he sacrifice the entire world to be on the winning side?
His father had lied to him about almost everything. Could he trust that his father was telling him the complete truth now?
Fazendiin grew impatient and strode into the field stretching his arms out wide, displaying his handiwork.
“Did I choose wrong when I picked you?” he questioned bluntly. “Your entire future stands in front of you. An endless life with endless possibilities. Or it stands behind you in a world about to die.”
Colby looked upon his father with horrified disbelief.
Did he expect him to choose, right this minute?
A long blade appeared in his father’s hands. He leaned over, placing it underneath the throat of the closest Mazuruk.
“The new world is coming,” he declared. “Make your choice.”
READ THE NEXT BOOK
A ghostly intervention—the past will come back to haunt you…
Book 8, Forsaken: The Seer’s Apprentice, The Pearl Dragon, and The Devoted Ghost.
Read it Now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XCJOHO6
In Book 8…
Jae Mochrie is Juliska Blackwell’s prisoner. She’s tasked him with a simple request… one he refuses to give in to. The price for his defiance is exactly what he expects. But he sees an out… a possible solution, or at least a temporary
solution. One that might give him more time. Unfortunately, it does not go as planned and Juliska’s reaction is not what he expects, at all.
It sends her into a fury. And then to top it off, she sees a ghost from her past. A face she never wanted to see again. These events set off a chain reaction leading to Juliska’s first real vision in years.
Just how did Juliska Blackwell go from lost girl found and raised by the Svoda, to a Firemancer, to being their Queen? You might think you know her motivation… there’s been a few hints along the way.
What happened when she was kidnapped by Jurekai Fazendiin? The first created and most powerful of the Immortal Grosvenor.
What really happened on what should have been the happiest day of her life? Her wedding day…
And who exactly is “Uncle Eddy” otherwise known as Colin Edward Gillivray, and why did he take his own life? Forcing him to straddle the world of the living and the world of the dead, for all eternity?
Read it Now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XCJOHO6
Review Book 7: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G67OQGK
Get on the New Release List: http://www.jackallanternbooks.com/p/fated-fantasy-adventur.html
THE FATED FANTASY ADVENTURE SERIES IS COMPLETE
Please Read in Order Starting with Book 1, Awaken
Book 1: Awaken
Book 2: Shifting
Book 3: Embrace
Book 4: Broken
Book 5: Divided
Book 6: Taken
Book 7: Control
Book 8: Forsaken
Book 9: Sacrifice
Book 10: Redeem
Book 11: Ascend (The Final Book in the Series)
Control (The Blood Vision, The Immortality Stone, and The Woman in Glass) (A Fated Fantasy Quest Adventure Book 7) Page 25
