by Kody Boye
Why now, of all times, did he have to feel this way, especially after he and Katarina had such a good picnic?
Because it’s life, he thought. Because that’s the way the world works.
The world established itself on a few basic principles—you lived, you ate, you slept, you loved and you persisted no matter who or what managed to get in your way. It didn’t matter if you were born blind, mute, deaf, with broken legs or even the inability to walk: you were, by nature, forced to move as though strung by some magical rope and walk, crawl or hobble toward your next destination. Sure—you could always turn a blind eye toward something in your way, and you could always look back at the mistakes you made in order to better yourself as a person, but you could never really, truly go back to the past and change something that had been done. The fact was that no matter how much Nova tried to hang on to the spiritual reality that he and his family were in a safe place, his past seemed to haunt him, so much so that whenever he closed his eyes he seemed to see before his darkened vision a glance of home and what had happened to it when Herald’s men had infiltrated it. He also, sadly, could not shake the reality that his frustrations had driven him to such a hellish place only to get him captured and abused.
If he truly thought about it for a few hard, concentrated moments, he would realize that he had escaped lucky and that, by the chance of God, his friend had arrived at just the right moment to save him from the hellish agony of his situation.
“Nova,” Katarina said.
“Sorry?” he asked.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, hon. I’m fine.”
Though the look Katarina offered him seemed anything but convinced, Nova couldn’t help but wonder if his wife had seen through the mask he purposely wore in order to shroud his vision.
Night descended upon them early and with storm clouds in the sky. Rain threatening to roll forth and hail beginning to fall, clinking against the windows like miniature fingernails from a living corpse’s hand, Nova kept his distance from the window for fear that lightning would strike him dead in the heart and cut his existence off far too soon.
It’s all right, he thought. You’re inside.
The likelihood of the situation was that nothing would happen at all. He would, of course, feel the innate sense of fear that had developed over the course of the past few years from his near-death experience, and there would, of course, be the fire and pain within his chest that threatened to drive screams from his throat, but he would not be harmed should he keep away from the windows.
At the far side of the room, braced before the fireplace and tending the curling flames with a hot poker, Ketrak raised his head to watch him with sad, unsure eyes before returning his attention to his work.
He knows, Nova thought.
Of course he knew. How could Ketrak not know when Nova had confessed to Katarina on one long, cold night that he had nearly died in such a hellacious monstrosity? His wife and her relationship with her father was so strong that little was kept between them, save marital secrets and things too personal to reveal even to a partner, so to think that Ketrak didn’t feel pity for him was like expecting someone who loved another to refuse their touch. That person, so infatuated with their partner as they were, would not shy away from a welcoming touch, a wayward kiss, a stray hand or a torrid embrace, nor would they ever deny the one they loved a moment so intimate it revealed their darkest secrets. Like those lovers, and like those concerns for one another, Ketrak had to at least pity him in the slightest, for doing so allowed the son-in-law he loved so much a moment of reprieve from a situation that terrified him so much he often slept with the covers over his head.
Trembling, unable to resist the urge to shiver in the face of the rain as it began to fall and threatened to swallow him whole, Nova wrapped his arms around his body, settled down on the bed, then allowed his eyes to falter to the floor as the first signs of thunder began rolling in from the ocean.
“Are you all right?” Katarina asked, settling down on the bed next to him.
“I’m fine,” Nova said, bowing his head and lacing his fingers between his legs.
“No you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve never had problems with thunderstorms before.”
Had he, though? So far as he could recall, he ever once had to worry about succumbing to the natural forces of human emotion, so it was no wonder that in this very moment his entire body was threatening to overthrow him as the king of his creation. His crown of thorns removed from his head, his chalice of light from his hand, his dubious robe made of silver and gold and his shoes from leather and mold—all holy, royal, magical, pure, cathartic and necessary cast aside in one hesitant moment, a flush of the hand and a toss of the flame. He need not the powers of integrity in moments of weakness, for strength need not arise from the handle of his being, nor need he the war sword of justice to strike down his enemies, for his foes were not physical, set in reality and standing their ground. No. These things—these horrible, horrible things—were of the emotional, the metaphysical and conscious mind.
Can you withstand it? his conscience whispered. Can you go on living knowing that you may soon succumb to the very thing you are so afraid of?
What, though, was he afraid of—his mind, his emotions, the tangible and almost-shapeless fact that Odin was gone, that Miko was dead, that his wife, pregnant and fragile, could easily be swept out from under him in but a moment’s notice? His father-in-law could die, Carmen could decide to leave, the kingdom could fall and the king, so powerful as he was, could be impaled upon the tip of a sword. All would take but a moment’s notice, as time operated on scales of one to sixty, one to twelve, then one to twenty-four, and all could transpire within the blink of an eye, the purse of one’s lips, the fraction of a breath it took for a drop of blood to fall from one’s parched nose and onto the virgin-white floor below. A stain would spread, a declaration noted, and one would run in fear and sorrow as their whole world would cave out below them.
Outside, thunder cracked in the sky.
Lightning followed.
Light poured through the window.
The first tears of the night began to fall from Nova’s eyes.
“Son,” Ketrak said, falling to his knees before them to look into Nova’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m losing my mind,” Nova whispered, taking care not to squeeze Katarina’s hand too hard. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“It’s all right,” Katarina whispered. “Don’t worry, Nova. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m here for you,” she said. “Because we’re here for you.”
Ketrak reached forward to pat his knee.
A flash of blue light echoed into the room.
Nova tilted his head up.
As tears continued to flow down his face, crossing the expanse of his cheekbones and sliding over his lip, he tasted salt and what felt like the horrible revelation of blood. It would have been sweet, were he an indecent man, and it would have likely beckoned welcome forms of appreciation had he the conscience to find it satisfactory. Regardless, he was not deviant, nor was he wicked or fickle in any shape or form, for when he tasted such a thing upon his lips, he was reminded not only of death, but of a friend whose lung had been pierced by a weapon the Elf himself had said projected shards of metal from its wooden barrel.
How does it feel, he thought, to die like that?
Painful, euphoric, like dunking one’s head in a vast tub of water and waiting for their lungs to shrivel—a hammer at the back of the head, hit directly where they said pain was supposedly produced, or a blade through the spine at the base of the skull. They said that if the tiny bones in one’s neck were dislocate
d that they could not feel pain below their jugular. Was that how Miko had felt in that moment—obscure, unable to feel pain and just going through the movements as he slowly died, or had he felt true, concrete pain: a deep throb within his chest as everything his body was made of ebbed from his wounds and onto the earth below?
In the moments that followed such a revelation, Nova bowed his head.
Tears fell from his face and onto his hands.
Katarina stroked his knuckles.
Pain seemed to vibrate through his bones as if he were an old man sitting in a chair on a long, rainy day.
“Will you be all right?” Katarina asked.
“I don’t know,” Nova whispered.
“You’ll be ok,” Ketrak said, patting his knee. “We’re here for you if you need to talk.”
“I’m not sure what I need to talk about, father.”
“Then say whatever it is you need to.”
Nova shook his head.
Outside, a strike of lightning so blood-red it seemed the heavens had just been struck a mortal blow reflected through the sky and lit the inside of the room in a deep shade of mahogany.
It seemed, in that moment, that the entire world would end, as the beast in the sky continued to growl like some great, predatory creature.
How he would survive he couldn’t be sure.
His wife’s hand in his, his father’s hand on his knee—all the support could be found one moment away. Regardless, it still felt as though things would soon come to a halt.
A tear snaked between his lips and caressed his tongue.
It seemed odd that such a thing would occur, for his lips were pursed as tightly as humanly possible.
The rain continued late into the night and eventually led to dreams of things terrifying. A face in the night, lips full and stubble harsh; a hand strayed to a sword, its knuckles tense and almost bone-white; a book propped upon a stand, from which ebbed dark, almost-visible tendrils of energy—they came with a clarity Nova found frightening to the point where he began to ponder whether or not the images he were actually real, for they seemed not shrouded in a light that usually came with vision, but darkness that seemed all the more significant of nightmare.
What is it? he thought.
Outside, lightning cracked the sky and briefly lit the inside of the room enough to illuminate Ketrak’s sleeping form. Chest revealed, thin frame haggard, almost corpse-like in the light that seemed to stray if only for a few moments—something about his appearance led Nova to believe that his dream, whether it be a vision or not, had foretold of something so horrible that it could uproot the entirety of his and his family’s existence.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Such a thing could not happen to him, his wife, his unborn child or his father-in-law, as he’d done the thing a creature made of light had said he should in order to secure a better future.
When your time of need will come, it had said, I will be there to help you.
“What if it wasn’t my future?” he whispered. “What if it was Odin’s?”
He could not, in any way, relate the images to Odin, for his lips were not as full as they appeared in the dream and his face could not have been lined with stubble—shadow, yes, but never the wiry hairs most men are afflicted with come the age of sixteen. He’d always been of the impression that Odin would never bear facial hair if only because of his Elven heritage, but could that possibly mean that he had grown—evolved, per se, into the man he was destined to be?
Pushing himself forward, bracing his hands against his knees in order to contain the shiver that threatened to travel up his body, Nova bowed his head and tried his hardest to take slow, deep breaths, though try as he may, that seemed not in the least bit ready to happen.
Outside, a roar of thunder broke across the countryside loud enough to shake the frames of the windows covering the northern wall.
It would have seemed through the years a man would have been able to conquer his fears, whether they be physical, mental, even spiritual. It was said that strength came in time, that power in work and confidence in ease. For that, he should have been over his fear of thunder and lightning, as he’d endured such a thing in the past whilst traveling with Odin without so much as a second thought. That, however, did not necessarily rule out the possibility that this fear, as close and personal as it was, had not returned with power and fervor in the weeks following one friend’s death and another’s disappearance.
Was it now, they said, possible for things to stimulate the mind, to wrack the nerves and destroy the resilient conscience?
Unable to know and even more frustrated with the idea, Nova fell back and drew the blankets around him, desperate to smother himself with things pleasant and practical.
Everything’s going to be ok, he thought.
A flash of white exploded over his vision.
He reached up to rub his eyes.
The light did not fade.
His breath caught in his chest.
A vision of Odin holding what appeared to be a bloodstained, leather-bound book entered his mind and ingrained itself there like some great ink bearing down upon a piece of porcelain-white parchment.
Odin.
“Odin.”
At his young friend’s side stood a man with the same full lips and strong, stubble-covered chin Nova had seen in his dream. Garbed in a black cloak the color of waterlogged grass and holding a dagger wicked and bearing a constellation of colored stones, the two made their way, side by side, through the darkness and toward what appeared to be an ever-vast plain of grasslands beyond a dense line of trees. Heads bowed, eyes set toward the ground covered in distended tree roots, they crossed out of the thicket, then looked back into the forest from which they had come.
Faintly, what appeared to be glowing orbs of light could be seen in the distance.
“Are they,” Odin began, then stopped before he could continue.
Quiet, the taller man whispered. They might hear us.
Who were they, Nova wondered, to be following them through a forest dark and tragic? His friend had spoken of his ancestral homeland, which could only be the Abroen and where the Elves dwelled, but could Odin really be there, so far south and away from where most of humanity dwelled? And what of this man—this full lipped, stubble-covered person—who seemed so drawn to Odin that his hand first strayed to his back, then down his spine, toward the curve of his lower back and the inch of skin across his waist?
Could, after all this time, Odin have found a lover?
That’s ridiculous, Nova pondered, somehow able to have concentrated and concise thought despite the vision playing before him. Odin isn’t queer.
Did that really matter, though, so long as his friend was happy?
The vision, as framed and lit by white light as it was, began to fade.
Desperate to hold on to the image, Nova pressed his eyes shut as tightly as possible and clawed at the bed sheets curled beneath his fingers.
He had to see just what was about to happen.
Come on. You can do this.
A spike of pain lit the front of his vision.
He groaned.
The image shifted, faltered, then began to slip away.
He couldn’t lose hold on the only remaining glimpse of his friend.
We have to keep going, the older man whispered. We have—
A hand pressed against Nova’s chest.
Breath escaped his throat.
The ceiling came into view.
“Nova,” a voice said.
In but one moment, the last fleeting glimpse of his friend and the man who stood beside him faded into the air.
A long deep breath entered his nose, then escaped out his throat.
His vision cleared.
Katarina hovered above him, face struck in horror.
“Nova,” she said, reaching up to press a hand against his cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I had a vision,” he gasped, inhal
ing another breath of air.
“You were shaking.”
“Shaking?”
“The whole bed was vibrating,” Ketrak said, drawing Nova’s eyes to Katarina’s side. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine,” Nova said. “Really, I’m—“
“You’ve never done this before,” Katarina said. “Never.”
“I was just having a vision.”
“Are you sure it was a vision, Nova? Because if you ask me, this had to have been something much worse.”
“I’m all right,” he said, pushing himself back up.
His vision dipped.
His world began to spin.
“All right,” he sighed, pressing a hand to his face and applying the slightest pressure to his forehead. “Maybe something is wrong.”
“We need to get you to the infirmary,” Ketrak said. “Now.”
“You say you’ve never had a seizure before,” the healer said, guiding his hand along the curve of Nova’s skull and channeling what felt like soft, warm pressure into his head.
“A seizure?” Nova frowned. “What are you—“
“If what your wife and father-in-law said was true,” the man continued, pressing his palm to Nova’s brow and channeling yet more energy down his palm, “then what you experienced no more than a few moments ago was what is known as—“
“I know what a seizure is,” Nova interrupted, waiting for the healer to finish before pushing himself up. “I didn’t have a seizure. I know that already. I had a vision.”
“You’ve never done this before,” Katarina said, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes strayed to his face before her gaze faltered and fell to the ground.
“I haven’t had a vision in years, Katarina.”
“I thought—“
“The last one I had was five years ago, when I saw Odin up in the tower and the figure—“
“What figure?”
“Told me to help him,” Nova sighed, brushing the comment off as if it were nothing more than a fly.
“Did this happen the last time you experienced this?” the healer frowned. “Because if so, it would make sense that this sort of behavior would occur, especially if your body is acting the exact same way it has in the past.”
