by Dahlia Lu
That old man is probably his father, she thought.
“Father…?” Noctis said to the old man.
So, I was right.
Noctis then switched to a language she couldn’t understand. “Is it really you? No, it can’t be. Do you know that you are…?”
“Dead?” The old man finished his sentence. “I know, my son.”
“…Klahan killed you.”
The old man lowered his eyes and then nodded. He came to Noctis’ side and extended an arm to his son’s shoulder. “And you killed your brother.”
“It was an accident. I… I didn’t want to kill him, Father.”
“I also know that.”
“I couldn’t forgive him, but I didn’t want him dead. Despite his heinous crimes, I didn’t want him dead. He forced my hand.”
“There is something you should know, Summit.”
“I’m listening, Father.”
“Klahan wasn’t the one responsible for my death.”
Noctis furrowed his brows and shook his head. “What…?”
“Your brother did not plot my murder.”
“But that day…” Noctis was trying to search his memories. “I walked out of that room and you were still alive! And then Klahan overheard our conversation and…”
“He had always known of my intentions of passing the throne to you. Since I was always busy with work, it was he who took over my role and taught you everything he knew. To him, you were more than just his brother. You were like his son. He was happy for you, Summit. He was proud.”
“But why…?”
“I had a stroke. I was old, Summit, and my time was drawing near. I collapsed just as you were exiting the door. Klahan came in after you and discovered that I was no longer breathing. He had every reason to suspect you.”
“But I would never…”
“I was indeed poisoned.”
“By whom…?”
“I do not know, my son.”
“He didn’t frame me? But… he came to silence me! He had a dagger…”
“I didn’t come to kill you, little brother.”
Noctis turned toward the voice of his brother. An older male with similar features as Noctis stepped out from the shadows. “I had come to set you free.”
Noctis shook his head in disbelief. “It isn’t true!”
“Initially, I was angry with you because I thought you murdered our father over a woman. I was bitterly disappointed with you because it was I who had brought you up to become who you are. But regicide was only punishable by death. I couldn’t let you die. I felt the same hatred toward you as you did me, but I couldn’t let them execute you. That night, I went to the dungeon and took out the guards. I went to your cell to free you, but you were already gone. I thought you’d escaped by yourself.”
“Do you still take me for a child? Do you think that I would be naïve enough to believe your lies?”
“I’m dead, little brother. There is no point in lying to you.”
“When I came back to confront you, you admitted to your crime. You begged for my forgiveness, but when I turned around, you snuck up on me and brought upon your own death! Choose your words carefully, brother. Another lie and I guarantee there will be nothing left of you!”
“Do you remember how you were when you came back to us, Summit? You brought fire and destruction with you like a demon spawned from the cursed abyss. Do you even remember how much destruction you’ve caused or how many lives you’ve taken in your wake? Ask any of your brothers if they could still find the Summit they once knew in the thing that came back to us. We couldn’t see our brother in you anymore. You… changed into something else.”
“You saw me as a monster?”
“You were a monster! You were possessed! You had to be stopped!”
Noctis chuckled mockingly. “So you wanted to be the hero? You wanted this monster to let down his guard long enough for you to attack?”
“You weren’t human, Summit. You were just a monster driven by rage!”
“I am a god!” Noctis retorted.
“You have the truth! It’s up to you to accept it or not, because I have nothing more to say!”
“I will not believe a single word of your lies! That’s what they all are! Filthy lies!” Noctis stormed out the room and slammed the door behind him.
Amara watched him as he paced back and forth in front of the door. His eyes were red and moist. His jaw tightened and his hands turned to fists. They probably told him something important… something he didn’t want to hear. Perhaps his brother had told him his version of the story. If that was so then he must be tearing up inside, fighting an internal battle of both sides of the truth. He didn’t know which to believe and he was afraid to believe.
Amara blocked his path. Logically, she knew she should just stand aside and let him fight his own battle. She knew and yet she couldn’t watch him struggle by himself. He had held on to his hatred for too long.
She slowly wrapped her arms around him, leaned her head back, and looked into his eyes. “Forgive him, Noctis. Whatever he told you in there, forgive him and lighten your burden.”
“I can’t…” he whispered back. “They’re all lies. Illusions! They are trying to make me doubt my truth!”
“I took back what I said about you being an empty shell of the man you once were. Immortality hasn’t changed everything about you. The man you once were hasn’t gone away. He’s just buried somewhere underneath the man you are now. You’re just…” she smiled, “a little misunderstood. You can still be the man you once were, Noctis… Summit, whoever you are. You’ve held on to this grudge long enough. It’s about time to let go…”
“You believe that I can still be the man I once was?”
She nodded.
“It’s too late for that.”
“No… it’s not too late. Trust me. It’s not too late.”
He stared back at her.
“Trust me,” she breathed.
The corner of his lips twisted scornfully. He was stubborn. He had always been stubborn. Amara didn’t know why she even bothered with the futile attempt.
Be honest with yourself, Amara. You do know why.
Then unexpectedly, he nodded. He stepped back from her and reentered the room again. He stopped dead in front of his father and brother.
“Do you have any proof?” Noctis demanded, turning to his brother. “Why should I believe you?”
“I have no proof. It is my words against yours,” his brother replied.
“I suspected as much.”
“But if you would just let me—”
“I forgive you, Klahan.”
“…What?”
“Not because I believe your story,” Noctis explained. “But because I’ve held a grudge against you long enough. Even if everything you’ve told me today are all lies—”
“They’re truths, little brother!”
“Don’t push it, Klahan!” Noctis bellowed. In a much calmer voice, he continued, “Despite your crimes against me, you also died by my hands. Our feud ends here, today.”
His brother lowered his head and reluctantly nodded. “So be it, little brother.”
“Father…” Noctis turned to the old man. “I must go.”
“You must go,” his father agreed.
As he was departing, he stopped at the door and turned back to have one last look at his father. “It is regrettable that things had gone the way it did. If you had lived to see it, I would have made you proud.”
The old man looked back with misty eyes and smiled. “I have always been proud of you, my son.”
With an appreciative nod, Noctis stepped out of the room. He heaved a deep breath before looking down at Amara.
“We’ve wasted enough time here.”
“We’re going?” Amara asked. She had no choice but to follow him. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here longer? What about your father? Don’t you want to see your other brothers?”
“The
y’re dead. Staying longer won’t change anything and we’re running out of time. We must get out of here before sunrise. The exit is just ahead.”
He was leading and she followed.
“Did you feel that?” Amara asked when she felt the ground beneath her tremble. Noctis startled her when he suddenly swept her off her feet. He carried her down the rows and rows of columns at a pace that made her dizzy.
The entire structure was shaking. The columns were falling on each other, creating a destructive chain reaction. The repeated poundings of tons of limestone were splitting the floor. It wasn’t before long that Amara realized the entire structure was a bridge suspended over a very steep fall into molten lava. And it was crumbling piece by piece.
She clung to him and pressed her face against the curve of his neck.
“The portal,” he alerted her. “There.”
There was indeed a portal up ahead, but at the rate the floor was falling apart, she feared they might not be able make it. In the end, that was the point all along, wasn’t it?
“Noctis?”
“Yes?”
“Just in case we don’t get out of this alive… I want you to know that I love—!”
She screamed when the floor beneath them gave out. He gripped onto the ledge with one arm and caught her waist with the other. He swung her and then flung her back onto the bridge. She landed on her knees and elbows and then rolled to the end of the bridge. Scraped and bruised, she fumbled up from the ground.
“Go!” He commanded her when she attempted to come back for him. “I will meet you on the other side.” He was pulling himself up just as the limestone he was latching onto fell from its place.
“No!” she shrieked.
He leaped onto the descending limestone in attempt to grab a hold of another. But it, too, fell. Her heart felt it was about to explode out of her chest. She screamed his name as she hunched over the steep drop. She couldn’t see anything but the rapid flowing of the lava.
“No…” She shook her head in denial. Her entire body shivered. “No!”
“I warned him…”
Amara gasped when she saw a pair of well-polished leather shoes standing by the edge next to her. Her eyes went up the length of his body and met his cold silver gaze underneath the hooded cloak.
“…to turn back while he still could. He did not heed my warning.”
She eyed the portal and then looked back to him as she tried to calculate how fast she needed to sprint to reach the portal before he caught her.
“The sun has not risen in the Realm of the Living.”
“You’re… letting me go?” She was having some trouble believing that he would go through such length to bring her here and then simply let her go. “Why?”
“I am a man of my word.”
Amara gathered herself to her feet. Noctis had told her that he would meet her on the other side and he had never lied to her before. She shouldn’t doubt him now. He was an immortal. Dying was never an option for him. Was it?
Don’t alarm yourself, Amara. He’ll be fine.
She glanced down at the steep drop once more and then fled through the portal.
Chapter Eleven
“No!” Amara screamed out in her sleep. “No!” She sat up pushed the blanket away from her body. She was drenched in cold sweat.
“Amara!” She felt a pair of callous hands turning her shoulders. A pair of worried blue eyes stared into her confused grey ones. He pressed her against his bare chest. “It’s alright. You were only having a bad dream.”
“Noctis? I… I don’t understand. I saw you… I saw…”
“It was only a dream,” he said softly.
“But you couldn’t possibly be here! I saw you fall into the lava!”
“I can’t die,” he reminded her of a fact she already knew. “I told you I would meet you on the other side, didn’t I? That was two days ago, Amara.”
“Two days ago?”
“You came down with a fever since your return and you haven’t been well. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”
Amara pressed the back of her hand against her forehead to feel her temperature. Her forehead was warmer than usual, and her body was covered in cold sweat. “I had a fever for the last two days? Is that why I don’t remember coming back home?”
She pinched her forearm until it bruised just to make sure the pain was real and to prove that this was not a dream. The pain was sharp and lingering.
He leaned over to the bedside table to retrieve a wet cloth from a large bowl and used it to wipe away sweat on her forehead, face and neck. The feel of the cool cloth against her burning skin was soothing.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her as he glided the piece of cloth over the surface of skin she had just abused.
She licked her dry lips and nodded. “I’m starving.”
“Dinner is ready for us.”
“I’ll go check on the baby first. I’ll meet you downstairs.” She got off the bed and went to the nursery the next door over. The baby was sleeping in the crib so she didn’t turn on the light. Amara glanced back when she felt a light touch on her shoulders.
“Don’t wake her,” he said. “She has just been fed.”
Amara followed him downstairs to the dining room and saw a grand feast already prepared on the table. She felt something was wrong right off the bat. Even though there was always an abundance of food on the table, Noctis had never been this extravagant. This much food could feed a party of twenty or more.
She pinched herself again to double check the reality of what she was seeing and it hurt the way it was supposed to. She seated herself at the usual place on the table and he did the same. A butler she didn’t recognize was serving the food. She was so hungry she could eat a horse. She thought for sure that she would attack the food like a starved animal, but she sat as still as a rock. Something didn’t feel right.
“Didn’t you say you were starving?” he asked and then gestured toward the food on the table. “Every dish is as exquisite as the next, I promise you.”
Amara picked up a fork at his invitation. When she hesitated, he picked up his own fork and began to eat the food from his plate to prove to her that the food was delicious. As she watched him chew, she furrowed her brows and asked, “Who are you?”
He stared back at her as though she had said something preposterous. “What’s wrong, Amara?”
“Don’t think you can fool me!” She tossed the fork that was in her hand on the floor. “The real Noctis would never take a bite! Who are you?” Then, she gasped at the realization. “I’m still in the Realm of The Dead, aren’t I? You tried to trick me into eating the food so I could never leave. You went against your word!”
“I haven’t gone against my word,” he said as he dropped away the disguise. The mansion they were in began to break down into pixels and disintegrate. Everything was solid one minute and then disappeared in the next. They were both standing at the edge of the cliff again. “Nor have I violated the condition of our wager. The both of you can only leave this realm before the sun rises in your world. Neither of you have left.”
“But the portal…” was a fake. It was meant to be another trap to deter her. But where is the real exit? Illusions. Everything and everything had only been illusions. That was why Death made that wager. He couldn’t lose!
“You haven’t told me why I’m special yet, have you? You didn’t want me to know before I tasted the food from this realm. That was first thing you offered me when I came here, but I didn’t take a bite. That’s why you concocted this whole sham. You couldn’t tempt me with the fruit in the orchard so you tried to trick me into thinking I had returned home so I would drop my guard. But that’s what I don’t understand. You needn’t do any of that unless… I could leave at any time I want. The question is how…” She contemplated. “If you feel the need to trick me into eating the food of the Realm of The Dead as soon as I arrived, then it must be deceptively simple. It must be something I alre
ady know how to do. The exit to the Realm of The Dead isn’t a place… it’s a spell!”
Summoning Art is the ability to open the gate to another realm to let something through. Since that’s the case, she could use it to transport herself between realms. The Necromancer never taught her this before and she didn’t know if her theory was possible, but she was left with no other option. She quickly cast the summoning spell to open a gate to The Realm of the Living.
“Stop!”
When the summoning circle reached completion, she leaped into it and sunk into another dimension.
Chapter Twelve
After Amara escaped from the Realm of The Dead, she ended up inside a farm’s barn twenty miles from Montreal, Canada. She hadn’t planned on going to Montreal, but at least she returned to the land of the living. She didn’t know anyone in Canada and she didn’t have any cash on her so she had to depend on the kindness of strangers and hitchhiked fourteen hours in all different directions to get home.
The worst part of it all was returning home to the fact that Noctis was not there waiting for her. It had been two days since he promised he would meet her on the other side, but there was no sight of him. She was beginning to think that he lied to get her to go through the portal without him. She was beginning to think he hadn’t made it.
Every time the thought invaded her mind, she pushed it away immediately. She didn’t want to believe, and she refused to believe that he lied to her. He had never lied to her before. So she stalled by doing house chores and left the new house staff with nothing to do. She cooked, she cleaned, and she played with the baby… anything to avoid going back to the empty bedroom to face another sleepless night.
“I’m taking Gemma to see my parents for the weekend,” Lizzie said to Amara on the afternoon of the third day.
“Your parents?” Amara asked, surprised at Lizzie’s announcement. “You got in contact with them again?”
“They want to meet Gemma.”
“You forgave them?”
