Darayan

by Cara Violet

  “No, I’ve never seen any animals,” he said.

  “I don’t think you would have.”

  “Sorry?”

  “No, it’s just—nobody could see them, everyone was sort of—"

  “In a trance?” Archibel suggested.

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Owen said after a short pause. “You are here now, get some rest; it will be an eventful morning and then you’ll Vector home.”

  Darayan thanked Owen and Tanaela when they retired. Ryar and Cuki bid them farewell, returning to Everett and Nash, and Materid and Bodel bid them goodnight and headed for the community hall where they would be sleeping.

  Pivoting on the spot, Darayan realised he was left alone with Archibel on the timber bridge.

  “Hey,” he said feeling his heart rate rise; her nearness more confronting than ever, “can we sleep together?” It sounded very different, out loud, to what he had planned to say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, like in the same room, like we used to?”

  Archibel faced him, curious. “Why?”

  “Well, because—you know, I don’t want to be without you right now, with the nightmares, with the way things are …” he stopped, reaching into his pocket and smoothing over his mother’s stone. “You mean more to me than you realise Arch, I just …” he gulped, releasing his hand. “I’m just not very good with this whole emotion and feeling thing—with words really—because the way I feel about you is hard to put into words. I ... I find it hard to communicate since—” he stopped himself. “I haven’t felt like this—this way—about anyone, ever, and I’ve not really understood myself up until now.”

  “I don’t know what you mean—”

  “I’m trying to tell you, in my own way, that I love you—”

  A scream reached their ears. Then another.

  Archibel cringed at its high pitch. “What was that?”

  Darayan found himself running towards the noise. The Valendean, leaning out of windows, hanging over the timber bridges, were pointing to the sky, screaming.

  The sky cascaded downward, rippling—as if it was an ocean and invisible waves rolled to meet the horizon.

  “Is the sky moving?”

  Archibel’s presence only heightened Darayan’s bewilderment.

  The invisible waves moved faster, as though the whole sky was being stretched apart.

  But this wasn’t an ocean. It was the atmosphere; it was what they needed to survive.

  “Is that a bubble?”

  Darayan still couldn’t answer her. The colours of dusk lengthened and extended in every direction. Darayan was almost certain this ‘bubble’ would pop if it stretched any more.

  “It’s wrapping itself around the planet!”

  The people starting howling.

  “But what is it?” Archibel said over the terrified cries.

  “Forward, Archibel,” Darayan moved them toward it without even looking to her. Creeping down the timber bridge, they came closer until the forcefield was perpendicular to the planet, sending out waves right above them. A few seconds passed; Darayan couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  The sky tugged violently once more then—pop!

  The bubble burst.

  There was a chain reaction—loud bangs went off like fireworks above them.

  Darayan seized his aura to protect them—but nothing happened.

  “The railing, Darayan!”

  Below Archibel’s feet, a timber plank had fallen away from the vibration of eruptions.

  “To the trees,” he directed, acutely aware he had no aura locked into him as they darted and dodged more unstable planks in the bridge.

  “Look,” Archibel panted. They’d made it to the confines of the inner gorge buildings; the little explosions had all but subsided.

  From the view of the outskirts, the sky was dripping shades of purple, like slabs of liquid colour melting to the horizon.

  But what frightened Darayan more was the horizon itself. This time it was a wave—a real wave. Mountainous water—

  “It’s heading for us! It’s a huge swell, a tidal wave—”

  “A tsunami,” Darayan confirmed, horrified. “A reaction to the—” it felt absurd to say it, “—the falling sky.”

  “Darayan, what’s going on …”

  Archibel kept talking, but nothing registered with him. He was calculating how they were going to get out of this mess—without aura—but with only a second to think, it wasn’t enough to find a solution; all he knew was to aim for higher ground.

  “We need to run,” he said leaping onto another timber bridge.

  “We’ll never make it,” Archibel said from below him, “Darayan!”

  With one swift turn of his head, Darayan could see the huge wave almost on top of them, he shed every instinct to leap higher and instead pivoted and lunged for Archibel.

  It was too late—Darayan, like the rest of the vertical city, was pummelled by the raging water. Ripping his body violently against the timber planks and then throwing him about like a rag doll, the rampant surf filled the gorge; timber and vines and leaves floated past him in the water.

  Darayan was in combat mode just to stay alive.

  But as he kicked and wrestled his way to a point of surface, his breath faded. He was running out of oxygen. His limbs began spasming, his lungs bled for one ounce of air.

  Then, everything turned to darkness.

  “Darayan,” Dersji said—this time Darayan could see him, the image of him standing in the Valley Woods crystal clear.

  “Dersji!” he said.

  “I’ve done my job, Darayan,” Dersji said. The words were the same. This was the same memory he couldn’t quite fully recall—until now. “Like Kaianan,” Dersji went on, “I’ve given you the ability to fight with the blade. A skill better than most. You have no aura though, go find somewhere you can actually train in one, it won’t take you long. You know you have to leave; I can’t have you around here anymore, look what happened to Daley—”

  “That was because of who I am Dersji?!”

  “Yes,” he said firmly, “it’s because of you! She knew too much, she worked it out because I’ve been poking about asking questions. Don’t you see how it is Darayan? Don’t you know why you and Kaianan are matched at the blade? Don’t you know why you generally gravitated toward each other growing up?”

  “No, I’ve no idea what you’re getting at!”

  “The Felrin came here for you but left you alone after taking your mother, believing that your memory would serve no purpose, and perhaps one day you’ll be worth something to your sibling if they needed leeway.”

  “What sibling? My family, everyone I loved, is dead!”

  “No, they are not!” Dersji said clutching the boy’s arms. “You’re no match for Ferak Jarryd, and neither am I at this stage. But I can train Kaianan up well, I can get her to where she needs to be.”

  “I’ll help you, I’ll help her,” Darayan grappled with Dersji, “I’ll fight any cause to protect her from that prophecy! She is the only family I have left!”

  “She is your family, Darayan!” Dersji said so sharply Darayan stopped panicking and gulped uneasily. “Kaianan is your sister,” he finally said arms by his side.

  “What?”

  “Ferak came here to remove and place her in the hands of people who would do the Felrin’s bidding and keep an eye on the Rivalex Mark. Naturally the King and Queen of Layos wanted to keep her, and keep their Felrin protectors happy. Despite disposing of your mother, Ferak Jarryd kept you alive.”

  “What are you talking about? He tried to kill me just recently.”

  “Yet he didn’t.”

  “Why? None of this makes sense! My mother gave birth to a boy, I had a younger brother!”

  “No, never. You’re exactly like Kaianan, you both have the same blood.”

  “She’s gifted, Dersji,” he said. “My mother told me my father was a preform, a damn Homo sapiens.”<
br />
  Dersji’s eyes glazed over; as if there were a thousand questions he had to this piece of information. “Unskilled and the form before? But you and Kaianan are—”

  “Talented yes, but I come from weak stock,” Darayan said not realising he was sobbing. “She can’t be my sister.”

  “She is,” Dersji said. “She was stolen from you, kept on watch for being that damn Rivalex Mark. And Daley just found out about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The King and Queen of Layos are not who you think they are,” Dersji breathed out. “They work closely with the Felrin, with Forsda, and, at times, when they need, with the Necromancers.”

  “Why?”

  “They want control, just like every other damn civilisation.”

  “So, they control my sister? If I can even believe that.”

  “Right now, she has more training and capacity then they will ever know, but she has to work this out for herself.”

  “I will tell her about them, about who I am!” Darayan said impassioned.

  “No,” Dersji said vehemently.

  “Why?”

  “You must leave now, leave this place, and never return.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not time for her to know anything: she’s got enough going on; but you must continue your training. I can no longer assist you. I have done a good job. Liege Jarryd will return if you stay: the Manor has already alerted him to your presence and anger at Daley’s funeral.”

  “Where am I to go, Dersji?” Darayan said glowering, “I don’t know anywhere else. I want to stay with Kaianan.”

  “Take Archibel and return to her home city as refugees.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve already worked it out with Jahzara.”

  “When are we to go?”

  “Now,” he said pointing his chin in the distance. Darayan turned to see Archibel with a small pack draped over her shoulder.

  “What did—”

  “She knows nothing,” Dersji cut him off. “She believes you want to leave and become anonymous because Daley has died and you want to escape this life.”

  “I do want to escape it, if any of this is true!”

  “Jahzara can give you the means to escape it,” he said. “But you will eventually remember, and I hope, when that time comes, you will find peace knowing you spent your childhood with your own blood sister. I owed you both that much.”

  Darayan didn’t want to call Dersji a coward, didn’t want to tell him that because of his lack of courage Daley was dead and the Liege were running rampant through the universe.

  “It’s time to go Darayan,” he said.

  “What about saying goodbye to Kaianan?”

  “No.”

  “She will think I deserted her!”

  “She will eventually know, in the end, everything you did protected her. Now goodbye and good luck.”

  Darayan turned back to Archibel, still waiting. His eyes went back to Dersji, he analysed every part of him.

  “She was four years younger than me …” Darayan said. “She really is my sister, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” he said decisively. “Now go.”

  It was like waking up from a dream and regaining every memory he thought he lost. But instead it was someone grabbing his hand and yanking him upward. Air seized his hungry lungs; he coughed out murky water.

  He could smell the fresh air, could feel the wind on his face. With his eyes closed he found himself back in Layos, back at the Valley Woods. Exhilaration flooded through him, Kaianan was sparring with Xandou and Archibel when Darayan arrived. Then he was home, with Daley, feeling her hands running through his unruly mane.

  Disorientation seized him. He could hear a voice that moved with the wind. It was his name.

  “Darayan,” a woman’s voice lingered from somewhere above him.

  “Kaianan,” he whispered back on impulse.

  “Are you okay?” another male voice said.

  Darayan finally opened his eyes; he could barely make out Owen’s face.

  So many answers to that question ran through him.

  “I’m better than ever,” Darayan said rising and wringing his hair out.

  “The city is flooded,” Owen said. “I’m going to start a search.”

  Darayan nodded. “Should we start relocating?”

  “No, Valendean has a very good drain,” he smiled. “We sit atop the gorge.”

  “What’s going on with the Siliou?”

  “It seems to have stopped working.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  Owen shrugged and departed.

  “Hey,” Archibel said. She sat on a section of timber, close to the gorge, above him.

  “You’re okay,” he said with relief.

  “And so are you, it seems,” she pointed in the distance to a spot below them in the gorge. “It’s funnelling there and people are trapped.”

  They wasted no time assisting the Kinsmen Rangers helping people out of dire circumstances. They saved many, but many elderlies were caught off-guard and drowned, and those that had not made it out of their dwellings before the wave hit were trapped inside their homes with nowhere to go once the water came.

  “Suradika will take their spirits into the next life,” Archibel whispered to the old man in her arms as she closed his eyelids in death.

  “And we will rejoice,” Darayan finished, “knowing that the life we have now is only one part of Suradika’s plan.”

  The way her big eyes slid to him, under that long, tangled wet hair of hers, Darayan really felt a stronger connection with Archibel than ever. Growing up alongside her, with the freshness of those memories, the late-night escapades behind Daley’s back, her laughter when he became confused over the most mundane things—there was just so much of Archibel’s goodness in his heart.

  “What’s going on with the Siliou?” she asked him when they’d finished searching their rescue area.

  Something felt different, that much was certain. No longer tied to the element of Siliou, there was nothing for Darayan to light up in—it felt strange.

  “I’ve no answers, but I’ll find out what I can,” he told her, departing. But when he thought about the state of the universe, the desire Kaianan had to kill the Defeated King, he knew something must have come to a head. Something must have happened somewhere for aura use to simply halt.

  “It looks like you’re stuck here for a while,” Owen said to Darayan, when he returned to the upper area of mountainside. “My Rangers tried to use the Vector generators aboard the cruisers to see if we could start up. Doesn’t work. The whole ship has been short circuited. Well, the entire fleet has. And I don’t think it was the water because none of them were breached by it.”

  Darayan puffed his cheeks out in hurt and confusion. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with Valendean, but this wasn’t his home. And it wasn’t—Archibel’s.

  Chapter Thirty-Five: The Deepness of the Heart

  “I have something to tell you,” Darayan said. He found Archibel staring off into the clear night sky.

  “And I you.”

  “You go first,” he said feeling his nerves get the better of him.

  “I just wanted to apologise,” she said in that soft voice of hers. “I’m sorry about running off on you; I’m sorry I left you, I know we’ve always been stronger together—”

  “And we still are,” Darayan sat down beside her and reached for her hand.

  “I’ll always be your friend, Darayan,” she began, freeing her hands. “I know you’ve had a difficult life—so have I—but I believe we found each other because we so badly wanted to be free from our past. We used each other for safety—”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to use you as the excuse to run from my past, but I’ve decided to learn from this. I am who I am, I am where I am, and I’ve made the decision to be happy with that going forward. No more looking back.”

  “You�
�ve got a past too, that I understand, but who is that, who are you—”

  “That person is dead and buried,” she said firmly. “This is me, the girl you’ve known since the debacle in the markets.”

  Darayan didn’t know what to make of it. That past of Archibel’s was well buried. But in a way, so was his.

  “I guess so is mine.”

  It was peace and closure that caressed his heart. He’d made a decision: it was time to start anew. Time to shed his habitual guarded exterior and stop hiding himself.

  “I meant what I said before,” Darayan admitted, confidently.

  “About what?”

  “That I love you. I do; I truly love you.”

  “You love me?”

  He nodded. Immediately Darayan’s hand went to his pocket, searching for the stone, but he suddenly halted: he realised it was no longer there.

  “Lost something?” she said to his displaced attention.

  “No,” he said with a renewed, boisterous determination. “I think I’ve just found something.” His hands latched onto her arms.

  Archibel couldn’t help smiling at his giddy playfulness.

  Then he smoothed his fingers over her skin, to her cheeks and held her neck. “It’s in you I’ve kept my most treasured memories, and it’s in you that my heart can open up and love again.”

  Tears slid from her eyelids; Archibel was a sobbing mess but still smiling.

  “I love you so much, Darayan,” she sobbed.

  And with a fiery heart, he scooped her up and kissed her like they were the only people left on the planet.

  Epilogue

  Archibel fussed over her hair. Her long flame locks had been curled and set in an updo at the back of her head, and her long white veil rested within it.

  “They’re waiting for you,” Bodel’s voice came through the door.

  Dressed in a flowing white gown that the Valendeans had spent weeks sewing, ascribing sequence to the seams that ran her long-sleeves and open back, she exhaled nervously.

  Archibel’s future was finally here. Life on Valendean had progressed. Progressed to today. Her future was today. She was marrying her best friend today.