by Oxford, Rain
“Shut up about your hair. I’m not letting you go ever again.”
“Breathe… can’t…”
“Don’t care. You don’t need air. What are you two doing here?” he asked.
“We were helping,” Sen said. “We helped Ron get three of the four missing weapons.”
“Also, this is my house,” Drake added. Hail let me go and I nearly staggered as blood rushed back into my limbs. “Where have you been?”
“I was stranded on Canjii for a few days and then Mordon and I went demon hunting. What weapons did you find?”
“We have a dagger, a bow, and a battle axe. We need to get a wand now.”
“I want to see the bow.”
“We gave it to Samorde to give to Regivus because we couldn’t carry it around with us. Xul gave me this,” I said, pulling the charm out from under my shirt. “It keeps making me see Alice, who tells me where to find the weapons. However, that might be a problem now.”
“Why?”
“In order to show me Alice, it has to be in my mind, which it managed because we were apart. Your protection spell over me wasn’t working. Now that you’re back…”
“I know. Show me how to loosen it.” He held out his right hand flat, giving me no chance to argue.
I sighed, pressed my left hand against his right, and closed my eyes. Discovering that I was born with my mother’s energy inside me was comforting when I was four years old. Discovering that I was responsible for protecting my brother from Vretial was a little daunting. I didn’t understand at that age why everyone was so afraid of Vretial, including Hail.
I knew for as long as I could remember that the elder god couldn’t talk to my brother in his mind. It was because of my self-reflection that I figured out why.
A light tingle through my hand reminded me to focus. I visualized my brother at the hot springs. It was at home with our family, there was water to swim in, and it was bright daylight, so for Hail, this was the most relaxing, peaceful scene possible. Even though my protection was only to keep people out of his mind, including reading his mind, manipulating his visions, or controlling him, my power incased his entire soul. Therefore, it looked like an iridescent shield around him that reflected colors like a soap bubble.
It wasn’t energy that I was trying to control; my energy did exactly what I wanted it to. For lack of a better word, the shield around my brother was love. Instead of pulling back on energy, I thought of a reason to uncover Hail’s mind, particularly so that Vretial could help us understand Hail’s visions. However, since this was just an exercise, I imagined that Dad was going to help us understand Hail’s visions instead.
The field around him faded until it was barely visible. After a moment, I redirected it to strengthen, because I would never leave my brother unprotected. Once the spell was unbreakable, I opened my eyes. “Do you get it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Get what? What are you talking about?” Drake asked.
I started to pull away from Hail, but he squeezed my hand and closed his eyes. I saw myself in a dim library, sitting in a ridiculously comfortable chair, reading a thick, old book. “Is this really what I think is most comfortable?”
“It was either this or you sitting atop of pyramid with a huge umbrella and a person fanning you while you ordered slaves to build the statue of you faster,” my brother answered.
“That wouldn’t be relaxing… it might be fun, though.”
“Let me concentrate.”
“Would you really want to own slaves?”
Alice’s voice startled me into opening my eyes. She was sitting on the bed, propped against the headboard like I was in the chair in the vision. It was pretty obvious by their expressions that neither Drake nor Sen saw or heard her, but Hail was looking right at her.
Apparently, my head is the least private place in this house. “No, of course I probably wouldn’t,” I said. Hail glared at me. “I mean, of course I absolutely would never want that. Now tell me where the last weapon is.”
“Ron, don’t be mean.”
“She isn’t our sister; she’s an avatar of the demon charm.”
“The last weapon, the wand, will be the easiest for you to achieve,” Alice said.
“Great. What is the catch?”
“You must trust the balance. The balance is not your enemy; it is the force that protects the universe from destruction by the void.”
“The balance tried to open the gates that the gods closed for a good reason. The balance would kill all the people and my parents if it could.” I allowed it into me to protect my father and I knew I would have to learn to control it when Hail and I made the plan.
“You cannot win the demon war when you are fighting the balance.”
“Then can I prevent the war?”
“No. To find the wand, you must return to the moment when this all began.”
“When what began?” I asked. I was talking to thin air because Alice had already disappeared. Frustrated, I sighed and sat in the spot on the bed that Alice had vacated.
“What do we do?” Hail asked.
“We go home. There is no telling what she was talking about, so let’s start at home and go from there.”
“I can come, right?” Drake asked.
“Don’t you think that’s unfair to your mom? I bet she missed you and worried about you every minute,” I said. “You don’t want her to be upset anymore.”
He hesitated as he considered my advice. Oddly, Sen looked unhappy. Maybe he became good friends with Drake despite their constant bickering, which I could understand. Drake wanted to be treated as capable and independent. Sen wanted to matter to someone and have a voice.
I flashed Hail, Sen, and myself home. Seimei appeared of her own magic and made a surprised, irritated huff when she saw Ikiru sitting on the couch with Sari. The male griffin ignored us and made a purring sound, happy to have Sari’s attention.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Hail asked his griffin. Ikiru looked at Hail, then up at Sari, and purred louder.
Seimei gave me a look as if saying, “This is why you love me more.”
“Sari, what are you doing here?” I asked. “And why do I want to bite you?”
Her eyes widened. “I’m here because Mordon and Hail dropped me off.”
“Well, we’re here now, so you can go away.” It wasn’t that I was trying to be mean to her. Honestly, I always carefully thought through what to say and scrutinized how it could be interpreted. Unfortunately, more and more over the years, what popped out of my mouth was not what I had intended to say.
Hail sighed. “If the wand was here, where would it be?”
“Hidden in Mom’s stuff.” A quick rifle through our parents’ things left me scarred for life. Among Mom’s potion ingredients and collection of random bones, I found trinkets Dad had given her over the years, pictures of our family on vacation, and an excessive number of satin scarves and ties. With horror, I dropped the box of cloth as if it were a hairy spider; I knew my parents did parent things, I just didn’t want to know the particulars.
Sari’s scream startled me and I turned in time to catch the severed head that flew at me. Sari stood shaking with an empty box. She must have seen the head and instinctively flung it away.
“Hey, Stevie!” Hail exclaimed with delight, taking the head from me. “I remember this!”
The doll’s head was about the most hideous thing I had ever seen. Before we left Earth, my brother and I became really good friends with some kids at school, especially a girl named Tatum. When we left, Tatum said she wanted us to have something to remind us of her, so she took off the head of her doll— which she was too old for in my opinion— and gave it to Hail. Before I could express my horror, Dad told us that since Tatum’s family was from Malta, we had to accept, because refusing gifts was a dishonor to them.
Sari shrieked even louder this time and dived behind me when the left eyelid opened and closed in an eerie wink. It was one of t
hose dolls that were supposed to be asleep when you laid it down, only it kept waking up when I tried to drown it in the toilet back on Earth. That had made Dad mad, so I put it in Dad’s bed when he was in the shower. We needed a new window after that.
The head was about the size of a baseball with a chalky white face, light blue eyes, fire-engine-red hair, and creepy freckles. As soon as we got home, I stole it from Hail, gave it to Mom, and asked her to hide it in the darkest crevices of the universe. Apparently that was the back of her closet. Or maybe the damned thing just made it back to this place on its own.
I shall kill you with fire next time.
“Kill it!” Sari demanded.
Yeah, it gave me the chills, too. A few minutes later, the four of us were sitting in the living room. Hail and I were on the couch while Sari and Sen were in front of the fireplace, which wasn’t lit since it was summer.
“So, Alice said it was at the start of something. I was born here, you were born on Earth. I’m sure she wasn’t referring to Sen or Drake.”
“We faced the demons in White Hills. Oh, and Dad became a Guardian in Texas. We wouldn’t be here if not for that. Also, there is Dad’s birth, and Edward’s house, where Mom and Dad met.”
“Hang on; maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. There are an infinite number of places where something began. Think of people who might be capable of protecting a god weapon, and we can cross reference those people with the impact they had on our lives, Dad’s life, or the demons.”
“Vretial,” Hail suggested.
“It wouldn’t be a god. He already knew about the sword; we would have discovered the wand by now if he had it.”
“One of the Guardians?”
“A good possibility, but they have all impacted our… oh, hey. One Guardian who was heavily involved in our lives, Dad’s life, and the demons… One who nobody would think twice of, despite the fact that he is known for being good at hiding things…”
“Ronez,” my brother surmised. “But how do we ask him if he has the wand when he’s dead?”
“Easy. We will go back to a time before he died.”
“I don’t like this plan. The odds are not in our favor.”
“Screw the odds,” I said.
“Hush! Do not anger the odds!”
“You two are weird,” Sen said. “I already know Ron’s plans always work, so let’s get on with it.”
“Let him tell you his plan before you start kissing his plan’s ass,” Hail scowled at the dragon-mage. “How are we supposed to go back in time? If we ask Vretial, he’ll just demand that mage staff.”
“Dad should have destroyed it.”
“Absolutely, but he didn’t. We could ask Emrys.”
“We could ask Mom,” he suggested.
I nodded. “Do you think she would trust us? I mean, I know we can convince Emrys. Mom isn’t easy to persuade, especially when she is trying to protect Dad.”
“You don’t have to manipulate everyone to get them to help us. Give her a viable reason to send us back and she will.”
“But she knows us. She knows I can’t stay out of trouble.”
“Doesn’t your mother constantly do things that are irresponsible to protect your father?” Sen asked. “I mean, just from some of the conversations I have overheard, her highest priority is protecting him and all laws of nature come secondary. If you need the weapon to help Dylan, I don’t think she would care if you screwed up as long as you tried.”
He made a good point. In my excitement, I wrapped my arms around him. When I let go, he was blushing. “I told you never to hug me,” he said.
“Why can’t I hug you?”
“You’re too old to be hugging family with so much enthusiasm.”
“No, I’m not. Besides, we’re not really related, so I can do whatever I want to with you.” Instead of assuring him, he blushed even deeper. “You don’t think I would hurt you, do you?” I took his hand and held it to my chest between both of mine. It was what Mom would do when she was asking for Dad’s trust. “I would never hurt you!”
His expression was almost insulted. “You’re lying! You would hurt me in a heartbeat if you thought it would benefit you,” he said, pulling his hand away.
“Well, yeah, if I thought it would be in my best interest. But don’t worry! I don’t think hurting you is beneficial. Right now, you can help me. Besides, despite what I said, Mordon thinks of you as his son. That makes us cousins. Dad said that cousins are always supposed to have each other’s backs.”
“But that would make Dylan my uncle.”
“That’s great! Dad is amazing.”
“Your mother is amazing,” he argued.
I shrugged. “My mother is a god. I mean, that’s cool, but there are twelve of them.”
“She’s a what?!” Sari shrieked.
I ignored her. “My dad is more amazing. He will protect you against me just because you are his brother’s adopted son. I couldn’t cross him to hurt you even if I wanted to.”
“How is your dad more amazing than a god?”
I realized that Oran was getting too suspicious in his preteen years. It was bad enough when he would follow me around and be too shy to speak, but asking questions was dangerous. On the one hand, he was family. On the other, he wanted to know things that weren’t ready to be revealed yet.
“Ask him,” I said.
“Please. Give me some kind of clue. I feel like I will never really be a part of the family. Mordon wants me more than my mother does and it’s only because of guilt. I just want to belong.”
His pleading was so sincere. I understood it well, because I knew the pain of not belonging. I knew how important family was. I also knew that he was correct about Mordon and Emiko’s feelings.
“Just tell me something. Something that everyone in your family knows.”
I sighed. If he broke my trust, I could just kill him. “Hail, take Sari outside.”
“No way, I want to be a part of this, too.”
“Ron will kill you if you ever so much as accidentally use the wrong name for someone in public. He takes our safety seriously. We all do.”
“Please, I would never tell anyone,” she begged. Hail turned to me, waiting for my call. With a sigh, I nodded.
“The moment my father was conceived, he was fifty percent human, and fifty percent sago,” I said. “The moment he was born, his soul was released. His soul was so powerful, the balance actually tried to destroy him before he was born, which would have completely destroyed the universe.”
“Wait, why would the balance try to destroy him before he was born if it would destroy everything?” Sen asked.
“He was worth it. He was such a threat to the balance, killing him was worth… suicide. Preventing his creation was worth the destruction of everything.”
“Why?”
“Even we don’t know. I know this because the balance is inside me, and I have seen its hatred for him.”
“Ron, go ask Mom to send us back to see Ronez while I catch them up on anything they might not have figured out by now,” Hail said. “Is there anything I shouldn’t tell them?”
“Don’t tell Sen that his father was trying to create a hybrid. If I’m not back in five minutes, go to Dad.” For the sake of not getting grounded, I changed my eyes back to their natural green. I flashed to Mom and found myself in the middle of a battle. Mom and I were surrounded by over fifty demons.
We were in a large Earth city with huge glass and metal buildings. Although it was probably a well-populated street under normal circumstances, it was currently deserted of actual people. It was dusk and raining, so everything was shiny, gray, and slick. Furthermore, the only light that wasn’t from the dark gray sky was from fires in the debris of damaged buildings.
Mom was holding them off well with a pulsating rings of energy about six feet wide, but defeating so many demons was a ridiculous feat even for a god. Void magic, which the demons used, and god magic were on opposite end
s of the spectrum, so equal power of both cancelled each other out. She could destroy a less powerful demon, but she had to work much harder to do so.
One of the demons had a sword that glowed white with void energy. He focused his attention on me. When he swung his sword at me, I didn’t create a shield or sphere of energy. “Stop,” I demanded… and everyone did. Every demon suddenly froze as still as statues.
The balance inside me didn’t react, but neither did my Iadnah energy or nominal energy. This must have been something else.
“What did you do?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know.” I focused on the feel of the balance inside me.
It always knew what was right and what wasn’t in order for the universe to be strong. The demons were compelled to obey the balance when they were in the universe, but these demons were being destructive. When I first took the balance into me, I could use it to send them back, so it only made sense that I still could. As long as I wasn’t fighting the balance, I could use it.
“Return to the void.”
The demons all disappeared, leaving me alone with my mother. Mom’s expression was surprised, but she quickly masked it. “Good job, sweetie. Where is your brother? I sent him to you.”
“He’s at home with Sari and Sen. I’ll explain later, but we need you to send Hail and me back in time to see Ronez when he was alive. We think he has one of the god weapons.”
“You have the ability to travel in time yourself, and you will learn how if you travel a lot, but it can be a terribly corruptive power. I will send you to him, but you have to be absolutely sure. I also cannot bring you back from this point in time. That means once you get there, you will have to find someone to return you to our time.”
“Okay. I can do this.” I closed my eyes and straightened my spine, ready for anything.
“Hey.” Mom smiled at me when I opened my eyes. “I know you can; you’re your father’s son. I have never doubted you or your brother.”
The area filled with bright light and I felt the energy of Earth disappear. The energy that I felt when reality formed around me was… Earth’s… Hail and I were standing in the familiar living room of Ronez’s house. This was the house with a magic basement and an odd mirror.
