Sky shook it off, “My dad and Zero are coming back tonight. No sprinkle man-”
“Man of Mist.” Al corrected.
“-is going to want to mess with a house that contains a full blooded Iko and Telic.” Sky finished.
Lee stared at him intensely. “Your father is an Iko? Then, you are-”
“No.” Sky could feel the rush of blood to his face. He had never mentioned such a thing so casually before. “Well, uh,” He stammered.
“He’s adopted.” Al helped him out.
“That is intriguing.” Lee’s eyebrows knitted together as he gave an approving nod.
Sky shrugged and sank down even further into his seat. “I guess.”
“Well,” Al bounced up from the couch and gestured for Sky to do the same. “The main point is that Sky should be safe. And me, well, you don’t have to worry about me. My house, to say the very least, is probably the safest place I could ever be.”
Lee shook his head, “What would make you say that?”
Al laughed as he looked around, checking to see who was in ear shot. “I’m safe in my house because it’s not just a house, it a military base.”
“Al.” Sky warned. He couldn’t believe Al was telling Lee one of his biggest secrets. He wasn’t even sure if it was Al’s secret to tell.
“Don’t worry, Sky. He would have found out eventually anyway, this way, it’s not awkward.” Al paused. “Well, as awkward.”
Lee looked genuinely surprised. “A military base? I did not realize the government had any bases on Archaios.”
Al smiled slyly. “They don’t. It’s actually a base for a rebel faction opposing the government.” Al shrugged.
Lee tweaked his head to the left. “Rebel faction?” A look of realization came across his face, “The Taul?” He whispered.
Sky’s jaw would have dropped if he had let it. How in the worlds does Lee know that?
Al let out a laugh that was much too loud for a private conversation. “So I was right. You’re part of the Angonian’s Regal family.”
So Con had been right about Lee. He was a prince of Agon. But that still wouldn’t justify his knowledge of the Taul.
Al looked to Sky, hopefully sensing how lost he was in the whole conversation. “My dad just secured an alliance with the head of the Agonian Regal’s family.” Al explained, his face beaming.
“That’s kind of big news.” Politics bored Sky to tears and he usually didn’t ask to be updated on the rag-tag rebel alliance Al’s dad had been heading, under the command of Archaios’s own Regal, Octavian Moore, but this seemed to be a little more than your average news.
Lee nodded strongly and looked between Sky and Al, “I am aware that we contracted the alliance, but I did not know it was your father who led them, and our knowledge is that the Taul base is located on Athlesis.”
“The main one is. The one here is smaller, basically just Special Forces, and technically my father isn’t the one in charge, he’s just the general in charge of this particular base.” Al shrugged.
Sky glanced around the room nervously. They were talking so casually about it, as if everyone ran military operations out of their basement.
“You will tell your father,” Lee said to Al, “About what has happened and I will escort you to and from school and guard you while you are here.”
“Come on, I think I can watch out for myself for the few blocks I walk from the crossroads.” Al laughed.
Lee knelt down in front of them, “Skyden, how strong are you?”
Sky’s chest hurt and ever since sitting down the dull ache in the back of his head had begun to spread across his skull. “Normally? Or right now?”
Lee’s head moved in a sympathetic fashion. “You do look unwell.” Lee shifted focus to Al, “Skyden is a strong individual, and he is in pain. It is also safe to assume that he got off easy. He was not an intended target, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Sky understood Lee’s point. “Yeah, and whatever happened in there,” He shook his head and shuddered at the few scattered images of moving shadows his mind could recall. His thoughts drifted off, trying to catch that distant moment. What were those words? But he couldn’t remember what had been spoken into his mind.
“Sky?” Al’s voice cut through his thoughts, “Hey, Sky?” There was an edge of fear in his voice.
Sky opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them.
“Okay, I get it. I’ll get someone to meet me at the transport stop to walk me home.” Al sighed. “And Sky, you should go to the nurse’s office and have them call your dad if he’s back.”
“I agree.” Lee stood and offered Sky a hand. “I will take you there now.”
Sky took his hand and let the big guy hoist him up. The room spun for a second, and he waited patiently for the world to come back into focus. “I got to go meet with my Axis class now and set things right first.” Even though Lee’s suggestions sounded so much better, “I skipped yesterday and this morning, so don’t want them thinking I can’t handle things. I’ll go home after that.”
Lee nodded approval. “Good. And you will find someone to walk with you as well?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Yeah. If my dad’s not back, I’m sure I could get Con to.” The latter being the more likely scenario, since he had no intention of telling his dad. Not yet anyway. If Sky bugged him with this information now he had no doubt his dad would drop everything just to stay home and protect him which was something they couldn’t really afford to do.
“Good.” Lee said again and glanced up as the first bell rang.
“You shouldn’t worry so much, Lee.” Al flashed a fake smile. Sky knew he didn’t intend to tell his father either. He didn’t blame him - it would have been a pointless waste of air. Al’s father would never spare one of his men, even if it was to protect his own son.
“Later, Lee. See ya, Al.” Sky raised a hand to them and walked off towards the courtyard.
Once outside he felt slightly better. The warm breeze seemed to ease his pounding head and the sun had never felt so warm on his clammy skin. He brought as much of the dry air into his burning lungs and forced himself onward. He was certain he was getting sick. It didn’t happen often, but there was no denying how awful he felt. He paused momentarily in front of the metal doors, trying to stop his hands from trembling. If he was going to get through a class of physical conditioning he had to pull it together.
“Why were you talking to Lee?” Sara was in his face before he was fully into the room. “What, are you friends now? Are you trying to corrupt him with your hooligan ways? Eww, you look disgusting.”
“He said he was fine.” Con gestured them over to where he and Ellie were standing, “So he’ll fight. But just in case – don’t touch him, he might be contagious. Sky, stop here, no need to change today.”
“Uhhg, why are you even here?” Sara snarled. “Just go home.”
“No.” Con said forcefully. “He said he was fine.”
Sky stopped at the edge of the training circle, forcing back the dizzy spell that made standing still next to impossible.
Sara followed the circle around to the far side of the room, well away from him, which was fine. The last thing he wanted right now was her insults, or questions, or general feelings of malaise.
Con cupped a hand over his mouth and shouted, “Roland, come here for a sec.”
Sky flinched at the noise and, although obviously annoyed, Roland actually stood up and began walking towards them.
“Sky, you’re up first.” Ellie barked after glancing down at her notes.
Sky nodded and pulled his shoulders back, trying to straighten himself out. He walked as solidly as he could towards the center of the circle. Who would he be fighting today? If it was Ellie he was screwed, she was too fast for him in his current state. He was pretty sure he could manage to stand there and throw a punch or two, but just thinking about her bouncing around, flitting this way and that m
ade his stomach turn.
“Roland, the champ here says he feels okay, but he might still be fighting whatever it was that kept him from joining us the last few classes. Thus, I would like you and your medical brainpower to keep an eye on him. You know, so he doesn’t die.”
He could feel Roland eyeing him up. “Fine.” Was all he said.
“Thank you.” Con gave him a respectful nod, one of the first that Sky had ever seen. “Sky, you’re fighting this.” Con held out a piece of paper with a circle drawn around some random symbols on it.
“Awesome.” He had to force the word out.
Ellie stepped out of the circle. “Do you know what that is?”
“It’s a summoning.” He was pretty sure.
Con placed the paper on the ground directly in the center of the circle. “This is one of the lowest classes of Fury, but if you’ve never fought one before, you can probably expect to lose.”
“I don’t know how to fight it.” He said honestly, “Aren’t they invisible.”
“This circle will give it enough energy to manifest a semi solid state.” Ellie’s eyes flitted between Con and Roland, she looked worried.
“If you can’t handle it, step outside the training ring.” Con gestured around them, “It won’t be able to cross the line.”
“You said we were fighting together today.” Sara blurted out, a nervous edge to her voice.
“There was a change in plans. It happens.” Con shrugged.
“Then, let me go first.” Sara shifted uncomfortably from the sidelines, “I know more about this kind of stuff, let him at least watch and learn.”
“Are you underestimating him, Sara?” Con said with a slightly mocking tone as he stepped out of the circle.
“No, I just, I don’t think it’s fair. You know he doesn’t feel well -”
“I don’t like excuses.” Con’s words flowed out with a distinctly threatening edge. “He’ll never understand limits unless he is pushed to them.”
Sky wondered if she was still feeling sorry for him. Her pity was almost worse than her spite. He crossed the few steps over to the paper on the ground and took the pin from his jacket.
“Con, I don’t see this on the agenda for today.” Roland scanned his tablet, “Did you clear this with Professor Blanks?”
Sky stuck the sharp edge of the pin into his thumb and squeezed out a bit of blood.
“I promised you I wouldn’t go easy on you.” Con smiled softly over to Sky.
With a lurch in his stomach Sky crouched down and smeared his blood across the summons. “Orior.” He hoped he said that right.
“Con…” Roland stepped farther from the circle.
There was silence in the room. Nothing had happened. Sky cursed at himself – he must have said it wrong.
“Be…Behind you.” Sara’s voice came out as a whisper.
Turning slowly, Skyden braced himself for something gruesomely deformed and horrifying, after all, he had just summoned a Fury from the depth of Snow.
What he saw was much worse.
The pain in his chest spread once again and brought alternating waves of pain and numbness. His breath quickened and his heart began to pound in his throat. “Why you?” He heard himself choke out the words.
“It’s not her, Skyden.” It was Ellie’s strong and steady voice that tried to find the part of his brain in charge of reason. “They lie.”
He nodded, or at least, he thought he did. He stared at the ghostly image of his mother, standing there, dressed in her night robes, a bloody mess on her chest and the hilt of the knife still lodged in it.
“Come home, Skyden.” She said.
He knew it wasn’t her. He read all about the Furies and their tricks, but he didn’t want to look away.
“Come back where you belong.” She reached a hand towards him.
“Move!” Sara screamed at him.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” The thing that looked like his mother placed a warm hand on his aching chest. “But, it doesn’t have to.”
“Mom…” He didn’t mean to say it, but, he just wanted to believe it was real, just for a second.
“You idiot! It’s not her!” Sara yelled.
“Don’t interfere.” Con snapped.
“You don’t have to be in pain.” His mom looked so sad as her other hand reached for his face and she whispered softly to him, “You don’t have to stay here anymore.”
“Stop this.” Ellie crossed the line and ran for him.
The face of his mother morphed into something else – something dead, angry and screaming. The fingers on his chest curled and began to claw at his flesh. “You belong to us!” It screeched, “You belong to the Snow!”
And then it hurt. It really, really hurt. Like every cell in his body was being torn apart one by one. He wasn’t sure who was screaming, but before blackness overran his vision once again, he was certain it was him.
Chapter Fifteen
Sky opened his eyes slowly for the second time that day. His vision came to focus on a circular stain on a gray-paneled ceiling. It hurt to move, and so he didn’t. Wherever he was, it wasn’t comfortable. He shivered at the cold metal of the slab beneath him and wondered where he was.
“Welcome back.” Roland’s dry voice found his ears.
A green light caught his eyes and he noticed a series of halo symbols hovering a few inches above his chest.
“What happened?” He rolled his head to the side to see Roland sitting next to him.
Roland’s hand moved rapidly around his tablet and Sky could tell by the little beads of sweat stacking up on his forehead that he was either nervous or exhuming a lot of energy, neither option left him feeling confident.
“I knocked you out. You were going into shock.” Roland didn’t look at him, but kept his focus on his work.
“Where are we?” Sky looked back up at a ceiling he’d never seen before.
“It’s just the upper floor of the storage building they have us in. I saw no point in letting those barbarians at the school handle this, and it’s a good thing I didn’t.” Roland looked him straight in the face, “Why didn’t you just tell us you were shot and not sick? I had to waste precious time figuring that out.”
“Shot?” He laughed, sending a terrible tremble through his entire body.
“Don’t move so much.” Roland snapped and looked back to his calculations.
“I wasn’t shot. That’s ridiculous. I think I was just dehydrated.”
“Really.” The halo above him disappeared as Roland slapped the tablet down into his lap. “Well, then please, feel free to ignore my seven years of medical training and go. I insist.”
Sky looked down at his exposed chest. It still ached a little, but there wasn’t a scratch on it. Even the most sophisticated weapons left some burn marks or bruising. Roland had to be crazy.
“You’re an idiot.” Roland snapped the tablet back up and the halo appeared again. “Your insides are a mess. It was some sort of old bullet gun by the extent of the damage.” He shook his head and narrowed his eyes.
“But…” His hands began to shake. That didn’t make sense. “I don’t remember…” But he did. In his dream, the man made of shadows had a gun. “But, it wasn’t real.” He whispered hoarsely. “I would be dead if that was real.”
Roland looked up, curiosity ruled over his expression. “Dead?”
Anger bubbled inside him. He didn’t like the way Roland was looking at him. “Yeah, dead. It’s what happens when you get shot point blank in the chest. You die. You’re gonna be a doctor, right?”
A slow smile with a touch of pity graced Roland’s face. It was a practiced smile, one that they must have taught all the medical professionals. “Right. My mistake.”
“I was under an illusion. Could that do actual damage?” He had never heard of such a thing, but then again, Sky had never heard of half the stuff he had learned in the past few weeks.
“An illusion? What kind of enemies have you made al
ready?” Roland shook his head and begun to chew the inside of his cheek, “But, I suppose, if the illusion was strong enough.”
Sky breathed a sigh of relief which sent a spasm of pain through the muscles in his chest.
“Either way, the damage was extensive.” He said quietly and tore his gaze from Sky and pretended to concentrate heavily onto the day-glow screen. “I suggest you go home and rest.”
“Right.” He croaked.
Roland shook his head. “Skyden.” He closed his eyes momentarily, shuddering as he did. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your brother?”
He could hear the bleeping of his heart rate increasing on whatever Roland had him hooked up to. “I haven’t talked to him in four years. Is that really your business?”
“I suppose not.” Roland nodded, but would no longer look at him.
Sky leaned back into the cold support of the table. “Why did you ask then?”
“It’s nothing.” He paused, mulling something over in his mind. “He’s just…well, I was just wondering.”
Sky stared back up at the ceiling and wondered if Roland got kicked in the head by accident. “Did you know him?”
“I knew him for a short bit, yes.” Roland’s voice was nearly silent as he spoke. “He’s different now than he used to be. I wouldn’t say that I know him much anymore.” There was a wavering in his voice.
“Right.” Sky said plainly. “Me either.”
Roland had begun to unhook him from the machines. ”You should be fine. I did what I could. Whatever you got yourself mixed up in, I suggest you sort it out.”
“Have you ever heard of the Book of Nine?” It was worth a shot considering Roland seemed to think he knew everything.
Roland bobbled his head from side to side in a sort of absent manner, “Yes, I’ve heard of it. Can’t say that I know much about it though.” He said and gestured for him to sit up. “Do you need help getting up?”
Sky shook his head and pulled himself upright. “I got it, thanks.” He paused briefly as a rush of black clouded his vision. “It’s just, this Man of Fog or something, he was looking for it. He’s who did this.”
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