Heart of Farellah: Book 1

by Brindi Quinn

“Ardette! That’s terrible!” She walked over and flicked him in the cheek.

  He ignored her. “Causing you such pain.” He placed his hand on my head. “The coward ran away. He should’ve faced it like a man. Then again, he’s not really a man is he?”

  “Please,” was all I could muster, though I wanted to shout, Stop it! You’re just making this worse. Go away . . . please.

  “I’ll help you,” he said. “But I will never forgive him.”

  I looked up at him through teary eyes.

  Help me?

  His hand, which was still resting on my head, flickered to shadow.

  “Uh!” I let out a surprised gasp as he pressed his shadow into my head.

  Huh? The shadow spread out, clouding my mind.

  What is this? I was getting dizzy, but it felt sort of good; numbing. I was still. Ardette closed his eyes and continued to spread the shadow.

  I feel . . . better. I did. I felt better almost instantly.

  He concentrated on flooding my brain with smoke, and his forehead twitched.

  I giggled the first giggle I’d had in a long time.

  Am I flying? Everything suddenly looked dimmer, like a shadowy haze had set over the Crystallands. Or is it the insides of my eyes that are hazy?

  I giggled again.

  “That should do it, I believe,” panted Ardette. He slipped the shadow out of me and reformed it into hand and then slumped against a rock, fatigued.

  I definitely felt different. Bolder. Everything around us was entirely lovely. The glinty crystals and the giant rocks . . . so lovely. I’d been sad, but now I didn’t care. I felt like laughing at nothing, so that was what I did.

  But in the midst of my laughter, I set my eyes on a very handsome person.

  “Ardettsy,” I cooed, walking over to him.

  Ardettsy? Where did that come from? I giggled.

  Kantú’s eyes widened. “What did you do to her, you Pervy Irving?”

  Ardette smiled with eyes still closed. “She’s intoxicated.”

  “I am?” I held my hand in front of my face and moved it from side to side. It blurred, like each of my fingers had a tail.

  “Is that s-safe?” stammered Scardo. He waddled over to me.

  “Oh, come on, Scardette, don’t be a grump.” I tapped the end of my nose, which turned out to be sooooo squishy.

  “A grump, Miss Heart?” He held his throat. “Ah- I’m going to retrieve Grotts.” He glanced back at me warily before scuttling away.

  “How long will it last?” Kantú looked from me to Ardette anxiously.

  “A few hours,” he answered weakly. “Long enough for us to get to that damned prophecy, I hope. This whole ordeal is quite tedious.”

  Kantú looked at me and bit her lip. “Aura, how do you feel? Are you still sad?”

  How did I feel? The sky was hazy from cloud-cover, just like the insides of my eyes. Everything was sort of gray today, without the blinding sunlight to reflect. How did that make me feel? Okay, I guessed. The sand was light and powdery around my feet. I liked that. But how did I feel?

  “I feel like . . . I want a hug.”

  “A hug?” Kantú tilted her head to the side. “Okay.” She opened her arms.

  “From Ardettsy.” I smiled coyly. Kantú’s jaw dropped.

  That’s not who you want a hug from, said a small voice in my head.

  It’s not?

  No . . . but he’ll do until you find the person most important to you.

  Most important? Who’s that? I couldn’t remember.

  “From him?” Kantú walked over and poked the Daem in the chest. “What kind of thoughts did you put in her head?”

  “Pardon you; I didn’t ‘put’ anything in there. I just hazed over some things. If she wants to hug me, then I assure you it is a genuine impulse.” He smiled brightly. “Alright, then. Come to me, my cherry pit.” He opened his arms, but they hung low, for he struggled to recover from the magic.

  I giggled again and tiptoed toward him.

  “Wait! What about Nyte?” Kantú stepped between us and outstretched her arms.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Nyte?

  A time when it’s dark out.

  Oh, that’s right, the opposite of day.

  She shot an annoyed glare over her shoulder at Ardette and twitched her nose. I ducked under her arm and meandered over to him.

  He wrapped his arms around me and sighed. “I win. Though, I suppose it doesn’t count in your current state, does it?”

  I rested my cheek against his chest. It felt good to be held by him, but something was wrong.

  Isn’t he supposed to smell like cherry blossom trees?

  Does it matter?

  I suppose not . . .

  I looked up into his eyes. That’s right, I was going to tell him how I feel.

  “I . . . love you . . . ,” I murmured.

  At this, his eyes widened and his body stiffened. It seemed that the unintentional utterance had ruffled the cool Daem’s nonchalant charade, for he next let out a surprised, gulping, “O-oh?”

  “. . . Nyte.”

  But when I finished the confession, he emitted a garbled grunt before dropping his head.

  “Ha! That’s what you get!” Kantú grabbed my shoulder and tried to tug me away, but Ardette held on.

  “Just a moment more, even if I have to pretend to be that fiend.”

  “Ya aren’t tryin’ ta take advantage ‘o the Pure Heart in ‘er condition, are ya?” Grotts and Scardo had just rejoined us. They both eyed Ardette suspiciously.

  “Shhh. Let me enjoy this.” Ardette lifted his head back up and squeezed me. “I love you too,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you for longer than you’ll ever know.”

  I giggled. “Kantoooo? Can I play with your tail?” I pushed myself away from him and ran to her. Ardette didn’t look up.

  “Hm,” said Scardo. He watched me weave her tail through my fingers. “Well, we must move on, but is it really okay like this?”

  “Are you my butler?” I asked him. With that tuxedo, it seemed like a proper assumption.

  “Butler?!”

  Grotts chuckled. “Alrigh’. Let’s git goin’, Jeeves.”

  ~

  Several things happened as we moved towards the prophecy. The sun fell, my intoxication slowly lifted, and the pain returned, trickling sharply back into me, even though I tried to block it out. Even the Song of Sparrow’s Joy wouldn’t do anything.

  This is terrible.

  At least the intoxication had given me a few hours of rest away from it. I still ached with worry, but I knew I had to keep on.

  All those people.

  This was bigger than me. Though I longed to remain and wallow, some unknown strength pushed me on. The crystal sand passed by in a blur after I locked away my emotions and forced myself into a cold trance.

  When the sun hung at its lowest point, we reached our destination.

  “There,” said Scardo, pointing to the ground between two boulders at the base of a cliff. There was nothing there.

  “Aura!” said Kantú, swishing her tail excitedly. “Did you hear that!? Wait,” – she studied the space – “where?”

  “She has to unlock it or some such nonsense, I gather?” said Ardette. He lazily leaned against one of the boulders and studied his nails. As the day had gone on, I’d slowly realized the horror that had occurred between us. Not only had I said something like that to Ardette, I’d called him ‘Nyte’.

  I groaned. How could something so embarrassing have happened? I pretended I didn’t remember it and wished it were true. But his words stayed with me. I love you too. When I thought of them, the small something kicked. But there were his other words there too. Don’t betray me. I pushed them both away, along with the pain.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  “Eh, Miss Heart, if you would, please?” said Scardo. He bowed and reached out his hand.

  I walked over and noticed that the sand dropped sligh
tly in the space between the rocks. Was there something under there?

  Grotts tapped the boulder opposite Ardette. “What exactly’s gonna happen?”

  But he didn’t have to wait long. My presence in the slump seemed to have activated something. From out of nowhere, a wind passed through the sand, kicking it violently up around my ankles.

  “What should I do?” I asked, looking to Scardo for guidance.

  “Wait.” He watched with hands clasped behind his back.

  The sand continued to kick out around me, and then it started swirling like a small twister. The wind’s power grew, and as an effect, began to pick up more and more sand until it was hard to see through – a cyclone of rough circling sand.

  “Guys?”

  “We’re here!” I could barely hear Kantú’s voice through the wind’s whipping.

  “. . . ook d . . .wn!” Is that Scardo?

  “What?” I called through the sand, but my voice was lost, so I tried again. “What? Scardo?”

  “. . . down . . .” I could barely make it out, but it sounded like-

  Down? I looked at the ground. There was a flat rock or something that had been uncovered by the wind. It was gray and hard, and there was a glowing outline of a hand in its center. It was . . . earthstone paint? I squatted down. I was supposed to put my hand there? Would something like that work?

  What else could it mean?

  I reached down, spread my fingers to match the outline, and pressed my palm to the rock.

  “Ah!” I screamed, because at my touch, the rock had turned to liquid and crept up my arm, like some inching leech. It sucked my hand into the ground, which had also melted into a muddy slop-like quicksand, and tugged.

  “Help! Can you guys hear me? What should I do?”

  The liquid pulled me in farther until my arm up to my elbow was covered. I was going to be completely pulled in!

  Am I supposed to sing or something? I need more guidance than that!

  I tried to pull my hand out, but the ground sucked harder. It seemed any resistance would only make the ground more persistent.

  Then I felt it. A hard something. A piece of metal within the muck? When I touched it, the sucking slowed.

  Okay, what now? There was some kind of groove in the middle of the metal thing. I searched it with my fingertips until I found a miniature knob. Guessing, I pushed my arm farther into the muck and pulled it. There was a loud click.

  It’d been a lock?

  All at once, the sand swirl stopped. At least it had done something. The finer crystal dust settled slowly. I pulled my hand out of the solidifying ground, and the muck remaining on my arm turned to gray dust and crumbled away.

  “Did I do it?” I asked, exhaling deeply. I must’ve been holding my breath through the ordeal.

  Scardo nodded and fanned away the dust. “I think so.”

  “You think?” Kantú placed her hands on her hips. “You mean you didn’t know what would happen?”

  Scardo shifted his eyes away from her piercing gaze.

  Ardette continued to examine his nails. I suspected that he hadn’t even looked up at all during the twister.

  “Terribly interesting. But now what? How much longer is this going to take? Because I-” But before he could finish his complaint, Ardette fell backward, for the boulder he’d been resting against suddenly slid out from behind him.

  Grotts jumped away as the other boulder followed. Both rocks moved only a short distance, but it appeared they’d opened up some sort of drain because the sand around us started to trickle away, completely revealing the rest of the flat rock. The glowing outline had disappeared.

  The rock abruptly shifted toward the cliff, and I toppled.

  Grotts caught me before I could end the fall and pulled me off of the now unsteady ground. The gray rock slid forward, revealing a small opening in the cliff’s side. The ground within the crevice sloped to the right.

  “In there?” Kantú clung to my arm and peered into the darkness.

  “I do believe so. Miss Heart, allow me to scout ahead.”

  “No,” – I shook my head – “let’s stay together.”

  “If the slope continues in this direction, it is possible it will lead us to that,” said Ardette. He pointed down the cliff’s edge to a massive mound of sparkling rocks in the distance.

  “Is the Inscription in there? It does seem kinda outta place, now that ya mention it.” Grotts rubbed his chin and stared at the heap.

  “All I know is that it will not be easy to get to,” said Scardo. “It is more likely under it, if anything.”

  “Um, weren’t one of you guys gonna go in ahead?” asked Kantú.

  Still peering into the darkness, she chittered fretfully and brought her tail around her neck like a protective boa.

  “Right.” Grotts held his hammer to his chest. “Let’s go.”

  Scardo and Grotts led the way, and one by one, we slowly crawled down the slope.

  Smack! I heard someone hit the ground.

  “Are you all right?” I called down.

  “Be careful, Miss Heart. There’s a drop-off.”

  The slanting ground grew steeper and steeper until it was difficult for me to crawl. I had no choice but to sit down and slide the rest of the way to the bottom. The drop-off came abruptly. Had Grotts not been waiting, I would’ve hit the ground with a similar smack.

  At the bottom, I brushed myself off and felt the wall. It wasn’t enough of a fall to do any damage, but it’d be difficult to make it back up that way. Creator willing, we’d have to find another way out.

  “Whaaa!” Kantú came tumbling down the slope, face first. How she managed to take it down that way, I didn’t know, but she nearly knocked Grotts over upon pummeling into him.

  “You saved me, Grottsy!” She squeezed his neck.

  “Where’s Ardette?” I asked.

  “Worried about me, are you?” he simpered from the shadows.

  “No! It’s just . . .” I still felt bad about earlier. “You were being quiet.”

  “Is that so? Hmph.”

  I shot him a sour look, even though he couldn’t see it through the blanketing darkness. A small amount of light trickled through the opening, but it did little to illuminate our surroundings. We wouldn’t be able to continue without more.

  “Light of virtue . . .”

  I sang an orb, and the space was brightened, and I saw then that the surroundings were surprisingly familiar, but what the light illuminated was in no way a comfort.

  “What?!” I let out a cry.

  “Aura?” Kantú cowered behind me like I’d just seen a bat. “What is it?”

  “This place!”

  This place, indeed. Jagged pieces of mirror stuck to the walls, reflecting my light all through the cavern. This wasn’t an ordinary tunnel – it was the place from my nightmares! My throat caught itself. I didn’t want to look. I remembered those jeering fragmented reflections and the terror-inducing shards of flying glass and that red glow!

  But how could this be? That was just a dream! But I was awake. I was awake and speechless.

  “What is it, Aura?” asked Grotts, moving closer to us.

  “I’ve . . . I’ve seen this place in my dreams. These mirrors.”

  But where are the vines? I looked around for them, but there were none to be found, only large boulders scattered about.

  “Huh?” Kantú looked around. “Mirrors? What mirrors?”

  What mirrors? I pointed at the wall. “All of those.” They gleamed ominously in the orblight.

  She exchanged a pair of worried looks with Grotts and Scardo.

  “Ah . . . Miss Heart. There . . . are no mirrors. I’m sorry, but you appear to be mistaken.”

  “You . . . you don’t see them? But they’re everywhere!” I forced myself to look directly at the wall. I cringed in anticipation, but much to my relief, there were no deformed faces laughing back at me.

  Kantú put her arm around me. “Ardette, is her b
rain still scrambled?”

  He shook his head. Then he walked over to the wall and broke off a piece of one of the mirrors.

  “Dear me, my cherry pit, it seems you and I are the only two that can see them.” He brought the mirror fragment over and placed it in my hand.

  “You really see them?” If this was a game, it was a mean one. I wasn’t in the mood.

  “It would be quite trifling a thing to lie about, wouldn’t it? I wonder just what you think my motives would be in doing such a thing.”

  “A ‘yes’ would have been fine.” I scowled. Still, I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one that could see them. I was already beginning to doubt my sanity as it was. What, with my dreams starting to come true and all.

  I handed the fragment to Kantú, but it disappeared when it touched her hand.

  “What does it mean?” I asked, marveling at the disappearing glass.

  Ardette put his arm around me. “Most likely that we share a deep bond and that we should consummate said bond.”

  “Ugh.” I shrugged his arm off. Not that again. Not now. But still . . .

  I’ve loved you for longer than you’ll ever know. I shook the thought away.

  “Somethin’ else is strange,” said Grotts. “Do ya smell that?” He raised his chin. “The air isn’t stale in here.”

  I took in a breath. He was right; it was fresh and unlike the musty Orolian Tunnel.

  “That means there must be other openings, right?” I said.

  “That might be true, but there shouldn’t be,” said Scardo, looking concerned. “The Hearts are the only ones that can open the door. There shouldn’t be another way in.”

  “So that proves it, then?” said Kantú, growing excited. “That you really are the Heart of Salvation? That’s great!” She gave me a thumbs-up.

  Grotts beamed at her, but Ardette’s response was something different. He turned his back to the rest of us and in a quiet mutter said,

  “I wonder.”

  I wonder? What was that supposed to mean?

  “Did you say something?” Scardo studied the back of his head, but Ardette said nothing more.

  I was weird, and I didn’t like it. Moving on without Nyte was hard enough as it was without the cryptic statements. We couldn’t dwell on it, though. We had to keep going. I pushed it away and tried to make myself unaffected. I shook my head at Grotts, showing him I intended to ignore the statement.