by Brindi Quinn
“Now,” she said, “let’s go find your friend. This ‘mysterious boy’ of yours.”
“Good! Just wait. He’s not like anyone in the village. He’s . . . different.”
“Different?”
“You’ll see what I mean.”
I followed my own footsteps of memory to the edge of the meadow. Where the air should have carried the scent of fragrant bloom and dark wood, it smelled only like shadow. It didn’t feel right.
At the forest’s border, Illuma was both impatient and excited. “Well, where is he?”
“He’s here,” I said. “I can feel him.”
“What do you mean ‘feel’?”
“I don’t know; I just can.”
It was true. I could feel him. I was just a decade-old girl, unable to fully grasp the concepts of love and destiny, but I could feel a connection, a pulling, a longing.
I waited patiently, letting the cloudy air continue to swirl around me. I knew that if I only waited, he’d show himself. Illuma let out an impatient groan, and I worried that she’d give up and leave, but then he, the ‘mysterious boy’, stepped out of the wood. He’d come! But . . . I couldn’t see him properly. His face was shadow. A blurry mess of darkness.
“I have been waiting to meet you, Illuma Rosh,” said the boy.
He reached out a hand – a lovely and alluring hand with long, slender fingers.
“You’re not a Sape!” gasped Illuma, “You’re-”
“I will teach you a mist splice song, Aura Rosh,” interrupted a second voice in the darkness.
Illuma gasped again. There were now two faceless, shadowed people.
“Who are you?” I asked, surprised at the new person’s arrival. I hadn’t been expecting another one of them.
“He is a friend,” assured the boy. “Let him teach you the mist splice. Do it for me.”
“Mist splice?”
“Yes,” said the second voice, “I will teach you, but do not tell anyone.”
“Um, I’m not sure. I usually don’t break the rules, and I’ll get in trouble if Miss Danice finds out.”
“She will not,” said the boy.
His words offered immediate comfort. Another unidentifiable pulling urged me to listen to him.
“Alright,” I said, giving a small nod, “I trust you.
Illuma shot me a dark glance. “You trust him? Aura, do you think that’s wise? They could be thugs!”
“No, Illuma, you’ll understand if you . . . er . . . touch him.”
“T-touch?! What are you saying?”
“Just do it. Just take his hand, and you’ll understand.”
Illuma’s cheeks grew faint pink. “Fine.” She moved beside me and lightly placed her hand in his. “Ha!” she let out a third gasp. “What’s that?”
“I know,” I said. “He feels different, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah! Alright. He seems okay.” She didn’t remove her hand.
“Good,” said the second voice. “We need to hurry. Aura must learn it before Ged’ra gets back.”
“Do I get to learn it too?” asked Illuma.
“No,” said the boy, “we have other plans for you.” With that, he gave her wrist an aggressive tug, pulling her out of the meadow and into the dark woods. For some reason, when she stepped through, the ground separating Farellah from the outside forest glowed bright green.
“Illuma! W-wait! What are you going to do with her?!”
“Shhh,” said the boy. “Trust me.”
From the corners of the world, came a strange and startling sound. It was a loud grunt of concentration. It was . . .
Ardette?
“I’m trying, but I can’t get it to clear!” His voice did hold an echo, unlike the rest of us within the meadow.
What’s Ardette doing here?
“Dammit, Darch, she’s slipping out of the memory!”
Darch? Oh, right. This is a memory.
The shadowed people before me were growing even more shadowed, even more hazy and unrecognizable. If only I could make them out . . . but the meadow, too, was drifting away.
There was another loud grunt from the outside world.
“The things I do for you, my cherry pit! You’d better be appreciative when this is over! UNGH!”
With that, the meadow came zooming back into full view, much clearer than it had been before. Illuma was standing on the other side of the sizzling green boarder, holding the hands of a boy with green hair. No, it was an Elf with green hair. A cute, impish Elf with a mischievous smirk upon his bronze face. Around his neck was a pendant – a green-black stone held upon a woven rope.
Even with the constrictions of memory’s emotion, my heart fell in my chest.
There was no way, but still it was so. Holding onto my sister’s hand, luring her beyond the protective barrier around Farellah was . . .
NYTE?!
But just like that, the surprise and shock of it melted away and I was once again lost in the confines of memory.
“Illuma! W-wait! What are you going to do with her?!”
“Shhh,” said the boy. “Trust me.”
“But, I want to go with you too!”
“No, you cannot. You must stay, but someday I will return for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I am your emulator. I have been chosen just for you. Since the first time we touched, I have loved you and you have loved me, and we will continue to do so until the end. That is how things must be.”
He sounded sad. It hadn’t been there before, but a new and apparent sadness was forming in the deepest parts of his green eyes.
“The end?” I asked.
“That is enough, Nyte. You must take Illuma to Druelca now.” The second voice was still there, but its owner was shrouded from view by a large oak.
“No!” I cried. “You can’t just take her away from-”
“Stop it, sister,” commanded Illuma.
“Huh?”
I turned to study her for explanation, but my sister’s face had turned unnervingly blank.
“I said, stop it. I’m going with him. I’m leaving this place.”
“What? Illuma? What’s wrong with-”
“Can’t you hear the eastern moon? It’s pushing me, instructing me to follow him. Please don’t try to stop me. I have to go.”
“It’s no use,” said the second voice. “It has begun. She has also made contact with the emulator, and things are now in motion.”
“What do you mean-”
“Trust me,” said Nyte again.
The interjection calmed all of my inhibitions.
“Go, Nyte, and do not resist them this time. It will work in your favor if you let them control you. I will come back for you in a few years. That is an order.”
“Yes, Elder.” Nyte’s green hair was now lit with silver moonshine. He was so daring and charming . . . The little time I’d spent with him hadn’t been enough. It wasn’t fair! I wanted to change places with Illuma. I wanted to be the one holding his hand. I wanted to . . .
He turned to me, smiled sadly, and tipped his head. “Until we meet again, my Heart, I will wait for you.”
“Wait!”
It was all happening so quickly that I couldn’t grasp it, and before I had a chance to say goodbye, Nyte and Illuma were gone.
I was left with the second voice and loneliness in my chest.
“Now then,” he said, “shall we begin?”
Skipping limberly across the green line, the second person finally revealed himself.
“My name,” he said, “is Nit’suj Pietri. It is a pleasure to meet you, Aura Telmacha Rosh.”
Chapter 15: The Truth
“Sword-like edge of matter deep,
Abound in me the mist to seep.
Splitting towers, cutting stone,
Shatter breaks of marrow bone.”
I finished reciting the words. “Was that right?” I asked.
“Yes, you have learned well,” s
aid Nit’suj.
“But when will I need to use that sort of thing?”
“In a half-decade, when the moment is right, the song you just sang will resonate and open the path for a vessel to find you. I have inscribed it upon the cherry trees.”
“A vessel?”
“Yes. She has already been chosen. Wait for her. Her name is Kan-”
A distant rustling in the woods made the wizened Elf stiffen.
“Now then,” he said, “the time has come.”
“Time? For what?”
But we were interrupted by the thudding of footsteps – a gang of running men, plowing through the forest brush. Nit’suj Pietri put up his hood and then reached out and tapped my forehead. My eyes were flooded with a mystic blue light
And then . . .
I couldn’t remember what had just happened.
Who had I been talking to? I thought I’d been talking to someone, but there was no one around. And why was I in the meadow in my pajamas?
“There she is! Strike her down!”
A woman’s voice cut through the night air. It was quickly followed by the form of a hooded person in an onyx cloak.
“Who are you?!” I was confused and disoriented, and for some reason, my eyes kept flashing blue.
“Brucks! Alena!” called the woman. “What’s taking you so long? I found her!”
Following the woman’s order, two men jumped into the clearing, both also wearing onyx cloaks. One of them threw a fist at me, making contact with my stomach in a full-forced punch. I fell backward onto the ground.
The other of them took out a small dagger.
“We’ll kill you now, Heart that seeks to keep us from our rightful power!” he said.
“Kill?!” I was confused and filled with dread and struggling to recover from having the wind knocked out of me.
“We’ll kill you now and put an end to the prophecy!” spat the woman. “If you never reach maturity, you’ll never be able to release that stupid song!” She kicked me in the side of the ribs.
Somehow, the blueness numbed the pain, but it was still hard to breathe.
I rolled over. “Why?”
“Shut up! Alena, your knife!”
Alena threw back his head in a malicious cackle. The woman kicked me again and then leaped on top of me in a restraining straddle. Alena’s dagger was small and sharp and it wasn’t long before it was piercing my arm. I closed my eyes. I wanted to wiggle away, but my body was heavy and blue.
“What despicable people you are that you would try to harm a child! Move your weapon from that girl right now!”
I snapped my eyes open.
Running across the meadow from the dirt path that led to the town square was Marbeck Berfield, the mayor’s mother. She’d always been so weak and wrinkled, but she was now sprinting like an athlete with a fearsome look upon her sagging face.
“Parnold! She’s here!”
The town blacksmith came bolting into view behind her, wielding the thickest sword I’d ever seen. With three bursts of speed, he slashed at the woman, Alena, and Brucks one after the other, making precise and hard-hitting contact. Still on the ground gasping, I winced, awaiting the gruesome death that should have followed such an impact, but blood didn’t splatter. Instead, the three attackers dissolved into puffs of black smoke. Parnold dashed to the other end of the meadow, ravenous for more.
“Aura!” Marbeck was over me. “Aura! Don’t move. Can you breathe, dear?”
“W-what were they?!” Shaking, I heaved the words out.
“Shhh! Keep still, child!”
“What’s going-”
“Yes’lech has been betrayed!” An old man came pummeling through the forest barrier.
For a moment, it felt like I’d seen him before, but then I realized that there was something different about him – something that I would have surely remembered, had we met. It was most peculiar, but it was unmistakable. He wasn’t like the rest of the villagers. His ears were pointed and his hair was green. It took me a moment, but then I realized. He was an . . .
ELF?!
I struggled to breathe while struggling with the concept of a real Elf roaming my meadow.
“Elder Pietri?” said Marbeck, looking up in hasty surprise. “I’m glad you’re here, but why are you?”
The wizened one known as Elder Pietri was at my side in a flash. “Ged’ra released the barrier and let the Daems of Druelca in!”
“What?” Marbeck’s eyes were filled with disbelief. “What are you saying?!”
“I disposed of a handful of them out in the wood, and the ones that I managed to subdue before disposal reported that Ged’ra was the one that let them in!”
“But why would he? Ged’ra’s a good man!”
“I do not know! Perhaps Druelca got to him?”
“It is as we feared, Pietri!” said Parnold, running back to us from his scouting of the area. “Illuma was also taken, so that means that the Roshes truly are the siblings from the prophecy!”
“Illuma was taken?!” The old man immediately became filled with panic. “We must upgrade the barrier at once! All of the officers will need to reinforce it this time, for this child truly is the Heart of Salvation!”
“Aura? Aura?!” Marbeck’s voice was fading. “She’s losing consciousness!”
“Marbeck, tell that Daem boy to fetch Danice,” ordered Parnold. “Before she goes dark, we need to have her memories suppressed; it’s not the right time for her to understand yet!”
“Run!” yelled Rend.
All at once, in startling immediacy, I was ripped from the memory. I was in Rend’s broad arms and she was running full-speed for the small shack’s door.
“Get out!” yelled Darch in a similar frenzy. “They’re swarming the place!”
“That’s what they meant by dargon’s comin’ when the shade grows long?” growled Grotts. “What is this place?”
“I fear it’s a sacrificial spot for dargon worshipers!” cried Scardo, flinging arrows with untamed speed.
I wildly looked around and tried to figure out what was going on.
We were now running away from the small shack. Behind us was a swarm of much-larger-than-normal-dargons in close pursuit. It was nearly nighttime, but the sky was lit with flaming balls of dargon spit.
Ardette was slung over Grotts’ shoulder, his face gaunt, and his body limp.
Oh no! With this attack, he hasn’t even had time to recover!
Darch was running ahead of Scardo being, to some extent, sheltered by his taller frame and rapid arrow deflections. Rend was running like a madwoman, clinging to me like I was some piece of expensive cargo on the transport fleeing from bandits or some other group of ruffians.
“Have you a tight hold on her, Rend?”
The question came from behind. I looked back, and there was Nyte, catching up to us with Kantú nestled in his arms like a scared baby animal.
It’s him! N-n-no!
Upon seeing my beloved Elf, some unknown emotion, maybe terror or something close to it, started to seep into the pit of my stomach.
“Aura!” he called. “Are you injured? That Daem was making an abhorrent racket, and I did not know what strain he was putting you through! I was so worried!”
No! Stay away!
Now that I was outside of the memory, I could remember what had happened before Pietri had erased my memory the first time – what Nyte had done. Yes, it must’ve been terror that flooded me now. But the emotion was confusing, for I was also still drawn to Nyte by that pull that had always connected us. That pull that made me crave him. Made me want him. Made my heart pound. I was terrified and confused, but I also loved him and missed him and was glad that he’d survived Ardette rummaging around in his mind. It was almost too much for me to take.
I hid myself in Rend’s shirt, an act for which she surely would have acted disgusted, were she not dodging a myriad of incoming dargon blasts.
“Cousin?” Nyte called to us again. �
�Has she fallen unconscious? What is wrong with her?!”
“How should I know?!” spat Rend angrily. “This is hardly the time for such foolish questions! These creatures are far more vicious than the last! Can you not tell? They have acquired a taste for intelligent blood!”
N-N-Nyte . . . he . . . and Pietri . . . they gave Illuma to Druelca! He wasn’t being controlled then . . . he was . . . it was . . . his own will? But that doesn’t make any sense! He was working with Pietri and Druelca at the same time? And Pietri was cooperating with the bad guys? And Pietri set up Ged’ra? And . . . Somehow . . . why?
Turns out, it was too much for me to take.
I loved him then and he loved me too, so WHY?
“WHY DID YOU DECIEVE ME?!” The words escaped me on their own.
Nyte was now at our side, concernedly peering over. “Miss Havoc? What-”
“WHY, NYTE!? HOW COULD YOU?! YOU TOOK ILLUMA! YOU LEFT ME TO DIE! Y-you and Pietri . . .”
But I was interrupted by my own sobs.
“Oh! Great! It is a wonderful time for you to turn into a blubbering idiot!” Rend looked at me with blistering contempt.
Nyte looked at me like I’d just stabbed him in the stomach.
“Miss Havoc? Aura? What are you speaking of?! What?!”
His face had gone completely white. He looked ready to pass out.
“Aura?!” Kantú’s face had been hidden behind cloak and tail, but she peeked up enough to ask, “What happened!? You’re shouting like a loon!”
“ENOUGH!” Rend’s voice was fierce. “Do something, songstress! If you really are a ‘savior’, then make some attempt to save us! Whatever meaningless sorrows you are encountering, it matters not!”
She was right. Despite all of her brutal faults, she was absolutely right. It had to wait. That crazy, confusing confrontation would have to wait. I wasn’t ready for it now, anyway.
This time, the dargons were more ferocious. More diligent. More rabid.
