The Heart of Two Worlds

by Anne Plichota

  Pavel groaned, while Zoe and Tugdual exchanged a look of despair.

  “But who do you think you’re dealing with?” continued Ocious. “Do you take me for a complete amateur?”

  Pavel couldn’t contain his exasperation.

  “Get to the point!”

  “The last Diaphan in Edefia lives in a specially equipped cave that I personally authorized,” announced Ocious triumphantly.

  Pavel closed his eyes as indescribable relief washed over him.

  “It’s going to be OK,” breathed Zoe, her cheeks shining with tears.

  “Yes,” confirmed Ocious, “but only on one condition.”

  Zoe shivered violently. Tugdual made a move to go over to the sofa where Oksa was lying, but Zoe put up her hand and said, almost inaudibly:

  “Stay away…”

  Tugdual stopped. His dark pupils dilated, consuming the piercing blue of his eyes. Orthon looked intrigued, while Ocious seemed bewildered. He was missing something.

  “The Diaphan will only give us what we need in exchange for its favourite delicacy,” said the Master of the Werewalls.

  This time, Zoe couldn’t stop Tugdual: he went to sit on the edge of the divan where Oksa was lying and put his head in his hands. Then he took Oksa’s fingers, which were clenched with pain, and kissed them.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” whispered Zoe, looking upset.

  Tugdual gazed miserably at her, then gently shook his head. He was finding it hard to breathe. He allowed his hair to fall in front of his face to conceal his agitation and clutched Oksa’s hand even tighter. Her fingers moved slightly and her eyelids fluttered like the wings of a butterfly trying to fly. She eventually opened her eyes, looking dazed, and tried to sit up.

  “I really thought I was done for this time,” she stammered, before slumping back on the divan.

  Ocious came into sight, just behind Tugdual, who was looking at her more intensely than ever before. Realizing where she was, she began to remember what had happened.

  “This is like a bad dream…”

  “We’ll get you better, sweetheart,” said Pavel. “You’ve just got to keep strong!”

  “I’ll do my best, Dad,” she replied, alarmed by everyone’s serious expressions.

  “You’d better do, Lil’ Gracious,” whispered Tugdual, resting his cheek against hers. “You’d better…”

  55

  SACRIFICE FOR LOVE

  OCIOUS HAD SUMMONED HIS STAUNCH ALLIES AND HAD reluctantly agreed to the presence of the older Runaways. It had been heart-rending for Abakum and the Knuts to enter the lavish suite of rooms that had belonged to Gracious Malorane in happier days, and seeing Oksa there only made their memories more poignant.

  Oksa was still trying to come to terms with the idea that her time was running out and she couldn’t stop thinking about the Outside, and her mother and Gus, who also had a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. They had to be in a great deal of emotional, as well as physical, pain. At least she could hope for a speedy recovery. The Werewalls and Runaways were exchanging bitter words some way off and Oksa couldn’t muster enough concentration to hear what they were saying. Her ears were still buzzing, transforming all sounds into an indistinct din. Despite being unable to make out the details, though, she’d realized what was going to happen and was trembling with fear.

  “The things you have to do to stay alive,” she murmured ironically, in a bid to stop herself crying at the thought of drinking that elixir.

  Sitting on the ground, with their backs against the sofa where Oksa was lying, Zoe and Tugdual turned to look at her and she was surprised by how worried they were.

  “It’ll be a breeze,” said Tugdual hoarsely. Zoe remained silent, unable to utter a word.

  They both went back to following the agitated discussion between the adults a few feet away. Oksa was worn out. She fell back against the cushions and watched her two friends. They seemed to have buried their differences, which would have pleased her in any other circumstances. But they seemed to be colluding over something she couldn’t make out, which had brought them closer, and that bothered her. Surprised at her own spontaneity, she rested her hand on Tugdual’s head and ran her fingers through his silky hair. She’d never have dared to do that a few weeks ago. Tugdual leant back against the sofa, moved by her gentle caress.

  “We have to summon all the young people in Edefia!” suddenly rang out Ocious’s voice. “We’re bound to find a few young men or women in love.”

  The Master of the Werewalls looked concerned, which didn’t bode well at all.

  “What’s he talking about?” asked Oksa in a low voice. She was finding it hard to hear.

  “About the Diaphan,” replied Zoe, before Tugdual could say anything.

  Oksa saw Abakum pacing up and down, looking preoccupied. They were all lost in thought. Except for Orthon, who kept his eyes fixed on the three teenagers.

  “That will take too long! We have to find another solution,” declared Abakum in response to Ocious’s suggestion.

  When Orthon pointed triumphantly at Tugdual, Oksa suddenly realized what the Felon was plotting.

  “No way! Not that,” she whispered, her face crumpling.

  “Why complicate matters?” said Orthon.

  Oksa felt as if she’d just been stabbed through the heart. For the space of a terrifying second, she imagined the Diaphan sucking every scrap of devotion from the man she loved, which is exactly what Orthon had in mind.

  “Why scour Edefia to find someone who’s passionately in love,” continued the Felon, “when there’s a young man perfect for our needs right here… Or at least, perfect for the Diaphan, which will save our Gracious’s life!” he added with a sardonic snigger.

  “Out of the question!” objected Naftali, white with rage.

  “You’re mad!” hissed Abakum.

  Lying motionless on the sofa, Oksa felt as though her blood had drained away. This was the worst solution imaginable. She’d already lost her gran, her mother and Gus. If she had to lose Tugdual’s love too, she knew she’d die.

  Tugdual hadn’t moved. He sat there with his head tipped back towards Oksa, studying the veins in the blue marble ceiling. He looked a million miles away, lost in thought, even though his body was there. Orthon, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven.

  “You should have joined us while you had the chance,” declared the Felon to Tugdual.

  To everyone’s surprise, Tugdual raised his head and eyed him with icy calm.

  “Don’t kid yourself! I’d never have followed you, NEVER!” he remarked. “I’ve always taken responsibility for my actions, both good and bad, even if I’ve sometimes made the wrong choices. And I accept full responsibility for the decision I’m taking now and its consequences.”

  He paused briefly, which some of them read as a hesitation and which gave others the hope they’d be proved wrong for believing the worst. Then Tugdual stood up, trembling uncontrollably despite himself. He turned away from Oksa to face Ocious, ignoring Orthon completely.

  “You can take me,” he said breathlessly. “I’m ready to… meet your Diaphan.”

  Oksa wanted to protest, but pain and lack of comprehension made it impossible to speak. Her sight blurred by burning tears, she saw Naftali go over to Tugdual, who abruptly pushed away the hand held out by his grandfather.

  “No, Tugdual, we won’t let you do this!” stammered Brune.

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Think about Oksa,” added Naftali.

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” retorted Tugdual. “She’s all I think about. DO YOU WANT HER TO DIE?”

  “Let him do what he wants,” snapped Ocious. “He’s old enough to make his own decisions.”

  The Master of the Werewalls didn’t try to hide his satisfaction. He’d just killed two birds with one stone: not only had he found a way to save that scatterbrained Young Gracious but he was also getting his revenge on the Knuts. Those two stubborn
individuals would have made powerful allies if they’d chosen the right side… Today, their cool-eyed grandson would pay for their mistakes, despite his incredible potential.

  “You’re fooling no one,” Zoe suddenly said in a shaky but determined voice.

  “Zoe, stay out of this,” warned Tugdual.

  “Tugdual’s love is a sham,” continued Zoe. “He used his considerable skills to seduce Oksa, he tricked her into caring for him and now he has her wrapped around his little finger. But the only thing he’s really interested in is her power.”

  Tugdual tried to silence her by firing a Knock-Bong, which she avoided by leaping to the other side of the room with the agility of a cheetah. Her face hardened and her eyes filled with a cold glitter that surprised everyone, briefly reminding the Runaways of Reminiscens when she’d fired the deadly Granok at Mercedica. Zoe’s face wore the same determined, and pitiless, expression.

  “Why would he sacrifice himself then?” asked Ocious sceptically. “Getting up close and personal with a Diaphan is no picnic for a young man.”

  “Tugdual’s always been fascinated by Beloved Detachment,” replied Zoe. “He was totally captivated by the story of my gran and that of the fifth tribe. He’s always been obsessed with the idea of meeting a Diaphan.”

  Oksa looked from Zoe to Tugdual. She was appalled by Zoe’s revelations, which felt like dagger blows to her heart. Tugdual kept silent, his fists clenched, his eyes fixed on Zoe to the exclusion of everyone else. Oksa felt as though she didn’t exist for either of them any more. Or worse, she felt like some pawn in an implacable game: she was being used by a power-hungry Tugdual or by Zoe, who was desperate for revenge. Or for the truth… it didn’t matter. Either way, Oksa’s heart was shattered into a thousand pieces.

  “Anyway, he knows he’s got nothing to fear by putting himself forward because he isn’t in love with Oksa,” concluded Zoe, just as icily. “It changes nothing for him. But it makes a huge difference to us: Beloved Detachment won’t work and the Diaphan won’t be satisfied.”

  The Werewalls and Runaways looked shaken at this potential spanner in the works.

  “I do know someone with enough love in their heart to save Oksa, though,” announced Zoe to her perplexed friends and enemies.

  “Who’s that, my dear great-granddaughter?” whispered Ocious, intrigued by Zoe’s self-possession and charismatic personality.

  Oksa distinctly heard Tugdual murmur: “No, Zoe…” which confused her further, then he threw himself out of the broken window that had been shattered by the entrance of the Ink Dragon and soared into the dark skies over Thousandeye City. In a whisper, Zoe said:

  “Me.”

  56

  CONFUSION

  OCIOUS PUT A FIRM ARM AROUND ZOE’S SHOULDER AND silently led her to one side, watched by the devastated Runaways. If the Master of the Werewalls and his son Orthon had felt any qualms about taking Zoe up on her offer—she was family, after all!—it didn’t take them long to overcome them. Presenting a united front for the first time since their reunion, they both looked over the moon; it would have been very satisfying to take their revenge on the Knuts, but it was much more gratifying to strike such a painful blow at Reminiscens—the unworthy daughter and hostile sister who’d traitorously turned her back on her family and friends. Until now, Reminiscens had overcome all the ordeals she’d faced and had begun to appear virtually unassailable, but this would bring her to her knees at last!

  “Why, Zoe? Why you?” Abakum suddenly asked in a cracked voice, gazing sadly at her.

  Zoe looked at the Fairyman, then Oksa, before answering, her head bowed:

  “I’m in with love someone who loves someone else,” she said, with disconcerting honesty.

  Ocious looked puzzled.

  “Is that… all?”

  The Knuts and Pavel harrumphed indignantly. Oksa suddenly realized why Zoe was doing this and everything fell into place.

  “This person has a great deal of respect for me,” continued Zoe, sounding more determined than ever. “But he’ll never love me. And I’d rather lose all feelings of love than spend my life hoping for something that’ll never happen. Beloved Detachment will be a blessing for me.”

  Oksa shook her head, struggling to catch her breath. Zoe loved Gus, she’d known that for such a long time. But she hadn’t known that Zoe loved him so much that she’d willingly sacrifice any chance of love in the future.

  “But Zoe… you can’t be sure of anything,” said Oksa quietly, drawing glares from Ocious and Orthon. “You don’t know how things might turn out, you don’t know… what your life will be like! There are other fish in the sea—Gus isn’t the only one!”

  Zoe looked up, her face haggard with emotion.

  “Gus? Who said anything about Gus?”

  Oksa couldn’t help giving a yelp of surprise. Was Zoe in love with Tugdual? If she was, she’d played her cards very close to her chest. The Young Gracious tried to consider this possibility, but her thoughts were all over the place. She didn’t understand what was going on. Had she been misled? She quickly thought back over the main stages in their relationship and, the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Zoe was in love with Tugdual. Oksa was shocked to her very core.

  “Zoe, think about yourself, about your future,” broke in Abakum, sounding overwhelmed with sadness. “You’re only fourteen, you can’t contemplate a future like this!”

  “I may only be fourteen,” replied Zoe, “but it doesn’t mean I haven’t gone through a lot or worked out what life is about.”

  “A life without love is a life half lived,” added Abakum.

  Oksa shivered. She knew the Fairyman was in a good position to warn Zoe: Reminiscens could feel affection, tenderness and sympathy… but she’d never feel passion for anyone again. Including Abakum.

  “Well, it’s not as if you’d die from it!” exclaimed Ocious, sounding shockingly callous.

  “Well, as Tugdual said, we don’t really have a choice,” continued Zoe flatly. “If Oksa dies, we all die.”

  Zoe tentatively walked over to Oksa. Her eyes, so hard a few seconds earlier, were now filled with their customary kindness and suffering. Oksa took a step back as she came nearer. She’d thought of Zoe as her best friend before this awful episode, but who was the real Zoe? And what about Tugdual? She thought she’d answered those questions a long time ago and had drawn a line under her doubts, but now she realized in horror that her certainties were built on shifting sand. It was all so distressing. Zoe hugged her with disarming sincerity and Oksa let her.

  “Don’t believe anything I’ve said,” murmured Zoe.

  And she pulled away to join Ocious, leaving Oksa standing stock-still and incredulous. What shouldn’t she believe? What was true and what wasn’t? Oksa was confused. To make things worse, fresh waves of sound were assailing her ears, causing acute pain to spread through her nervous system. She couldn’t help grimacing, then groaning, terrified by the intensity of this attack. Her sense of balance deserted her, as the walls and floor seemed to recede, and every sound in the room echoed inside her body, amplified a million times over: blinking eyelids, heartbeats, microscopic mites crawling over skin… everything produced a hideous din which was becoming a weapon of destruction targeting every cell of her body. Oksa swayed towards her father and clung to his arm to stop herself falling. The Runaways surrounded her helplessly, watched by the Master of the Werewalls, whose smile was devoid of kindness.

  “I think it’s time we paid our saviour a visit!” he declared loftily.

  Pavel swallowed down the acerbic retort on his lips and kept quiet. There was nothing to be gained by talking now. He walked over to the window and went out onto the balcony that had been damaged by his landing. It took only five seconds for his Ink Dragon to emerge from his back, watched by an impressed Ocious and Orthon.

  “Oksa! Abakum!” he called. “Climb on!”

  The Young Gracious and the Fairyman obeyed, while Naftali and Brune
Vertiflew either side of the creature. Keen to stay in charge of the expedition, Ocious and Orthon positioned themselves in front, Zoe between them with two pairs of Werewalls as escort. Then they soared off like jet planes, followed by the powerful dragon bearing Oksa towards a new chapter in her uncertain destiny.

  57

  HOPE AGAINST HOPE

  THE PEAK RIDGE MOUNTAINS LOOMED STEEP AND INHOSPITABLE. The strange group flew over gorges so deep they appeared bottomless and past peaks towering so high they beggared belief. From time to time, a tremor rocked the depths of the Earth with a terrifying rumble. Stones broke loose and disappeared into the dark abysses, making the travellers even more jittery.

  Keeping Zoe under close surveillance, the Werewalls escorted the Ink Dragon and the Runaways through the narrow canyons, taking care to lose no one on the way. Orthon was Vertiflying beside his father. Although the Felon’s severe, slightly mocking expression was unchanged, his pleasure at winning favour with Ocious could be seen in his steely eyes and by the jaunty tilt to his head. He was the worthy son of a hypercritical father he envied, idolized and hated. Their relationship was clear proof of his superiority. Bursting with pride, he jutted out his chin and glanced at his father’s eagle-like profile. The Master of the Werewalls was flying with powerful elegance through the mottled sky, his arms pressed flat against his sides. Orthon was proud to be his son. One day, very soon, he’d succeed him. And no milksop like Andreas was going to stand in his way…

  Thirty or forty yards behind the Werewalls, Oksa was clinging to the dragon’s neck and gazing in fascination at the imposing landscape. The present might be grim and the future uncertain, but for the first time since she’d come to Edefia she couldn’t help feeling excited by the prospect of becoming the ruler of this world. The signs of its decline were clear for all to see: forests had been replaced by deserts, rivers no longer flowed and the tallest mountains were crumbling. Life was gradually, and relentlessly, ebbing away. Oksa thought about her gran—she would have been so sad to see what had become of her lost land if she’d been allowed to return. However, despite the dark clouds and arid land, Oksa couldn’t help sensing a powerful spirit of rebirth—potential abundance and harmony—lurking just below the surface. Oksa had to believe that. Around her, the vividly coloured mountains shimmered endlessly as she flew by, despite the waning light. She could make out blades of grass and mountain-top flowers blooming on the slightest incline. And although the thin trickle of water—probably one of the legendary endless waterfalls—flowing from the top of a lofty outcrop was little more than a dribble, it could also be regarded as a symbol of hope. It all depended on your point of view. It was the theory of the glass half full or half empty that her parents had so often argued about. Like her mother, she tended to choose the “half full” option. And if life was a matter of choice, that was hers.