“Dad, what the hell have I done?” I coughed out the words.
He didn’t respond. I hated that I couldn’t read his mind. The only mind I ever could read was hers. I had promised never to read her mind, and I had all the intention to honor her request, but it is difficult, especially as her guide; it is my duty. Anaya, Tatos and Arriana, and now Enoch, could push my mind but I could not gather thoughts, that was not my way or ability, which was a blessing because without the pull, I can feel the push and know what is not real.
“Glad you’ve come to realize that.” Dad hovered near me, read my thoughts of being careless with my emotions.
I groaned, “I know Dad. I’ll do what I can, for as long as I can.”
“You are too close.” Dad was at my side, stroking his chin.
“Dad, please.” I pushed the smoking pipe from my view. I hated that thing. If I had never smoked of it, I would never have been in this whole mess, and now the smell just irritated me.
“Don’t mock the pipe man,” Dave chirped.
I snickered silently at his attempt to lighten the mood. Dave hated heavy moments. He, too, was new to emotions and well, Dave felt deeply, more than others of his kind.
“Troy, listen to me.” Dad turned.
“I’ve heard you a million times over,” I sneered.
“This is why guides should not be lovers,” David mocked from his little corner in the room.
I chuckled. “Even he knows what you’re about to say.”
“Doesn’t make it less true.” He shot me a look, and when he tilted his chin to the ground like that, he meant business.
The clutter of metal coming from the ancient weapons box caught my attention.
“Anaya, what are you doing?”
“If I can find a weapon with a diamond on it, one that is older than the one I have, it will bring Maya back.” She stood with a small dagger in her hand, one much the same as Maya once owned.
“Ava is not gonna be happy with you doing this right now. Besides, none of the weapons have been activated, which worries me.”
Anaya looked to me with a sharp stare, and then she smiled. “It’s troublesome, I agree, but Maya has not been affected by the disease, so I am sure the weapons will work with her.” She stared up through thick, black lashes. “And in any case, Ava is not here right now,” she mocked Tatos with his own words, to which he threw a piece of carved wood at her, and she retaliated by catching it and throwing it back.
“Very funny,” he said, and went back to carving a wooden figure.
That was his way of thinking. He, too, did not like the smoking pipe much and I knew why. When he had smoked it, his soulmate had come to him in a vision, and when the time finally came where Minoan’s and humans were able to get closer things had gone horribly wrong. Yes, it had been Sage, and very much like me and because of it, she’d been taken. But unlike me, he doesn’t go near her anymore. I could see it was killing him, but he knew she was safe in our insurgent camp. He also felt that once we won the war, they could finally be together. As a Truth Seeker, his mission came first.
A soft breeze pushed into the dusky tent. We all looked toward the door. Slowly and breathlessly, Thandiwe came in, grasping her belly with an unpleasant panic to her dark eyes.
“What is it?” Anaya moved to her aid.
Thandiwe’s eyes fell to the ground. “I am sorry.” Her face paled.
Tatos looked up, his eyes meeting mine. Dave dropped the weapons on the metal table, the sudden bang reverberating through the silence, startling most of us.
Rob swore. Anaya shot him a glare, and he lifted his palms in apology.
“Ava is gone,” Thandiwe announced on a desperate breath.
“She can’t be!” Robert yelled. “How could that wound have killed her?”
“Shhhhh.” Dave fisted him on the shoulder. “She is trying to say something.”
“Here, come.” Anaya and Kronan took her hands and led her to one of the cots.
She sat. “I’m so sorry. I should not have left them together, I didn’t know.” She covered her face with her hands.
“What do you mean?” I was starting to lose my composure.
“Nomsa was performing a healing ritual; the injuries were extensive and she was fighting the blood-shift, they both were. Nomsa asked me to get something, and when I came back…”
“What did she do this time!” Robert stood.
“Shut up!” Everyone shouted at him.
“She was gone, and Nomsa was on the floor.”
“Gone, as in missing?” Anaya prompted her.
“Oh, heavens yes. Not dead, no.”
“Where is Nomsa now?” Father’s face darkened.
“Well, why didn’t she say so in the first place?” Robert smacked the metal table.
“Robert!” Anaya scolded.
“I did, but you were not listening!” Thandiwe shouted at Robert, then handed Father a dirty, white cloth cut from Ava’s shirt. He grabbed it, took a big whiff and closed his eyes.
“Can you see anything?” Anaya almost whispered.
My stomach rose in trepidation. The spell had never worked before, but as the prophecy unfolded so did our abilities, it was worth a try.
“I can’t, but I get the feeling that we need to get to Ava immediately.”
“Wait!” Thandiwe grabbed on to Anaya.
There was silence.
“Already!” I saw the panic in Anaya’s eyes, before she even uttered a word.
“The baby is coming now?” My feet were already heading out the door.
“How do you feel?” Robert crept closer. “You know, you…” He gestured with his hand to his head, implying she had crazy thoughts. “It is his baby after all and technically, you are third generation. Are you feeling paranoid, cra…”
She gave him a disgusted look. “Please, just get him away from me,” she groaned, then hissed as she tried to pull back the pain.
David was the one pacing now. “Oh man, I don’t like this one bit.”
“Then leave!” she shouted.
“It’s coming now!” Robert shouted, his swaying body knocking a clutter of canisters and cups to the floor.
Without further hesitation, the males in the room had found their way out of the tent.
I looked to the others, then back at her. “Thandiwe, I nee…”
“Anything you want, take it, it’s yours.”
“Umm, okay.” I snorted.
My body hit a wall of shock as her thin fingers encircled my wrist; I struggled to twist out of the vice.
“Troy,” she whimpered.
Behind the golden reflection of light in her pool of dark and desperate eyes, was something eager to release.
“I am not delivering this baby!” I looked to Anaya, but her eyes only flashed back the same confusion.
Sweat dappled the young queen’s dark features. Shaking her head vigorously, she took a sharp breath, her head dropping between her knees, she was mumbling something.
“Thandiwe, honey, please – we need to get you to lie down.” Anaya lifted her chin, wiping her forehead.
“She’s going to die.” Thandiwe looked straight at me, then silently closed her eyes, her breath returning in loud rasps.
“What did you see?” I asked her.
There was a slight sting pushing against the cloud of my own thoughts and I let my mental wall drop, opening to something she was clearly warning me against. Every push was different, some chose colors, others images. But Thandiwe pushed emotion through, which was very difficult to do.
When the push came, it was nothing I could ever have expected. It was an explosion into my head – a solid crash of despair, followed by a shudder of terror as it rippled and leaked out in tendrils of pain, leaving a hollow, dark place in its crater of finality. But I knew her vision was just that; a possibility, a flashing red light, to let me know that there is going to come a time where I must choose a difficult path.
“What is it?” Anay
a whispered.
I watched Anaya’s lips move, but the words were lost.
“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I told her, finding my way out of the tent.
“Bongi!” I heard Thandiwe’s soft cry emanate through the thin tapestry.
I recognized Bongi as the tall herder boy from the fields. Only, he had grown much taller and broader, it hadn’t even been that long ago. Whatever diet he was on was working.
“You need to assemble the troops,” she said to him.
I shut Thandiwe’s premonition out of my head. It had no place in my thoughts.
“And, Bongi?” her voice carried slowly.
My eyes fell to the small gap, a blue beam of light crept over the floor into the shadows of the tent. He sat on his haunches in front of her, where she tenderly removed his hand from the spear. Their foreheads touched. “Go well.”
“Yes, my queen.”
I stared into both Robert’s and Dave’s somber faces as Bongi came out, the groans of discomfort alerted us to our departure once more.
“Where are we going?” Dave dropped our bag between our feet and started packing himself with weapons.
“You think you have enough weapons, greedy?” Robert mocked.
“I will not die today,” Dave said.
“No one is going to die.” I hoped.
“Father!” I called back to Dad, I had never even seen him leave the tent. “Whatever,” I said more to myself than anyone around me, when I found he was nowhere in sight.
Bongi hovered around us. “The storm beyond the veil has lifted.” He frowned. “We should go now while we have the opportunity.”
I nodded, then restocked my harness.
“This is madness,” Robert grunted.
“That is what it means to be a warrior.” Tatos gave a soft smile. “To always be prepared.” He took off between a small path, which would lead us out of the narrow cluster of tents. We passed our main manufacturing tent where Greg came out to meet us. We rounded the last tent out of the camp and simultaneously came to an abrupt stop, but as usual Robert wasn’t paying attention and slammed into me. I clicked my tongue at him.
“Wow!” Dave said. “I had no idea the storm was this merciless outside,” he said. “What the hell are our tents made of?”
“Magic.” Robert folded his arms, looking back at the almost transparent shield cupped over the village. The sun was gleaming off its blue haze a hundred feet above us and for a moment, the sky appeared brilliantly azure. We all looked back to the maze of tents and colorful huts as they stood unharmed beyond the slight shimmering of the shield’s wall. The rest of the landscape surrounding the village had not been so lucky. Trees ruined yet still intact with roots, sprawled across a bed of torn branches and flattened bushes, big craters evident where boulders used to mark the perimeter of herding fields. The fact that Father’s replication of Ava’s shield was holding, soothed my anxiety of leaving the village. I thanked our lucky stars that the rebels were held in the caves of Mount Inja, even if my dad’s sanctuary was now known to all – it was a small sacrifice he was willing to make for their safety.
“Let the others know we are departing immediately.” I secured my weapons to my belt for a second time.
David put the earpiece in, and softly mumbled to our sister command in Vista over the secured frequency.
“We haven’t had any meals today,” Robert protested. I shot him a look. We had lived in the comfort of our own ways, way too long. Our design would be tested for the first time. The Minoan warriors crossed through the shield’s barrier first, and we followed suit. In the expanse of open fields, I noticed for the first time the battle markings on Willard, Rion, and Tatos’ face and arms. Their beads had been removed, and more feathers had been added to their chosen weapons with the mirrored effect strung in their long hair. It was hard to read their expressions under all the war paint.
My face twisted in mock amusement. “You had time to paint your face?”
Tatos gave the usual blank, yet sarcastic stare. “You don’t like it?” His eyebrow cocked.
“Don’t mock the paint, man.” Rion popped his head out from behind his tall leader, a cheesy grin spread across his face.
“Nice one!” Robert gave him the thumbs up.
David’s soft grumble caught my attention.
“How long until they send some reinforcements?” I looked at Dave for confirmation. I should have left five minutes ago. It was no mystery to me as to how Ava had vanished, I had seen it happen before. Only now, after reading the coordinated journals of the Two Mothers, did I fully understand how the Shadowing disease connected each blood member. We had discovered intimately through Ava’s thoughts, and through the words written in the Broken Diaries, that when in close enough proximity, one carrier of the disease was connected to another, and when mixed with the darker arts, could be called on will.
“So, let me get this right.” Robert rolled his eyes, his fingers waving before him. “She was blood transported.” Gently his head nodded, trying to make sense of it in his own words.
“It’s like teleportation, the carriers use their blood signature as the vehicle, and their minds as the wormhole. Their body matter simply dissolves and gets fed from point A to point B,” Greg stated, like it was common knowledge.
Robert’s nostrils flared.
Dave stepped around the two arguing men as I carried on our walk to the gathering point.
“Will your father be coming?” he asked.
“He will meet us there, I am sure,” I answered automatically, but my mind was somewhere else.
“I know that look.” David crossed his arms, coming to a standstill. I stared into Tatos’ back as he was the one pushing past us.
Sighing, I felt the guilt of withholding trickle up.
“You are keeping something from me.”
“Yes,” I confessed, finally able to speak about what had been plaguing my mind. “Enoch has been using Ava to spy on us,” I confirmed, feeling anger take its hold with a fierce, hot, grip in my chest.
Robert swore behind me. “How did you figure that one out?”
“It wasn’t easy. I never would have expected it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. The timing of all the events, her strange behavior. He is hiding behind her. That is why I took her to the apartment with me, why I left her with you guys that first night back. There were certain things she could not know. So perhaps, I mislead him through her.”
“Some of the things she knows, are things we did not want him to know,” Dave scowled in dispute.
“Perhaps.” I gave him a wry smile, slapping him on the shoulder, adding a complacent tone for effect. “Let’s go.”
We trailed through the remnants of the cyclone. The heat wave left the air hot and humid, causing the ground to dry quickly, leaving behind shallow pools reflecting mauve skies on their shimmering surfaces. My hunger to find Ava became restless and wanting. If I lost her to the Shadow, I had no reason to be, and so I would simply seize to exist, death would come back for its claim straight into my beckoning arms. It was a vicious, ravenous monster that would cause me to risk my oath as her guide – I would change her fate and mine if it meant I could keep her safe, change the natural cycle of life if I had to. It had always been my number one priority to love her until the time came where that luxury would be taken away from me. To love her for one minute and burn an eternity for it, was worth it. If she could feel what I felt for her, for even the briefest moment… This is what it means to be the Ignited one – it moves me with claws of unattainable power, devouring me from the inside. I had fought it for far too long, thought myself selfish for wanting her so badly. But, I was slowly starting to realize it was our path. My only regret was that I had not shown her sooner. Screw the prophecy.
A rampant fire inside me kept house only by my desires and raging regrets. It had been a long time since I had felt it so intensely, the burn was hard to digest. The feeling brought on the deepest remorse for ho
w I had handled it before. I was no innocent, I had almost taken a life because of it. I had no right, none at all to take a life. The worst part is he deserved it, but I was not meant to think like that. I was a warrior of souls who had judged him against all my so-called beliefs. I would have lost her that day if I hadn’t taken things into my own hands. So now, I had selfish to add to my ‘achievements’. I could possibly not slip down the moral ladder any further. Dad was freaked, because I was heading down the same path he had. It was our destiny to deliver the weapon. But what he doesn’t see, is that it’s our path. This time I had to restrain myself, this time it would be at my hands that I lose her. Thandiwe’s vision was clear on that. I loved Ava for her weak moments. I’d remember her in the tender ones. Our first kiss. I carried it in my heart for all my days, through all my struggles. I would find the compassionate Ava with her shy smile, her vibrant beauty and her gray, stormy eyes that swallowed me whole. I would not believe a stupid premonition, there was just no way I would harm her – ever. I would find her and carry her every step of the way, until she no longer needed me. The thought lifted me through the dark moments. Perhaps it was a good thing Ava was not around, that way I could use my magic. It terrified me, of course it did, I had only used my true magic once and its power frightened me. I was perhaps not ready for any of it, but I had no doubt in my abilities any longer. Reservation was something I could not afford to have. My mind sobered the moment we arrived at the gathering point. Dad already waiting on us. I looked to him as we stood before the traveling mirror; he was looking absolutely exhausted, running on vapors of magic at that point. Even a simple spell like healing was no longer a comfort to him.
“Dad?” I pulled him back from the gathering crowd.
My eyes caught the single-file row heading through uprooted trees, and a carpet of leaves that made the path impossible to find.
“What did you do?” I asked him, fully aware through experience what his earlier absence meant.
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