"I don't understand..." I reply, truly confused by this encounter.
"Thomas! The last true power of the Light, the ability to gift the ethereal to non-magi. I can show you. You must come to me in Arizona. You will find a Hut in the middle of a wasteland. Your light will guide you. You must speak these words to summon me..." With that she rushes over to me and whispers the words into my ear.
I nod. I'm confused still. But the offer she has made is a good one. The power to gift the light again? New magi. A new army. New hope.
"There is a cost Thomas. A price you must pay for the gifting of the ethereal. Come to me." She finishes now. She jogs back up the hill and jumps onto the back of her dragon. The dragon raises its head, jaws splitting wide open and fire rumbles out of it and into the sky.
"And Thomas!" She shouts down, "you must be careful. There is more than one enemy. Think about this: if the darkness created the light from the void. Who created the darkness?"
And with that the dragon takes off, its huge paws pushing down as its wings spread out and beat. It glides off into the direction it came from.
I see a flash of light in the sky. And then only darkness.
Twenty-Four – A New Hope
Katie is watching Thomas. He's been unconscious for 24 hours now. She found him at the bottom of the hill in the next field. His arm twisted behind him, broken.
She had carried him back to camp, with the help of her dragon, and laid him out across the wooden log in front of the camp fire.
She was worried. He ass breathing, but he wouldn't wake. She knew his arm was bad but she had no way of healing it. She could still see his aura of light around him, which comforted her slightly. But with every hour that passed, her worry grew.
She sighed and say down with her back up against the log. She took Thomas's hand in hers and held it. She had enjoyed the last few days with him, travelling through the country side. Telling him about herself, and hearing about his life. They had laughed and been happy. She loved him.
And then tonight had brought home the truth, a cold slap to her face. They were at war. There would be no peace while the darkness existed. She had seen the destruction that now lay where an active and bustling city used to be. It took her a few minutes to realise what she was looking at, but then she knew. She had cried through the night while Thomas slept.
She dozed off, holding Thomas's hand. She woke as the sun rose in the sky, there was a chill in the air and she could smell the smoke now. The wind must have brought the smoke from the city in their direction. She choked.
She heard a moan behind her and spun around, Thomas was moving. He raised his head slowly. A look of worry on his face. Then he saw her and his face lit up. Katie instantly felt warm. She smiled back at Thomas.
She grabbed a bottle of water from the rucksack and brought it over for him to drink. He moans again and he tried to lift his broken arm. He looked at it for a moment, confused, before nodding. Katie could see his light flowing toward his arm. A snap as his arm set itself, she could see it twisting and stretching back into place. She heard a few more cracks and then the light faded. He stretched his arm a few times before taking the water and drinking.
"I had a vision." He tells her. Katie waits silently, until Thomas is ready to continue. He takes another sip.
"I saw Gandrea," he looks at her now, "the woman that foretold of our coming and the return of the darkness. She came to me. She told me she is alive - she disappeared after the Prophecy. She asked me to find her. She can teach us to master our powers."
She sat there, thinking in silence. It was a lot to take in. She knew Gandrea was dragon born too. If it was true, she lived, Katie could learn so much from her. A centuries old dragon born master? She could learn more about her dragon and her abilities. She could become a powerful asset in this war - instead of the weak little girl with an uncontrollable flame, a lethal power with no control over it.
"Do you believe it?" Katie asks him, a tiny soak of hope.
"I don't know Katie," he replies "it could be a trap. The darkness could be baiting us. But it's the only chance we have. We can't fight the darkness alone. She told me something else." He's looking at her again now. She has butterflies. She loves him so much.
"She told me she can show me how to gift the ethereal. To non-magi. The true power of the Light, lost since the first battle. If that's true... If that's true, we have a chance to win. Not just a chance to survive. But a chance to win." He tells her all this, she can see his face lit up. He was hoping too.
"Then we have to try. We owe it to all the people that have given their lives for the chance of peace, the end of the war. We have to try. Don't we?" She asks him, unsure.
"Yes. We have to try. But first we need to get to the safe house. I need to know if there are any survivors. I also need craftings. I have an immense pool of light, but I can't use it all. With craftings I can use multiple castings at once." He tells her this, emphasising the word craftings. They just be important.
"What's are craftings?" Katie asks.
"Objects forged with symbols of castings, the forger imbues them with light and they can use their own small pools to active the castings with a thought from the wearer." He informs her.
"Okay. So, we make for the safe house." She agrees.
They don't leave that day, Thomas needs to rest. Katie doesn't argue, silently pleased that she can rest too.
Around midday, Thomas tells Katie he wants to teach her to cast. He holds her hands and tells her how to dive into her well. She does. She's amazed at what she sees. A huge ball of fire hanging in the sky, she can feel its heat. She does as Thomas says and pulls on it. She feels the fire coming to her.
She opens her eyes and tries to release the ball of fire she was holding. The ball pops into existence in front of her. But the fire fades and the ball disappears. She can't keep hold of it.
They spend the whole day at this task, but as the sun sets, Katie is still no closer to holding the casting in the physical world. She can feel a soft vibration from her dragon. She feels amusement. The dragon is chuckling at her. She fumes.
She watches as Thomas takes up his sword of light. He tells her he needs to practice. In his previous battles the light has guided him, but he needs to combine it with physical skill if he truly wants to master the lights favoured weapon.
He goes to war with a tree. He's clumsy. She can tell immediately that he has stopped the light from assisting him. He's all over the place. He tries to spin, dropping low and rising for an overhead swing. He slips into the mud and lands face first. Katie laughs. He gives her a dirty look.
He growls and takes up his stance again. Katie watches as Thomas spends the next couple of hours dancing around the tree. His footwork is bad, he slips and falls a lot. But by the time he's finished, the battle is won. The mighty tree defeated.
They cuddle up in front of the fire, Thomas's arms are around her. She's happy. She snuggles back into him. Thomas tells her more about the first battle. About the heroes of the light. Thor and Achilles, the brothers of mercy. They gave every defeated warrior of darkness a chance to live. Ajax, a huge warrior of deadly skill - he cut through armies of darkness and left chaos in his wake. He told her of the Dragons. A mighty race of thousands, they gave everything to the war. They let the humans ride them into battle. They formed mental bonds with their riders - and when their riders died, the Dragons lost their minds and followed soon after. Her eyes walled up at that. She could feel her dragon listening to Thomas too. A soft vibration as he talked of their might. Was her dragon purring? She asked herself. And she felt her dragon chuckle. Thomas continued. He told her of when the Light finally trapped the darkness. It had used a cable made of light. The darkness inside being illuminated by the glowing box. The box was buried far beneath the earth, directly under the old sanctuary. And there it had waited, until that fateful night when her house had burned and she had followed the light bringer to the very spot of the darknesses shining grave.
They woke in the morning. Katie spent the morning following Thomas's directions. Today he was teaching her how to pull the ethereal through her, ignoring the physical, he was trying to teach her control. It worked - somewhat. She could pull the fire through her, she could feel her dragon helping. But when she tried to bring it out of her fist into the physical, she lost it again and again. She was starting to get frustrated and by late morning she had lost control of the flame completely. Thomas ordered a break for her to calm down.
Katie ate breakfast while she watched Thomas practice his casting. She marvelled as he pulled the light through himself. The light coated his fists in the real world and he started to spin his hands in circles, releasing small waves of light towards his target tree for the day. The tree splintered with each stream of light. Small cuts and slices here and there before Thomas brought his hands together in a huge clap and a stream of ought chopped the tree in half. Katie clapped. Thomas smiled nervously.
Then they go back to trying to bring Katie's fire into the physical world. Thomas asks her how it feels when she does it in battle. But she can't remember. Neither can her dragon. She can't replicate it. Two hours are wasted and no progress is made. She can tell Thomas is baffled. The fire not responding the way his light does.
Thomas wolfss his lunch down and jumps to his feet. His sword of light summoned. He springs towards a new tree. He's better than yesterday. He falls only twice. But he looks silly. His movements not quite flowing the way they do in battle. But improving. The tree falls in half the time of the night before.
They pack up after Katie finishes her meal. Two days will until they arrive at the safe house, and Thomas has promised her a sighting of the wards the next day - she is excited.
They walk through the whole day; the sun is hidden behind clouds now and the rain began to pour. They stop after the sun sets, making camp behind a barn on a small abandoned farm. After dinner, Thomas and Katie begin to practice. Thomas goes straight to his sword while he left Katie the task of bringing her flame go rough her index finger - instead of trying the whole fist.
Thomas is laughing as he darts in and out with his sword, stabbing and slashing. His improvements only make Katie angrier. She gets frustrated quickly and slams her hands into the floor. She kind of hoped that would cause an explosion. Like it does in the movies. But nothing. Not even a small wisp of smoke. Not even a tiny ember of flame.
Again, she falls asleep in his arms. The thought of not having his arms wrapped around her made her shiver. He cuddled her tighter when she shivered. She sighed happily.
The morning followed the same ritual as every morning did now. Practice. Katie made no progress. Thomas did. His sword fighting was better now. He moved more smoothly, his spins and acrobatics landing without any slips. But she noticed one thing. He was slow. Compared to the speed he moved in battle with the light, he now moved in slow motion. He disappeared into the wood after lunch and came back with two sticks. He put them straight into the rucksack with a wink at her. She felt dread.
They moved on, another day. She could see a blurring in the sky directly north of her. She didn't know what it was. She out it down to the rays of sun. Possibly rain in the distance. Ten minutes later, Thomas stopped.
"Use the ethereal. Look."
Her vision switched, her dragon rising up. And she saw.
A huge rainbow dome. Every colour she could think of. Huge fiery symbols burning in the sky as the sun began to set. It was beautiful.
"The wards?" She asked.
"Yep." He replies.
She stares on in wonder as Thomas sets up camp. Thomas quickly goes to practice his casting. He's improving at that too, she thinks to herself.
"Show off!" She whispers to herself.
"What's that?" He asks with a laugh. She picks up a small stone and throws it at him. He knocks it out of the air with a casual slap, a small flash of light.
He goes to the bag and pulls out the two sticks. He calls her over, throwing one of the sticks to her. Time to teach her to sword fight he tells her. She nods. Wary.
He goes slow with her, teaching her to parry. When to lift the sword and when to go low. He teaches her to swing overhead and to spin and bring it low. She hits him hard a few times. She giggles when she does, careful not to overdo it and bring retaliation.
They call it a night, both of them bruised all over. Only one day to go until the sage house.
She wakes in his arms, aching. She doesn't want to move. But soon he wakes and they're up. They spend the morning practicing and the rest of the day walking. Thomas stops her at around 6pm. They eat and practice. He tells her they carry on when the sun goes down, he doesn't want to be seen approaching the safe house in case the darkness knows about it and has set a trap.
She agreed. Glad for the rest. They begin again after dark. Katie is aching now. They practiced with the sticks again and she's bruised. But so is Thomas. They both complain to each other with a smile and carry on.
They approach this are house a few hours later. A big stone bungalow in the middle of the field, she feels a strange sensation as they cross the wards and suddenly fire erupts around them. Thomas throws up a heat shield to protect them and her vision began to change, her dragon waking as she looks for the enemy.
Bolts of fire rain down on Thomas's shield, she can feel him straining next to her. Suddenly a huge wave of water rises before them and crashes down onto Thomas's shield. The shield waver and the water crashes into them, soaking them.
"HALT! STOP! WAIT!" A voice shouts in the distance. She recognises the voice. She can't place it.
Suddenly a dark figure comes sprinting towards them. She can feel Thomas calling his light. The tall figure with grey hair closes in. She feels as Thomas let's go of the light. His legs start to give way. He steadies himself as the figure embraces him.
"Thomas! Thomas! You made it out" It's Wident she realises. Thomas's teacher. He turns to her and embraces her too. Everyone soaking wet now.
Wident guides them into the safe hose as everyone stares at them in wonder. Wident tells everyone he sees that the Lightbringer has come. Katie can see the difference that news has on the dejected survivors. There aren't many she realises quickly. Perhaps twenty. Maybe thirty. That's all that survives the thousands.
They're ushered into a big Hall, there's six people here. Wident quickly turns to Thomas and tells him that Horal sent him away to find someone that would be vital for the war. After they took the black house, Wident activated a portal and went to Norway to find this man. Wident begins nodding to himself and takes Thomas by the arm, pulling him to the head of the room towards a large man with a scarred face and bright blue hair.
"Thomas, this is Gray, Gray this is Thomas" Wident introduces them. Thomas chokes as he stares at the man. Wonderstruck. He takes the man’s hand and shakes it enthusiastically.
Thomas turns to her, "Katie this is Gray, he's a water born warrior. A legend among my people." He turns back to Gray now, " and this is Katie - Dragon born. "
Gray shakes her hand and smiles at her pleasantly.
Then Gray turns back to Thomas and kneels. She is watching g him closely. She can see his well of light opening and all his light is pouring into his hand. Gray opens his hands and his light bursts out. All of it. His well is completely empty.
"I swear fealty unto you, Lightbringer. I will follow you to the void, my life will be yours until my light returns to the ever light and I swear myself into your service from this moment until my last" his deep voice ringing out into the stone chamber. Everyone watching now.
Gray's light shoots straight into Thomas. Thomas is frozen, his hands wide. Gasps all around the room. A few seconds later the light drips back out of Thomas into a pool at his feet and is then soaked back up into Gray.<
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"The ceremony of light..." This is Wident now. He begins to nod.
Twenty-Five – A King Crowned
I'm in shock as Gray swears fealty to me, I felt his light enter me and I could tell his honesty from the light. The ceremony of light has not been used for over a thousand years.
It uses the light as a way of telling for sure that the person is telling the truth and will be loyal, the light is a separate entity and is not corrupted by human emotion or greed - using the ceremony of light is a way of making a promise through the ethereal - if the loyalty is not kept, the light will abandon the oath breaker leaving them without power.
Gray rises to his feet as his light returns to him, Thomas nods and shakes his hand. Unsure of what to say, Thomas turns to Wident to ask about the other survivors.
The Darkest Light: Book 1 of The Inferno Prophecy Page 10
