Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephen Allan

  “Do you think we should wait on telling her?” Cyrus said.

  Celeste went deep into thought. Cyrus already knew what his answer was, and was merely waiting for Celeste to express her opinion.

  “What do you think?”

  “Way to throw this back on me,” he said with a snort. “I don’t think we should tell her. Not yet, at least. We’ve just gone through so much and I don’t know that I would burden her with that again. I would wait until she feels comfortable around all Kastori.”

  “Agreed,” Celeste said, much to Cyrus’ relief, who didn’t feel like getting into another strategic discussion. “If she figures it out, we tell her. If she does what you said, we’ll tell her. Otherwise, I think silence is our best option.”

  Cyrus nodded, and the conversation shifted toward where they would sleep, but he began to doubt the decision not to tell Crystil. He’d hammered Crystil so hard for not telling the truth about Omega One’s capabilities, and this was a far greater lie with heavier implications than that. She would have every right to be angry.

  He would not, however, go against the wishes of his sister, even if the doubts about their silence became heavier.

  A white-robed Kastori came out of the tent and removed his mask.

  “Greetings, Cyrus and Celeste, I am Lytos,” he said, giving a slight bow. “I am the lead white magic Kastori in this tribe, and it is a pleasure to help Crystil and our chief Erda. I should grant you the good news first. Erda will awaken quite soon. Crystil will make a full recovery. The bad news is that we will need to place Crystil into a coma to work on her injuries. I do not anticipate this taking long, but I just want you both to know.”

  As long as Crystil recovered, Cyrus didn’t mind waiting a few days to see her smile and berate him for being too cocky.

  Lytos, who looked like he was about to speak, twitched and looked back at the tent. He ducked inside for a moment before returning.

  “Erda has awoken. And she wishes to speak to the both of you.”

  Lytos gave a quick bow and moved to a different tent. Cyrus looked at Celeste, who nodded and took the lead confidently. Inside, Erda laid on her back, but her eyes alertly followed the two of them.

  “How are you doing?” Celeste asked, sitting at the edge of Erda’s bed.

  “Good, joyful,” Erda said as she gave a laugh, followed by a groan. “I am too sore to even laugh, but I will accept this pain temporarily for what it means. I cannot begin to express my gratitude enough to Crystil for what she did.”

  The three looked over at Crystil, whose steady breathing brought a smile to all of them.

  “The same goes to you, Erda,” Celeste said. “Without you, Calypsius would have destroyed the ship with almost no effort.”

  “It was truly a joint effort,” Erda said. “And, I should add, in no small part because of the voice of one Kastori who united all of us.”

  Cyrus saw Celeste blush and got his answer.

  “Yes, Celeste, so you know. Now you know why the lupi did not attack you in the cave. My guardians would never hurt a Kastori, nor anyone who has the trust of the Kastori.”

  “But wouldn’t they have stood down from me when it was just Crystil and me?” Cyrus asked.

  Erda shook her head.

  “The first lupi lunged for Crystil. When you attacked them, their instincts kicked in. As it was and is, Cyrus, your powers are more suppressed than your sister’s. But both of you have the potential to become powerful Kastori, and you, Celeste, have the possibility of becoming one of the most powerful Kastori ever.”

  “Wow.”

  “About time you got better at me at something,” Cyrus said with a gentle shake of her shoulder.

  “Watch it, Cyrus, I have powers that can make you do pretty embarrassing things!”

  Erda gently shushed both of them, a soft reminder to focus on the conversation at hand.

  “We must train you both to use your magic properly. I fear that Typhos may sense the loss, and if he does so, there is a possibility that he will return to Anatolus with a vengeance. If this is the case, you all must be prepared for his arrival, as such a battle would make the one we just fought pale in significance.”

  Cyrus didn’t like the idea of there being more. But he couldn’t dwell on it for long.

  “In any case, I, too, would sense his impending arrival, and I have not felt his presence stir for a while. It will be quite some time before he comes here, and in the meantime, we must live out our life as our race was intended to do.”

  “And how would that be?” Cyrus asked.

  Erda smiled, slowly sat up, and stood on her feet. Though she grimaced and groaned, she made her point clear.

  “On the surface of Anatolus, under its sun and stars, without fear of evil, and on our own two feet.”

  63

  Crystil’s eyes shot open to the sight of the white ceiling.

  She put her hands down and felt around. She was back in her bed.

  My bed? Did die? Is this the afterlife?

  Warm air surrounded her. It did not feel anything like the inside of Omega One, even if it looked exactly like her quarters.

  She kicked her blankets off and rolled off the bed. When she stood, she felt stiff and extremely sore. Just breathing was a difficult exercise. Every inhale and exhale produced some pain in her chest, but at least pain probably meant she was not dead. She walked carefully to the door and waited for it to open. It did not, and she realized the ship had lost any capacity for power after the battle.

  The battle. Did it work? Did we kill Calypsius? Or did they rescue me and have me hiding somewhere?

  She turned around and looked at her room, but it was completely… no, one corner had one photo. The photo of her and Dyson that she had glanced at just before she lost consciousness. It seemed deliberately placed.

  The door opened, but it was not the normal, soft opening. It grated on her ears and only opened about halfway. She stepped through the doorway cautiously and felt a breeze from her right. The ship opened up to the plains of Anatolus, the forest several hundred feet beyond. And between her and that forest stood several different tents of red, white, and black color, with one golden tent nearest the woods.

  The Kastori.

  She thought the word and felt nothing, a positive change for her. Distrust didn’t fill her mind, and hate didn’t take over her heart. She didn’t trust all of them yet, especially ones like Amira, but Crystil wanted to see Erda—if she were still alive.

  She gently navigated the debris and went down to her knees to feel the grass. A calm breeze whipped over her, and she looked all around. To her right was nothing but open plains.

  But she shook, startled, when she looked left and saw the carcass of Calypsius rotting away. She stared at it for quite some time, as if waiting for it to suddenly rise and attack. Then she saw Kastori approaching it with laughter and assumed they wouldn’t do so if even a possibility of a threat existed.

  We did kill Calypsius. But how? Who?

  “Crystil!”

  She shifted back to the tents, following the familiar voice. Celeste and Cyrus stood at the edge of the closest tent, waving. Crystil beamed with joy, seeing that they had both lived, and ran to them. They ran as well, and when they met, they all embraced tightly, laughs and giddiness contagiously spreading. She couldn’t believe they survived, considering how much collateral damage the monster had produced.

  “You’re alive,” Crystil said.

  “Well, duh, did you think I was going to die this early on our new planet?” Cyrus said, leading Crystil to playfully punch him. “Hey, you’re supposed to hit me lower, not on the arm.”

  “I’m still too sore to exert too much energy,” Crystil said, so overjoyed that she kept shaking her head. “How did it happen, though? The last thing I remember was thinking I was going to die as Calypsius’ tail split us in half.”

  “And that’s what set us up to finish the job,” Celeste said. “The weapons wounded it so much it c
ould not move, and from there, we all finished it.”

  Cyrus looked like he wanted to say something, but did not. What did it matter, Crystil thought. They were alive, the creature was dead, and they seemed unharmed.

  And most importantly and impressively, they had all shown tremendous growth. Celeste showed complete confidence as she spoke, a far cry from the timid, scared girl Crystil had taken from Monda. Cyrus stayed in line, quite the departure from the jerk who couldn’t be trusted in hunting, let alone battle.

  But most importantly, for herself, Crystil could look at them not just as friends, but as people she cared deeply about and even loved. Cyrus and Celeste weren’t just soldiers to be led on a mission, and she wasn’t just a commander to order them around. They all connected in a way that she wouldn’t even have given thought to at the start of their journey. Their fiercest battle had blessed them with a tightening of their relationships.

  “Thank you guys, so much,” Crystil said. “I don’t know what else to say. You finished the job. And now we can live out our lives here.”

  And Cyrus, buddy, you’re looking a lot more interesting these days. Helps when you fight with us instead of against us.

  “Crystil!”

  Crystil turned her gaze back to the tents and saw Erda walking up, not even wearing her Kastori robes. She did have brown robes on, but they were lighter, less decorative, and did not take up as much space.

  “Thank you. You’re quite the pilot.”

  “And you’re quite the Kastori,” Crystil said.

  Erda gave a chuckle and held out a bowl with some fresh meat, from which Crystil thought the finest smell she’d ever come across came.

  “Ursus meat,” Erda said. “I promised you I’d get you some.”

  Crystil just laughed some more. She reached down and took a bite, and what Erda said was true. It made precora meat taste mediocre. This was the meat that Emperor Orthran would have spent his imperial fortune to get a bite of.

  “Eat as much as you want,” Erda said. “We’ve got plenty of it and can get it at any time.”

  She embraced Crystil as Crystil had Cyrus and Celeste.

  “Thank you, Crystil,” Erda said before walking back to the newly found camp.

  Crystil took a bite again but, halfway through finishing it, glanced at Celeste and Cyrus, embarrassed to have not offered it. They laughed and dismissed her, saying they’d eaten ursus for four days.

  “Four days, that’s how long I was gone, huh?” Crystil said, an amused smirk on her face. “Did you miss me?”

  I know if I could have, I would’ve missed both of you terribly.

  She meant it as a joke, but the responses came with the most sincerity possible.

  “We thought every second of you,” Celeste said.

  “I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Cyrus said.

  He held up his hand, as if remembering something, and rummaged through his pocket. He held a small tablet that Crystil instantly recognized.

  “I was gonna protect this more than my bed, that’s how big a deal it was.”

  Cyrus…

  Crystil, overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness, placed the bowl on the ground as she squeezed Cyrus, still holding her photo projector, and Celeste.

  The two people I love the most here are alive.

  Mission accomplished.

  Epilogue

  In a dark room in the God’s Temple, so dark that no light entered, a lone figure sat on a black throne in silence. No one could enter without a telepathic notice, and even then, the figure did not allow anyone to see his true form. On this particular night, the figure had rage boiling inside him, with a fury from an unexpected defeat. He clenched his hands together, doing everything in his power not to kill all living things on Monda.

  “Bring a guard to me,” he silently ordered one of his guardians outside his chamber.

  He waited in silence a few more moments when the entrance swung open, and a nervous man in black robes entered.

  “Sir?”

  “Silence!”

  The man collapsed to his knees. He shook nervously, wondering what his fate was. He’d seen too many guests enter this room and leave without their lives.

  “Did you know that Calypsius was just killed?”

  The telepathic voice spoke calmly, but it belied a furious anger underneath.

  “Calypsius was my greatest creation, an altar to the power of my magic.”

  The man did not so much as look up—not that it would have mattered, for he would have seen complete darkness. He did not know if he was to respond or remain silent.

  “And now he’s gone.”

  More silence.

  “Gone!”

  The man felt as if the temple itself was shaking. Suddenly, he was lifted off the ground, and he lost all control of his body.

  “NO!” a real voice said in a terrifyingly deep tone, with the greatest rage and fury the man had ever witnessed.

  It would be the last thing the man heard as his body was thrown against the wall, killing him upon impact. Outside, a massive storm brewed, and lightning reigned down on the city. The figure ordered his guardians into his chamber and examined them all carefully. The guardians looked back at their master, and though they knew what he looked like, they could not seem him. Had they been able to, they would have seen him wearing dark black robes, stained with the blood of those whom he had killed over the years and an even darker black mask over his face.

  “We will destroy Anatolus,” Typhos said. “When the time comes, we will annihilate them. Nothing will stand in our way, for we shall bring utter devastation!”

  Preview of “Kastori Devastations”

  The following is an excerpt from the next book in the series, “Kastori Devastations.”

  Brambles of lightning spread across the sky, striking down every couple of seconds. The echoes of thunder roared across Monda, making it difficult to distinguish between the reverberations and the original noise. The great magical storm had ravaged Capitol City and its outskirts for months, igniting numerous fires and destroying buildings and ear drums alike, and Mykos had had enough.

  The former soldier, a direct understudy of the greatest warrior in the Imperial Army, dashed up a hill toward the god’s temple with a knife in his hand, rags on his body and only his training and instincts to protect him. The weary, six-foot, emaciated shell of a warrior timed his runs with the storm, using the darkness as his protection and the thunder as his shield. He had one goal, and he would sacrifice his life to accomplish that goal.

  Kill the self-proclaimed god of Monda, bringing back the rule of Emperor Orthran to Capitol City.

  The goal lodged in his mind, as much an instinct as breathing was. He didn’t dare even think the god’s name, lest the god sense him, strike him down, and make an example of his death to all of Monda’s incarcerated labor. But when he would thrust the knife through the enemy’s throat, even if Mykos himself were dying, he would be sure to say the god’s name with as much venom as over three years of slavery could produce.

  At the top of the hill, Mykos looked at the temple—or, as he had known it, the Imperial Palace, where the great Emperor Orthran had once peacefully and fairly governed his land. The temple had decayed with its plant life ignored, its presentation shoddy and its foundation beginning to crack.

  “Disgraceful,” Mykos muttered, careful not to speak over the drumbeat of thunder up above.

  He pushed himself against the wall, his dirty, wet body and brown rags providing convenient camouflage to the eyes of the magicologists guarding the temple. He turned the first corner, the one which placed him in front of the wall around the palace, and glanced. No one guarded the perimeter, though that gave Mykos little comfort.

  He reached the edge of the entrance, and his hand gripped his knife so tightly it felt welded to his whitening fist. Before he peeked around, he heard the steady crunch… crunch… crunch of a magicologist walking on the dirt road leading up to the temple’
s actual entrance. He quieted his breathing and waited until the magicologist’s footsteps had gone beyond his wall. He took two elongated steps, touching down with the deftness of an aviant, and grabbed the black-robed figure’s mouth from behind. With his free hand, Mykos stabbed the magicologist until he went limp, and Mykos let the body fall to the ground. Mykos’ eyes lit up with hatred at the representation of his people’s oppression but kept his body from any unnecessary motions.

  If you want to break the rules, you have to follow them first.

  His commander’s words echoed in his head as he remembered not to waste energy on a dead enemy, no matter how emotional the sight made him. He waited for the lightning to stop and quickly continued sliding on the wall. In the absence of bolts in the sky, Mykos felt confident that only one more magicologist awaited him—one strolling on patrol in front of the entrance. But every time lightning flashed, he would see something that made him doubt his sanity—shadows of magicologists and enemies on the rooftop and the exterior wall.

  “Focus,” he mouthed to himself, knowing now was the time for silence, and the time for fury would come.

  When a great boom of thunder roared—so great it left Mykos hearing a high-pitched echo for several seconds—he made a dash for the wall of the interior. Disoriented from the thunderous blow, he leaned against the wall to recover. He slid to his left, one foot following the other, and when he reached the corner, he listened for the footsteps of the approaching magicologist.

  Then the steps stopped.

  The magicologist muttered a few incomprehensible words.

  And Mykos knew he had to act.

  Ignoring subtlety, he dashed out and found the magicologist a mere four feet from him, his head slightly bowed, ready to cast a spell—or, worse, alert magicologists in the interior of Mykos’ presence. He ignored the possible consequences, figuring his death was imminent in any case, and he drove the knife straight into the face of the magicologist, through his red robes and white mask.

  The magicologist crumpled to the ground, and Mykos ripped his knife back.

  “Cast a spell on me, you little—”