by Jen Valena
Righteous anger rumbled deep in Ithia’s heart. The imminent threat of Tyrsten’s death woke her like a crashing cymbal. The murky sky above reverberated with her violent surge.
Ithia stared up through the glass dome into the brewing storm. A flicker of lightning revealed a cloud formed like a massive Eagle, a Thunderbird—bringer of thunder and lightning. Ithia’s guides were still with her.
Ithia vibrated with electricity. Hairs on her arms and neck stood on end.
She willed the world to dam the progression of time, bottle up the scene so that she could toss it away. Mist hung in her eyes.
With every passion, she screamed, “STOP!”
Instinctively, she reached for the ferocious cloud above and directed its energy down toward the center of the fray. She felt suspended in mid-air, charged with electric particles. Life crawled at a protracted rate, allowing her to witness every detail unfolding, as if she had stepped out of time itself.
Instinct alerted Huldo’s mind. “Feron, cover your ears! Close your eyes.”
Sensing it too, Tyrsten raised his left hand to protect his face.
Rainor’s jaw clenched. He closed his eyes and stepped toward Garrick.
Light and sound ruptured the Grand Hall.
Garrick’s jaw dropped as the elemental explosion threw bodies backwards.
Lightning blinded those who did not cover their eyes.
The glass dome shattered, flitting down, covering the soldiers with a thousand glinting shards.
Ears rang with muted destruction.
Ithia was pretty sure the world stopped turning. Everything was dark and silent.
After the chaos, it took a moment for Tyrsten to register Garrick’s lifeless body at the foot of the throne.
Drained by her command of the elements, Ithia staggered.
Tyrsten yelled Garrick was dead, but no one heard.
Although, deafened and blinded, Ithia sensed his death. It had to be her doing.
The lightning prevented one death, but caused another. Guilt squeezed the air out of her lungs. Her knees trembled.
Tyrsten called out to her. Ithia only heard a muffled rumble.
She stumbled from exhaustion and bitter triumph. She swayed backward—clutching her face. Tiny lacerations from the glass bloodied her hands.
Too many emotions swirled within her.
Huldo and Feron stabilized her, keeping her vertical.
Finding Ithia in good hands, Tyrsten diverted his focus back to Garrick’s body. Rainor moved swiftly away from Garrick as he concealed a metal object in his cloak pocket.
Rainor looked over to Ithia.
She grasped Huldo’s arm and whispered, “I’m blind.”
Ithia heard a faint vibration in her left ear. Her hearing was returning. She finally heard Tyrsten calling to her, his voice sounded far away.
Two determined soldiers, less affected by the lightning blast, charged toward Ithia. Feron released her to block their attack. Ithia almost collapsed to the floor, but Huldo pulled her close, her body limp.
Tyrsten attempted to aid Feron, but a soldier tackled him.
Rainor shouted above the commotion.
Ithia could hear, as he said, “No! She is mine.”
The guards halted their assault.
Finally, he speaks the truth, he wishes to claim me.
“You manipulated me from the start.” Her temper fueled her to stand on her own again. With her vision gone, her other senses heightened. A metallic, rusty smell of blood mingled with fresh rain, filling her nose.
“You do not understand,” Rainor said, a touch of compassion in his voice as he advanced toward her. “You have a task to complete.”
“What do you mean?”
“Down below—the door. You sensed it here?”
Ithia stepped back. “Yes,” she whispered. The door. Had Rainor been planting the image in her mind all this time?
Rainor indicated to Garrick’s men to secure Huldo and Feron.
As Huldo and Feron did their best to fend off the soldiers, the fight created an opening for Rainor to seize the blind Ithia. He dragged her by the arm toward the large double doors.
Tyrsten broke away from the soldier and ran after them.
Nolan saw Ithia’s departure, but three soldiers converged on him when he pursued. He was forced to fight them.
Ithia struggled against Rainor’s grip, but her energy failed her. Channeling the sky’s energy had taken its toll. “What do you want from me?”
“To fulfill your destiny.”
Rainor shielded his mind, but she sensed the slightest emotion, a break in his normally cool composure.
Ithia shuddered. “What’s down there that frightens you?”
Rainor opened the Grand Hall’s side door.
Tyrsten closed in on them.
“Stop him!” Rainor ordered the remaining guards. Holding Ithia’s arm tight to his side, he slipped through the door.
Tyrsten’s voice faded into the distance as Rainor pulled Ithia along the descending corridors. She stumbled down what felt like an endless descent of stone steps.
“Just one more task for you,” Rainor repeated as they plunged deeper under the Palace.
She endeavored to absorb the surrounding ethereal energy to renew her strength, but the pain of Rainor’s betrayal hindered her.
By the time they reached the bottom of the staircase, blurred light appeared like static in Ithia’s returning eyesight. She knew even without her physical sight, that this was the place she had been many times before in her dreams, in her nightmares, in the long coma-like sleep. This was the place she was afraid of, and the place she was drawn to.
Rainor dragged her down a musty, bricked passageway.
“Were you behind all of this?”
“This started generations before we were ever imagined.” He stopped his march. “I did not want to harm you. Everything I have done was to repair the damage of our predecessors.”
Ithia sighed with resignation. “Again, blaming others for your actions.”
Her vision returned just as they approached the end of the corridor. He seemed to hesitate. Whatever caused him trepidation was near.
Ithia could now see a wide, riveted steel door. It stood before them like a giant headstone. But there was no handle—no obvious opening mechanism.
“Don’t do this.” Ithia strained against his grip.
“I have not told you what I want.”
“I assume it isn’t good for my health.”
“I admire that—a smart ass to the end.”
“This is where the Magians have disappeared.”
“Always surprising me with your ability to put the pieces together.”
“Clearly, I didn’t put them together fast enough.”
“I need you to break down this prison’s defenses. Find a way to get them out. There is one of particular significance who you will undoubtedly want to retrieve.”
“Who?”
“Mother.”
Ithia’s eyes widened and teared up. Her hands covered her mouth. “You said she was gone.”
“This is where she has gone.” He smiled—perhaps the most unsettling smile she had ever seen. “This is what you are meant to do. Get them all. Sacrifice yourself if necessary.”
“Why do you want the Magians out? Didn’t you put them in there?”
“Do what I ask. I do not want to harm you.”
“You keep saying that.” Ithia wrenched her arm from his grasp. “Answer me. Why do you want them?”
“I did not want them in there. Nor do you. Garrick was wrong in wanting all the Magians gone. Some of them do want a better world. I want to see the right Magians rise to lead us again.” Rainor pushed her forward. “Go—now.”
She defiantly squared her shoulders. “Do it yourself.”
“I do not know how.”
“Convenient.”
“Not really.”
Rainor could be setting another trap for her. Ithia
would be the next Magian to go missing.
“Why do you think I can do this?” Perhaps if she could stall, she could figure out how to get away. “How do I open the door?”
“I am not sure how she opens it.”
“She?” Dread crept up from her feet, inched its way to her head. Part of her argued she should run, another part of her, less concerned for preservation, insisted she must go through with Rainor’s challenge and find her mother. It was almost too much to comprehend, that her mother might be alive, and she would meet her right now.
How to open a door with no handle? Open Sesame? Abracadabra? Is it a word at all? She placed her hand in the center and asked to be shown its secret. With her touch, locks and bolts clicked and whirled within the door.
The portal opened.
22 ✹ World Order
The clock is tisk tocking at me.
Tisk—tisk— tisk—tock
Marks the hour of the darkest sky.
The last breath of incarnation is a lonely one.
— Ithia Sydran
“Back away from the door.” Tyrsten said as he launched himself at Rainor. He had fought past the guards and followed Ithia’s energy trail. Tyrsten slammed Rainor into the wall and punched him in the face.
Rainor, dizzy with the double impact to his head, raised his hands in surrender as he slid to the ground.
The door groaned as it swung wide. Beyond the door—darkness—nothingness. There was no telling how deep this space went. No auras emanated from the Magians inside—their radiance snuffed out. Ithia wondered, Was there anyone actually in there?
She stood, staring into the open doorway. An abyss. Her heart thumped against her ribcage. Tyrsten’s gentle touch on her shoulder was a thousand pound anchor. She fought the urge to collapse into his arms, committing to Fate’s course for a little while longer.
Ithia pulled away from Tyrsten and stepped closer to the doorway to see if her own aura would penetrate the barrier. Its shadow absorbed her light completely.
Tyrsten grabbed Ithia by the waist, holding her back. “Ithia?” He sensed she meant to go in and held her tighter. “Please, no.”
Hoping for a glimpse into the gloom, Ithia remembered the energy orbs that Tyrsten had taught her to make. Breathing deeply to regain her clarity, she held out her hands to create a ball of white light. She struggled with its formation, but accomplished the task. She imprinted her image within and released it through the doorway—as a message, if there was anyone alive in there to see.
The ball drifted over the threshold and was swallowed, utterly disappearing into the black, revealing nothing. Her pulse quickened. Her blood felt heavy.
Ithia turned to Rainor. “What is this place?”
He remained silent.
Tyrsten let go of Ithia. He hoisted Rainor to his feet and shoved him against the wall to shake an answer loose.
Rainor sniffed through his bloody nose. “I am not privy to its magic. It is some type of holding cell for the Magians. I do believe they are still alive in there. You have to get them out.”
Feron and Huldo’s footsteps resonated down the long, stone hallway.
Tyrsten was distracted by their approach.
Rainor took advantage of Tyrsten’s diverted attention and dove at Ithia, grabbing at her neck for the chain that carried the Magian pendant.
The chain was too secure for him to rip off. It cut into her skin.
Knocked off balance, Ithia took a step closer to the portal.
Tyrsten pulled Rainor off Ithia and flung him into Huldo and Feron’s waiting grasp. “Get him out of here!”
Tyrsten turned to see Ithia disappear into the darkness. “Stop!” He rushed toward her—caught the tail of her cloak and followed her over the threshold.
The door began to close, and Rainor yelled out, “Keep it open!”
Huldo threw his body against the metal door.
✹ ✹ ✹
All the light from their auras instantly snuffed out.
Tyrsten reached into the oblivion for her. His arms wrapped around her waist.
Ithia said, “Tyrsten, turn back.” But there was no sound. Her entire life could not have prepared her for the absence of absolutely everything. As the seconds passed, even Tyrsten’s touch faded. The floor fell away.
Keep moving.
If she stopped moving, she would be lost for an eternity, floating in this void forever without even the comfort of Tyrsten’s presence beside her.
Then the darkness started to part, like a gray dawn.
Her skin puckered with goose-bumps from the chill of the large grotto-like room. Instead of walls, a smokey shadow encased them. The room, if it could be called one, was long and wide. The perimeter simply dissipated into nothing. The floor was covered with a low-lying black fog.
Although she didn’t understand where the illumination came from, her eyes adjusted to the soft light.
Her foot bumped into something. Ithia stopped abruptly in her tracks. Glimpsing down, her fear was confirmed—a body.
More than a hundred bodies covered the smokey ground into the fading distance. Closest to her was Urica.
Ithia dropped to the ground and clutched Urica’s body.
In a flash of intuition, she said, “Tyrsten, don’t move! Remember the direction we entered. We might be able to leave by retracing our steps.”
“I am not sure if that will work,” he said, but didn’t move.
To their surprise, sound was restored now. Although, their voices were as distorted and muffled as the light.
Like a wave of psychic energy, the knowledge of what was locked away from the world in this prison revealed itself to Tyrsten. “All the Magians?” His voice faltered.
“I’m afraid so. Rainor wants me to get our mother. I don’t even know what she looks like.”
“I do not care what he wants! He trapped us in here!”
“I went in on my own.”
“Why?”
“I had to—although not for Rainor.” Ithia took a quick breath of the stagnant air and tried to muster hope. “We will get out.”
“We might be able to retrace our steps, but the Sauvants could not even find their way out.”
“Yes, but this room is disorienting. And they might not have been conscious when they were brought in here.” Ithia stroked Urica’s pale face.
A breath escaped Urica.
Ithia called to the Seer. In desperation, she shook her. “She’s not dead. They’re in some sort of trance. We need to bring them out of it before we can escape.”
“They may be drugged. See if your healing touch works on them.”
Ithia settled next to Urica and asked the powers to flow through her. Not even a trickle of energy came through. “Some kind of dampening field prevents the energy—even our auras are gone.”
“They look as though they just fell asleep.”
The observation triggered an answer in Ithia. “I need to dream them awake. Connect with them on the other side.”
“Is that possible?”
“You laughed when I asked questions like that a few months ago.”
“But you might not wake from this yourself. They may have all tried that tactic and become stuck.”
“At the Vihar, I read about communication in dreamtime with the astral self. This must be why my dreamer, Lizard, came to me just recently.”
Tyrsten opened his arms. “Please come here.”
Ithia hesitated in case he would snatch her up and carry her out to safety. She didn’t move. “I have to try to help them.”
“I know.”
Ithia felt his heart crumbling. She then nestled herself in his embrace. He still had his warmth, even in this wasteland, and it stunned her senses. She wanted to live within his protective arms forever.
“There must be another way,” Tyrsten said.
“Everything inside tells me this is what I need to do.”
“I am afraid.” Tyrsten’s voice cracked. “I do not want to
lose you. There is something in Sauvant Tancreed’s letter that I did not tell you.”
Ithia stared up at him. “What?”
“The secret I kept from you since the beginning. Tancreed wrote, ‘She will sacrifice herself to the shadow to save her kind.’”
Ithia’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “You believe I am going to die here.”
“That is one of the reasons why I lost my sanity at the cabin. A shadow passed in your eyes then. And before, when you were asleep for a whole day. I should have told you, but I did not want it to be true, as if telling you would make it so.” Tyrsten shook his head before he finished. “And this place has to be what Tancreed spoke of. You will sacrifice yourself to this shadow.”
“You should have told me this before. I don’t need to be coddled. Why couldn’t you see me as an equal—a partner?”
“I do—now.”
“Fine. I understand you were trying to protect me, but you can’t protect me from the truth. And these are your people and my people. I have to see if I can help them.”
“I wish I had your gifts, so I could take your place.”
“Shh.” She pressed her fingers over his lips. “I’m glad I finally know what it is you kept from me, but it only confirms I need to do this.”
He kissed her hand. “I would gladly give my life for yours.”
“But that would kill me, and what would be the use in that?” She smiled.
“Ithia, this is no time for joking.”
“Who says I’m kidding?”
“I have to tell you something. Just in case—”
“Please. Stop. I’m coming back.”
“Indulge me. I do not want you to do this without you knowing how I feel.”
“Don’t—”
“You are beautiful to me, and I am not just talking about your appearance. I see you—the real you. I feel you.” He fell into the depth of her eyes, caressing her cheek. “You are the mystery that I can never grasp. Stronger than anyone I have known, in this life and in our others. I lo—”
“Stop it!” She wrestled the oncoming tears. “This is not goodbye.”
Tyrsten sighed in resignation. “I admire you risking yourself for a higher good, but it scares the life out of me right now.”
