“Good,” his father said as he rose and shook his son’s hand. It was a firm but cold handshake. There would be no embrace between father and son. “I will prepare my forty best men for you to go to Dabira. You set sail within the next couple of weeks. Eat and gather any supplies you may need.”
“Yes, father.”
With that, the son bowed, a gesture his father curtly returned. His father wore the smug, cocky smile of a man who was sure he had his way, while Tyus waited until he was turned away to wear the smile of someone who had a plan that he would not see coming.
CHAPTER 8: KARA
As Kara looked around the base of the Shadows of the Empire, she saw a labyrinth full of memories, rooms, and weapons. She saw her own room, which housed the crystal, and dashed to it. Inside, the essence of Indica, the turquoise crystal which embedded its user with elevated external, elemental magic, sat on the table, untouched. She regretted leaving it in such an unsecured location, but to have brought it to the ceremony risked having it fall in the hands of the emperor. She quickly pocketed it and looked around the rest of the place.
There was nothing else of value here. The rooms were intentionally kept bare, the better to move easily and quickly. The true knowledge of Hydor resided in the library of Caia, hidden in plain sight. No one ever bothered to check there, but the guards would find this place eventually. They would search every alley, every house, every closet, every corner, every window. Just by sheer manpower and force, they would come across the base sooner rather than later.
It didn’t come as a shock to Kara what she concluded. She could never come back. The Shadows—what remained of them—had to find a new home. And there could be no trace of any presence in this maze of halls, rooms, and doors. There was no room for nostalgia in war.
“Burn everything in here!” she yelled. “Gaius! Don’t let anything leave here that isn’t us!”
“Kara!”
But Kara ignored him. She went to the first room and ignited all that she saw—it was a bedroom of one of the older magi. She did not have time to see what was inside—if the soldiers got a hold of anything in there, that might grant them an advantage she was not willing to allow. Even a single blade could tell of the preferred weapon for the magi. She had to claim everything she could with her magic.
“Kara!!!”
But again, Kara ignored Gaius. She continued torching all that she saw. She ignited paintings, maps, journals, books—none of it truly mattered. She had more than enough information in her mind to come back to the emperor. And what knowledge needed to be kept in the written form would not get discovered by anyone other than the most detailed and nuanced of librarians—a role which Gaius had kept for a long time for a reason.
She came to the main room, her hands raised, when she ran into Gaius, blocking her from destroying one of the last untouched rooms..
“Move,” she said. “We don’t have time.”
“There is much to be kept here, Kara,” Gaius said. “If we burn the past, we will never learn from it. We can’t just erase history and assume the opposition will forget us.”
“I’ve already learned what I need to,” she said. “Now move. The people who valued what was here are dead. We’ll join them if we delay too long.”
Gaius bit his lip and looked down.
“Gaius, are you mad?”
But there was something in his demeanor that made Kara feel very uncomfortable. He was not mad. But he was about to change in some fundamental form.
With a quick breath, Gaius uttered a name that she had not heard in years, a name that she had intentionally removed to better hide her identity and confusion over her magically created body. It was a name that caused her to shiver upon hearing it, for not only had she not heard it in far too long, she had not associated herself with it in that time.
“Is this really what you think is best, Tetra?”
Tetra. A name not heard in decades. A name that recalled more youthful, naive days. Days when she was just with Gaius—no, not Gaius, for that was the assumed name he had taken on since their return to Caia—and did nothing but cuddle, kiss, and laugh. Days before she became cold and slowly realized that nothing would ever change, that peaceful protest and negotiating always left them on the bottom. Days when life was just them and a couple of other refugee magi, living peacefully in Dabira. Building Dabira from a pile of dirt into the town it was.
Tetra had to bite her lip as the rush of emotions associated with her true name overwhelmed her mind.
For the first time in years—decades—she looked at Gaius not as Gaius, the librarian and second-in-command to the Shadows of the Empire, but as Garo, the legendary dragon hunter who had held off Bahamut and rescued her from slavery to the first Syrast emperor.
“You know we cannot allow them anything of ours, Garo.”
Just saying his real name made her emotional. Gone was the cold exterior that had defended herself against the horrors of war, of witnessing many friends die, of seeing evil refuse to change, even as on the surface it wore many masks, some friendly, some overly aggressive. She could bring that steely presence back in a heartbeat, but if she did, she would have to think of herself as Kara, not Tetra.
“Promise me you won’t forget them, Tetra,” he said.
“How could I,” she mumbled weakly, crippled by Garo’s use of her name.
“Burn them!”
Tetra whirled behind. Oil splashed from the hallway down into the labyrinth. They will burn us all alive. We have to run. Only one escape, one we kept hidden from even the other members of this group.
Through a secret door in Garo’s room, they pressed back a stack of books, books which held no value, mere blockades instead of vessels of information. They’d gotten the door halfway open when they heard the crackling of flames. They didn’t have long.
“Go!” she commanded her husband, a man that she still loved—but loved underneath hundreds of protective layers, a love that she would likely never again feel or be able to give.
Once they got past the shelves of books, Garo looked at her longingly, like he wanted to give her a kiss. She did too. But they had not been intimate or even touched in so long that Tetra was fearful such an act would paralyze them and lead them to their death. Now was not the time for intimacy. There may never be a time for it again, for as old as we are and as much as we’ve seen.
The two of them continued their sprint as the fire tried to flush out the two surviving members of the Shadows. They came to the secret exit, which looked like a patch of dirt from the outside. Tetra provided her shoulders to lift Garo up, who moved the dirt with a grunt. He climbed out, his strength belying his age thanks in no small part to his magic, and then lifted Tetra out of the labyrinth, leaving the base of the Shadows to burn and for the empire to believe it had successfully killed them.
They had not. But they had severely wounded Tetra’s spirit.
Nearly a hundred feet from the city, Tetra screamed in anger, rage, sadness, grief, and disappointment.
Caia could not survive. She would amass an army in Dabira and finish off the empire not as a shadow, but as a flame set to burn the city down. The Shadows of the Empire would do all that it could to annihilate the empire, no matter how much bloody death it took.
She dropped the crystal and squatted down, then fell to her knees. She needed several moments to compose herself.
When she looked up, she noticed that Garo was bleeding from the legs. Had he gotten injured in battle and not said anything? The man always had a high threshold for physical pain and an ability to overcome mental weakness. How else could he have ever pushed back Bahamut as he did?
“You’re wounded,” she murmured.
He smiled weakly, showing his age. By now, Garo was close to several hundred years old, kept alive only by the magic that he practiced on himself every morning. It was the same for Tetra, except in an effort to keep their identities separate, she had chosen to look much younger than she really was. Both of
them, though, would die if they stopped using their magic.
“Nothing that a few months won’t heal up,” Garo said with a chuckle.
Then he did what Tetra had hoped he wouldn’t. He touched her.
He placed a hand on her shoulder as he knelt before her. The feelings, the memories—how they had escaped the old imperial palace, the place that was now the Dragon Hunter’s Guild’s headquarters, and how they had only each other on that boat en route to Dabira—it all came flooding back. And the dam that was her eyes broke as tears streamed out. Tetra could not remember the last time she had cried. It had certainly never happened as Kara. It hadn’t happened in the last few decades under her old name.
But they also hadn’t shown each other any sign of love for so long. At first, it was just the natural focus of assuming new identities in Caia and rescuing magi who could come to them. But over time, as they lived longer and longer, they realized the pain of losing someone they loved for decades would hurt too much. Love would not so much bond them as it would shatter them if the day ever came when one of them died.
So they grew apart. At first, they just didn’t show their love. They said they didn’t have the time, but they knew the truth. Then they stopped kissing. Soon, they stopped touching all together.
Still, they worked together. They took on new names, officially so that they would not be hunted down or suspected as the true legends, but in reality because it made it easier for their love to split. Kara had never fallen in love with Gaius. Tetra and Garo had simply moved on, becoming tales in stories instead of real people.
But they weren’t really tales. They were just protective layers. And the single touch by Garo had removed the layer of Kara and brought about Tetra back to the forefront.
She bawled her eyes out in his presence, barely noticing the arrival of the two young girls over the hill.
CHAPTER 9: ZELDA
Zelda saw Kara and Gaius embracing as they moved cautiously. Their motions looked awkward, as if one—Gaius—had unrequited feelings for the other.
She approached with Yeva slowly, but when Gaius and Kara still had not even acknowledged their presence some ten feet away, the two young girls paused. They needed to give them time. It looked like they would need that with Kara’s tears, Gaius’ sad posture, and the notable emotional space between them.
Zelda took the opportunity to peek over the hill at the ruined capital city. In the distance, she could hear harsh shouting from the guards, but could only make out that they would send a unit out to hunt them sooner rather than later. How big a unit, and with what weapons, she was unsure of. As she watched Kara cry and Gaius push back tears, she could only hope that the unit took a few extra minutes. She herself needed some time to recover from her mess of emotions.
It took several minutes of Kara bawling her eyes out before she even changed position. This was not at all what Zelda had expected—the cold, calculating woman who seemed so sure that she would defeat the empire wouldn’t have responded this way to failure. What am I missing?
Finally, Kara rose, her eyes red, but her voice very precise and cold. She clutched the crystal, the essence of Indica, close to her chest. Her eyes seemed to have aged, the crow’s feet around her having thickened and become more apparent.
“I warned all of you this would happen,” she said.
Zelda wasn’t quite sure if she was speaking to her or Yeva or all of them, but she noticed that Gaius was not making any eye contact. It was far past obvious that he was more than a librarian and a mage to Kara—but Zelda wouldn’t get any answers as long as Kara stood between them. She would have to guess.
“I warned all of you that the emperor would not accept our peace just because we happened to help him once in a task that will now be rewritten in the history books as them defeating the dragon and us. I warned you that no amount of good deeds the Shadows did would grant us a favorable audience. I warned you that this would end badly if we did not take the fight to the empire. But instead, you two chose to stand to the side. You chose not to fight. You believed in false hope. And now look where we are. We’re on the run and we’re sure to be pursued.”
Zelda bit her lip, unsure of what to say. What could you say to a woman who had just shed more tears than Zelda had in her lifetime and who was so sure of her position in this argument? Was there anything to say? Forget the disagreement she had with how Kara portrayed the moment—she couldn’t even get past wanting to comfort Kara. I’m sorry, Kara. But she couldn’t say it.
“Ga… Gaius and I are headed to Dabira. You may follow, but do not count on persuading us against my plan. I must prepare Dabira to go to war with the empire, and we will do so with this,” she said, looking down at the crystal. “Everyone that is within the walls of that forsaken city behind me will perish. Do not try and stop me, either of you. I will kill anyone who stands in my way, whether that’s you, Zelda. You, Yeva. Or…”
She turned to Gaius. She could not say the same that she had to the two girls. Why? Perhaps what Zelda saw wasn’t unrequited feelings, but something somehow far more painful.
“Kara…” Zelda started to say.
Even if she’d known Kara as a bellicose leader, she’d never seen her openly condemn magi who stood in her path. This went past savagery. This went into insanity.
Kara shot her a filthy look of disgust, as if she wanted to spit upon the girl for even questioning her. But she did not stop Zelda, so with a swallow, Zelda continued.
“I’ve read a lot over the last few weeks, especially about Garo. He fought to bring down Bahamut for the good of humanity, it was said. He didn’t fight so that magi could rule the world. He fought for peace. He fought for unity among humanity. Not annihilation of cities. Not a civil war among the magi. He is the one we look up to, right? He is—”
“Garo,” Kara said, her voice sad as she said the name. It sounded like she had to fight through a completely dry mouth to say his name. “If you want the man…”
She nodded to Gaius. Gaius looked up, his eyes wet, but his posture raised and firm.
It didn’t register at first what Kara meant. Garo had perished long ago. Gaius was a… librarian…
Gai-us. Ga-ro. Ga.
Gaius is Garo?!?
The original dragon hunter? The most powerful mage?
Everything in her head said it was impossible. Garo was a powerful mage. Garo was seen as the greatest mage of them all, in fact. Garo’s greatest victory had come over two hundred years ago. Gaius was a librarian and a mage, adept in both but not someone who had destroyed Indica as Zelda had. He hadn’t even fought with them.
But as much as Zelda tried to deny it, she could hear in Kara’s words and see in Gaius’ posture the truth. Gaius really was Garo.
Things suddenly started to make a lot more sense. His age. His knowledge. His behavior. His clandestineness. His magical skills. His choice of books.
“You’re still alive?” Yeva said, which seemed like the only appropriate question for how absurd this all seemed.
“Strange, but true, isn’t it,” Gaius—no, Garo—said. “Yes. One of the powers that I gained was to keep myself alive. I have my reasons for changing my identity, reasons which I will soon address. But for now, I cannot think of anything other than what I have just witnessed. I have lived through centuries of endless warfare now. As has Kara, or as I knew her when she was my wife, Tetra. She, too, has the same power.”
“Your wife?” Zelda blurted out, her turn to ask the obvious question.
Kara, Tetra, whatever her name was, turned to Garo—Zelda decided to call them by their old names—with a resigned look. Tetra looked like she wished Garo had not revealed their secret, but it was too late. Garo nodded, and with a sigh, Tetra turned back to the young girls.
“Two hundred years ago, an ancestor of the current emperor captured me so that Garo would defeat Bahamut, the idea being that the empire could expand to the north,” she said. “At the time, the capital was Mathos, and so Garo simply ha
d to hike north. During his battle with Bahamut, however, the dragon attacked Mathos and the emperor fled south with me in tow. He wanted to take me as his own woman, but Garo saved me. We split into two directions—the empire going south and creating the city of Caia, and us going west and founding the town of Dabira.
“For the next dozen or so decades, we fought with insurgent warfare. The empire tried to bring us back into its grasp, while we sought to disseminate the truth. We sought to tell the citizens of Caia what had really happened with Bahamut and how weak their empire really was. When we neared the end of our natural lives, we gave thought to passing our task down to the next generation. But… both of us couldn’t let it go. We couldn’t imagine dying and passing on without giving the magi of Hydor a chance at peace. We also had concerns that no other magi had the power and clarity of vision that we wanted. So we kept ourselves alive with our magic.
“About eighty years ago, we reached a truce. Dabira would come under imperial control and pay its taxes, but with no more than ten guards in the entire town, the better to ensure that the soldiers wouldn’t get any ideas. In return, we could bring magi to Caia and teach our version of history. ‘Our version.’ Even now I regret agreeing to the terms of the deal, for it’s too easy to discredit someone’s version if you don’t know it to be the truth. In any case, though, we quickly realized our error. But we couldn’t leave for Caia under these names; even then, we didn’t trust the empire. So we faked our deaths in Dabira, became Gaius and Kara, and moved to Caia.
“It won’t surprise you to hear that the empire only paid lip service to what we did. It also won’t surprise you to hear that the empire became more and more antagonistic to the magi. It started by allowing rumors to spread about what we would do to people. Then they forced magi to identify themselves. Then they made certain magic activities illegal. Then they made the act of using any magic illegal. And, as you saw a month ago, they sought to essentially kill all the magi through the legal system.”
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