Heir Of Doom

by Jina S Bazzar

  I nodded and he went on, “All Sidhe can see into the ether and higher dimensions, even the lowly subjects. In comparison, all Dhiultadh, no matter how weak or strong, can see into the ether, or fourth dimension, but not any higher.” I nodded again, and Zantry chuckled at whatever he read in my expression.

  “Consider this, in terms of dimensions and energy manipulation,” He pressed the tips of his fingers together and spread his palms apart, forming the tip of a triangle. “In the hierarchy of the preternatural, you have the Sidhe at the top, capable to manipulate energy tied to whatever element they can control. They can see the fourth and fifth dimension, no matter the cast or how strong they are.

  Below come both Dhiultadh clans, and the strongest learn to master a handful of runes or sigils. Those who have lived a long time learn to construct wards, but often they are basic defensive works, nothing too complex or offensive. None of the Dhiultadh are fluent with energy manipulation, though they can read their patterns in the ether, no matter how weak or strong. They can't, however, see into the fifth dimension, not even the strongest of them.”

  I nodded. “Do they need talismans too?” I asked.

  “Yes, they do,” He replied.

  “Who comes after the Dhiultadh?”

  “The witches, the mages and any magic wielder. Those learn to manipulate energy tied to their elements without the help of talismans, but they can't power a working, or construct a ward without the help of a group effort. For example, an air mage can manipulate the atoms and molecules in the air currents and provoke a soft breeze to become a strong wind, but without a group effort, they wouldn't be able to construct even a small ward.”

  “But can they see into the fifth dimension?” I asked.

  “Some can, others can't.”

  “And after the mages and witches?”

  Zantry angled his head. “After them comes the preternatural community in general, and they're all at the bottom of the food chain, with most unable to even see the ether.”

  “So where do you fit in this pyramid?” I asked, curious.

  Zantry gave me a wry smile and said, “Way at the top. I'm a being of energy, Roxanne, capable of bending and shaping energy at will.” He waved a hand and said, “Of course, that's the food chain for energy manipulation only. Many of those preternaturals at the bottom of the food chain are as strong as a Dhiultadh.” His eyes gleamed with humor and mischief as he added, “Unless you want me to count the preternaturals from other distant planets; In that case we'd need to shuffle the hierarchy and start again. I'd say the elves would come toe to toe with the Sidhe at the top, but then we have the chimera and volech,”

  I raised my palms and took a step back. “No, no. I get it,” I hurried to say. Zantry chuckled and I went on, “But my father, he was different?” Because the impression I'd got from the conversation today was that being Fosch's daughter meant something.

  Zantry sobered. “I think the combination of earth witch and Dhiultadh gave your father an extra edge. I think he could manipulate energy to his will, but no one really knew how fluent he was. That was something he kept to his inner circle, if not entirely to himself.”

  I mulled over his words for a moment, trying to figure where I fit in all this. “So, I'm a Dhiultadh,” I began, “the daughter of Yoncey Fosch, granddaughter to Odra the third. But I can't see energy, which I gather means I'm very low in that food chain you just explained.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe.” Zantry hesitated before adding, “You can sense energy.”

  I angled my head at him, trying to decipher what was that I heard in his tone. “Do you think the Sidhe know that?”

  “They know something. They're banking a lot on you beating Remo's plans.”

  I swallowed and shook away the feeling of impending doom, and asked the million dollar question, “What could they possibly know?”

  “I'm not sure. I know they're dancing around the truth, and that they believe you are capable of doing what everyone else has failed. And if they say Arianna was in on the plan… God, I can't imagine what must've happened to her.” He murmured, his words filled with sorrow, his grief a living beast with tiny pincers, pinching and pinching and pinching. I took an instinctive step back, unable to fathom how he could stand it.

  “Hmmm. What does it take? I mean, to freeze the portal or defeat Remo?” I asked, trying to take his mind off his grief.

  He exhaled, a big gush of air that seemed to empty him from inside, and rubbed a hand over his face. The gesture was that of defeat, but at least the bite of the grief throttled down a few degrees. “There are a few theories for that, none we could actually prove without the real portal. But me and Arianna once joined with the Sidhe and manage to freeze a few portals to some inhospitable planets. We varied on methods and strategies and concluded one of us and one of them would be enough to accomplish the feat.” Zantry glanced at the closed window, and I wondered if he was remembering something or thinking about leaving. The drapes were closed, shutting the late night traffic from view, but not the noise. “Then Arianna had another theory.” He fell quiet, and I waited for him to continue. “It's hard for my kind to procreate. We thought it wasn't possible, but Arianna found a way. We never really discussed the details,” He smiled, a humorless movement of lips that didn't reach his eyes, “because I always figured that when the time came, if the time ever came, and I decided I wanted a child of my own, that I'd have enough time to ask her.”

  I took a step forward, but Zantry stepped back, not wanting to be comforted. “She thought that if our powers combined could freeze the portal, that maybe there was a chance that a child born with both genes could destroy the original portal, or at the very least, freeze it permanently. It didn't have to be a Dhiultadh, or one of the Sidhe fee, just one of us and a strong preternatural capable to manipulate energy at some level. It was just a theory Arianna and I had, but we knew it'd work.”

  “Cara.”

  “Yes. Archer tried to keep Arianna's identity from the clan, I think so that word wouldn't reach Remo, but most everyone knew they were an item, and it wasn't hard to put one and one together. When Cara was old enough, Arianna and I started training her, and when she had learned the basics, we tested our theory on real portals. She was still young and her powers were still developing, but we could tell she'd be able to do it on her own.” He looked down at his empty hands before adding in a much quieter tone, “When I came back, I thought she'd be ready to fight, that all her abilities would be fully developed and honed to perfection.”

  And he'd come back to find that Cara and Arianna had both died.

  “But how does it work? Do you blast the portal until it freezes?” I asked, trying to understand.

  “no, on the contrary,” He explained, “A portal is where a leeway ends. Imagine a train travelling from point A to point B. The leeway is the distance that connects both points, the portal a field of energy that keeps the leeway from spilling over the endpoint and scattering. To freeze a portal, you need to take the energy of that portal into you, until it no longer has enough to function properly.”

  I frowned at him, confused beyond belief. “But if it's as simple as that, why can't you…”

  Zantry shook his head, smiling faintly. “If one of the trio tried it alone, we'd only manage to merge with the leeway and redirect the portal into ourselves. It'd be a disaster. Imagine a portal supposed to open in the Sidhe land opening here, or at a restaurant, or wherever one of us happened to be at the time?”

  “But Cara could do it on her own?”

  “She could, yeah. We weren't sure if she'd be able to take in the entire portal, but we knew she could take enough to render it inactive for a time.”

  I fell quiet for a long while, trying to make sense of all I'd learned.

  “Why can't we just kill Remo? Because apparently if Arianna died and isn't coming back,” I gave him an apologetic look, “and the Sidhe know that, then this means there's also a way to kill Remo. Why not just kill him and then
when we're not so pressed for time deal with the portal?”

  Zantry frowned, clearly not having thought of it. “I don't think the Sidhe know how to do that, else they'd already have mounted an attack against Remo. No, whatever happened to Arianna either can't be done again or Queen Titania doesn't know how.”

  “There must be a way.” I murmured, thinking. “I mean, maybe there's something Arianna discovered while you were in the PSS, something that enables me, the daughter of a Dhiultadh and a human to do what you previously believed wasn't possible, and because you weren't available, she told the Seelie queen?”

  Zantry's brows furrowed, and he chewed on his lips as he thought about it. Then he shook his head and said, “She knows – knew – how the Sidhe functions. If she found something out, she'd have told someone else about it too, then told another someone to ensure that the information wouldn't be misused or lost, and someone would have known to bring me the information the moment I returned.”

  “Maybe she thought you weren't coming back?” I offered, feeling a headache brewing.

  “I always come back,” He said, his voice grim, his eyes distant.

  “Well, maybe she told the Seelie court and someone else, and this someone else has yet to find out you're back.”

  “Maybe.” He conceded after a moment. “Still, I can't see how you fit in. It takes a lot for a person, a preternatural, to freely manipulate the atoms and molecules in the ether, bend them to his will. To freeze the portal you'd need not only to learn the ins and outs of all the runes and sigils to use, but you'd need to be exact and fast, even for a small, weak portal. And I get what you mean, but I don't think that's it. If there was another way to freeze or destroy a portal and a Dhiultadh could do it, I don't believe the Sidhe would sit back and wait for you to become available. They'd have found someone else to fit that slot, no matter what they needed to do to see it done. No, it's you, and not the Dhiultadh in you.”

  We both fell quiet, lost to our thoughts. My mind resembled a chaotic pool of misshapen wants, needs, regrets and wishes. I regretted meeting Lee in the Low Lands. No, I wished I had been sharp enough to spend the boon she had offered to ask for a way home instead of all that stupid information about my father and his delusional mate. I startled, recalling the tale, and glanced sideways at Zantry , but his eyes were focused at the far wall.

  “Uhm, Zantry, back when I was stuck in the Low Lands, Lee told me something…” I trailed off. Zantry's head snapped toward me, his eyes sharp.

  “What?”

  “Hmmm, I'm not sure if it's relevant…”

  “What did she say?”

  I fell silent, not sure why I was nervous. “She said my father claimed my mother wasn't human when they met, and that he accused Oberon of tampering with her essence. She told me that my father went as far as declare her as his mate.”

  At this, Zantry's eyes narrowed, “Did she say your father was wrong? Think carefully, I want to know her words exactly, not what you interpreted them to mean.”

  I thought back to that time and shook my head. “I was half dead; I can't remember her exact words.” I tried, but the more I forced myself, the foggier her words became. “The way I understood, I think, is that she believed my father had lost his mind.”

  Suspicion sparked in Zantry's eyes. “Lost his mind how?”

  “I don't know. I think for claiming my mother as his mate. I need to think about it and see if I can remember her words.”

  “Did she deny your mother being his mate?”

  I lowered my head and closed my eyes, thinking hard. “No, she said that if there was a mating bond, she couldn't sense it.”

  Zantry was thoughtful for a moment before he said “If the mating bond wasn't yet acknowledged, they wouldn't have been able to sense it.”

  “So she could've been his mate?”

  “If she was, she wouldn't have been human.”

  “Lee said that my father accused Oberon of tampering with my mother's essence. When I asked her if he did, she was insulted. She said that no Sidhe possessed this capability.”

  Zantry slumped back against the counter. “That's true. If your mother didn't fit with the bargain, Oberon would have never called it in.”

  He turned away, hands clenched over the counter, head lowered. The tension I had felt emanate from him a moment ago turned flat, as if he had unplugged his emotions.

  To his back I added, “She said that Oberon denied sending my mother to my father, that their meeting was none of his doing either.”

  He raised a shoulder, let it drop, ploughed a hand through his hair before turning to look at me. “That's probably all true. I can't see the Unseelie Dhiultadh not stepping in unless this is all true.” But he came closer, studied me for a long time without saying a word, his eyes unfocused.

  After a long while, he waved a hand above my head once, took a step back.

  “What is it?”I asked quietly.

  He shook his head, frowned. “The energies that surround you, they're consistent to the energy patterns that surround a human aura, but they're bound tighter, considerably thicker. I noticed it for the first time that day in the Low Lands when you were hurt. At first I thought this was due to the poison, then I wondered if it was the residue of some working, but it hasn't worn any thinner or changed in any way.” His eyes unfocused, “I can also sense the Dhiultadh in you, like this field of invisible heat, but your aura is completely human. I've never seen something like that before.” He opened his mouth to say more, shook his head again, reached a hand toward my face but didn't touch me. Static zinged between us, and I felt this tug at my senses, a pull that turned prickly, growing stronger as the static between us grew.

  I bit my lip and clenched my fist against the bite of his energy, forced myself to stay still as he continued prickling and tugging at my very core. The smell of ozone grew thick and the metallic taste of blood coated my throat. I gasped, unable to stop myself when that prickling turned hot and burned something within. Immediately the static disappeared and Zantry lowered his hand and stepped back, expression troubled.

  I rubbed my hands together and swallowed bile.

  “What is it?” I asked, my voice unsteady.

  Still frowning, he opened his mouth and said, “I think there's something fused to your aura. It mimics the patterns , doubling it in an organized way. It could be a masking spell, but the patterns underneath are exactly the same as the one on top.” He frowned, came closer to look.

  Dread made my hands shake, so I clasped my hands together. “Can you undo it?” I whispered.

  Zantry studied me – my aura – for a long moment before he shook his head. “I don't know. I just felt around the patterns and it caused you pain. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with it.” But there was doubt in his voice as he continue to study my aura. “It's like the patterns flow inward instead of looping around, as if the chain has tangled on something within. But instead of breaking the continuous rhythm like it should've, it formed a new one. I've never seen something like this before. And I can't think of a purpose, or a person capable of meddling with an aura and not killing the individual in the long run.”

  “Maybe this is some new development? No one's ever commented on the patterns of my aura before,” I said in a quiet tone.

  “Because the patterns are visible in the fifth dimension. In the ether, your aura looks like an ordinary human aura, without even a trace of the Dhiultadh within.”

  He began pacing the small length of the kitchen then, and I watched him, unable to formulate a cohesive thought. When he finally stopped, determination had replaced the frustration from a moment ago. “There's a lot I don't know to make any assumptions at this time. Whether there's something hinky in the pattern of your aura or not, it'll hold until we're not so pressed for time.”

  I nodded, rubbed my hands over the soft material of the skirt. I gave him a valiant, somewhat wobbly smile and tried to ignore the dam about to break over my head. “Ok, where do we go next?”
/>
  Zantry's eyes darkened as he took a step closer, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I have this strong urge to box you up and take you somewhere safe and far, far away,” He said, his eyes intense and warm, “Away from here, away from all these power hungry people, from the clan, from the Sidhe fee. But I think the smart thing to do is to find Mwara first. Dead or alive, she's our first priority.”

  “Where could she be?” I whispered, a horrible dread growing inside my chest. “There are so many places to look, so many worlds she could have gone to, so many predators that could have found her first, and only four days left.”

  Zantry touched the tip of his index to my lips. “So we'll use our time wisely. You're not going to do it alone. I will be with you all the way. I will do my best to see this through and help you come out the other end.” His knuckles brushed over my cheek, “This, Roxanne, I promise you.”

  My throat constricted, but I swallowed through it. His eyes held a certain sadness that tugged at me, a touch of grief that I knew stemmed from the fact that he hadn't been there for his friend when she needed him the most.

  I reached for him, touched a hand to his cheek. “I'm sorry about Arianna, and all the things you missed because of the PSS.”

  His eyes softened, the violet a dark blue, and he caught my hand, pressed it against his cheek before bringing it to his mouth and brushing his lips against my palm. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Zantry stayed the night. He slept in the spare bedroom where Vicky slept when she stayed over. It was comforting, I realized, to know I wasn't alone. To know that I could count on someone to stand with me, to fight for me without expecting anything in return.

  In the morning Zantry took me to the Low Lands. I had nothing of Mwara to give him a general sense of the child, so we were searching for the energy of a Dhiultadh. Well, he would search, I'd just tag along since I had no idea how this energy-tracing thing worked. I did try to feel out the place the way Zantry told me to, but for me, the place was as dead and sense-less as it had always been.