Eternal Soul (The Eternal Path Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  “Be ready! We can’t keep the breach open for long!” one of the mages yelled.

  A strange man grabbed Vin’s attention—he looked much like the Arashan with horns and long, black hair, and piercing golden eyes. But where the Arashan had red skin, this one was pale. The man held Vin’s gaze, then cast his eyes to the archway and back at Vin, raising an eyebrow at him. Vin turned to look at the archway as it pulsed with visible aura. He turned back, but the man was no longer there. Vin cast his sight around him, looking, but saw no one that even resembled the man he had seen. I’m seeing things. I’ve been imprisoned for too long, he thought to himself.

  Vin looked at the mages as they worked. And then, suddenly, the archway pulsed with power, and a tear appeared that spread to fill the archway, and Vin could see trees through it and people waiting. Narzarah had been right: there was nowhere on Orb that Vin could run to.

  Vin looked behind him, and saw that the brutes were watching the archway as the first of the group passed through it. He was close to the archway, a dozen steps at most. Vin’s eyes slid further behind him to look at Narzarah, Lei, and Ming Li, as they too watched the archway. Narzarah’s eyes met Vin’s, and Vin smiled. Narzarah’s eyes narrowed in confusion and then widened in realization. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too late.

  Vin took a deep breath and jumped forward, running as fast as his vessel could carry him. The body was not even at the first step of the path—its core was not developed, preventing Vin from using any of the advanced techniques he knew. But being housed in a weak vessel did not mean that he couldn’t use ki, it only meant that he was very limited in doing so. Vin pushed the air out of his lungs, pulling ki from his core and pushing it through his channels. It was dangerous, a thing that should never be attempted before one reached at least the second step, but there was no choice.

  He could cripple his ki channels if he made a single mistake. But Vin wasn’t someone on the second step, nor was he at the same level that this body was. He was a Sage on the seventh step of the path—a master of the spirit arts. His legs burned as ki flooded through them, and he activated a Surging technique. In the blink of an eye, he reached the archway as the last of the group passed through. The two mages holding the breach open failed to act in their shock as Vin reached out with his hands and grabbed one of the crystals from the pedestal, pulling it with him. Red energy flashed across his vision and he slipped, turning mid step as his back passed through the breach.

  A shape appeared in front of him. Lei had finishing the Wind Step technique faster than Vin had ever seen him move before. His hand reached out to grab Vin, to pull him back—but then Vin saw Lei’s eyes and the sorrow and regret deep within them. And just as his hand was about to grab him, Lei hesitated, his fingers bent, and his hand missed. Ming Li appeared a step behind him, just as Vin passed through the breach and into a strange, dark realm. Seeing Lei’s failure, Ming Li jumped forward through the archway as its aura and energy twisted and churned, and Vin fell through it. Ming Li passed through the archway and was close to grabbing him when the crystal in Vin’s hand exploded with a blast of force. The opening they passed through closed, and the force of the explosion threw Vin sideways, separating him and Ming Li in the ether.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Vin saw the other opening in the distance, and saw Ming Li falling toward it. Then the darkness disappeared and was replaced by light. Vin was falling through the air, and then he hit the surface of what felt like a body of water, leaving him confused and disoriented. His muscles burning from the ki he had sent through them, he had no strength to move. Sinking deeper, he rejoiced, for he knew that he would truly die, and at last he was going to be free. His soul would ascend to the realm of the Gods.

  His eyes stared at the bright spot above him, the sun shining through the waves illuminating his path to the heavens—but then a shape broke the surface of the water and swam toward him. But Vin was too weak to stay awake, to see if he would live or die.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KYARRA

  They watch me at night, the stripes of blue and black. They are primal, at the edge of violence. Yet as the blue eyes fall on me, all I can feel is safe.

  –Excerpt from the Journal of Vardun Con Aroch

  Kyarra inscribed another glyph into the anima in front of her with deliberate movements of her hands as she kept up the chant. The spell was not very complex, but it did require a great deal of concentration and preparation. Things that were denied to Kyarra by her guardian as his words kept intruding into her mind. She tuned him out. Turning a storm around was tedious work, and there was too much that could go wrong. Once, when she was young, the King had asked her to move rain clouds that loomed over the city out over the bay and further into the open sea. He had planned a party for his daughter the day after, and nothing could ruin his little princess’s big day.

  At eleven, Kyarra had not yet mastered weather-crafting, but she had attempted it anyway. She used a spell written down by one of her past lives. Only she knew nothing of how to use such a spell properly, and thus failed to account for the consequences of the act. She did succeed in banishing the clouds, and the princess’s big day indeed passed without any problems. However, three days after, the city had been buried under half a stick of snow—at the height of summer. Now she knew better than to use any spell that she had inherited from her past lives before she had studied it in detail first.

  Kyarra spoke the last words of the chant and inscribed the last glyph of the spell, finishing the rune. Glyphs inscribed into the anima around her were visible and glowed with soft white light. Her anima flowed from her to the air around her and into the glyphs, triggering the spell-construct. Anima around her shifted as her spell was executed—her will and anima flew above the city and stretched to cover the entire valley and the bay. Kyarra sighed, exhausted, and slowly came out of her spell trance. She turned to look at her guardian, who was standing just outside her magic circle, waving a torn piece of paper at her.

  “So, what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” the gray-haired man asked her through his bushy beard in a gruff voice.

  “You could’ve made me miscast the spell, Ovar,” Kyarra told him gently as she adjusted her robe, and then reached up to unclasp the hair from the back of her head, letting it fall loosely to graze her shoulders.

  “Bah!” Ovar said, shaking the two pieces of paper in her direction again. “You have done that spell hundreds of times. This is more important! What is the meaning of this?”

  Kyarra looked at the old man. He had been her guardian from the moment she was born, from the moment her soul had reincarnated into this body. She didn’t remember him from her past life, as she had none of the memories of the lives that came before this one. Her only connection to her past lives came from the journals written by her in those past lives. At times, when she read through them, she could almost feel something there at the edge of her consciousness: images, impressions, feelings. But nothing ever stayed with her for long. But then again she hadn’t spent that much time on any personal journals, choosing instead to focus more on the books that covered magical knowledge.

  Kyarra knew that Ovar had been her guardian in her past life as well. Ovar had taken the position of the Eternal Soul’s guardian when the last guardian had died, and he had lived to see her—or rather him, as she had been a man in her last life—die and be reincarnated into her current body. Because of that, he sometimes overestimated her abilities. Her past life had lived for a long time; he had learned many spells and had been a powerful mage. She, on the other hand, was barely into her second decade; and at twenty years old, she still had much to learn.

  “That means that I am not going,” Kyarra said as she walked out of her casting circle, closing the stream of anima and making it inert.

  “Not going!” Ovar exclaimed indignantly, his brow furrowed and his mouth agape as she walked past him.

  Kyarra took off her robes, which left her in a sleeveless shir
t and trousers. She hung her robe on the metal hook on the wall and walked out of her workroom. A moment later, she heard hurried steps following behind. Kyarra took a turn and entered a hallway, which led toward her house garden. She’d just stepped onto the grass when Ovar caught up to her.

  “You must go, Kyarra. You’ve been avoiding these gatherings for years. People are starting to talk,” Ovar said to her back, his voice hard.

  Kyarra ignored him and walked over to a wooden bench beneath a singing tree. She sat down, leaning backward, and gazed over the short wall of her estate. She looked down at the city stretching below her and the deep blue sea of the bay. Out in the distance, she could see thunderclouds looming on the horizon, threatening to spill over the sea and into the city and the valley behind it. Then she cast her gaze over the mountain range that cut off Kyarra’s home—the Kingdom of Tourran—from the rest of the world. The storm would never reach the shores of Tourran; Kyarra had made sure of that. Instead it would slide around south and disappear against the snowy peaks of the Bronze Rock mountain range.

  “Kyarra,” Ovar said as he stepped in front of her, blocking her view and forcing her to look at him, “we’ve talked about this.”

  Kyarra rolled her eyes. “They don’t want me there.”

  “Of course they want you there—look!” He pushed the torn invitation in front of her face.

  Kyarra looked at the two pieces of the invitation. I should’ve burned it to ash, she thought. “They don’t want me there, Ovar. They need me there—there is a difference,” Kyarra said, clenching her jaw.

  “But you loved going to these gatherings,” Ovar said, perplexed.

  “No,” Kyarra said patiently to her very old guardian. “Ruidan loved going to these gatherings, as you have told me countless times. I am Kyarra. You are confusing us again, Ovar.”

  Ovar frowned, looking at her through his fuzzy eyebrows for a moment in confusion. “Well…you should still go. You need to leave the house more, Kyarra. Meet someone.”

  “What’s the point, Ovar? I am not allowed to marry or have children,” Kyarra said dismissively.

  “That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy yourself. Gods knows that Ruidan had, perhaps more than enough. Maybe you are balancing the scales. In your last life you were a lascivious exhibitionist, so in this one you are a solitary brooder,” Ovar said, scratching his beard thoughtfully.

  Kyarra kicked him in the shin.

  “Ouch!” Ovar jumped back, hopping on one foot and holding his leg in his hands. “That hurt, you little monster!”

  Kyarra looked him in exasperation. “I doubt that my little kick harmed you that much.”

  “You are as strong as an oxen!”

  Kyarra felt a corner of her lip curl into the beginning of a smile. “I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not,” Ovar said as he tested walking on his hurt leg.

  “I don’t want to go, Ovar,” she said finally. “I don’t want to be paraded and presented in front of their guests as a weapon. Nor am I in the mood for one of Jarna’s attempts at humiliating me again.”

  “And what do you care what they think? You are the Eternal Soul! She is only jealous because people love you more than her. Your name is known all over the world.”

  “The Eternal Soul is known—not me,” Kyarra whispered.

  Ovar leaned down. “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Kyarra said quickly. “In any case, I ripped apart the invitation.”

  Ovar snorted. “As if there is anyone in this city who would bar you entry anywhere.”

  Kyarra crossed her arms across her chest. “Yes, they only bar me from leaving the city,” she said sullenly.

  “That is the bargain you made,” Ovar said gently.

  “No!” Kyarra stood, forcing Ovar to take a few steps back. She pointed her finger at his chest. “I didn’t make this bargain—one of my past lives did! Why would I want to be a servant to the royal family? To be their weapon, deterrent to the powers surrounding Tourran? I don’t remember my past lives, yet I am forced to abide by a bargain made a hundred lifetimes ago.”

  “Every person is born into different circumstances, Kyarra. It is up to them to make the most out of the life given to them by fate,” Ovar told her.

  “And my fate is to live behind these walls, and never be allowed to leave?” Kyarra glared at Ovar. The old guardian remained silent. He turned his eyes to his chest as his arm rose to fiddle with the amulet that hung loosely around his neck, as he always did when he had no answer for her. Kyarra stood up and walked over to the edge of the garden and the knees-tall wall. Her home was built on a small plateau that rose from the southern side of the bay and was the beginning of the mountain range that served as the southern border of the Tourran kingdom and the city. From her home she could see the entire city before her, as well as the bay to the west and the green valley surrounded by gray mountains to the north and east.

  She looked at the sea, at the ships leaving port, or just now arriving from faraway lands. When she had been a child she made up stories about them, about the places they had visited and the people that traveled on them. Her dream had been to be a captain of her own ship, to sail the seas under the bright blue sky. That was before she had been told who she was—what she was. Now she knew that those dreams would never come to be. Her soul was not only bound to the endless cycle of reincarnation; it was bound to the blood of the royal family. And no ruler of Tourran would ever let her go. She was one of the reasons why the small kingdom still had its independence.

  “Kyarra,” Ovar said as he put his palm on her shoulder. “The world is not fair. But because of you, those people down there get to live their lives in peace and safety. That is more than most in this world have. You have been blessed to have more than any one of them could ever imagine. Your duty is to them, to the little girls and boys that look up to you. Who want to one day be like you. The royal family can play their games of politics all they want, but they can’t take from you the love of the people.”

  “They love the Eternal Soul, not me,” Kyarra said softly.

  “You are the Eternal Soul,” he said as spun her around and held her in his gaze, his arms on her shoulders. “All of your lives struggled with this, Kyarra. You are your own person, as all of your past lives have been their own. They had different personalities, different desires, and different views on the world. Each learned how to deal with their fate, and you need to do the same. Ruidan loved women and he liked to attend parties. I am not saying that you need to be like him, but you need to get out of this house if you are to have any kind of life. You can’t spend all of your days in here studying magic. They dare to disrespect you because you allow them to. You have as much power in Tourran as the royal family, yet you do not act like it, and they see that. You are the Eternal Soul! That title demands respect—but you need to be worthy of it.”

  Kyarra sighed. “All right, Ovar. I’ll go, but only because you asked it of me. And I promise that I won’t pity myself too much in the future.”

  “Good,” Ovar said somberly. He stepped back and, resuming his usual cheerful tone, he said, “Now, go and get ready. We need to be there by nightfall.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the garden with the wind and the soft whistling of the singing tree’s leaves. Kyarra glanced at the bay one more time, then turned back and walked into the house. She made her way to her chambers and to the bathroom. She activated the glyphs inscribed on the wall of the bathroom as she entered and water started flowing from the pipes, bringing it from the underground river flowing in the rocks deep beneath her home. The large tub filled with water, and she activated more glyphs, which started heating the water.

  As the spells worked to warm the tub, Kyarra undressed, throwing her clothes into the washing bin to the side of the room, before walking over to the tub in the middle. She tested the temperature and, after she found it to be satisfactory, stopped the heating spells and entered the tub, submerging he
r body in the warm water. She sighed and let her muscles relax. Casting spells might be more taxing on the mind, but the body suffered as well, she knew. She relaxed in the warm water for a few minutes before her mind began to wander.

  Kyarra had been born to a man and a woman who were traveling from the southern continent on board a merchant ship—parents who’d had the bad luck of being in Tourran when Ruidan had died. When an Eternal Soul reaches the last stages of life, when he or she is close to death, the royal family would find a family expecting a child and willing to give it up. Kyarra, however, was an anomaly.

  Typically, the family would be brought close to the Eternal Soul’s home and spells would be used to keep the Eternal Soul alive until the birthing of the child started. Once it had, the spells would be removed and the body of the Eternal Soul would die. The soul of any newly born child is only formed after it takes its first breath, and it takes time for it to mature. Sometimes a soul is reincarnated, and in those cases the soul arrives in the vessel just prior to birth, but that was a rare occurrence. And so the soul of Ruidan left its old body and, guided by spells cast long ago, traveled to the closest available vessel without a soul—the child about to be born and whose soul was yet to form.

  But when Ruidan had died, something had gone wrong. The child chosen by the royal family had been stillborn, and Ruidan’s soul found the next closest available vessel. Kyarra had been born in an inn on the docks of Tourran, and had spent barely a day with her parents before the royal family’s mage found her. Such a thing had happened before, and there were spells that could track her soul, Vardun had made sure of that. They took her from her parents and brought her to the home of the Eternal Soul, to be raised as all her past lives had been.

  Kyarra knew nothing about her parents except that they had been from the southern continent. She knew very little of the world she lived in. Most of what she knew was about the Lashian Empire and Amaranthine; all of her more general knowledge she had gleaned from listening to her servants and nobles at gatherings, as well as some that she learned in passing from her books on the different types of magic in the world. Each time she asked Ovar to bring her tutors to teach her about the world, he refused, telling her that there would be time for that later and that for now she needed to focus on learning magic. Kyarra could see his point; she would never be allowed to leave Tourran anyway, and that knowledge would serve her little. So, she spent all her time learning magic.