The Half-Hearts Chronicles

by Kealohilani

“Let the women and children leave!”

  “No, Zareth. It was a child who grew into a woman to become Queen of Trisakne. You two were children who grew into traitors who tried to overthrow me. Women and children are just as dangerous as men. You will all perish.”

  “No!” Zareth and Tesara called in unison.

  “Silence!”

  Vranah struck them both with electric bolts from his hands. Tesara cried out in pain, and Zareth pulled her closer to him, wrapping his massive arms around her.

  “Master, what are your orders?” Drakne inquired.

  “You are to leave the boundaries of this town immediately. Wait for me there. I will not be long.”

  “As you wish, Master. I shall await you at Mersi Crossing.”

  Drakne bowed and turned, never glancing back as he swept rapidly through the cobblestone streets, until he vanished from sight. Once Vranah was sure that Drakne was far enough away, he turned to look down on Zareth and Tesara once more.

  “Because your treachery has brought this upon your village, I think it is only fitting that you should be the last to die so that you may hear the screams of every last living soul as they burn to death.”

  “No!” Tesara screamed wildly. “We are responsible! Don’t hurt them! Please!”

  “You have us! Kill us and we will be a warning to the rest!” Zareth begged.

  Vranah was deaf to their continued pleas as he casually moved his hand to surround Zareth and Tesara in a force field. He stepped back from them, turned his face to the sky and raised his arms straight up, muttering ancient words to himself as he slowly lowered his arms to his sides. A gigantic energy field materialized— an enormous bubble enclosing the entire town and the outlying farms.

  Vranah whispered again and the sounds of every door and window shutter in the village locking echoed through the square with sickening clacks, clanks, and thuds. The beginnings of panic filled the air where only silence had existed moments earlier, as the hidden townspeople came to the horrifying realization that they were trapped inside their own homes.

  Vranah stretched his arms forward with a sweeping motion and watched as flames began to appear at the base of every building. The shrieks and cries of every man, woman, and child in the town ascended, filling the air faster than the smoke from the fire.

  Vranah pointed randomly at rooftops, which exploded into flames that rapidly jumped from one structure to the next. Zareth and Tesara screamed in agony, eyes wild with shock and terror.

  The black smoke filled the gargantuan dome so quickly that visibility was soon entirely gone. The force field allowed oxygen in to continue the fire, but let none of the smoke out. Those who did not burn to death immediately from the ravenous jumping flames were asphyxiated.

  The sounds of the unfortunate villagers gradually diminished, until all that was left was the roar of giant flames and the groaning of the buildings as they crumbled and gave way. Finally came silence that saturated the once happy town. The thick noiseless nothingness contrasted eerily with the screams that had filled it only moments before.

  Zareth and Tesara had frozen inside their protective bubble. Their eyes were glazed over— stinging from their salty tears but unable to blink. Staring out at the black smoke around them, but no longer seeing.

  Zareth still had his arms around Tesara, and the two were unconsciously rocking back and forth together. Tesara hummed a nursery rhyme she had learned in her childhood while Zareth held her closer and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

  “Tell me, Zareth and Tesara. Was it worth it?”

  Still catatonic, they stared vacantly beyond the smoke around them. Vranah’s comment, malevolent grin, and fiendish laughter went unnoticed as Vranah released the shield that protected them.

  He, however, listened raptly to the chokes and sputters of Zareth and Tesara as they coughed to death in the black vapor. As their last breaths were leaving them, Vranah hummed Tesara’s nursery rhyme until they fell silent.

  He continued humming as he deactivated the outer shield and allowed the fresh invigorating winds from the nearby lush green mountains to blow the smoke away into the crystal blue sky.

  Vranah suddenly stopped humming and staggered back slightly. A worried expression crossed his face. He paused, focusing intently on remaining still and appearing tangible. Vranah turned and slowly worked his way through the smoldering piles of rubble and ash until he came to a small bridge that spanned a small creek.

  Beyond the bridge stood Drakne, waiting near a black globe-shaped carriage made of interlocking iron swirls with bejeweled iron snakes intertwined throughout. Despite a strained effort on Vranah’s part to appear normal, Vranah staggered again as he approached.

  “Are you well, my lord?”

  “Yes, you fool! Take me to the castle!”

  Vranah staggered once more as Drakne opened the door to let Vranah inside the carriage that had been conjured specifically for him.

  Drakne worked to conceal any look of disapproval from his face. The power his master had just used was far too much to be handled by a non-corporeal being and it would be a long time before Vranah would be able to manage full use of his abilities again.

  Vranah knew better than anyone else that a body is a receptacle of power that contains and amplifies energy. Vranah knew that without this containment, it was much more difficult to control that energy. Vranah knew power and magic naturally pass through a spirit, much like water through a sieve! Using that much power without a body was nothing short of pure folly!

  But Drakne knew better than to point this out to Vranah.

  The most infuriating part was that destroying the whole town was not even necessary. The two traitors had come forward. Their public, non-magical execution would have sufficed as a warning to the rest.

  Drakne felt that his master had let his personal feelings cloud his judgment and had consequently worn himself out so greatly that it would take an inordinate amount of time to heal. This would mean much more work for Drakne.

  Drakne climbed into the carriage and slammed the door behind him.

  “To the castle!” Drakne demanded.

  The driver cracked the reigns and the horses whinnied. The carriage sped off down the dirt road leading away from Kellinsi. As the carriage jostled back and forth, Drakne kept his gaze fixed away from his master. He looked out the carriage window so that the scowl on his face and the irritation in his eyes would go unseen. Not once did he look back at the burned crater that just moments ago had been a charming town.

  “Stop! You can’t! Help! Somebody help! Anyone!”

  “Lani, wake up!” Tyler fretted, shaking his sister.

  “HELP! We have to help them!”

  “Lani you’re alright! You’re safe! Everyone is safe! Wake up!”

  Lani screamed one last time before sitting bolt upright in her bed— breathing hard and covered in a cold sweat.

  “Tyler?”

  Lani worked to focus through the dark of her bedroom. Her little brother had turned on her lamp, but it seemed remarkably dim at the moment.

  Tyler was sitting on her bed in his long black-and-blue plaid pajama pants and a white T-Shirt with a worried expression on his face. His haphazard short shiny blonde hair and the dazed look in his blue eyes made it clear that he had been startled out of a dead sleep.

  “You’re alright, Sis. You just had a bad dream. I heard you from my room. You were screaming. You okay?”

  The images of her dream flashed through her mind again. The sights. The sounds. Even the smells rushed at her, all at once.

  “Oh Tyler!” Lani cried out as she threw her arms around him and sobbed softly. “It was so real! It was awful! Vranah murdered an entire town. He killed them all! The men, the women, and the children!”

  Tyler responded by sweetly shushing her and stroking her hair. Lani sighed and started to relax as she finally let go of him.

  “It was just a dream, Sis. Go back to sleep. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
<
br />   “Okay. Thank you, Ty-Ty.”

  “What are brothers for?” Tyler grinned.

  Lani gave him a great big hug and then lay back down, pulling her covers up over her shoulders and snuggling into them. Tyler pulled the cord on the lamp and left her room. Lani sighed comfortably and quickly fell back to sleep.

  Reality Check

  Chapter Four

  Morning came, and Lani moved downstairs to sit on the couch in the living room, with her computer on her lap. The bright light of day poured in through the sliding glass door, which led to the backyard. Reflections off the water in the pool outside danced on the walls and ceiling around her. She never got tired of that.

  A few tiny areas of the low glass table in front of the couch were still barely visible beneath the myriad papers and photographs scattered around her senior year high school yearbook. Lani alternated between searching through the nostalgic chaos before her and sifting through emails detailing the plans that she and the rest of the former senior class presidency were making for their five-year reunion.

  It was almost a year away but there was just so much to do! They had to find a venue, a band and a DJ— for the two different dance floors— a caterer, make a reunion Facebook page, create the physical invitations, track everyone’s current mailing address down, mail the invitations, buy and design epic decorations, and make sure it was a night that no one would forget!

  As Lani had been the secretary their senior year, she was acting as the secretary now— which was oddly more work than ever. The former class president, vice president, and treasurer were deluging Lani with message after message of itemized instructions, photos, and attachments in their group conversation on Messenger.

  Lani felt like she was drowning under a mass of digital communication. It seemed as if she would just barely finish reading one message when three more would appear! And they weren’t all easy tasks either.

  The one she was currently in the process of completing was going through the yearbook and trying to find everyone from their class on Facebook to invite them into the event page for their reunion. As she pored through the various glossy photo-filled pages, the friendship page that she and her closest friends had designed and paid for fell open.

  Lani smiled as she saw the staggered individual pictures of herself, two boys, and two other girls spaced out evenly across the two-page spread. The last square on the far right held a picture of a ferret wearing pink bunny ears that were tied on with a bow under its chin, to make the layout even.

  She laughed as she saw the six white question marks printed above the ferret where the name should be. She was curious as to how many people had actually seen that photo and wondered about it. The ferret hadn’t belonged to any of them— it had just been a random picture that Lani had found on the Internet and couldn’t resist putting in the extra space.

  She looked back to the left-hand page. First was her picture with her name written below it— Lani Thomas. A pair of sunglasses rested on top of her head, her back was against a wall with her arms folded, and she was smiling directly at the camera. Her long light brown hair was in a braid that fell to her waist. She couldn’t help but notice how short it was in comparison to the present— her hair had almost doubled in length and now whenever she let it down all the way, it fell to her knees.

  However, she had stayed close to the same size ever since ninth grade— five foot five and slender— or, as she liked to call it, “travel size for your convenience.” Other things that had not changed included her crystal blue eyes and her full lips.

  It was funny, considering the fact that her mom and dad were not her biological parents— but her lips had always borne a striking resemblance to her dad’s lips, when he was young. He had always hated it as a child because they were super full and ruby red. His Aunt Laura never failed to say, “Don’t you have the prettiest red lips!” and Lani’s dad cringed every time.

  But Lani had been more than happy with them. And although it was genetically impossible, she had always joked that she had gotten her lips from her dad.

  She looked at her picture with a scrutinizing eye. Her eyes were lit up with happiness and looking forward to the future, and her smile was free and easy. Lani remembered how that had felt. There was hope in her heart that she was on her way to becoming that carefree again. But she couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  “When you meet Danny Cowen, run! Haha, just kidding. Everything that happened made us who we are.”

  Lani smacked her palm against her forehead and giggled out loud. Why was she talking to her seventeen-year-old self? She couldn’t hear her and it was a good thing too! Knowing her future all at once would have been way too stressful and might have even stopped it altogether.

  She knew that everyone went through heartache, and so she was no one special in that respect, but she also knew that if she had been told about everything she was going to go through ahead of time, she would have been tempted to run away more than once. And although the pain had not been fun, she would not trade even one of her experiences for an easier romantic journey.

  She had learned so much by living through them all. Just as precious to her was the fact that she had been able to help so many other people by being able to relate to their personal dramas in ways that, even with the greatest sympathy, she could never have done otherwise.

  Lani regarded the picture next to hers. This one was of a tall handsome boy, who had always reminded Lani of a cross between a young Tiger Woods and a young Will Smith. He stared intently into the camera like a model from GQ.

  Lani giggled at the seriousness of his expression. It was funny how such a colossal goof-off could only look serious when he was goofing off even more. She loved it when he “vogued” for the camera!

  He knew exactly how to use his captivating deep brown eyes rimmed with lashes that were so full and thick that many a girl from their high school had been horribly jealous of them. Lani herself had often wished she could trade eyelashes with him and had told him that it didn’t quite seem fair that a boy had been born with them— especially since he didn’t even like them.

  Above his picture, Justin Michael Iremia was written. The thick whimsical white font Lani had chosen for all of their names stood out nicely against the TARDIS-blue background of the two pages.

  “Oh, Justin! Hurry up and get back home, already!”

  As Justin could not answer, Lani directed her focus to the picture next to his. An alluring short Asian girl with thick, long, curly hair that fell to her waist was lying on the grass with her arms folded and her chin resting on her dainty hands.

  She looked directly into the camera and her mischievous grin and knowing look made one want to ask what her secret was. Written below this picture was Kara Marie Shiro.

  Lani looked up at a gilt-framed pencil drawing that Kara had made for her as a Christmas present in their senior year after the two of them had watched the 2004 version of The Phantom of the Opera together over and over again. It was a collage of images from that film and depicted The Phantom standing behind Christine Daaé, who was looking into the mirror.

  Where is Kara now anyway? It was strange that she had almost completely lost touch with someone she had been so close to in high school. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen her since the summer after they had all graduated.

  Lani blinked and glanced back down to the first picture on the right-hand page and smiled freely. Above this picture was written Raoul Kimura Evans.

  His short frame, handsome face and fair skin, set off by dark features, hinted at the possibility of some Asian genetics. His root-beer-colored eyes sparkled, even though his closed smile hid his teeth completely.

  “I love that you never change!”

  Raoul’s picture looked the same as the ones he had been sending to Lani from Indonesia over the past two years. He had just gotten back recently, was still only five foot four, and his face hadn’t aged a day.

  Finally, in-between the picture of Raoul a
nd the unknown ferret, was a picture of the last girl. She had a heart-shaped face, stunning green eyes, and a glowing smile with the cutest dimples. Her hair fell past her shoulders, and it seemed as if a breeze had conveniently arranged some of it across her face to assist in creating the perfect glamour shot. Below this picture was written Kendra Charelle Sanchez.

  Lani didn’t have to wonder what Kendra had been up to all these years. Kendra had been the only one who hadn’t left for longer than a few months at a time since graduation. The two of them had done nearly everything together— including comforting each other through their various break-ups throughout the early college years.

  Underneath the staggered row of pictures in large white letters was the caption, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!!!

  Lani’s eyes lit up as she looked at the dozens of smaller photos below these words. It was as if hundreds of good memories lived on in this frozen 2-D realm.

  Lani’s friends coming early to help her fill up over one thousand water balloons for their senior opening social on the beach— tying off each balloon until their fingers were numb and slightly swollen. In this picture, the three girls were smiling widely and draping themselves carefully across the full balloons, which were piled high and held together by a tarp— each girl visibly hoping that the balloons would not pop beneath them all while they took the picture.

  In another photo, Lani’s friends were helping her demonstrate proper fencing moves for the club she had started their junior year. Lani suddenly realized how much she missed that sport.

  She hadn’t picked up a blade for anything other than goofing off with Raoul and Justin while making home videos since that photo had been taken. There just never seemed to be a trained person around to spar with when she had the time to do so. C'est la vie. Maybe soon! Perhaps after she finished her bachelor’s degree there would be time to revive her rusty skills.

  As she continued to peruse the double-page spread, she recalled the happy feelings— which had been almost-perfectly captured in the numerous pictures of the whole group together. Football games. Justin’s band concerts. Raoul and Kendra’s choir events. Kara’s art shows. Holiday celebrations— for nearly every holiday they could find an excuse to celebrate. Various formal and casual dances. And many other miscellaneous occasions.