2017 / 214 p.A.
Arameth
Lex gazed down the underwater passage. Outside, the moonlit ocean swayed against the tunnel’s clear walls, lighting where he stood, but everything up ahead was dark.
The darkness in his veins pulsed, slipping back down toward his fingertips and then upward through his arms. The pool of energy inside him hummed, building.
“I’m here, Ardis,” Lex said. “I’m coming for you.”
Behind him, the door burst open and Lytira barreled in, tackling him.
Lex fought against her, but her arms were like vices around his chest and shoulders.
Mare trotted sideways out of their way as Lytira tightened one elbow around Lex’s throat, the other arm around his chest, and dragged him out of the tunnel.
Mare followed and the tunnel entrance snapped shut as Lytira threw Lex to the ground.
“What were you thinking?” she screamed. She towered over him, quivering with rage.
Lex shot up to his feet and met her furious glare with one of his own. “No, what are you thinking?” he shouted back. “Ardis has taken everything from this world, threatened everyone we love. You, of all people, should understand! She needs to die. Now.” He felt his hands clench into fists with a will of their own, trembling. He forced himself to take a breath, but hatred still coursed through his veins. He gritted his teeth. “Before she hurts anyone else.” The last phrase came out as a growl, the words barely intelligible.
Lytira stepped back, her eyes falling to his hands, then going wide.
Lex looked down. His hands had turned to quivering balls of shadow, dangling from the ends of his arms. What was happening to him? He glanced at Mare. She tilted her head, watching from the shoreline with one intense, brown eye.
“Lex,” Lytira said, her posture still tense but her voice gentle. “Is this about Acarius?”
Yes, Lex thought. “No,” he said. “It’s about Ardis, and saving Arameth, like I’m supposed to do. I am the Son of Prophecy, and now I will end this, finally, like we should have years ago.” He spun, moving back toward the tunnel entrance.
“This isn’t what he wanted, Lex,” Lytira called after him. “He gave himself to save you. Do not dishonor his life by throwing away your own.”
Her words pierced him as though she’d struck him in the back with one of her daggers.
Lex stopped, the rage seeping from him like he was bleeding out, leaving him weak. He dropped to his knees before the doorway. His hands were flesh again, fisted in front of him. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just sit here, waiting, not after what Acarius had sacrificed.
“Aaaaaargh!” Lex yelled, throwing his head back, then sank forward, dropping his head onto his knees.
Lytira’s hands came around his shoulders. “Lex,” she said, her voice soft by his ear. “We cannot do this tonight.” She paused, her breath audible behind him. “Come.” She moved around in front of him and lowered her hand. “Let’s go back to Ar’roch. Let us make a plan, gather resources. This is not the way.”
Mare stepped toward them, nudging Lex’s shoulder with her nose.
Lex glanced up at the two of them, the woman who could turn panther and the horse who seemed human, staring down at him in the moonlight, and sighed. Lytira was right. Acarius had wanted more than this, more than Lex charging in a fit of rage into Ardis’ lair with no plan and no backup. Acarius’ memory, his sacrifice, deserved better than that. Lex had told himself he would go off alone because he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, but if he was honest, he had also just wanted the relief of unleashing his anger against something.
You will, he told himself. But when the time is right. When you can be smart about it. He took Lytira’s hand and stood. “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s go back.” Anger still churned in him, just below the surface, simmering.
Lytira nodded, just once. “Believe me,” she said, her eyes turning hard as stone, “when the time is right, I will be the first to join you in killing Ardis.”
Everything outside was still quiet when Lex, Lytira, and Mare stepped back through the portal and into the grass behind Lex’s room at Ar’roch.
Grallach nodded to them as they stepped through, still keeping watch beside the portal.
“I hope you do not mind, Son of Prophecy; when the Zeriphath Queen asked where you had gone, I told her she could join you to say a last farewell to your fallen friend,” he said.
“No, that was fine, Grallach,” Lex said, glancing at Lytira. “I’m glad she came.”
“Good,” Grallach’s eyes met Lex’s in a way that made Lex wonder if he knew more than he was admitting. “Are you ready for me to close the portal?”
“Yes,” Lex said. “Close it.” Grallach waved his hand and the portal vanished.
“You should get some rest,” Lytira said to Lex, giving him a steady gaze. “And so should I. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Lex nodded. “Goodnight, Lytira. Thank you.”
She tipped her head in a quick nod, then moved inside, disappearing down the hallway.
Lex followed, and Grallach shut and bolted the door behind them.
“Do you need anything else tonight, Son of Prophecy?” he asked.
“No, Grallach,” Lex said, then wondered if he was supposed to call him something else. After all, the Roch were the royalty of Harthgil. “I mean, your... highness?”
Grallach gave Lex a small smile. “Grallach is fine, Son of Prophecy. I hope you have a good rest.”
He headed back across the courtyard.
Lex peeked out and saw that the attendant still sat in a chair outside his hallway. “Do you need something, Son of Prophecy?” she asked, standing.
“No, thank you.” Lex glanced around the courtyard, the moonlight shining down on the polished stone floor through the transparent ceiling and the statue of Elian dropping glistening streams of water into the pool in the courtyard’s center. He wanted to feel grateful for this place of refuge, for the help they’d provided, despite the sting of what he’d lost – but he was still angry at all the secrets. How much might have been different, had the Roch shared openly what they knew? And Amelia – he hadn’t even said goodbye, because the Roch deemed it more important to abide to some inexplicable schedule than to wait until they found Lex to send her. He thought of how she turned as he called out to her, the portal snapping shut before he could even see her face one last time, and hot anger boiled deep in his stomach. He would go after her, whether the Roch wanted him to or not, the first chance he was able. But when? Without their cooperation, how would he even get to her? And he knew he couldn’t leave now, not when Ardis seemed to be mounting her attacks. He couldn’t leave the others unprotected; he’d made a promise. He would go after Amelia the moment he was able – he just hoped the Roch had been honest, for once, about someone on Earth protecting her in the meantime.
The thought of Amelia in danger stirred fresh panic in Lex. He shoved it away; there was nothing he could do for her right now, except take down Ardis as quickly as possible. He would have to focus on that.
The splashing water glistened at the base of the statue, catching the lights of the hanging lanterns. Lex sighed. For all his distrust and anger with the Roch, Harthgil had been instrumental in helping them save Acarius’ sisters, and in providing them refuge and assistance when they needed it. As much as he hated to admit it, they’d been helpful in their own frustrating way. Without Harthgil, Lex and the others would have no clue at all what to do now, but with the Roch’s help, perhaps they could figure out a way to defeat Ardis... to avenge Acarius, his family, the people at Zeriphath, Nigel—everyone who had been hurt or lost. And when that was all done, they could create a portal for Lex to reach Earth – to reach Amelia. At least, Lex would cling to that hope. “Goodnight,” he said, smiling at the attendant.
She smiled back at him, and he headed down the short hall and into his room.
He climbed into the small bed, which was more comfortable than it looked. Though he expected sleep to elude him, the weariness beneath his surge of grief and rage pulled at him, warring with the small simmer of anger still fighting for life within his chest... and the pain of loss, which never left him and he expected never would. Acarius hadn’t deserved to die... but he had chosen it so that Lex could finish this, and Lex would make sure that choice did not go to waste.
These thoughts lingered in his mind as the weight of sleep pulled him under.
Lex.
Lex startled, but didn’t wake. Everything around him was formless and black. He was weightless. I’m dreaming. He had heard a voice call his name, and that meant...
Wake up, he told himself. Wake up!
Lex, the voice called again.
Wait, Lex realized. That’s not Ardis. The voice sounded familiar though... one he’d heard before.
Safe, the voice whispered.
That was it, how he knew the voice. It had called to him when he’d died... as Marcus. It had brought him to the Void.
Lex tried to turn toward the voice, but there was nothing to turn toward—everything was black emptiness.
“Who are you?” he asked, floating, and his voice drifted out and dispersed in the abyss.
Then the other voice answered. Watch, it whispered. Learn. Know.
A symbol appeared, floating before Lex. It was metallic, platinum-colored, seeming almost physical in the Void... a partial triangle, made from a double line but broken, a piece of it missing on the right edge.
The daughter, the voice whispered. A chosen line.
What does that mean? Lex wondered. Did it have something to do with Amelia?
Beside it, another symbol appeared—the metallic crescent, etched with lines of an ancient language.
The pendant, Lex thought. But this one had no cord; the symbol floated alone.
The sons. Interchangeable, the voice whispered.
Interchangeable? Lex thought. Did that mean... Acarius. Was the voice saying it could have been either of them who died? Either, who saved the other? Could he have died in Acarius’ place, if he’d acted more quickly? He’d wondered it, wished it, but the possibility of it being true sliced him like a knife.
Watch, the voice said again. Learn.
Another symbol appeared beside that one, two triangles, complete this time, interlaid one across the other, the top one offset slightly up and to the left. The daughters, the voice whispered.
“Wait, another one?” Lex asked. “I... I don’t understand. Do you mean Jana?”
A glowing circle appeared in the dark, just an outline of brilliant white, darkness visible through its center. It floated across the other symbols, stopping over each of them for a moment before moving to the next.
You, the voice whispered.
“Me? What do you mean?” Lex asked again. “Please, help me understand.”
The symbols surged with light for a moment, then slid inward, interlocking with the circle set within them, as though holding them all together.
Part of each of them, center of all of them, the voice whispered. You.
Lex gaped at the glowing emblem, all the symbols combined.
“I don’t understand,” he called out. “I don’t understand!”
You will, the voice whispered.
A light flashed and Lex was falling, no longer weightless in the Void.
Lex gasped, pushing up in bed. He was still in the small room in Ar’roch, safe within their mountain refuge.
He jumped from the bed and rushed out into the hall.
The attendant turned to him. “Son of Prophecy? Is something the matter?”
“I need paper,” Lex blurted, “and something to write with. Please.”
The attendant gave a quick nod and rushed off.
Lex paced the hallway, focusing on keeping the images seared in his memory until she returned.
A moment later the attendant raced back up, handing him a tablet of paper and a writing implement, a thin stick made of charcoal.
Lex grabbed them and turned to the wall, pressing the paper against it as he hurried to record what he’d seen. He etched the lines onto the paper, his anxiety seeping away as the images took shape on the page.
He glanced up at the attendant, who watched with concern. “Thank you.” He held the charcoal writing stick out to her.
“You may keep it,” she answered, her eyes studying him. Observing he was no longer agitated, she bowed and moved back to her chair at the end of the hall.
Lex looked down at his paper, studying the symbol he had drawn.
“What does it mean?” he whispered to himself. “I don’t understand.”
You will, answered the voice in his memory. You will.
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