The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH HARVEST OF GRIEF

Banth had gone through the emergency portal and taken Yuli with him as soon as the boy had shown up with the message. Karstien and Shadz had rushed to catch up with Yuri, Abe, and Regis, with Kalen only a dozen minutes behind. The Royals had used their magic to expedite the rescue. Their quarrels forgotten as they rushed to save their amnesiac oracle.

Afterwards as they hurried back to Soldiers Cove, Shadz had demanded to know how Yuri had found her and blamed Yuri for her condition, but the Huntsman had stoically refused to speak as he carried his dying sealed one home. It was only when Kalen had told them Yurieth wasn’t talking because he couldn’t speak loudly due to his injury and point out his uncle’s neck scar that Shadz relented in his demands for answers. Serapha, Allura and Jenna were waiting for them with Yuli. Asha arrived, escorted by Regulus and Lady Eonae, only a half hour before. The Master Healer and former Princess of Xelusia rushed to prepared while Stacy and the veterans guarded the town.

Rieth carried Fleur upstairs and was ushered away. Asha made quick work of assessing her mother as she bathed her in Water of Light. Allura helped dress Fleur in a simple gown before they put her in her bed. Then Serapha began the Harvest of Grief ritual she had used many times since the Siren’s Battle. Shadz and Asha watched closely. Serapha ran the enchanted ruby comb through Fleur’s pale blonde hair. Drops that looked like old blood dripped into an obsidian bowl. Asha and Serapha could all feel Fleur’s pain fading as the ritual continued. Serapha had to stop several times to empty the bowl into large, ruby and obsidian glass jars. It took all day and into the night to fill the two and a half urns with the strange liquid.

Yuli watched the Aunt he never knew he had pouring the last of the thick liquid into one of the enchanted jars. Just looking at it, he could sense how toxic it was. “What is that stuff, Auntie Pha?”

“It is the concentrated essence of all your mother’s centuries of suffering harvested so she will barely feel it. Her memories will no longer taint her soul with pain and sorrow, she will be able to remember them without being overwhelmed,” Serapha answered sweetly as she let the last few drops ooze from the bowl. “Don’t worry, Yuli. After tomorrow, you mother will no longer be at risk of dying.”

She placed a ruby stopper in the top of the third urn, and Shadz sealed it with the wave of his hand, before holding a sigel over it. He placed it in a stone chest, declaring in his deep monotone, “It must be destroyed.”

“Yes, it must. The blood mages of my era harvested it to use as a toxin. It works like blood magic, only instead of sharing magic, once administered, the drinker experienced all the pain of the one it was taken from. ” Serapha announced, “She needs to rest before Eonae and Allura attempt to heal the scarring on her soul with the Queen’s Benevolence Blessing.”

Asha held out her hand to Yuli, “Come, Yuli, you need to rest too. You haven’t slept since I got here, we’ll eat first though. Food feeds the heart as much as it feeds the body.” Then she led him out of his mother’s room.

“Forgive me, Lady Serapha, I did not believe this ritual would work,” the Mage Shadz apologized. “It is unlike any magic I have studied. I believe you are teaching at the wrong schools.” He announced in reference to her teaching on Jura and Meridian.

“You thought it was just a ruse to discern Daisy or Fleur’s location for Yurieth. You chose not to believe me because you hate him.” Serapha’s words were laced with disdain. “The magic of the Shadow Mages I know is not for you or anyone to learn ever again, Lord Shadz, unlike other simple magics which should be taught to all regardless natural magical talent.”

She did not agree with him that only those who possessed magic should be taught. Everyone could benefit from the knowledge of making simple healing potions and the use of enchanted items and books. Elitism had robbed the common people of her world of all their magic, except potion making, it had leached into Aetherian culture and by her generation, only those of rank were trained. “Everyone deserves the gift of beneficial magic.”

Shadz’s rusty red eyes held her light orange-brown ones, as he considered her words. Perhaps he was held back by his old prejudices that only those from houses of power should be taught. The sons of an unranked assassin whom he had adopted at the oracle’s command were his most promising mages beyond his own bloodline. “Perhaps Lady Serapha, you could assist Asha and I in creating tests for aptitude for our school, something like Lord Yurieth and Lord Regis perform on students who wish to attend the Academy.”

She blinked once, “You know they let everyone in who wishes to learn, regardless of their magic ability. Skills are more important than magic because magic used, no matter how powerful, will not make up for lack of skill.”

Shadz’s mouth made a thin line. In a way, he felt like she was chastising him, and perhaps she was, but he could not be certain. Serapha rose and went downstairs. Shadz stood by her chair next to Fleur’s bed. He closed his eyes and prayed that the woman who was like a mother or older sister to him would survive.

Asha’s arms circled his waist, “Don’t worry, she’ll wake up. Come and eat.” He had not heard her come back upstairs, she moved as quietly as Yuri’s cat.

“But the question none of us has voiced is who will wake up, Daisy or Fleur? Who will she be when morning comes?” His chest ached at the thought of forever losing his mentor forever.

Asha shrugged, “Does it matter if she is healed? If she is happy?”

“I suppose not.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, and they went downstairs to have a late supper and wait for dawn.

Over supper, Abe revealed Yuri’s search for his hope and Fleur. Yuri told of how he had almost died on the ship and how apprentice healer Callie had saved him. Asha bowed her head when Yuli talked about their mother looking through his eyes to sew up Rieth’s wound. Her eyes fixed on his neck scar and she wished Yuri had come to her sooner, but she would do what she could to heal him further if he would allow it.

Yuli paused and looked up at Yuri, “I don’t know what to call you anymore, Rieth or Yuri?”

Yuri spoke in his gravel low voice, “If you can forgive me for deceiving you and your mom, you can still call me dad if you want.”

Kalen squeezed his brother’s arm. “I would be proud to have you as my brother.”

Jenna reached across Kalen and put her hand on top of his, “I would be too. You have been so strong and so brave with Mom so sick. Uncle Yuri is the only father Kalen has ever known and while I miss my father, Yuri has become like a dad to me too.”

Yuli’s chin trembled as he looked up at Asha, she smiled gently and nodded, “Be our brother, Yuli.”

Tears plunged down his cheeks as he nodded then he threw his arms around Yuri’s neck. “I’m so happy to have you as my dad, and that you saved Mom, and I have siblings.”

Yuri rocked Yuli in his arms, his own tears wet his son’s hair, but he needed to tell Yuli something. “Son, we didn’t save your Mom, she saved us. She saved us all.”

“It’s true,” Kalen added, “That Shadow had my head, and Mom saved me at the last moment, then she turned it to dust. Her love for us powered her light as she bent the darkness against its own.”

“Her love for us will keep her here tomorrow and for a long time more, after Eonea and Allura perform the Queen’s Benevolence Blessing,” Jenna added smartly.

“And how much do you know so much about this?” Asha asked her sister.

Jenna smirked, “Who do you think is creating the records of the magic of the queens for the Archives? Everything that can be used for the Light from Aetheria and Xelusia. Sorry, Shadz, but this is girls only magic. Really Asha, you have been a healer for six hundred years, you should start cross-training. Father said we must learn much and live lives beyond our own innate magic.”

Asha gave her younger sister a proud look, “Maybe I will, maybe I already am, little sister. I do enjoy my garden and the Healer’s Farm on Arborea, you should visit me there sometime. Our children love it as much as they love living at Southern and they would love to see you.” Asha looked around the table with shining wet eyes, “All of you.”

Yuri watched Kalen and Yuli sleeping, spending time with his younger half-brother, made Kalen seem so young. Fang and Fish had taken over the second set of bunk beds in Yuli’s room. The boys had stayed up talking and planning all the things they were going to do together and with Jenna. Yuri had listened to them as he sat by Fleur’s bed. He knew the brothers were going to be inseparable whenever Kalen was home. To Yuri, Kalen was still an adolescent even though he carried the rank and duties of a Guardian. He wished his nephew’s childhood could be longer. Yuri had dozed but he woke when Serapha came in with the Queens, Asha, and Jenna. He had retreated down the hall to watch his son and nephew sleeping.

Abe stepped beside him, and said in a low tone, “We were at war when we were Kalen’s age.”

“Yes, but our sons and nephews are born into a better world, a more peaceful one with a king who cares for his people.” Yuri answered back just as quietly.

“Perhaps, brother, but no one suspected Corbin carried a shadow until it emerged, and Fleur felt it. Yuli felt it too, he said Corbin felt different at the autumn festival and even more different when he attacked you. Yuli didn’t realize what he felt or what it meant. By the Light, Yuli’s magic is going to rival Karstien’s,” Abe tipped his head thoughtfully.

“It’s something here in the isle, Fleur said the children of the archipelago have more blessings that the ones in the rest of the kingdom. It is a puzzle to figure out,” Yuri sighed, then he smiled, “He called me Dad.”

Abe grinned and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “It feels great doesn’t it?”

“Yes, brother, it does.”

“Uncle Yuri, they are ready for you,” Jenna’s soft voice summoned them. “The healers and the queens are going to perform an enchantment Eonae learned in the Temples of Light before they were destroyed. Just remain by the door and wait.”

Karstien, Regulus, and Shadz were both standing against a wall, observing as Asha and Serapha spread the golden light of their healing magic over Fleur. Allura raised her hand and the Flame of Aetheria appeared in her palm, she stretched the Flame between her hands. Eonea plucked the edge of the flame and as their hands moved the sacred magical fire spread out like a blanket, they lowered it over Fleur then turned their hands palm up. Lady Eonae chanted in the ancient temple language of the oracles and Fleur rose up off the bed. She looked as though she were floating in a cloud of blue enchanted fire and golden mists.

The power of the magic vibrated them all and Yuri could feel the piece of Fleur’s soul he still carried responding to it... painfully. Fleur began to glow with the Light of the Oracles, she cried out in her sleep and Yuri collapsed with an agonized gasp. His hand instinctively curled in a claw, clutching over his heart. It felt like his soul was being ripped apart, like his heart was being torn from his chest and he couldn’t get a breath in to scream. Abe caught one arm of his arms, pulling his hand from his chest, and Regulus took the other.

“Sorry, Uncle Yuri, but this is going to hurt.” Jenna apologized as they laid him next to where Fleur floated. “Your souls are not normally sealed, they are knotted together, scarred and raw. Mother’s soul isn’t the only one that needs repaired. Neither of you can heal because your soul refuses to release a part of hers and that part refuses to return to her. You’re going to have to choose once and for all, to keep her or let her go. She is going to have to choose the same. If you can’t agree, you both might die. Do you understand, Uncle Yuri?”

He blinked rapidly against the tears and pain, managing only to breath out the word yes. His consciousness faded quickly.

‘Yuri?’

He felt his body was amorphous, neither warm or cold, not standing or laying, just numb except for the sharp ache in his chest.

‘Yuri...Please... please don’t die.’ Her voice, her voice was the only thing that mattered in this place.

‘Hurt.’

‘I know... I do too. . I... I’m sorry they made you do things you didn’t want to. But you have to wake up, we’re in trouble.’

He felt himself coalescing; a hand was holding his. “Daisy.”

Opening his eyes, he could see her sitting beside him with a worried but heartbroken look. It felt like they were in the Veil of Light but looking around he realized they were somewhere else. Above them, the sky wasn’t dark with stars, it was an upside-down surface of water.

He sat up, suddenly taking in what they were wearing. Both had on the armor they had worn in the last battle against the Darkness. “What is this place?”

“It feels like a soul trap, but I can’t sense a way out.” She stood and rotated. “The writing on the walls is different from anything I’ve seen on Aetheri aor Xelusia but this symbol I know.″

Yuri ran his fingers over the hieroglyph of the Relic of Time. He had seen a script like this on a Relic once. “My mother had an ancient book with this script in it, but I don’t know what it was or said. Eonae might be able to read it, she was at the temples as a child.”

“Maybe.” Her mouth pursed into a thin line. “This symbol is in the archives, it means home.”

He shook his head, “No, its first meaning is point of origin or place of birth. Are we supposed to find this place? How can we find a place that hasn’t existed since before the first kingdom?”

“What do you mean?” She went from panel to panel trying to commit each one to memory. He did the same.

“We don’t have the Relic of Time, the only part left is the clock. Fleur... um... Daisy... It died when you did.”

Yuri watched her pause, then she whispered, “I killed it, I asked too much of it.”

“This panel is a map of the Aetheria- Xelusia binary system,” Yuri put his fingers on the stone.

“Oceania was the first settlement... but this shows a huge landmass where the Archipelago is.” Fleur murmured. She bent to study the changed topography of the planets while Yuri moved to the next one.

“Fleur...” He was looking at a familiar system map.

“Meridian,” She said softly, “But Meridian 4 is missing a moon. Look over here, it’s the Atlas system but there are two whole planets where the big asteroid belt is. No wonder I could never get the astronomics to work out. There were two planets in that elliptical, not one giant one.”

“Does this mean we have resettled the systems of the ancients?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know... This is the Terrearth system with all the planets intact, and these two panels hold maps I don’t recognize. And this one has the point of origin symbol on the fourth planet. Eh-dehn-ae?”

“Eh-dehn-ae is like Eden in Genesis, it means garden of first life, I think,” Yuri ran his fingertip over the symbol.

Daisy touched a symbol on the planet, then walked over to the maps, pausing at the Meridian system then pacing back to Aetheria-Xelusia. “This second symbol is only on four worlds, Oceania where the continent is missing, the Atlas system on one of the missing planets, Eden’s third world, and Meridian 4? Perhaps they were the first colonies?”

“This place?” Yuri wondered aloud. “It must be an archive of some kind.”

“But why are we dressed in our fleet armor?” Her eyes held worry.

“I don’t… We need to remember what we see here. You take the maps, I’ll take the pictographs so we can reproduce them if we survive.” He felt a sudden urgency. They wandered around in silence memorizing the maps.

As they went from panel to panel, Yuri saw one with a too familiar scene, from an ancient book his mother had, and shuttered, “Fleur, I found something. It looks like they had a civil war.”

She scowled, walking to him. “But who won?”

“Does anyone really win in war?” His defeated tone made her look at him. “Continents and even entire planets were lost.”

Suddenly, there was a boom that caused them both to cover their ears. Something burning gold was beating on the water doom. It was trying to get in. Below their feet, there was a vibration, like something digging its way upwards toward them.

“What’s happening?” Daisy gasped.

The whole vision began compressing, and Yuri realized he only had a moment before they woke, if they woke. “Listen to me, before they put me under, Jenna told me our souls are knotted together, scarred, that we have to decide, to release each other or stay together, or we would both die. I would rather die than lose you again. Loving you wasn’t just about my duty, you are my hope, my heart... I don’t want to be free...”

“But Yuri...you’re free for the first time in your life. You can find your own destiny, choose your own hope. Find real love and...”

“I chose you. I choose you.” His lips interrupted her as the place crumbled around them. After the kiss, he breathed, “Our love is real. You are all I want. I love you. I will love you for all time. Please stay with me.”

The water ceiling cracked open and golden light poured through the hole; a large winged figure in celestial armor landed on the center of the below the opening. The floor cracked and tentacles of shadow rose from the crevasses. The Evil that dwelt under their feet wanted to harm them while the Light that shined down beckoned as a way to escape.

‘Run, Brother! Daisy, go!’ Kaleth shouted.

Yurieth seized Fleur’s arm as her hands cast protection glyphs of light over the cracks. They ran toward the Guardian who was cutting down the tentacles almost too fast to be seen.

“Come on, Kaleth,” Yuri shouted.

Kaleth retreated toward where they stood in the beam. Fleur’s light spread around them like a dome. There was a blinding flash and they were standing in Her Room of Light.