The King Trials 2: Beyond.

Zoar and I travel through the long, ascending rock ravine with steep sides to reach the Sagetai’s sanctuary, accompanied by the might of a desert sun beating down on my forehead. The arduous journey is worth every bead of sweat, every laborious second.

The Sagetai’s sanctuary is a timeless, architectural feat. An enormous ancient temple with a monastery design integrated into the face of a mountain top. A terraced sanctuary carved entirely of black sandstone. It has an elaborate, towering facade with a series of upholding pillars chiselled from sheer rock.

But it seems one must earn his merit to truly spectate such a sight by climbing the broad, double-tiered staircase of at least a thousand steps. Without hesitation, Zoar scales up the mountainous staircase, walking with his staff with me in tow.

“Great Sagetai. Tell me, where are you from?”

“Urium. But more specifically, I am from the Prime Province in Armathis and I belong to Regnum Valwa.”

“Oh, no Sagetai.” A distinct note of amusement rings in my mind. “You do not belong to just one kingdom or dominion. You belong to them all.”

I glance at his bandaged back. Constantly fluttering my eyes to stave off the blinding intensity of the sun. “How would that be possible. I am not even an immortal?”

“Urium’s true name is Yahdai. It is the cradle of all life in this world, the birthplace of every being. It all originated from the twelve tribes of Yahdai. When time progressed and beings evolved, multiplying across the lands, species developed races within them. And crossbreeding birthed new races of people. Every tribe, people and race all originate from, what you know as, Urium.”

Despite the demanding, scorching heat. I remain avid, drinking in his thoughts.

“The mythical bloodlines of every people from here to the artic plains of Nivalis, all of whom contain their abilities within, all unique to each denomination. Even though they are plenty, many diverse beings with versatile abilities that exist, they all derive from the same heritage. The twelve tribes.”

I ignore my agonising muscles, a relentless burn in my legs.

“The Sagetai holds them all. All of the mystical bloodlines that form the twelve tribes, the same blood flows through your veins, it is what fuels your power. But it is not the source, not even the Sarsen. You have the capability to harvest power from any and every lineage. To reach your full power, the power of ten thousand suns, you must reach the Sagetai Statim, channelling all twelve, all at once.”

My mind swells from the overload. Not by the information but by the revelation of what it all means and all that I am destined for. An onerous fate that I had no idea was tethered to mine, I had no inkling or some kind of cosmic feeling that I am destined to do more in my life than be a Hera.

“How…how is the Sagetai chosen? Who appoints the Sagetai?”

Zoar sneaks a look at me. Though his face is completely covered in heavy layers, there is something in those luminous blue eyes that shines with jeering surprise, like what I had asked was obscenely foolish.

“The Sagetai is chosen by the Almighty, the Creator himself. You, Hera Aurora of Regnum Valwa, you are the first Sagetai, but you will not be the last. You are predestined to save not only Urium but the world. Even though you are the great light, as you well know, there too is a great darkness. One that only you can defeat, and only it can defeat you.”

Well…that’s encouraging.

“Balance is a law that cannot be transgressed.” I physically erect at those recited words. “The scales will tip either way. At your birth, when the Sarsen merged with you, the worthy vessel.”

I lift my forearms and I observe the intricate, twisting tattoos that bear an unearthly sheen, it glints feebly under sunlight.

“Your first pathway has opened; it is why you are able to communicate with me. As the Sagetai, you are linked to every race of people with that being their culture and form of language as if it were your own. Which in your case it sort of is.”

My mind is moments from imploding.

“You are tethered to the masters of old. The twelve Lords, one representing each tribe. You can connect to them and glean from their knowledge, obtaining wisdom from the Lords. You are the first Sagetai. The Creator has empowered you and it is through the Lords, through what you will face, He will guide you.”

That sounds exceedingly useful. “And how would I do that—connect to them or just Him?”

He looks back at me, all the emotion that an immortal can hold he bears in his eyes. “Only the Sagetai can answer that. You must look within and tap into the true source of your power.”

That answered nothing. “Yes, but how?” I mentally feign surprise. I conjure my most compelling Zoar-esque, mimicking his enlightened demeanour in my mind. “Great Sagetai, you must look within.”

For a while my mind is silent. Until. “I do not sound like that.”

Finally, we mount the apex of the monstrous staircase. The doorway of the sanctuary is massive, a gigantic wall of black. Zoar and I enter, thawing into the gloom. On cerebral command, he sets his staff alight and the crown of its head smoulders with a blue blaze illuminating the path ahead of us.

The entrance hall of the sanctuary spans to undefined limits, the ground paved with limestone, rows of linear pathways flanked by rock monuments. With a hypostyle wall tucked away into the cliffs, a widespread interior space where the roof rests on the procession of sculpted pillars. I glance skyward, everything entrenched in darkness, I cannot see where the ceiling is or even where the inside of the sanctuary ends.

“I assume you have been in here?”

“Yes. But this is all that remains unsealed. The Sagetai’s threshold is the one that has not been breached. But now you have come. Which means it is time.”

My gaze falls to the ground. The constant light shifting on the limestone that reflects the hissing flames. “Time for what? After all this time, after all the death that passed. What more could happen?”

“An end of an era, a foretelling that not even the Sagetai can stop. But you are the only one that can herald a new age of peace and prosperity for all. But the dark forces that will oppose you, they too know the time. They will, he will, do all in his power to stop you.”

Dark forces. He? “You speak of the Ulris?”

I survey our low-lit surroundings, by the features of the architectural wonder in its ancient grandeur, an unending palatial stretch, worthy enough to venerate and immense enough to accommodate a kin of giants.

“The Vulkra have re-emerged.” Oh, I know. “Do you know why? The time of black sun comes. An Eternal Eclipse. This is where Vilnus will be strong enough to align all the hellscapes and breach the threshold between our world and his. He will lead his armies through to exact his revenge, but he needs Urium. The power of the original stronghold.”

I only wish that High King Urus could have chosen a shorter mandate for the King Trials.

I fear we may have a bigger problem than the line of succession if his own demise is untimely. That will not matter if there is no realm to reign over.

“Revenge….my father told me that it was Vilnus’s depraved ambitions to strive for more than he can reach for, which is what led him to invade. That is why he even killed his own brother.”

A pensive silence ensues. “That is a fragment of history’s truth but not all of it. You will soon realise that it all amounts to unsatiable greed, and to the decadent inclination of mortals. In that time, it was difficult to differentiate the good from the evil.”

Zoar brings me to a pause as we approach a crossroad-like point. He leads us down the left, down an extensive hallway to reach the end that resembles a chamber. There’s a large, round double-door with a circular protruding centre like a closed eyelid. The chamber itself is spherical and rather far-reaching. But I notice that the construction of this chamber is like a circular narrative, it begins with the mysterious, sealed doors then the rock walls rounds, and again ends at the doors.

I advance to the door. The full length is at least double my height, but the bulging centre is still accessible. I take a thoughtful interlude to assess the construct of the doors for myself. It’s embedded into solid rock, grafted into the heart of the mountain and the doors itself resemble blast doors. Ones you cannot simply pry open.

Defeated, I look back at Zoar hopefully. “Any ideas, oh, wise one?”

“Trust my word, I have tried for many cycles. Only the Sagetai can open it.”

I release an echoing, frustrated sigh. “This is absolutely absurd!” I yell, slightly relieved to verbally express my aggravation even if Zoar cannot understand me fully. I break into thoughtful pacing, stepping to my right.

“I never knew I was this magical Sagetai. Let alone how to—” my own gasp cuts me off. I nearly lose my footing as my own boot sinks inches deeper than the rest of the ground. I shoot a look down, examining.

I lift up my boot from the flattened stone as it rises to align with the others, camouflaging.

“Pressure plates,” I whisper to myself.

“Zoar, this could have been a helpful thing to mention. The pressure plates are the keys to the threshold.”

I hurry to the wall and I press my hands on it, feeling the rough, sandy texture. I snap out my arm to him, fluttering my fingers towards me. “I think there are some kind of inscriptions on the wall.”

Zoar appears by my side and extends his staff like a torchlight, brightening the wall to expose what I expected. There are inscriptions etched on the walls that bands the entire waist of the chamber. But they are not writing per say, they are command compositions. Forms. I know this because I was trained in them for cycles.

How is this possible.

“You recognise the etchings? Not even I know of them.”

“They are ancient Aevlin stances, my father taught me them during my cycles of training. I just do not understand how he came to know of them or…how its linked to all of this?”

The stances are the keys.

I locate the plate I found, and I begin from there with my feet apart slightly wider than shoulder-width. My feet are parallel, straight forward, knees bent at ninety degrees. My torso sinks down as if following a plumb line, and the sacrum curves forward. Equal weighting.

“Avla,” I declare.

My foot is pointed straight ahead, with the lead leg bent at a ninety-degree angle. My trailing foot is angled outward at with the heel lined up with the heel of the leading foot. Another plate depresses. My trailing leg is slightly bent.

“Avelaros.”

I flip over one-eighty degrees remaining on the fringes, I squat deep into a plie with my arms fully extended, fists clenched, the movement triggering another plate.

A smirk twitches my lips. With fluid motion, I initiate into the sequence of stances around the chamber, declaring each new form as I free flow into the movements, swiftly transitioning into each stance. And for a twinkling moment, it’s like I’m back in the courtyard of my Regnum. My father observing me under his scrutiny, watching both technique and execution of form as I changeover into the next, and the next.

Aiverana.”

I conclude before in the sealed doors in a bowstring stance, hovering inches from the ground in a deep side lunge with my hand punched to the ceiling and the other fist aimed to the right.

Suddenly the ground beneath me quakes, shocking me to stand upright. Sounds of mechanisms and gears churn. The closed eyelid inside of the door rolls a full revolution before the eyes open revealing a stone tablet engraved with a passage carved in a symbolic language I have never seen.

Zoar shines firelight on it. I step closer and narrow my eyes at it determinedly. My eyes inflate as my mind starts to translate it for itself, the unidentifiable symbols shift, transforming into letters, alphabets of Arkian, a way for me to comprehend them. And now I can read it as if it were written in Arkian.

I recite it for Zoar and I. “With it, there is life. Without it there is death.”

What on Urium?

“Who even wrote that?”

“With it, there is life. Without it, there is death.” Zoar thoughtfully repeats.

It is awfully vague. It can mean anything? Life can mean anything. Fire—

“Blood.” Zoar and I transmit simultaneously.

In our shared victory, I hold out a hand to him, but he merely stares at me perplexed. Awkwardly, I slowly withdraw my hand back to my side.

I fix my gaze on the doors that remain barred. “I assume that it is my blood that is required.”

Instinctively, I reach for my holster. Nothing. I pat my lonely thighs for my scabbards. Eyebrows furrowed, I look down and remember.

Ah. Right.

“You do not possibly have a dagger on you, yes?”

Zoar turns his gaze on the ground, his glowing eyes hunting. He releases his staff, abandoning its side and allowing it to stand on its own. He bends down and picks up a random rock. He covers both hands with it and with a flourish, he rubs on it , sculpting it like kneaded clay into a fine column with sharp points like a double-bladed dagger.

He hands it to me, and I take it with a waning smile. “Impressive trick.”

I upturn my hand and look at it. Beholding the round symbolled tattoo. Swiftly I slice a lesion into my palm, trailing blood. I clench my fist and chuck the rock blade to the ground.

I walk to stand right in front of the door. I uncurl my fingers, outstretching my arm, I place a bloody hand on the inscriptions. Instantly, incandescent light pours into each symbol, a brilliant radiance flooding them like a ripple to reach all four corners.

I stumble a step back. Another rumble sounds again, large gears roiling, toiling to wake the threshold that has been quiescent for eras.

Finally, the eye splits and the doors retract laterally, drawing open.

Zoar and I breach. As we do, I practically have to scrape my jaw from the floor. The concealed annex of the sanctuary is mammoth size not only in its built but what it keeps. The prevailing, irregular-shaped walls are all lined with towering racks of scrolls held in flutes that soar as high as the ceiling and extend in length.

“Look at all these articles, there are millions of them. Sagetai, behold, all this knowledge stored in concealment for all this time. These scrolls, hidden truths might hold the answer to everything.”

He and I venture onwards.

Zoar has a very guarded disposition, his head on a swivel. Whereas I twirl around as I walk to capture every element of this living time capsule. In the nearby distance, a bronze-like statue stands tall. A female figurine armed in battle armour rides a winged creature, poised with her sword thrusted to the dome ceiling.

Struck by a spell of light-headedness, my knees almost buckle beneath me.

“How is that…possible.”

“Anything is…with the Sagetai.”

I look at the face of the statue and it looks distressingly like my own. The same face shape, nose, eyes. Everything. I raise my gaze a little higher to the enticing ornament on the head of the statue. It is the only thing that is not a bronzy mineral like the rest of the effigy. It’s a hair accessory of sort that resembles spiked rays of a gilded sun that are spread in an arc shape.

I walk closer and I notice at the base is a single display stand before the foot of the winged creature. Zoar pursues me.

I reach it and gaze down at an unfurled parchment encased in glass. My nose scrunches up.

“Is this a ruse? The only scroll exhibited like this, in its own glass casing and it holds nothing. It’s completely bare.”

“So it seems.” Zoar begins to circle me around the stand. “If it be my guess, it must be the oracle.”

“The oracle you spoke of?” My gaze fixated on the hollow parchment with no words, letters or even symbols. Utterly nothing.

“When the Eternal Eclipse dawns, Vilnus’s power will only mount until it reaches its peak. He will nearly be unstoppable. He wields a power that he believes surpasses the one of the Sagetai. Dark energy.”

“An equal opposite of the light.”

I move back from the stand and crane my head backwards to lock my eyes on the ornament. “I thought the Sagetai is suppose to be this all-powerful being.”

“Even you have your limits, Sagetai. Remember, you are only but a vessel. The true power, true strength comes from the source.”

I crouch down into a ready, running position.

“What are you doing?”

“Perhaps if I am fast enough, I can outrun this hero-destined fate.”

I break into a sprint, rushing forward, I leap into the air and attach myself to the statue with a grunt. Clinging to the formidable face of the creature, I continue to climb upwards, using anything I can as finger grooves to aid my ascent.

“Again. What are you doing?”

“That thing looks out of place.” Torso muscles straining, I heave myself up, higher and higher until the ornament piece is within reach. I seize it and pull, but it’s like its bolted to the statue’s head. I lend strength and eventually I yank it out. The ornament is about the same size of my hand.

“I think it may be wise if you—”

A third rumble interjects him midsentence. But this one is foreboding, bellowing only destruction. Impulsively, I begin to rapidly descend the statue and when I am low enough, I spring to the ground, landing in a somersault, propelling myself back on my feet.

The distant ceiling spews cascades of dust.

“What is happening?”

My gaze levels and Zoar’s eyes are fastened on the ornament in my hand.

A tremor shoots through the ground, innumerable fissures shatter the surfaces with new cracks.

“The sanctuary. We must leave—now!”

Zoar races to the exit and I follow. But I halt when I align with the display stand. I smash my fist into the glass, madly shaking out the flare of pain. With my other hand I snatch up the parchment and I follow after Zoar, rolling it up as I run.

“What is happening!”

Zoar and I dash out of the chamber and down the shadow-shrouded hall. Chunks of debris fall from above, hailing down rubble, a clangourous rumble from the earth tears through the atmosphere like the roar of God, an dread-drilling sound to bellow His rage as if I had somehow desecrated this holy place.

A spot of light emerges on the horizon, the entrance of the sanctuary, our sole salvation from being crushed and buried alive in this temple. I dive out the path of falling rubble, the intermittent tremors that wracks the sanctuary, destabilising everything on the surface. The pillars gradually collapse row by row, the rock monuments come crashing down behind me.

My heart thunders in my chest, fear loaning speed.

Merely a few short meters from safety, a mass of huge slabs descends in front of us, threatening to block the entrance.

Zoar jabs his staff towards it. Immediately the crumbled debris freeze mid-air, obeying his mute command, levitating harmlessly above our heads as we streak by. We emerge outside, greeted by the arid air, the sun glaring down at us in judgement.

We swivel around as the heaps of rocks and debris completely seal off the entrance, shutting off entry for all-time. My torso drops and I rest my one hand on my knee, my breaths spurting fast and harsh, clutching hard on both the parchment and the ornament.

I drag myself upright and I look back at Zoar who watches me with abnormal calm. He probably doesn’t have a heart, or organs or even flesh underneath all those layers.

Zoar releases his staff. Then he begins to unravel the bands of linen or whatever it is. But the more he untangles, the more layers they are, simply never-ending.

“Hold out your arm.”

I comply.

He takes the unravelled piece and begins to bandage my arm from where the tattoos start, at my elbow down to my wrist, and my palms. He binds them, rounding my knuckles, knotting it at my wrist. He does the same procedure for my other arm.

After unbinding a piece of himself, he covers it over my other forearm. “You must hide your markings. No-one can know who you truly are, the world is not ready for you yet. It will be, when you are. The malignancy is still within you, suppressed, but in time, it will return. You must find a way to heal yourself, you must be ready for the fight, for all will suffer if you are not.”

A tightness compresses my chest, my burdens multiplying tenfold, suddenly feeling a thousand degrees hotter. I glance down at my bandaged forearms, they look like training wraps, their relatively thin in material.

“All things considered. You have taken it all very well.”

“That is because my mind has not fully processed it at all! Here is a prophecy for you, I foresee an imminent mental breakdown in my future.”

Zoar picks up his staff. “There is not time for that, you have no choice but to be ready. This malignancy has weakened you severely. Until you master the Sagetai Statim, you are vulnerable. This is why no-one must know who you are, if the Vulkra and the agents of the Ulris realise that you have arisen, that the Sagetai has come. Vilnus will destroy you whilst you are in the cocoon of your metamorphosis. You are the only one with the power to stop him. But if he discovers you now, vulnerable, he can easily slay you, with it, slaying all hope of surviving the looming peril.”

A tough lump to swallow.

Urgency ringing in my mind. “Come, we must go. It is a long journey back.”

“Wait.”

He turns to face me.

I outstretch my arms broadly and allow them to slap back against my thighs exasperatedly. “Zoar. I do not even know where to begin with this. I would have you teach me what you know but I am currently trapped participating in the King Trials.”

“It is well. You need the might of the other dominions. But the High King is foolish, how can he seek the aid of others if he cannot unite even his own realm. There are still independent domains within Yahdai, are they not?”

“Does it matter?” I wish I could throw something at him. “All of them will die because the limited-in-power Sagetai that was unable to save them because the Sagetai cannot even save herself. I need training, I need a master. I need for anyone else to be the Sagetai!”

It’s like Zoar is impervious to emotion. “You were chosen. Remember true strength comes from the source, the same source that chose you and imbued you with both power and the duty to fulfil both your purpose and His will.”

My frenzied tempo of my heart slows to serene, steady beats.

“When the Xelem attacked, it was not a coincidence that I was there. I was led, led by Him. He is your true master, saviour and provider. To learn, to heal. You need only to be still and listen.”

I glance down at the ornament that glints under the noontide sun.

I nod meekly.

“Now come, we must go.” Eagerness resounding. “My mind is tethered to the rest of my tribesmen and they are relaying that there is a commotion back at the settlement.”

I perk up, walking towards him. “Commotion? An attack?”

“Of some sorts.” He lapses into an attentive silence for a moment. “They are shouting odd names. Apparently, a Pri—mus—Kelan has injured four of my people. And they are having trouble restraining him and his very loyal soldiers.”

I nod determinedly. “We better get going.” I start the descent down the staircase, Zoar promptly follows.

“Even through the peripheral connection of my tribesmen. I can sense the inner tumult of this Kelan. I sense many things in him. Most of which revolve around you.”

That is a solace that stills even the most rageful storm within me. But surely it is wrong to have him pry into his mind like that, probing his thoughts remotely.

“Good things I hope.” Deceptively worded to encourage an elucidation.

“Potent, very potent feelings, arguably aberrant.”

I do not know what to make of that. But it seems I have more pressing dilemmas to deal with than his ‘potent’ affections towards me. Though I wish it was the only thing I had to concern myself about.

If he is. If we will be.

But now I must focus on what I can. And if I will be a worthy Sagetai.

Thinking on Tamani, Zekei, Daria and even Rimnick.

I am not off to a good start.

The many nights I wandered about my future, the way I desired something more than a courtly livelihood of dull noble events and a succession of artificial smiles, enduring endless cajoling.

I never could have imagined that the destiny of the Sagetai was meant to fill that void.

I never knew that my training was going to lead to this.

But I have a feeling that my father did.