The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH CHOICES OF WOUNDED SOULS

A few hours later, at dawn, Abrieth flew Yurieth to his hunting cabin below the falls and at the far end of the river valley. The half-hour by flyer was a long day’s walk by foot for most. Yurieth was quiet the entire way. As he walked around his home, his shoulders slumped, then the muscles bunched in rage.

“I can’t feel the forest.” He held out his hand, palm out, in an almost reaching gesture. “There is nothing, it is like I am alone in my soul.”

“You’ve never needed your magic in the forest before, your skills...” Abrieth started, he really didn’t know what to say. His brother looked defeated for the first time since they were 82 and their parents fought over his destiny. He looked out at the forest, trying to see what Yurieth sought.

“Magic will not make up for poor skill, a true warrior does not need magic, if he has trained properly,” Yurieth quoted their mentor, the Guardian Regulus. “It... it just feels so strange.” They stood for several silent moments before Yurieth turned to go inside, giving Abrieth’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “Go back to Serapha, brother, your sealed one will be worried after you.”

“Yurieth, if there’s anything...” Abrieth hesitated as his brother’s features clouded with dark rage.

“There is nothing either of us can do until that whatever she is uncurses me,” Yurieth spat, then he went in and slammed the door behind him.

“She’s an Antumbra oracle,” Abrieth said as he walked toward his flyer, “As in a light surrounding a shadow, brother.”

“There is nothing light about her,” Yurieth shouted after him.

Abrieth arrived back at the Winter Castle to find Serapha just coming out of Fleur’s room, she seized him by the hand and dragged him to their bedroom and closed the door. She was angrier than she had been when she had pulled his sword on his brother.

“I think I hate Yurieth!” She fumed. “Not only did your brother tell her he hated her with his soul, but he has bound her power somehow. She can’t shine, not even enough to make her stone glow.” She paused in her pacing to look out the window then turned expectantly toward him. She mistook his silence for confusion and ranted, “He is holding part of her soul hostage, Abrieth! Yllumina and I can both feel it missing! She can’t feel him or anyone else, not even Kaleth. She is completely powerless now as well as nearly blind. Make him give it back. Talk to him, Abrieth. Does he hate her so much that he wants her completely helpless while my father and sister are hunting her?” Serapha clutched her arms around herself, as unbidden memories of their cruelty flooded into her mind. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “She loves him and he... he...” A sob ended her rant and she cried for her friend.

Abrieth folded her into his arms. “Shhhh, my angel. I know you are scared; I am too. If they don’t love each other, how can they have the power to make the magic to protect us all?” He breathed in the scent of her hair, soothing tones of sandalwood and hibiscus, “I believe that they will because they did.”

“You sound like your parents,” she murmured.

“I was raised by oracles, riddles and absolute faith were the constants of my youth. You know that Yurieth cannot abide darkness and yet he has embraced it to the core of his being. It is a challenge he must overcome, only he can free them. He has to choose to save her in order to save himself and us. I know he will, I believe he will choose what is right, he will follow his heart.” Abrieth put confidence into his words that he didn’t really feel, he was worried.

“And what if his honor refuses to listen to his heart?” Serapha looked up at him, her coral colored eyes swirled with concern and worry, but also with love for him.

“All we can do is hope and offer prayers for both of them, that he will pick his heart over his honor.” Abrieth found he couldn’t look away from her eyes, except to follow the lines of her face. Her pert nose and the flume below it enticed him downward to her peach-tinted lips. He bent to kiss her, and she accepted, surrendering herself to him completely. Even after two hundred years, it never failed to surprise him how quickly they could go from fully clothed to flesh against flesh. The way the soft curves of her body fit against his hard, angular muscles enticed him to worship her until she cried out his name. Finally, as she straddled him, his hips bucked and he groaned her name in agonized release, it was like dying, but it was a death he would never tire of.

“I love you, Abrieth,” Panting, she leaned forward placing delicate kisses on his face as her auburn curls shimmered in the midmorning light like the maples of autumn around them.

“I love you, Serapha, for all time.” He pulled her against his chest, held her tightly, and prayed that his brother would realize his error as they fell asleep.

Fleur woke, her mind was muddled, and she was shocked to realize she couldn’t feel anything beyond her own mind. Five hundred years of being an oracle had gotten her used to the constant background murmur of every othe souls around her, but now... now it was like she was human again. Serapha was there when she woke, easing the pain in her body. Yllumina soothed Fleur’s soul until Fleur fell asleep again.

When she woke again, she was alone. Fleur had no idea where she was as she carefully felt her way around the room. Everywhere she touched, whether walls or furniture, ornate carving met her fingertips. In a closet, she felt dresses, and pulled one over the slip-like sleeping gown. Feeling the beading, she knew Cinna had made the dress, and she almost wept in relief to be with friends. Exploring, her hands found glass, the window felt so cold. Her mind slowly remembered what had happened and that Adamos had said they were fleeing to the high mountains.

Her soul felt like the pulled taffy her foster sister had once tried to teach her to make and her grief came like waves as she remembered all who had died, all she had lost. On her knees in the middle of a strange bedchamber, she couldn’t make a sound, so violent was her silent sobbing. Her whole life played through her mind as if on a high-speed loop. She remembered everything, every moment of suffering, and it was so much worse than when she had been a prisoner of the Darkness and been forced to relived them through the Water of Darkness, because this time she had no hope to buffer the anguish.

Yurieth had stolen her hope when Yurieth told her, “I hate you,” with his last conscious thought and with such complete conviction that she had no choice but to believe him.

She could feel that part of him loved her, but her transformation into a dark oracle was too much for him to accept here and now, and she wondered if this unremembered detail was the subconscious thought that had haunted her Yuri in the future whenever he had remembered bits and pieces about his Fleur. He had repeatedly said that he was a fool and did not realize until too late how much he loved her. Fleur remembered him accusing Demona of murdering her and suddenly Fleur realized she would not leave this time alive; she would never see her children or grandchildren again. Down the hall, she heard a baby fussing, it was Kaleth. Surging to her feet, she groped her way blindly toward the sound. She entered the nursery to the sound of the shocked exclamation of Madge, the housekeeper.

“My lady, you’re awake.”

“Give him to me,” Fleur demanded. “And please tell Lady Yllumina, that I am awake.”

Madge immediately put Kaleth in her arms and guided her to a chair. As Fleur ran her fingers over his chubby baby cheeks, she sang his favorite song to him. Her grief and pain folded into resolve, if she was never to leave this time then she would do everything she could to ensure the Tear of Heaven’s Hope made it safely away, and that Oren and Cinna made it to the future with the Kalyssa and the other children. She didn’t need her magic; she still had her mind. She may be mostly blind, but she could still ‘see’ what needed to be done. She kissed Kaleth’s smooth temple and squinted to see his bright golden infant eyes that were so like his mother’s and his son’s. “I promise, I won’t fail, Kaleth. You died to save our future, and I will die to save our past. Our children will be protected.”

Rapidly approaching footsteps had her quickly wiping away her tears and trying to put on a brave face, as she hummed her future husband’s favorite song to him.

Serapha dropped to her knees in front of Fleur, “Are you alright? Are you in any pain?”

“I can’t feel or use my power, Pha. I am a blind oracle in more ways than one now.” Fleur blinked back the tears that threatened to return.

“Oh, my daughter, what can we do?” Yllumina asked.

Fleur shrugged, “I can still work on the Tear, my eyes are good enough for that and there is nothing wrong with my mind. I spent the first part of my life without my power, this is no different. When can I get back to the work site?”

“I am afraid it will be a few months, this is the worst part of winter there,” Adamos stated, then added when Fleur scowled, “I am sorry, Fleur. The site was hidden there for its protection. After the Day of Light Returning, the weather will become milder, we can return to work then.”

She nodded in resignation, until the weather slacked, she was stuck. “How... how did the city fair? After the attack?”

Abrieth gave her a reassuring smile, “The City of The Kings was saved, my lady. You should rest now; you haven’t recovered fully.”

“Abrieth, speaks true, you should rest, Fleur. We have time,” Serapha glowed golden and the aching pain of her scars and eyes seemed to retreat.

“You expend too much energy on me, Pha, you should save it for someone who needs it,” Fleur chastised.

Serapha’s chin trembled and she knew Fleur couldn’t see the tear that escaped her eye as she said in a brightly happy voice, “It’s my magic and I’ll waste on whomever I wish.”

Fleur gave her a wan smile. “Thank you, Pha.”

“Why don’t you give your very spoiled future husband to Madge and we’ll go get something to eat?” Serapha offered.

“I could eat... but don’t let me try to cook, bad things happen when I cook,” Fleur murmured and she kissed Kaleth’s forehead. In a whispered baby voice, she said, “Your future wife is a terrible cook; a terrible, terrible cook. Be happy your family takes pity on her.”

Fleur woke in a cold sweat and bit her cheek to keep in the terrified sob that tried to escape. Her nightmares were worse than they had been since she had escaped the Dark Dust Dimension. Her time as a prisoner of war and plaything of the Dark Prince were her constant companion, along with the painful memories of every loved one lost. She did her best to hide her grief during the day but at night, alone in the room that would hold a third of her house in her home time, she couldn’t stop them from playing over and over in her mind.

Tonight, she threw aside her covers in frustration and went to the fireplace. She wondered how it burned because there was no wood and it did not smell of fuel. As she stared at the nondescript dancing light through her clouded eyes, she thought about Yurieth’s memories for the first time in the two weeks since she had woken. She sifted through the fragments, like a collection of Tiles until she found his earliest ones. She had seen the precious few memory fragments that he had retained after his imprisonment, so she knew of some of his suffering. She needed to understand why he had said he hated her and solving that puzzle distracted her from the horrors of her own memories.

She saw him as a boy struggling as Yllumina tried to teach him to be an oracle. Exercises she envied. His horrified discovery while seasick that his father didn’t believe he was an oracle, and him eventually surrendering the stone that she now wore around her neck. Training to be a huntsman, and going to school, and the anguished conversation with Abrieth over the unranked, novice warriors being sent to the battle lines with no training. She watched him teaching boys his own age the skills he had since he was a child. She worried for how cocky and arrogant he became. She watched him go to war, come home, get married, and leave again. Fleur was shocked to see that his heart grew colder, and more arrogant every decade that passed. He had not loved Roserae because he had never truly given her a chance, he had enjoyed that she adored him and once that was gone, they had shared nothing. Both had taken lovers while they were separated.

The only things he loved where his daughters, the swiftness and brutality with which they were taken from him were hazy memories she had seen before, but now they were sharp and clear. Feeling his daughters dying, finding them with their blood drained so they would not revive, murdered by Xelusian Berserker warriors, she sobbed for his loss. He returned to the war changed, he no longer cared if he revived after he died, and he became even more deadly. Many times, he was ambushed and should have been forever dead but each time he survived or revived, he cursed the Light. He became darker, malevolent, as more assassin than huntsman. He sought forever death and it fled from him, to Yurieth, it seemed he was constantly burying everyone else, even those he tried to save. Then she saw the Siren’s Battle and watched allies turn into enemies in the thrall of the sirens’ magic.

His near-insanity because he believed Abrieth to be lost was a deeper darkness blooming, and he killed anyone with any kind of magic. Then for him to find Abrieth with Serapha, who seemed to be a siren priestess was shocking. He meant to kill his brother’s sealed one because she was a Xelusian sorceress, but his heart for his brother had stayed his blade. Fleur trembled when she watched his capture and confrontations with the Dark Oracle Entity in the form of the Dark Queen of Xelusia and was confused as to why Demona helped Serapha when she tried to rescue him. During the first two years of peace, Demona tried everything to seduce him and failed. She watched him retreat into the forest only leaving to attend court once every decade. He brooded in solitude and she was surprised that he remembered no happy memories with his daughters. He focused on his misery and sealed it around himself like armor. Fleur realized Yurieth had chosen his hatred and darkness under the guise of justified vengeance and honor.

Fleur wondered how she could get someone who had retreated so far into himself to open up. It had taken her Asha over 150 years to get Shadz to change his mind. Fleur had maybe six months before she had to do the protection enchantment, with or without Yurieth’s love, she had to find a way so Serapha could be saved. Trying to figure it out, she did what she always did when facing a puzzle, she kept busy but there was little for her to do away from the worksite so she sang, she prayed, she did her katas, and she walked. Every day, she worked with Adamos and Yllumina on regaining her power and learning the ways of the oracles. By the end of the first month, it had become clear that unless Yurieth released the part of her soul that held her hope, she was trapped by his hatred. Worse, the piece of her soul he held, left open the doorway to her sorrows and horrors so that she could no longer make herself overcome them. On the weekly occasions Yurieth came to the castle, he was hostile and cruel with every word, mocking her pain with what he had learned from her memories.

Having witnessed one of Yurieth’s tirades, Oshay was ready to kill Yurieth to free Fleur. He had come to the castle for a visit and his appearance was so changed that it shocked her. He was getting emaciated and looked gaunt, Fleur knew it was because of the distance between he and Asha. Without her light to soothe his soul, he had begun to rapidly succumb to the soul sickness which often followed the loss of a sealed one. Fleur herself had only survived the syndrome through the force of her will and her drive to end the war and save her children and people.

It became very evident one afternoon when Oshay insisted they go ice skating on a frozen pond. Fleur sang as she and Oshay each performed trick jumps. While Abrieth was teaching Serapha to skate, Fleur and Oshay glided around the ice together, dancing and jumping. They were laughing, unaware that Yurieth was watching them. Cinna and Oren clapped after each trick.

“How do you do that?” Serapha asked in amazement.

Oshay sat panting on a fallen log. “Ask Lady Fleur.”

Fleur executed a triple axle and then spun rapidly, she glided over turning and swaying as if dancing, “It’s just math, Pha.” Her voice bubbled giddy and joyful. “Motion and momentum calculated into actions.”

Cinna chuckled, “You make it sound so easy, Lady Fleur.”

She sped away from them backwards and turned into the jump called a triple lutz then glided back to them. “It is. Lord Oshay, come toss me.”

Oshay laughed, skating to her side. “As you wish, my lady.”

Together, they flew around the ice. Yurieth watched them, he was certain Oshay and Fleur had skated together many times, but his mind could not figure out when they had the opportunity since she came from the future. He watched them turning and leading up to the jump. Oshay placed his hands on her waist and lifted her into the air. She flew in twisting spin and landed, reaching her hand out the catch his but he pitched forward and went down. Fleur knelt over him then yelled for Serapha and Oren who scrambled ungracefully across the ice in snowboots. Yurieth watched them healing him, and Abrieth aiding him to stand after Fleur had switched his skates for boots. She yelled at them to go ahead as she unlaced her skates. Yurieth’s white wolf sat patiently waiting for Fleur to lead her back to the castle. She was just pulling on her snow boots when Yuri dropped from a tree.

“He’s dying, are you trying to kill him faster?”

She rotated slowly in the direction of his voice, like prey sensing a predator. “He is my friend. He wanted to have a fun afternoon before he left us. He chooses to live his life beyond his grief of being separated from his sealed one, unlike you, who enjoys living in your misery and hatred.”

“You know nothing about me,” he snarled as she snapped her fingers for his wolf to stand, placing her hand on Snow’s back.

“I thought we had been friends and allies for over a hundred years, but I... I don’t know who you are here. I have seen your soul, Yurieth, just like you have seen mine. The man I know then is nothing like the man you are now. Your darkness is your choice. Excuse me,” Fleur judged him harshly and as much as it hurt, she walked away, letting Snow lead her back to the castle.