The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

THE HUNTSMAN'S HORROR

CH ANTUMBRA ORACLE AND THE VEILS

This would be the first chapter of book 2 if we split it into a trilogy... Thoughts?

Prince Lucif of Xelusia, last prince of the house of the Fallen Star, carried himself with calm poise as he left the Castle of the King Xerxes of Aetheria. Again, he had been summoned to the King Xerxes’ court as though he were a common vassal, and not the ruler of Aetheria’s sister kingdom. Again, he had falsely assured Xerxes that his people had nothing to do with the dramatic battle in the sky and reminded the king that his own daughter was missing with the Oracles of Adamos, suggesting again that it was treachery against both their kingdoms and that the summoners of shadows had waited for the ruling families of both planets to be in one place. Both rulers had agreed on the need to be vigilant and to find ways to share and increase their power to defend their kingdoms against this new threat, since the only oracles left to counter the darkness had vanished.

As in their first meeting, Xerxes had vowed to take the Oracles of Adamos into protective custody as soon as they were found. The queen however did not agree with arresting those who had saved the city. She insisted that the High Oracle Yllumina and her novice Lady Fleur would be better protected by the warrior sons of Adamos, but the king dismissed her claims, saying the sons of Adamos were his warriors to order about as he wished. With the weather as it was, travel to the hidden Winter Castle of Adamos was impossible for several months. They could not have fled there because no one could travel through the treacherous high mountain passes in early winter. Xerxes finally followed Lucif’s suggestions of ordering ships to be sent to the Isle of Angeles, to search the place of Yllumina’s birth for the missing oracles, and a contingent of royal guardsmen to the Summer Lake Castle of Adamos in search of them. The old king’s senility and the blood wine given him by his seneschal made him easily manipulated by Lucif, but Eonae watched the Xelusian Prince with untrusting turquoise eyes until he departed.

As Lucif entered the Towers of Xelusia, his rage began to seep from his behind his civil veil. His subjects scattered like frightened birds in his wake, leaving him to ascend alone to the upper stories. When he entered his private chambers, Demona was reclining on one of his couches. She was still weakened from the battle with the oracles, one of the few blood magic wielders who still had her magic and survived. Summoning the Devourer to harvest Aetheria’s crown city had been her idea, but her Siren Priestesses and Blood Mage Priests had failed to stand against a single High House, and the gate of their god had been slammed shut with such force they had all been rendered unconscious.

Now, they would be unable to open it again until summer. Vast amounts of blood and magic had been wasted, and the souls of nineteen shadow servants had been consumed as the Devourer withdrew from this realm. Lucif himself had been staggered by the power displayed and that his weakling youngest had been vaulted to the strength to overcome her sister and the conclave was a source of much consternation to him.

Carefully choosing his words, Lucif poured himself a glass of blood and wine. “I am very disappointed in you, daughter. Twice now, on two separate nights, you failed. Now, I will have to pander to the fool who rules this world for two seasons longer.”

Demona pouted, “It isn’t my fault, father. Serapha tricked me, then she betrayed us. You should be punishing her.”

“Do not dictate whom I should punish, daughter! You were to bring me the blind oracle five nights ago, you did not. Then you assured me there was no magic on Aetheria that could stand against the Harvest if I allowed you to open the Gate here, and yet the whole city watched the Oracles of Adamos raised a defense and then they sealed the Gate,” Lucif growled. He swallowed the bitterness of defeat with his drink then shattered his crystal goblet against the wall. He needed fresh blood for his hunger.

“Give me another chance, Father... I will prove I am worthy to be queen. When the suns align, and the eclipse comes, I will hold open the Gate, and the Devourer will feast on the flesh and souls of Aetheria.” Demona had eased herself up and moved toward him. Her voice purred in the tones of a siren, “Please, Father, I will find Serapha, she will be bled for betraying her people under the twin shadows of the twin suns. You will be king and I...” Her words were cut off as he seized her by the throat.

Lucif smirked at her fear and pain as she struggled to gain breath, his scarlet eyes had turned completely black. “Did you not hear the blind oracle the other night, dear daughter? You will never be queen.” Then he backhanded her away from him with such force she flew over the couch where she had reclined and landed in a trembling heap. “You are lacking.”

Demona shoved herself up to her feet and screamed at him, “I will be queen! Everything I have done my whole life proves I deserve to be queen! I would have been queen sooner but Serapha interfered.”

“The dark queen rejected you herself and you deserve nothing.” Lucif laughed in a deeply malevolent tone, and Demona realized she was no longer arguing with her father. She was arguing with the highest servant of their god, the Lord of the Shadows. His eyes were solid black as he stalked toward her like prey and she backed away quickly.

His tone mocked her, “The next queen will be the one I choose, and you have spent a lifetime failing our god. You couldn’t even seduce one huntsman to acquire the child of prophecy, and even now, with half the magic of our priests and priestesses at your disposal, you couldn’t overcome a blind oracle.” He grabbed her hair as he pinned her against the wall.

“I’m s-sorry, my l-lord.” Hating that her voice trembled in terror, she feared her soul was about to be consumed. When this being had dwelled in her grandfather’s body, the threat had existed every moment of every day of her younger life.

“Find your sister and send her home to the temples. Then find where they have hidden the blind oracle and bring her to me. I want her, I want her blood. Do you understand?” Icy breath vibrated with the command against her skin.

“Y-yes, m-my lord.”

Her father’s body smirked at her, “You fail to convince me, Demona. Perhaps you should try harder.”

Demona swallowed and nodded. Pulling her bound blade from between her breasts, she sliced open her own shoulder. The Shadow Lord lowered his lips to drink, accepting her offering of her blood before he fulfilled his lust with her body.

Finally, on the fifth evening since the attack, after Serapha collapsed in exhausted sleep, Abrieth confronted his parents. Yurieth and Fleur still slept, and Yurieth refused to release her. When they tried to get her from his embrace, his arms would tighten to the point she would moan in pain and her pale skin would bruise. Even submerging them both in the Healing Water of Light did not relax his grasp. Abrieth was beginning to panic because he could not feel and hear his brother’s soul as he had every day of his life. Even when they had been on separate planets, Abrieth had always known his brother lived, and when his brother died and revived, but now there was nothingness. He found them in his father’s study, down the hall from the room where Fleur and Yurieth lay unresponsive.

“Mother, Father, what has happened to Yurieth? What did she do to him? Why won’t they wake?”

“Abrieth, calm yourself,” his mother ordered softly.

“Mother, I cannot feel my brother! I can’t hear him, and he is lying at the end of the hall.” Abrieth snapped at them in his distress.

Sternly, Adamos admonished him, “Be at peace, my son. We knew this might happen.”

“What?!?!” Abrieth exclaimed in horror as Yllumina gave Adamos a flat look.

“We suspected that there was a risk of their magic being overdrawn, but we did not know what has happened with Yurieth and Fleur would happen.” Yllumina explained patiently. “It is the nature of Fleur’s magic. She can use soul magic as many oracles can, she can create oracle light through the strength of her love for others, even though she wields it like no other oracle I have ever known.”

“But she also draws and wields the dark magic,” Abrieth pointed out. “Yurieth said she is a siren.”

His father shook his head, “Fleur is not a siren, and she is not a true oracle. I have been through all the archives. She was born a dual wielder, the first in over twenty thousand years with a very special type of magic. It is called antumbra, meaning the light around the shadow, Fleur is an oracle of balance, not visions. She has the ability to take the shadow and surround it with light, to fade the darkness of a soul. It is why the shadowed ones want her, they think they want her power, but what they truly desire is for her to save them.”

“So, she has a special magic, I do not care. It does not explain why I can’t reach my brother or how they managed to illuminate the entire King’s City with only father and I to aid them. It does not explain why they won’t wake. Serapha says their bodies are healed, and they should wake,” Abrieth insisted.

His mother answered his demands in a gently concerned tone, “Abrieth, we do not know. They used too much magic, it is true, and their physical strength is returning, but... but something else happened. They are trapped in the Veil of Light, I... we think your brother’s soul did this and not Fleur.”

“But the Veil is the domain of Oracles, Yurieth is a Huntsman,” Abrieth snapped.

“He is the son of two oracles and sealed to an antumbra oracle. When their souls were touching, he had access to her power because they are sealed, it is an extremely rare thing to happen without the use of blood magic. We think his soul refused to release a part of hers when they should have separated. We... we hope giving them time to heal will allow for the separation to occur naturally when they wake.”

Abrieth sagged and sat down, “Serapha and Oren both say their souls feel like they are tangled in a knot. What will happen if they remain in the Veil?”

“They will die,” Adamos answered plainly.

Abrieth wondered if a knot could unknot itself, or if there was some way to cut the strands binding them. He missed Yurieth’s presence in his mind, it wasn’t that they heard each other’s thoughts and shared experiences all the time, as when they were children. But it was reassuring to know he could reach out to his brother at any time, until now. Abrieth realized that if he didn’t have Serapha, he would be going mad with worry and grief. “When will they wake?”

“We do not know, my son,” Yllumina answered truthfully, her golden eyes could not veil her worry.

Yurieth dreamed he was floating in a soft cocoon of light. Fleur was asleep in his arms as she should be. His heart felt happy and at peace as he tried to remember how they got there. His heart did not want to remember what his mind sought. It came back painfully slowly, and it horrified him. The darkness had attacked her, changed her. His father ordered him to help her fight it, so they did. While their souls were connected he had seen something in her memories.

She was sitting in an ancient submerged temple, flipping metal cylinders out of a rectangular casing. She was holding a curved sword in her other hand. Her scars were dark on her arms. His brother was there and Yurieth was amazed at how similar they looked because he and Abrieth looked nothing alike. Kaleth and a strange looking youth were begging her to let them heal her. She refused saying she needed to keep her power to fight the enemy and then she struck at them with dark lightning. Something staggered her, and the memory went dark, then she woke in Kaleth’s arms, healed and alive.

Yurieth watched her building strange devices and open a portal to a world of darkness and dust. He shuddered in horror when he saw himself come from the dust to be rescued. Yurieth knew she had sacrificed much in that place, yet afterward, she had chosen the darkness before his brother saved her, but her choice was the only thing that mattered to his honor.

Looking away from her memories, Yurieth knew where he was, he had been to this place with his mother before they determined he was not to be an oracle. He was in the Veil of the Sacred Light. He realized Fleur was in his arms and he jerked away, back into consciousness in the real world. There she was laying in his arms too, but they had both been changed into sleeping clothes. The simple linen shift made her look innocent, but his mind knew the truth. Slowly, he extracted himself from the bed. He felt like he had not moved in days.

He could not feel her soul, his muddled mind tried to reach out to his brother because he could hear Abrieth arguing with his parents down the hall. He felt like his senses were dulled and wrapped in raw wool, as he staggered unsteadily to his feet. His father is explaining about some ancient kind of magic then his mother declared it was Yurieth’s fault they had not woken yet. She was just saying she did not know when they would wake when he made it to the door.

“I am awake now, Mother,” his words slurred as he spoke. Abrieth leapt to his feet and rushed to aid his twin.

As Abrieth helped Yurieth to a chair, Yurieth demanded, “What did she do to me?”

Abrieth looked over at his parents, “Why can’t we feel each other? I can only sense the same numbness as when he slept.”

Yllumina carefully placed her warm hands on Yurieth’s temple and glowed, but instead of the soothing balm of soul healing magic, he felt nothing as her oracle light surrounded him.

“What did that siren do to me?” He repeated harsher.

“Yurieth! Fleur is not a siren, and it wasn’t her magic that did this. Your soul is the one that refused to release hers when the magic was to end,” his mother explained firmly. “You are sealed to her and she to you, you can’t just reject her.”

“But I don’t want her. Were you ever going to tell me what she truly is, Mother? Father? She’s a dark magic wielder! Would you have me sealed to a dark one for all time?!?” Yurieth growled in unveiled hostility. “After what they did to my family? What they did during the war?”

“Technically, Fleur is a dual magic wielder, an antumbra oracle, and it is not by her choice, she was made to be what she...” Adamos was interrupted by Yurieth’s raging question.

“Are you sure about that, Father? Because in her memories, I saw her choosing to keep the dark magic.”

“What?” Abrieth demanded.

“I found what she was hiding, brother. I saw her in a temple, our brother was trying to coax her into letting them heal her and she refused. All the torture she goes through in the place of our imprisonment made her willing to embrace the darkness. What she turned into our last night in the King’s City, it wasn’t the first time she had become that, and I doubt it will be the last,” Yurieth accused. “His love is what saved her in the future, and now, with him unavailable, you expect me love her with the same devotion despite her darkness! I won’t do it! You can’t expect me to.”

“Do you know the horrors she’s endured, Yurieth? She fought her way back, every time, used every weapon, every magic within her grasp. I would do the same if I had her power,” Yllumina shouted at him with tear streaks running down her face, “I will do anything to save our family, even allow the one I love as my daughter be tortured almost into insanity to gain her true power. So, yes, my eldest, I expect you to find a way past your prejudice.”

Yurieth trembled in rage as he faced his mother, then he ran his hand over his face in a frustrated gesture. “I saw what we become, Mother. The device Kaleth uses to save her, she uses it to give us back bodies after our imprisonment. Oren, Orion, and Odini are building it right now.”

“We don’t have bodies, how are we alive?” Abrieth demanded.

“Your souls will survive, to be resurrected in new bodies when the time comes,” Adamos answered quietly.

“I would rather die,” Yurieth announced flatly and his mother slapped him.

“Never EVER say that!” Yllumina snapped at him.

He gaped at her, shocked because she had never struck either of them before.

Trembling, she balled her hands into fists, “Everything we have done, everything we will do for the next several thousands of years will be to ensure that our house and our people survive. That the entire universe survives the onslaught of the Devourer and his army of shadows.”

“Tell that to Fleur, Mother! Tell her you did it all to save our house after she buried her children and friends, after her sealed one went into the light with her holding his hand. Tell her why you did it after she lived through the agony of worlds dying around her. Tell her... her darkness… that it was to save our house after all she has been through. The darkness wants her back. It took her twice and it will take her again. Someday she won’t be able to resist.” Yurieth growled.

“Enough Yurieth!” Adamos roared at him, “If the darkness had succeeded in taking her, she would not be here now, and the future would be forever lost. Fleur is stronger than you think, and I know she will be the one to save our family and our people.”

“Fleur will always do whatever she must to fight the shadows, even if it means wielding their own darkness against them.” Yllumina rose to her full height, her light glowing around her like the full moon, “She will always choose to fight, and she will never give up.” Adamos nodded in agreement at his wife’s statement.

Yurieth sneered as he glared at his parents. “Perhaps, Mother... or perhaps this time she will choose to betray us all...” He rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching his brother’s arm. “I will have nothing more to do with Fleur beyond what is absolutely necessary to get the Tear away safely and protect Serapha for the future.”

“Yurieth, don’t do this,” His mother warned.

He gave her a cold look. “You will not manipulate me into love and marriage again, Mother.” Then he staggered out with Abrieth’s help.

Yllumina looked at Adamos helplessly as he folded her into his arms, “Be patient, my golden one, he will come around. Just like you foresaw.”

“I pray my visions are true, my love, and that it won’t be too late. ”