The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

Later that afternoon, Regis found Fleur alone, sitting on the highest balcony, she was looking out at the City of the Kings. Even though her eyes saw nothing, her ears could hear the population going about their daily life with no idea that in a very short time their world would be a wasteland and they would all be dead. Her fingers twisted her oracle stone on her chain, as clear tears ran down her cheeks.

“It will be well, my lady, you will see your beloved again soon,” Regis tried to reassure her. She looked so small and frail, it made his heartache. “He gave me this to return to you.” He pressed a familiar white gold ring into her hand. Her fingers traced the scaring on the metal. It only said ‘Belov... of Kaleth’ now, and the 'v' was marred. Another lie from her life before coming to this time.

Raggedly, she exhaled, “No, Regis, I won’t. Yuri may be my sealed one because I love him, but I am not his. He never wanted me.” She gave him the ring back. “It has all been a lie to save their house and the remnant, to win the war against the shadows. I will stay here. After the device to trap the Devourer fires, only then is my duty finished.”

“No, my lady... He cares for you.”

“My dear Regis, it was a lie. He cannot abide darkness.”

Regis remembered Yurieth’s last request to him as Yurieth gave his brother Huntsman Fleur’s widow’s token.

They stood in the courtyard after Fleur and Serapha went to make the Water of Light. “Protect her, my brother, by morning, she will have no power left.”

“None at all?” Regis had asked in surprise. Fleur was the most powerful oracle he had ever met.

“Mother said she must use it all to protect us, to protect me.” Yurieth sounded more worried that Regis had ever heard him. “She will only have the darkness to wield if she chooses to take it back. I am worried that without love, it will overcome her.”

“Fleur would never let it win,” Regis assured him.

“In the face of the deaths of two worlds...” Yurieth was silent for a moment then admitted, “I do not know if she believes that I love her after what I have done and said to her.”

“Why would you believe this?” Regis had asked.

“I don’t know... Something she keeps saying to Karstien...” Yurieth trailed off, then he had stood taller, more determined. He handed Regis the ring. “Give this to her, remind her of her children. Bring her back to me, Regis. Don’t let her die here.”

“I won’t.”

Regis watched her listening to the city. “My lady, I have known Yurieth my whole life. I believe he loves you.”

Fleur shook her head sadly. “Give me your oath, you will not repeat what I am about to tell you to anyone here.”

“By my honor and my duty, you have my oath.” Regis responded.

“Regis, I have felt his love only to have it withdrawn and replaced with hatred as he struggled to accept me as his burden to protect because I am a dual wielder. Yurieth has spared no cruelty where I am concerned, even telling me he hated me with his soul twice. Adamos commanded him to do his duty because oracles are powered by love and light, so he only showed me what kindness he thought I would need to believe he cared. Ask your father, he was there. I heard his voice as well as Odini’s. My Yuri was just affectionate enough to be my friend, to lure me with hope, a false hope if I had not found out the truth." Fluer clenched her fists and gritted her teeth against the pain.

"In our future, he will lie to me for over a century about not remembering this era, so I will care enough about him to come back to this time to save him.” She wiped away her tears before she continued. “It was my duty to save him and I did. But I am not fool enough to believe the lie will continue once this is over.”

“How can you be sure he lied about remembering?” He sounded as pained as she felt, and she knew he wanted to believe his best friend loved her as much as she did, but he doubted just as she did. He knelt beside her and put his hand on her arm.

“Because of the turn of a phrase from someone here, a phrase he shouldn’t remember, but has said since I first met him. And I overheard everything I needed to know the truth one night while I was supposed to be alone on the Tear. The Dark Prince of my time, the one who is to be bound to the Shadows, he captured me. With him, the Siren Queen taunted me that I was just the whore of our house, a concubine to the sons of Adamos. It was the truth, but I did not believe it until that night when I heard it in Adamos’ own voice.” She exhaled raggedly; her tone was resigned.

“It is the truth... Yurieth only showed me enough love to power the enchantment. Last night, I am ashamed to admit that I let myself believe it because I am a weak and pathetic creature who craves love. I was born that way, made broken so I can’t access my power without love. My whole life was a lie, but at least I know Abe and Pha will survive, that my children will have lives of peace in the far future.”

“My lady, you are far from weak.” Regis was horrified by the certainty in her voice.

“Huntsman Regis, I was born a human. The race who dwells on the world the Tear flees to. We are a weak people who only live to be 80 to 140 years. We do not revive when we are killed, which is very easy to do. We heal very slowly. We struggle, but we never stop striving. We are clever, but we are not made to endure as Aetherians and Xelusians are. Our peoples will intermarry for many generations. I carried the DNA of your people and thought I was a descendant as many are.”

She inhaled and exhaled slowly again. “Karstien is an eighth human, most Aetherians in our time are much more than that, and because of it, they have no magic. Lord Adamos gave me the oracle stone because he bred me to be able to use it. It changed what I was. I accidentally bound myself to Kaleth trying to save his life because I didn’t know anything about magic. It made me into one of your people, and I gave Kaleth four magically powerful, pure Aetherian children. Together, Kaleth and I brought light and hope to our dying race, and the courage to fight that which would destroy all that lived and loved. We rebuilt the Kingdom for Karstien and as the last Guardian, Kaleth defended it until his death.”

Her thumb ran over the crease of her ring finger, feeling for a token she refused to wear because the truth hurt too much. “What I told Karstien was true, I heard Adamos say he would make Kaleth do his duty. Duty and honor meant more to Kaleth than anything, even love. After I lost him, Yuri took his place because I was too focused on the war to take care of myself and I had to live long enough to bear Kaleth’s last son who is the next Guardian. I had to win the war, and then come back to restore the timeline. I thought it was because we were friends, now I know it will not be a duty he wants.”

She held out the stone she wore around her neck again. “Without this stone, anyone could have taken my place. During the war, I was a weapon. Rebuilding the kingdom, I was a tool. Restoring our house, I was breeding stock to rebirth magic. The children I birthed are no more mine than the birds of the air. I was fortunate to have gotten to love them for a while.”

Regis squeezed her arm. “What will you do now, my lady?”

“Send Karstien home with the children, and you forward to Rheema. My daughter’s best friend is your sealed one, I am sure of it.” She gave him a water smile. “Find happiness, Regis, don’t let duty dictate your life and rob you of your happiness as it has Yurieth.”

He took her hands in his much larger ones. “But you still love him. You should fight for him.”

She looked down, unseeing. “His freedom from his duty is the only thing I have to give him. I’m empty, I have nothing left. When you go forward, please tell him, he is released from his duty. You can even tell him about this conversation because it won’t matter if they know then that I figured it all out. They won’t be able to change anything.”

They sat on the balcony for a long time, holding hands. She told him everything she knew about Rheema, about the descendants of the children of the Tear, and about the war for the worlds.

“Was the future war truly so desperate?” He was horrified as she began to talk about her birth world and its harvest.

“Yes, it was. On Terrearth, we lost seven billion souls in a day. They were consumed by the Devourer, then the biomass of the planet harvested, and three million bodies were retained to create necromanced warriors, eleven weapons of murder for every living soul. Just over half of a hundred-thousandth of a percent of the total population fled to the seven worlds the Aetherians offered them and a third of those who survived were from the panicked exodus brought on by the Harvest itself.” She sighed remembering the day she stayed behind to dump her research company’s mainframe as her planet died around her. She had miscalculated the Harvest’s date and it had cost her one of her stepsisters and one of her closest friends.

“Why would they not flee?” He was truly horrified. “Why would your rulers not wish to save them?”

“Because they believed the lies told by the world government and the media... Because the rulers of my world didn’t want to lose control of the population... Because the people cared more about fake news and false theater dramas broadcasts to the public than the effort of survival... Because it was easier to just pretend the anomaly that glowed in the sky for almost two years before the Harvest was harmless, rather than face the end of their world was at hand and we were powerless to stop it. Pick any reason you want... The truth was that the Shadows influenced our leaders just as they were influencing King Xerxes.”

She shook her head in disgust. “We tried so hard and the media declared us all crazy, and when some still believed and fled... Those who tried to flee were imprisoned or killed if they were caught. My human friends were murdered to silence us.”

“It was a terrible time for all of us,” Karstien added. “Fleur, everything is ready for tomorrow.”

Fluer ignored him, so he stayed where he was by the door. He knew not to antagonize her when she was this volatile, but he didn’t want things to be like this between them. “Please, Fleur, don’t be this way.”

“How long did you know? Did Kaleth tell you before he died, or did Adamos before he went into the light?” She snapped, turning her head toward him. “Or did Yurieth tell you he remembered when he was restored?”

“None of them told me anything. Father started wondering about the things you could do, he asked Asha to run some test. How could you be what you were? The results didn’t make sense to us. Then when we went to see Grandfather on his last day, something he said to father that changed his mind and he told me to have Shadz start teaching you magic against grandfather’s wishes. Father wanted you to know more than swords. He believed that you could do anything, he believed in your power.”

She made a face like she didn’t believe him. “Then why make Yuri protect me?”

“I don’t think father wanted you protected, I think he wanted Uncle Yuri to have a purpose beyond the war. He thought Yuri loved you as much as he did. Uncle Yuri was the greatest warrior of his generation, but he was tired of war and...” Karstien answered, but Fleur’s lip pursed in a thin line.

“We were all tired of war,” Fleur interrupted, as she rose to her feet. Her hand held slightly in front of her as she made her way to the door. Standing shoulder to shoulder with only a handspan between them, she whispered in her birth language, “You shouldn’t have hidden it from me, Karstien. I was working on the Tear and heard you fighting with Adamos about what I was. I have never kept anything from you, no matter how difficult. I even left you a letter explaining why I had to come back to the past without you. Statically, it was too risky for you to come and I knew you would be foolish enough to ignore the risks.”

“I know, I read it and Mina’s note and all the research. You didn’t have to do this alone. We have a lot to talk about when we get home.” He answered quietly but when he lifted his hand to her shoulder, she pushed it off.

“I’m not going home. I’m done being deceived. The truth I discovered can’t be changed by rationalizations, or explanations, nothing can make right five centuries of being lied to about what I am or being made to believe that I was loved.” As she walked away with her fingers trailing down the wall, her words were bitter. “I wish I had never been changed. I wish I was still human... I wish I had died with my sons and friends when Damien attacked Jonstown. I wish had never heard of the House of Adamos, Neimad Global, or Epoch Research Industries and Cretaceous Creatures Inc..”

Karstien pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes. He had warned his grandfather and before him, his father, that if the ugly truth were discovered by Daisy that she would never forgive them. Forgiveness in the face of facts was not a quality she possessed. She was analytical, obsessive, and vengeful. She could carry a vendetta like no one he had ever met and would only lay it aside when she chose to. He wondered if there was any way to make her forget so they could stay friends, the way she discovered the truth meant things couldn’t be more wrong between them.

At dinner, Fleur said nothing more than the simplest answers to direct questions. She ate with the same mechanical preciseness she had when Karstien had first met her. As soon as her last bite was swallowed, she rose and walked out.

“Lady Fleur seems temperamental this evening,” Regulus said quietly.

Karstien rubbed his forehead in a gesture of frustration that the Guardian had seen the sons of Adamos make for thousands of years. “Do you remember the night we met on the Tear of Heaven’s Hope, and I confronted my grandfather about Fleur and her origins?”

Regulus raised an eyebrow and nodded, unspeaking.

“Fleur was there working on the ship and overheard the whole thing. She has believed for months that every moment with my father and my family in the future was a deception and has acquired enough information to prove it true to any skeptic. My grandfather’s own words confirmed her greatest fears and I cannot convince her otherwise,” Karstien revealed. “She has decided to die here, and there will be no changing her mind.”

“Then we may have to send her home against her choice,” Regulus answered him firmly. “Yurieth is waiting for her, isn't he?”

“He is, but... But I don’t know if she will accept him now, or ever. She loves him but her will has always been stronger than her heart and now that it is broken again...” Karstien left off.

“Do not worry, Karstien, if there is a solution, my father will figure it out,” Regis assured him.

The next morning, Fleur made sure everything was set properly. She had taught Oren how to make a sphere out of his healing magic to protect them the first time he went forward. Karstien would use the Flame of Aetheria to surround them as they passed through the event horizon of the cataclysm. All the children were wrapped in protective enchantment cloaks. Families hugged each other bravely as their children were prepared to leave. The Xelusians had arrived last night and the battle sounds echoed in the Valley of the Kings.

Fleur fired the guide beam and waved the children forward. Oren took his place with Cinna beside him, holding two infants. As all the children stood in place, Karstien grabbed her arm, he pressed his sword into her hand.

“I won’t need it, you’ll only be gone thirteen minutes.” Fleur tried to hand it back.

“Keep it. You don’t have your light, so keep mine. We both know how much can happen in the blink of an eye.” He hugged her, aching because her arms remained at her sides. “Daisy, I know things are broken between us right now, but I promise I will make them right.”

She stepped away from him. Her blind eyes empty as she spoke, “There’s no time for that. Let them remember me as I was, strong and happy. Tell my children I loved them.” She stepped back and with a flash of light the Relic of Time vanished, and a light rain began to fall. Turning she announced, “Let’s get the next group...”

“Lady Fleur, something is happening in the sky,” Regis announced. “There... there is something like a tear surrounded by violent clouds.”

“The Devourer!” She exclaimed. “Everyone inside, into the obsidian safe rooms NOW!” She ran toward the portal to Xelusia and put the control crystal in place.

“My lady, what are you doing?” Regis demanded.

“Huntsman, as soon as the thirteen minutes are up, and the Relic returns, you are to get the gathered children in place and go.”

Regis caught her arm, “My lady? I can’t leave you.” In his pocket was a sleeping potion he was supposed to dose her with the moment of the Relic’s return, so he could carry her home to the future and to Yurieth.

“You can, and you will, Hunstman. This is the Harvest, nothing in the city or in the valley or on this world will survive. The Against Hope device failed to fire. I have to fix it, or all is lost.” The portal blinked open and she rushed through, still carrying Karstien’s enchanted sword.