Part Five

THE DRY, BROWN limbs of the trees creaked ominously overhead in the breeze, but otherwise there was only silence in the grove. The air felt heavy. They all drew closer together around Ward. For some reason Ward—who usually inspired reverence that made people keep their distance—was their source of comfort here. Corey completely understood. All he wanted was to turn around and go back to the camp. It was unsettling standing there, as if he were knowingly trespassing into someone’s private space.

But they had to complete the solstice ceremony today. The power of the light and dark mages was in exact balance, which meant the protections Ward needed to place would be at their strongest.

After a few more minutes of walking, they reached an arc of wide boulders, each waist-high, stuck in the ground. They stopped at the apex of the arc. Behind the boulders was a low building—the roof of which was also only waist-high—with an open doorway. That must be where Sin was confined. Everything was lightly dusted with snow.

Elda began unpacking a bag she had been carrying, pulling out pots and paint brushes. Ward grimaced before pulling off a glove. He brushed snow off the boulder at the very top of the arc with his bare hand, then slowly pulled the other glove off. Elda held out the first pot and brush, which Ward took. The pot held paint, Corey realized, when Ward pulled the top off and dipped his brush inside.

The boulder was an ordinary gray with no evidence of ever having been painted before, and yet Ward unerringly ran the brush along the surface as if he were tracing inside the lines of a drawing. He drew an isosceles triangle in black, carefully filled in the shape, and then set the pot and brush aside.

Elda held out a second pot and brush for Ward to take, and this time the tip of the brush came out white. He drew a second isosceles triangle with the long side touching the long edge of the black triangle. Somehow, the two paints did not mix where they met.

Once the white triangle was filled in, he began dotting small spots of white inside the black triangle, seemingly at random. Corey watched every dot and couldn’t see any sort of pattern emerging. He had no idea what Ward was drawing.

After a few more dots, Ward nodded and set aside the white paint. He picked up the black again and began to draw a wavy line inside the white triangle. It took Corey a few seconds to recognize the outline of half a stylized sun.

The white dots were stars, Corey realized. It was the balance of Star and Sun Season, equally positioned on the rock. Corey wouldn’t be surprised if Ward had used exactly the same amount of white paint to dot the stars as he was using to draw the sun in black.

When he was done with the sun, Ward put down the pot and brush and placed his hands flat against the boulder on either side of the drawing.

“Come,” Elda said softly. She placed her left hand on the boulder to Ward’s left and held out her right for someone to take. Oster placed his right hand on the boulder to Ward’s right and held out his free hand. Corey hadn’t noticed before, but, aside from himself, there were an equal amount of dark and light mages with them. Corey was equally dark and light, so his being the odd man didn’t affect the balance.

They all clasped hands, Corey gripping the palms of two others, until they stood in an arc around Ward, echoing the arc of boulders around Sin’s prison.

“Let your power flow down through your hands. Become a conduit and allow the magic to move through you.” Elda’s voice was gentle and soothing, and Corey felt his magic obey her instructions almost without need for a command from his brain. His body filled with an odd sort of buzzing as magic from the rest of the circle passed through him, taking some of his own magic with it as it left. It was a decidedly weird feeling, although not painful. Still, Corey thought he would never want a repeat.

The boulder began to glow and the painting shone even brighter, as Elda and Oster pushed the magic the group was sending them into the boulder. After a few short seconds, the glow faded as the painting itself vanished. Once the boulder had stopped glimmering entirely, Elda and Oster let go. The human arc dissolved as everyone dropped hands and the buzzing feeling vanished. Corey took a deep breath to try to steady himself and realized that breathing was suddenly very easy. The heavy, oppressive feeling was gone from the air around them. Even the creaking of the trees was suddenly a pleasant sound of nature. A faint chiming sound could be heard in the air.

“Balance is restored,” Ward said as he finally stepped back from the boulder. He bent to grab his gloves, and the chiming noise intensified. Corey couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Maybe someone had hung a wind chime on one of the trees? He would have to go take a look.

Corey walked slowly, intending to only go a few feet to his right to see around the boulders, but his legs kept moving and he found himself slipping between the boulders. He had to find the chimes, though, so he didn’t feel worried about the hazy noise of someone behind him calling his name. There was a slight twinge of something like concern in his stomach when he ducked to step through the low doorway, but then he walked down an earthen ramp underground and that twinge vanished.

The space was well lit although there were no lamps or fires. He continued through a hallway built of large stone blocks. He headed deeper into the cave, eventually coming to a T-shaped intersection. There was a room at the top of the T with a narrow bed, a chair, and a small table. Corey stopped at the doorway, which was wide enough that he didn’t think he could touch the jambs even if he stretched out his arms.

Someone was sitting in the chair with his back to the door, but he stood and turned around with a smile when Corey stopped. Suddenly, the chimes stopped, and realization slammed into him. Corey was underground, no one knew where he was, and he had a strong feeling he was looking at Sin himself. His stomach plummeted, and his heart started beating in his throat. Sweat broke out on his brow, and he took a stumbling step backward.

“Oh, don’t leave so soon.” Sin’s voice sounded musical, much like the chimes Corey had heard outside. “We’ve only just met. Give me a moment to get to know you, my son.”

There was something about Sin that seemed familiar. Corey wanted to run. His knees were shaking now, too, and yet curiosity kept him in place. Sin slowly walked closer, and Corey studied him. What was it about Sin that was so familiar?

Sin looked ordinary enough. He was tall, probably at least six feet. His eyes were heterochromatic, one light and one dark, over a slim nose and a mouth that hadn’t yet stopped smiling. Sin let Corey study him until, suddenly, Corey got it. Those eyes—Corey had those eyes—and that nose. Sin’s cheekbones were sharper, but the rounded edge to their chins was the same.

“Who are you?” Corey asked, his voice breathy with shock.

“He is your blood father,” Ward said from behind him. Corey jumped and spun so he could look at both men at the same time. Ward walked forward until he was standing next to Corey, but he was glaring at Sin.

Sin let out a sharp laugh. “Of course, you would know. Between our sister telling you the future, and your constant vigilance…” he trailed off for a moment before turning to address Corey. “He stole everything from me. I am the Mage. I control the light and the dark. I control the fate of the world, and it is my right to destroy it! He stole my mages and used my own power to confine me. But you, my son. You can free me.”

“I knew he had taken one of his priestesses and birthed a child,” Ward cut in. His voice was firm but gentle, and he spoke to Corey without looking away from Sin. “As he said, my sister, the Oracle, warned me. I watched for you, but my purview is only the present. I knew you were born away from this place, and I knew when you had entered the Tower, but imagine my surprise when you walked into my bedroom.

“I realized immediately Corey wasn’t evil,” he added directly to Sin before he finally looked away to focus on Corey. Ward’s eyes were intense as he stared directly at Corey, and Corey suddenly wasn’t certain whether he ought to run from Ward too. “The blood of his father didn’t automatically corrupt him. In fact, aside from his looks, I don’t believe Corey inherited anything from you.”

“He inherited my power over light and dark—even you can see that in his eyes—which means he inherited part of my godhood. He is as immortal as you or I. Perhaps today he will not free me as I ask, but there’s always tomorrow, and the day after that, and endless days after that.”

Ward turned back to Sin, and there was a small, almost mocking smile on his face. “You know I will be watching him for as long as he’s alive to prevent just that from happening.”

Corey had no idea what they were talking about. Godhood? Immortal? Intellectually, he knew what those words meant, but he had no idea how they applied to him. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

“We could be partners again, my darling Sentinel,” Sin cajoled, his voice singsong and hopeful. “You and me, lying in bed watching the sunset, naked and sweaty. Don’t you miss our evenings together?”

Ward didn’t answer, but Corey could see the slightest twist to his lips that said he very likely did miss it. Corey remembered his own days curled under a blanket, chatting with Ward. And now he knew why Ward would never look at Corey with anything more than friendship. A burning feeling in Corey’s stomach overtook the rumbling from fear. Corey looked down at the ground, hoping to hide his disappointment from both Sin and Ward, except Ward reached out to take Corey’s hand in his.

“That was five thousand years ago, Sin,” Ward said. “So many lifetimes in which you and I haven’t spoken. We’ve taken other lovers, lived other lives, and in the end what you and I might have once had is so long gone it is practically erased. Yes, I loved you then, until you revealed the evil in your soul, and my love turned to hate. But you gave me a gift, Sin. You took the sweet, beautiful parts of you—the parts that I once loved—and imbued them into this young man. A man who I know has no evil in his heart.”

Corey slowly looked up, stopping to glance at their clasped hands before continuing upward until he could look at Ward’s face. Ward was looking at him again, and this time his eyes were gentle and warm. It was the way Corey couldn’t help hoping Ward would look at him. It was as if Ward could spend hours just looking and Corey… Corey wanted to spend those hours looking back. It was too good to be true, and yet Corey couldn’t doubt the way Ward was looking at him.

Sin laughed as the ground started to shake. Corey grabbed for Ward as his balance shifted. Sin was pressed up against the doorway as if there were an invisible wall there. “I’ve got you here, in my lair, where you can only run so far. Go ahead. Make this exciting.”

His fingers curled forward through the invisible wall although his palms remained stationary. His smile was wild, his eyes wide, and his teeth bright in the underground room. Sin looked both deranged and excited, and as Ward and Corey watched, his fingers curled a little more.

“No,” Ward whispered. “You can’t.”

Sin laughed. “I have been saving my power for five thousand years for this! I can escape here, finish corrupting my son, and then there will be two all-powerful beings to rule this world! There is nothing you, oh, powerless Sentinel, can do to stop me now, and there is nothing the Oracle and her Dragons will be able to do to stop me once I’m free.”

Ward was powerless, Corey realized then. He was the Sentinel, the watcher. It was Sin who was the Mage. Sin’s fingers curled just a little more through the barrier.

If Ward was the Sentinel, how had he been able to set the spell of protection around this place? That stray question floated through Corey’s panic. He remembered sending his magic along the human chain where Elda and Oster had collected it and put it in the boulder, but where had it gone after that? Ward had done something with it. Corey was certain of that, which meant that he could manipulate magic if he had access to some. The Sentinel wasn’t a mage, but he wasn’t helpless if he had the right friends.

Corey took a deep breath and then another when that didn’t still the frantic thumping of his heart or the shaking in his hands. He took in and let out a third breath and tried to find his magic within him. Ward had shown him how that first day in Ward’s bedroom, where Corey had been blinded in the sunlight. He found it now and released it, sending it down to where their hands were still clasped.

Ward gasped, his head jerking down to look at Corey in surprise, but then he grinned. He lifted his free hand until his palm was parallel to the invisible barrier. He didn’t touch it, but it suddenly started to glow just as the boulder did outside. Sin’s fingers spasmed, and he screamed.

The floor stopped shaking, but Corey thought that might be because Sin had to concentrate on just getting through the barrier. Ward was still grinning, but the extremely tight grip he had on Corey’s hand told a different story. He needed more power, which he could only get if Corey could figure out how to open himself up and allow a deluge to spring free.

He dug deeper, trying to find the source of his power. Despite the ground steadying and the barrier glowing, Sin’s fingers hadn’t uncurled. In fact, they might have curled the slightest touch more.

He knew where the pool of his power was, but he’d tapped it as strongly as he knew how. That pool wasn’t enough. He needed to make it bigger. He needed to give Ward more to work with. He dove in and swam deep.

It was like moving through honey—something he hadn’t tasted until coming to the Tower. The power was sweet tasting in a way that said it would be utterly addictive. It would call to him, begging him to come swim in the depths to experience that sweetness over and over again. Yet, at the same time, it was thick and cloying, as though it were actively trying to keep him away from its source.

Still, Corey could feel his hand aching, the bones crunching together underneath the pressure of Ward’s desperate grip. Sin might not be winning, but he certainly wasn’t losing either. Corey knew he had to fight through, even as with each new movement the honey became more and more like glue. He dug and scratched desperately, digging now with everything he had. There had to be a center to this thing he was mired in. There had to be!

And then, suddenly, there was. His ears popped, and he stumbled as the glue gave and spat him back out.