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THE EARTH STONE
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THE PRINCE OF SHADOWS shook off her attack like raindrops on a padded coat, but something inside her shattered. By the time Savara recovered from the shock, it was too late. The Apprentice stood behind Ori, pressing the knife firmly to his throat. Ori tried to remain calm, but his face had been contorted by fear.
“Stop!” she yelled, clenching her fists again, but this time she directed them at the young man. The Prince of Shadows caught her hand gently, and in his grip, her powers faded. “No...” she whispered, grasping at the power that slipped from her fingertips.
He brushed a cold, hollow hand across her warm cheeks. “That’s enough for today,” he said, staring at the rubies that marred her cheek. “So, you’ve bound your soul? It’s eating at you. The fact that you must kill to save yourself... I can take it away, you know?” He ran his finger over the gems, and for a moment, they disappeared.
Her heart lifted, finally free of the weight of the task, but something about it didn’t feel right. By now, Savara understood that nothing came from nothing, and if she agreed to his help, she was sure something worse would come from it.
“Let him go,” she demanded, though much of her breath was held captive by fear.
“Hmm...” He removed his finger and brought back the heavy stones. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, princess,” he replied and nodded to his apprentice.
The young man enclosed the four of them in a great forcefield of blue light. The sound of thunder high above disappeared, but the storm raged on around them.
Her heart sunk again, feeling the weight of murder tied once more to her soul. “It’s me you want, isn’t it?” she said, this time with more resolve. “Let him go, and you can have me instead.”
“You?” The Prince of Shadows let out a low, rumbling laugh that ground at her bones. “You think your life is worth that of a seasoned general? A little girl who can hardly use her powers in place of the leader of an imperial court. Do those lives equate to you?”
“No, but...” Savara stuttered.
“Come now, Savara. I thought you were better than that.”
“You said this was about my divination,” she stuttered again as an angry flush crept over her nose.
“Oh, but it’s about so much more.” He began to walk, allowing his voice to carry throughout the chamber. His steps were graceful—he was graceful, like the night itself made living. “It’s about life. Power. A quest for meaning. You feel it too, don’t you? The need to fulfil a purpose in life. That constant wondering at why you came to be...” The Prince of Shadows beamed as he prowled around her. “You and I are cut from the same cloth, my dear. I feel it in you, that same search. And do you know why?”
Savara shook her head, his voice raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
“Because the world doesn’t make many like us, so when it does, it’s for a purpose. We must heed its call.”
“I am nothing like you,” she spat, but the goosebumps on her arms and the sinking feeling in her chest said otherwise.
“No?” With a wave of his hand, he cast a whorl of shadows out into the centre of the chamber and nodded to his ward. The Apprentice projected images into the swirling mass—of violence, of death, of her friends beyond the sanctuary. “Have you not marched your friends into war so that you can find out about that pathetic past of yours?”
“Jasper!” she screamed into the cloud. A circle of flames had engulfed both him and Storm. She hadn’t realised the war continued beyond these walls. “Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded.
“I don’t wish to hurt anyone, my child, but you see, I too have a purpose, and unlike you, I know what I am meant to do. I know why I was chosen... And I know why you were too.” He winked. “There is power around us, in the hidden contours of this world. Trapped. I know you feel it too, for we are the only ones who can. It is in our nature, our blood.”
Savara tried to gulp down the bundle of nerves that had rooted themselves in the back of her throat.
“There are those in this world who believe themselves greater than spirit. Great enough to capture it, to lock it away. This world was never meant to be divided. This great separation has caused people to forget what they are—what we are. They seek out differences. They fear what they do not know. They exile and abandon instead of choosing to learn, to understand. They toil away in squabbles over an ability as trivial as breathing... But if they can’t appreciate their own precious little lives, why should we?” He curled his fingers, and through the whorl, shadows sharpened into tendrils aimed at Jasper and Storm.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Please, don’t hurt them.”
“They are doing this to themselves.”
“I’ll do anything.”
The Prince of Shadows stayed his hand; the shadows hovered in place. “Anything?” he repeated with a vicious smirk. “Now that is an interesting proposal.” He glided over to her side, speaking softly, intimately. “There is something I want, and you know what it is, don’t you?”
“Don’t listen to him!” yelled Ori from the other end of the chamber.
“We will not hear from you,” the Prince of Shadows replied. A menacing, red-tinged shadow whipped from his hand and gagged Lord Ori. The Apprentice pressed the blade deeper into his throat until a small trickle of blood appeared at his collarbone. “But, of course, there is more to the story. Your story. Our story. Don’t you see? What was done to you was done to me, many years ago... And have you not wondered why, after all these years, you were the only Arima divined? Why they exiled you to the human world? Cast you aside, the way they did to me?”
Savara feared the menacing timbre of his voice. Tears fell in streams through the crevices in her scar and down the sides of her chin. She nodded cautiously, her own voice still captive.
“They fear us, my dear. Would you like to know why?”
Again, she nodded, but this time, a frown accompanied it.
“If you give me what I want, I promise to show you the truth. No more lies, no more secrets. You will finally understand the reason behind your precious life. You shall know of the purpose to which you so readily and unwittingly cling.”
Savara’s heart skipped more than a single beat. The noise around them disappeared in her ears, leaving only that of the heavy pulse in her chest. The act of nodding had been automatic, though she pursed her lips guiltily, wondering what exactly she’d agreed to.
“Good girl.” The Prince of Shadows winked. “You know this is the right thing to do. Now, your friend over there has something I need, and he knows exactly what it is, don’t you?” he called to Ori, who bobbed his head, careful not to accidentally cut himself on the blade. “You get it for me, and I will call off the attack below. We’ll leave just as easily as we came. No more unnecessary deaths.”
“You want the stone...”
“One stone for thousands of lives.” When she didn’t initially react, he added, “Come now, Savara my dear, you don’t want all these deaths on your hands.” He returned to her, lifting her hands gently in his own. “How would you sleep at night, knowing that it was your fault that all those people lost their lives? That you could have spared them the horrors but chose not to?”
“But—”
“And how much better would you sleep if you finally knew who you are?” He grinned as he brushed her hair behind her ear and began to whisper. “Tell Ori to hand it over, and I promise there will be no more of this unnecessary death, and you will finally understand what beautiful role you play in this world.”
She gazed over at Ori and his captor. The Apprentice looked away; his midnight blue eyes were, for once, unable to meet hers.
“You swear it?” Savara replied tentatively.
“I swear on my life, my soul,” he said, moving in front of her and bowing his head ceremoniously low. “Princess.”
With the same polished dagger that brought him to life, he carved an “X” into the spot where his heart might have been, as a sharpened shadow slit her other cheek. Their wounds glowed viciously red with unspoken purpose before hardening into crystal.
Savara found it uncomfortable that he so quickly bound his soul to his word, wondering what fearsome thing he had in mind, but as their souls were now bound, she had no choice. She treaded softly past the Prince of Shadows and bent down before Ori.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise everything will...”
Resignation set in across his face as his jaw slackened under the light gag. She knew he didn’t believe her. He reached a heavy hand up to her cheek. In that touch, she sensed fear, pain, doubt. She felt his resolve and hope fade, leaving behind only an empty acceptance. She knew there was nothing more to say. He reached the same hand up to his face and removed his jade eye, placing it gently in her outstretched hand and closing her delicate fingers tightly over it.
Life beat inside it. It vibrated in her palm, humming softly, speaking to her in a tongue she had yet to learn but vaguely grasped. Savara frowned at it. For that moment, time stood still. She forgot the war raging on around them. For a moment she felt only peace.
Then, that moment ended.
The Prince of Shadows hovered over her in wait.
“Remember your promise,” she growled.
“I am a man of my word, my dear.” He bowed again with an outstretched hand. “A stone for the truth, and no more unnecessary deaths.”
Prying her fingers from the crystal proved to be no easy task. When she managed to open her hand, a sickening weakness rushed through her body. Savara reluctantly placed the glowing jade crystal in his ghostly palm, careful not to take her eyes off him for a second.
The man turned it over in his hand and inhaled deeply. His eyes sparkled like red stars in the night sky. It didn’t seem like the power of the stone weighed on him as it had on her, but there was a change in the quality of his features. The hollowness in him began to fill.
From within the cloud, Savara noticed the shadows on the battlefield subside. They slithered down from the bodies of their captives, disappearing into nothingness. Her spirits lifted when Jasper’s face appeared, albeit concerningly burnt and bloodied in places, but alive. The possessed Argia seemed to be waking up too.
He’d kept his word; the fighting was over.
A look of relief crossed over Ori’s face, for he too knew his people were safe. And yet, as she glanced at The Apprentice, she found his features contorted by worry. She’d seen his eyes glittering on the darkest of nights, giving her safe harbour in the worst of her nightmares. His voice alone had brought her back when her body was overrun with shadows. Now it looked as though he couldn’t stand the sight of her.
“What about me?” she asked, regaining her voice. “You swore to tell me who I am, and why I have these powers,” she demanded of the Prince of Shadows.
His red eyes sparkled as he contemplated her, taking interest in her newfound determination.
“You wished for the truth... The people of this world fear our abilities. Don’t you see? What was done to you was done to me many years ago, for we have been gifted with powers that few can comprehend. We can tap into the energies of the world and those around. We are required for a functioning world, but because of this, they fear us.” His voice became a vicious growl. “They locked us away, exiled us, but they never understood that we too were made with a purpose, that we cannot be restrained...” A satisfied smile grew on his lips as he spoke. “Your divination was a sign that the world is ready for a change, that we are once again needed. You see, we are the conduits of spirit itself... The harbingers of death.”
The Prince of Shadows took one last deep breath of mountain air before calling to his apprentice. “You heard her, no more unnecessary deaths,” he said, throwing him the crystal before disappearing like a shadow in direct sunlight.
Three things happened at that point in such a tight interval that no one could properly say which came first: the scream, the rain, or the blood.
The curtain of light came down around them, bringing the darkness into the foreground. A spark of lightning struck the peaks above, sending debris clattering to the floor. The waiting clouds finally burst.
All in an instant, The Apprentice caught the stone, slit Ori’s throat, and held it under the fresh fountain of blood. Its jade light glowed vividly through the hot red mass. Savara let out a blood-curdling scream. The Apprentice looked up at her horror-ridden face briefly and stifled a frown before vanishing in a cloud of dust as his master had before him.
Savara rushed over to help, but she knew there was little she could do. She pressed her hands firmly over his throat, hoping to stop the bleeding, but to no avail. Plastered across Ori’s face was terror in its purest form. His face, contorted and frightened, pleading with her to keep Death’s spindly fingers from taking hold. The great Lord Ori shuddered as any mortal would in the hands of Death himself, all the while gaping like a fish on land and choking violently on his blood.
“Help!” she screamed, though her voice came out feeble through the stream of tears. “Help!” No one came. “Please work,” she pleaded with eyes closed. “Please!”
Savara dug deep inside of herself, begging whatever unholy thing lay inside her to fix him. She could feel her powers fluttering in her palms, hovering just shy of his body, but they refused to go any further. They wouldn’t work their magic on him as they had on her hand. His body spoke a language her powers couldn’t understand. She tried with desperate force to coax them out, but they never crossed the threshold. Under the streams of spurting blood, her hands trembled.
The rain poured down around them. The cracks of thunder echoed through the sanctuary, drowning out the sound of her sobs. Droplets mixed with tears slid down her flustered cheeks. Beneath her palms, she felt his spirit fade. She wanted to hold on to it—force it back into its container, keep her promise to him that all would be well—but it was no use. Beneath her palms it pulsed in and out, the gaps between growing longer and the pulses fewer before the stillness finally set in.
As the rain dripped to the ground from his body and hers, their pasts dripped away with it. Their hopes and triumphs, their pain and fear, they all seeped deep down into the soil, catching on stones and mixing with the rest of the raindrops, only to flow down a drain somewhere.
