Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen (25 page)

Quade turned his head and lowered his gaze, said a silent, wordless prayer for all those souls he'd seen die, to all those who had come before him and been defeated by this entity that now waged its war on his very world. He was cold, and his hands trembled, an aftereffect from all the emotions he'd felt, all the tragedy he'd seen. When he opened his eyes he knew his surrounds would have changed. He was standing on barren land but all around him was void. Slowly, the invisible cloak fell away and he saw well-known mountains come into view. Lush landscape burst forth as the mask peeled away, but he had already seen too much to be fazed by it, and he spoke through a tightly clenched jaw.

"If destroying the SanFear is the only way to save my world then the Keystone is destined to die," he said bitterly and paused before he spoke again. "Is there any way to separate the SanFear from the host without killing him?"

"If there is a way to do this, it is a thing we've not yet seen," said Echo.
 

"Is there any more? Any more that I should know about this thing?"

"'Tis one more thing Quade, of which you should know. "

"And that is of the Sentry."

"The Sentry?"

"Yes Quade," Echo and Mimic both hovered before him, watched him as they spoke.

"'Twas a reason the SanFear never saw the Chosen as a threat, and that is because no sooner were they acknowledged than did the SanFear match their wit." Mimic's words were slow, serious.

"After the destruction of their one brethren, the SanFear quickly devised a way to gather knowledge in a more efficient manner. It created a watcher of sorts, would break off a part of itself to act as a guard, to sneak into the bodies of those around it and take information from their minds."

"The Sentry cannot possess a body, Quade, only steal its thoughts. If anyone around the host that the SanFear inhabits has suspicions of wrongdoing from that person, the SanFear will know when the Sentry reads their mind."

"And invariably, cause the host to act accordingly."

"Like the SanFear, the Sentry cannot enter the Chosen. Except when they are sleeping."

"Sleep is a most vulnerable time for the Chosen, Quade. And as you are the only one who can see it, you will be the only one to protect your Chosen from being attacked while in dreamstate."

"While deep in the sleep of dreams, the Sentry can enter the thoughts of the Chosen. And manipulate those thoughts to such a way that they can destroy."

"I saw it," Quade said, his voice even and flat. "I saw it break away from the Keystone. When I was in his study, it separated from him, and the SanFear remained within. But the Sentry branched off and drifted out through the door. "

"Indeed Quade. That is undoubtedly what you saw."

"And why we have told you, speak this to no one but those who are Chosen. For danger will come to anyone who has suspicious thoughts."

"Those who have no knowledge of what goes on around them are protected by their innocence. For the Sentry will pass through their mind and leave them be so long as nothing in their thoughts is found that bears threat to the SanFear."

Quade was silent as he sorted through the chaos of memories still fresh within his mind.
 

"And now it is time to test your mettle, Quade." Mimic floated backwards behind Echo, circling her, as she stared at him directly. "Will you heed all that we have shown you? Or will your story be one that we show in the future to the next group of Chosen that we seek?"

"I cannot let this happen in my world!" Quade sighed hard, raked his hand through his hair. Echo drifted closer to him as she spoke.

"Now comes the time to seek the Avè. You have the riddle, Quade. Did it not tell you where to go?"

"It did." He rubbed his forehead as he spoke, feeling overwhelmed, exasperated. "At least, I think it did. Oh, by the gods, what if I fail?"
 

Without warning, Quade felt his scenery changing again. A lush hillside, the tall grass waving in the breeze. The warmth of sunshine played over patches of wild clover and tiny white blossoms as he was brought down into it, the soft light oddly familiar.
 

"What is this I'm seeing?" Quade could no longer see the emissaries as he was brought further into this new setting.

"We do not know Quade." Echo's voice was truly puzzled as it sounded inside his mind. "What you see now is not of our control. We have shown you all that we had planned."

"A vision all your own, Quade. This such thing has never before happened! Tell us what it is that you see?"

A little girl walked up the incline with her head bowed, and the length of her hair blew over her face. She reached up with an impatient hand in what was probably the hundredth time that day, to push back her long, frizzy locks. As she looked to the side, she took in the scope of the rolling hills, the lush plants and thick line of deep green trees which filled the garden, and she placed her foot carefully on the center of each stepping stone that led up to a garden. She walked gingerly at first, then grew bored of such precision and stomped between the carefully laid path.
 

"I don't know… a child. A little girl."

There was something in her movements, something familiar, but in a distant way. As she hiked her way up the stone-laid path, something caught her attention and she raised her eyes. They glittered like blue jewels, framed by long black lashes.

"Clea," he breathed as Quade realized who he was seeing. Clea, as a girl no more than seven. The perspective changed to what it was she was seeing and his curious stare fell on a circle of paint brushes and watercolor tins that sat upon the ground up ahead, cups half filled with murky liquid and then the small, slender curve of another little girl's form. As his sight followed the line of the girl's arm and shoulder, he could hear himself gasp when he saw the shock of white hair that covered the back of her head. Protective anger rose within him.

"What is this?" he demanded again. "What is this now that I'm being made to see?"

"Quade, we do no know unless you tell us!" Echo's voice was faint. "What is it that you see?"

"No," Quade refused to look, shut his eyes but the images continued in his mind. He clenched his teeth, rubbed his tightly shut eyes, trying in vain to wash away these new visions that somehow pained him so.
 

Clea's melodic, childish laughter lilted through his thoughts, and he saw her reaching out with a dripping paintbrush, its bristles heavy and thick with liquidy color. He heard Trina's shier, less untamed giggle as a flash of the fawn-like skin flickered in his thoughts, and a droplet of blue paint splashed across her cheek. As she laughed she tried
to catch a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a tiny mirrored tile. Another pair of hands were recklessly swiping a paintbrush across her white hair, turning it into a kaleidoscope of colors, while Trina squealed in delight.

"Stop…"

"Quade, what is it?" Mimic's voice was fainter still and at that moment the vision faded to black. As soon as Quade opened his eyes again he found himself someplace else and the hollow sound of the emissaries' questioning voices had also fallen silent within his mind.

He was standing beneath the south balcony of Sigh Castle, and he reached to feel the wall to see if it was real. It was. He turned his head and realized that he stood before the crowd of people that had gathered within in the courtyard and all around the castle grounds for the Twilight Bloom, though the tension in the air was vastly different than what he had experienced on the many nights like this over the course of his life. He could feel the presence of the SanFear, and he looked up to the balcony where the Keystone would be appearing at any moment. Gasping, he looked across the courtyard to where Trina stood, proud and content, and she smiled warmly at him as she caught his gaze.

"No…"

There was a sound above from the balcony and Quade felt tears of panic spring to his eyes as the Keystone stepped out to address the crowd. Visions from the events that he'd seen in past worlds flooded his mind as he looked at the teeming entity that encompassed the Keystone and a hysterical bellow began building in his chest. A fluttering stream of yellow glow-butterflies wove an erratic path in front of the balcony, their ethereal beauty momentarily obscuring the ugliness of the SanFear. Aazrio stood next to Aushlin and he looked down at Quade with raging suspicion in his stare.

"No…"

He looked all around him, at the content faces of the kingdom, the people that he stood before, the people that would surely die. They stared with respectful affection at the Keystone and the minute Aushlin's voice touched his ear, Quade heard himself scream.

"NO!"

All eyes might've been on Quade except that at that very moment, the SanFear erupted forth from the Keystone's body and hundreds of spawn poured from the balcony to the people below.
 

"NO!"

Aazrio was overcome. He raised his hands to protect himself, obviously casting out protective waves of magic that did nothing more than feed the spawn as they continued to spill forth from the Keystone. He tried with all his might to make his way toward Aushlin, to somehow fulfill his duty as guardian but it was no use. Then Quade heard Trina scream.

His own voice was stolen from his throat as he lunged toward her, as he pushed his way frantically through the din of hysterically screaming and running people. His eyes stung and his heart was aflame with terror as he reached to her, gathered her into his arms while she shrieked his name as the spawn covered her body, and then covered his. His own name was the last thing he heard her say as she disappeared into dust within his embrace, and the pain of having his life and breath sucked from him by the spawn was nothing compared to the aching of his soul as he saw Trina die, as she went from a warm living human to a scattering of dust and ash in his arms.

"NO!"

"No!" Quade screamed, and he realized he was clutching the sides of his head with his hands. "No more…" he muttered the words, muttered them again and again. "No more…no more…" He gasped and choked, coughing violently and falling flat onto the ground.
 

Cool grass bent against his face, the scent clean and sweet, the crush of it flattening under the weight of his head oddly comforting as he tried to regain his composure. Though he was facing away from it, he could sense the castle behind him, and he knew that he was back home on Bethel, back in the same spot that he'd been in that morning before the emissaries came. He closed his eyes and opened them again, half expecting to see the scene changed again but it did not. Lifting his head cautiously, he heard the wind blow through his hair.

"Please be real." He muttered it into the ground, pressed his forehead against the grass. He pulled a handful of clover from the soil, brought it to his nose. It had scent. Nothing in the vision he'd experienced had had any scent or texture. Again he raised his head to look out over the hills. He was home. The sun was high in the sky; the rolling foothills below spread out lush and green for as far as Quade could see. Normal green, not the saturated overwhelming colors that he'd been subjected to from the visions of the past, but the green that he'd known all his life.

He rolled to his back and looked to the sky, not green or magenta as he'd seen on other worlds, but blue and clear with white billowing clouds. The sky of morning that he knew so well.

Morning. Was it still the same day? Days, weeks seemed to have passed, he'd been gone so long. Quade rolled over, lifted himself up on his hands, looked all around him. There were no signs of the emissaries. He thought at first about crawling, but then willed himself to stand, finding the dizziness and the nausea he'd felt when he first had come to this side of the castle to have passed. The air was crisp and smelled faintly of nectar and orange blossoms. Quade thought it was the most wonderful scent he'd ever smelled.

He stepped to the castle wall, and peered cautiously around the corner. Nothing seemed to have changed since he'd been gone, and he was relieved. A movement caught his eye, a motion from the crocus patch.
 

It was Trina. She stood, bending beneath a bright purple bloom, examining the details of the leaves and the shape of the petals. Could she still be looking at the flowers after all this time, still working on the horses? He had a paralyzing thought that the emissaries had been wrong and he'd missed Twilight Bloom. Quade dropped to his hands and knees and crawled along the grass, making sure that no one could see him, and craned his neck to see over the garden, along the trellis that he'd climbed so many times. Though there were always some early flowers too eager to wait for the aligning of the moons each year, the castle and the gardens were still too trimmed and too neat for the Twilight Bloom to have occurred. Quade squinted up to the sky and analyzed the position of the sun, as he'd left his wrist cron on his land transport back at the base of the foothills and he realized that no time had passed in his world, no time at all. Moments, mere minutes. He'd lived what felt to be like months of perilous fights and losing battles on countless other worlds. And he'd done it in the span of little more than an instant.

This was his destiny, his future, and Quade knew he had to leave immediately. But how to leave without telling Trina? The entire castle staff had seen him; he couldn't very well leave without seeing her. He rose slowly from the thick ground cover of the grass and plants, moved to where he could see where Trina had been examining the flower blossom. She was walking away from it now, back toward the stables, and Quade backed against the wall again and brushed the grass and soil from his clothes. His balance was back, his body felt strong and well again, his mind was quiet of the voices and the vision. Clarity, he thought, at least sometimes came to him when he needed it most.

CHAPTER 18