Of Heroes And Villains (Book 4) (2 page)

His father came over, kissed his wife on the cheek, and then turned to face his son, sitting in the dirt. All that was left was a dried out blood stain—no bigger than the palm of his hand, and a rip in his shirt.

“What happened there?” his father asked.

“He was cutting,” his mother sighed, showing his father the dagger. His father’s eyes went wide with horror. He turned to his son with a crestfallen gaze.

“Son, there’s a difference between those with eidolons and those without. The Sages…they can play around with swords, but that’s only because they are an extension of their souls. This dagger isn’t. You could seriously hurt yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Papa. It won’t happen again,” he had said. But it did happen again. From that day on, his mother would “train him,” so that he could protect the family if intruders ever arrived. It made sense to him at first, but after a while, he wasn’t so sure if those were her true intentions. It was something about the way she swung her rapier-like eidolon—the rage that coursed through her fingers when she gripped the hilt. It wasn’t until a few months later that he realized that she had no noble intentions in their sessions. She aimed to wound, to maim—to do everything but kill. And whenever he was wounded, which was often, she would scream at him to heal himself as fast as possible, swinging her eidolon over the top of his head like a pendulum. Like it was all a sick game.

But through it all, he preserved. He took his beatings. He became better at dodging, and most of all, he kept his eidolon hidden. This just enraged her even more as the days rolled on, but he didn’t care.

For her safety, it was for the best.

But on this day—the good day—the day of reprieve....he would take no more.

He sneezed again, and wiped his hands onto his shirt furiously, like a spider had been crawling amongst his black, fine strands. For the first time ever, his mother waited for him to compose himself, and for some reason, he saw it as a sign. He decided that he could speak to her now. He was a man now. He was eighteen years old.

“How long are you going to keep this game up?” she sighed, sheathing her eidolon back into the side of her hip. “Just tell me already. Why won’t you show me your eidolon?”

“I was wondering when you would ask me,” he groaned, rising to his feet. “The reason why I won’t show it. You could have asked me a long time ago.”

“I’m your mother.”

“No, you’re not,” he replied with steady eyes. For some reason, she bit her lip. His words had hurt her, and he had to admit—a pang shuddered throughout his heart. Deep down, he still cared about how she felt, regardless of what had been done to him.

“All I had to do was ask?” she said, puzzled.

“That’s it,” Bastion replied. “You were my mother, after all.”

“It’s not that simple—asking.”

“I know,” he said. “I understand.”

“How could you possibly understand?” she scoffed, more out of disbelief than mockery.

“You’re all I’ve thought about every day for the years. I had to figure out why you hated me so much…but then I realized the truth. You don’t hate me. You hate yourself, and your life, and I was just someone to take it out on. You have all that power, but you can’t even do a thing with it. Not without losing the husband and the life you’ve built up.”

Her jaw tensed, and she turned her head to look away from him.

“He hates Sages,” Bastion continued. “But that doesn’t mean he hates you. You should just tell him.”

“You don’t know that man like I do. He won’t understand. If anything, he’ll wonder why I lied to him all this time. No. The only thing I can do is still carry out my role in this household.”

“You may have been a housewife in the past, but ever since you released your eidolon, you’ve changed. You don’t want this life. Staying still won’t make things better.”

“Is this why you wouldn’t show me your eidolon?” she asked, turning back to face him. “Because of pity? Because knowing that there are two Sages in the family would just make it harder for me to live here? It’s all your sick way of making me want to leave?”

“No. That’s not it,” Bastion replied.

“Then why?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you.” She shook her head and scowled at him in disgust.

“You and your father…both of you think I’m still just the housewife. As if I’m weak.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied, but his mother went after him again. The conversation had turned sour. There was no use pursuing it any longer. After all, it was the Good Day. The day he would be freed, one way or another.

He didn’t even see her unsheathe her eidolon from her body, but it was in his face just the same. She jabbed at him as if she was fencing, aiming for his face. The thin blade barely missed his cheek, his eye, and then his scalp. There was no doubt that she aimed to hurt him bad this time. She had never aimed for his face with her eidolon before.

Frustrated, she swiped at his neck, and he had to fall onto his back to dodge it. Right after his butt hit the dirt, he knew that it was time. He placed the palm of his right hand to his heart, and then he summoned it.

A flash of light cracked like a whip across the field, and his mother was blinded in an instant. Staggering backwards, he took hold of the hilt sticking out of his chest and pulled with all his might. The light subsided, and his mother’s anger dropped in an instant. All she could do was behold its wonder and power.

Bastion’s eidolon was unlike many of the others. It didn’t take on the representation of another blade. It was alive. The hilt was small, just barely sticking out over his closed fist. It appeared to be made of cherry oak, but the surface of the eidolon itself was like water. It was fluid, and rapidly changing shapes. In one instance, it was a miniature wave of water—suspended in mid-air, then a scythe, then a whip, and lastly, it became a long sword, stretching over four feet long in length. His mother didn’t know what to make of the spectacle.

“How is that your eidolon?” she asked, but he just stared at it like he was seeing it for the first time.

“It just is,” he said.

“But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Sadly,” Bastion sighed. “This is the only thing I understand. What you do with your life…that’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Anyways, I don’t care what you do. We can all choose to suffer if we want to. Or we can do something about it. I’m tired of suffering. I don’t want to fight you anymore. I just want to live here with you and Papa, and be happy, and visit the village and get a job. Maybe buy a few things. Not much. I just don’t want to fight anymore.”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “If I attack you, you have to defend yourself.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Go ahead. Attack me.”

She hesitated at first, staring at the long sword curiously. He knew what she hoped for—that he would cut her down and rid of her the misery that was her life. But he wouldn’t. It was her choice to be in it, and it would be her choice to get out. He wouldn’t do the dirty work for her. As long as he could start living his life, it didn’t matter what she did.

She smirked when she noticed the saddened expression in his eyes, the quivering of his lips and the sweat on his brow. He had no intention of striking back. She lunged forward, aiming straight for the middle of his forehead, but Bastion shifted the sword in his hand, so that the surface of it was in the way. The tip of her eidolon jabbed into the surface of his.

And then the tip was gone.

There was nothing she could do to stop what was to come. She was already in mid-lunge. All she could do was watch in horror as her rapier eidolon, piece by piece, shattered upon impact into his. As the flesh of her fist hit the surface, with nothing but the hilt still in her hand, she lost consciousness. Bastion made no move to catch her. He just stared at the sword in his hand, unmoving, expressionless, and resilient.

He had been afraid to unsheathe his eidolon before because his power would have been too great. If he had sparred with her, there was no telling what would have happened, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

He sheathed his eidolon and reached down to pick her up. He didn’t want her in the dirt when she awoke. It wasn’t fun down there.

Chapter 2 – The Order of Things

James closed his eyes and yawned, and Catherine immediately punched him hard in the arm. Clearing his throat and sitting up straight, he flashed a cheesy smile at her. Her frown said that she wasn’t amused, but he knew better. She could never hide the shine in her eyes. Her eyes had their own silent language. They said that with a little more push, a little more tantalizing—she would crack under the pressure. Before the day was done, he would have her guffaw echoing up and down the halls.

He turned away from her so that she could gather her thoughts. After every decision she was very introspective, questioning if the decision she had made was the best option. It visibly took its toll on her, so at the end of every day, James made it his mission to relieve some of the tension, no matter how much Queen Catherine fought it.

He cast his gaze before them. Everything was so spacious and gorgeous. The Prattlians had done a fine job with designing the blueprints of the new castle, and the Langorans had chipped in with their massive size and strength to ensure that it was built as quickly as possible. Every Queen needed her castle, he supposed.

Before, the castle had been a little dark and gloomy, with a labyrinth of narrow halls and excessive rooms. Most of those rooms were now gone. Many of the walls had been knocked down and the candles were extinguished.

Tower high windows and wide open spaces were placed in their stead, letting the sun become the sole light throughout the day. It illuminated everything, from the throne room to the dining hall—the two largest rooms in the entire building. The throne room was the first thing visitors saw as they came through the massive, wide open entrance. It was a wide and grand hall with pillars made of polished white stone, leading up to where the Queen and her husband sat, side by side in throne chairs far too big and wide for their bodies. It was there that the people came to Queen Catherine for the answers to their problems. Nervously, they would enter the throne room, but those fears were slowly put to rest with every step they took toward the Queen. The throne room was no longer a place of dark judgments and unseen, superior beings. It was now inviting, and warm.

Small gardens, flowerbeds and fountains had been placed throughout the castle, adding beauty to the already luxurious décor, and Catherine’s heartfelt smile was always in attendance. Silk purple and baby blue banners hung down from the tall ceilings, and bronze statues stood vigil in the corners—depictions of the great warriors that had passed away during the Stone Era. If the décor didn’t put the villagers at ease, the statues certainly did. It reminded them of the peace that still permeated the air, and not the crippling anxiety that had once ruled their lives.

James studied the statues from a distance, as he did from his throne chair every day.

Chloe. Kyran. Scarlet. Achan.

They had now been out of his life for a month shy of five years. And there was not a single day that passed in which he did not think of them. They had shaped him into more than he had ever hoped to become, and he believed that each of them had found peace.

“You can bring in the next one,” Catherine said authoritatively, opening her eyes. Talia, a short Sage with mouse-like features, nodded from the bottom of the four foot high throne platform. The wooden platform, painted in baby blue, was placed in the back of the throne room, with a set of tiny stairs built into the middle of it, so that the Queen and her husband could step off easily.

Talia motioned for the guards standing by the entrance of the castle to proceed.

“You look tired,” James said, with a sly grin on his face. Catherine pointed at him without looking his way.

“Don’t you start.”

“Start what? I didn’t do anything yet.”

“Just leave me alone,” she giggled, tucking her lips in. She was trying not to laugh. He figured that was why she kept facing forward.

“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked, leaning toward her in his chair.

“You know why. Last time I looked at you, I was in the middle of giving a serious answer to that poor woman. She thought I was laughing at her!”

“Well, it was funny. It’s not every day you hear that someone’s house was just a manifestation. Imagine, paying all that rent in goods and then poof! Your house up and disappears because the Sage decided to end the joke. I don’t even know how someone was able to do it. They must have had accomplices. You know, change shifts when the tenant was asleep. Are we still looking for the landlord?”

“Don’t try to change the topic,” Catherine chuckled. “It was a joke that lasted a whole two months. That’s ridiculous.”

“But I notice you didn’t say it wasn’t funny.”

“It was probably you,” she said, finally facing him. It was all he needed. Eye contact.

“It was me,” he said, giving her a mischievous smile. Catherine shook her head and snickered but he wasn’t finished with her yet. If he didn’t keep it going, she would remember her duties again. “I swindled that poor old lady out of her money. I figured that I could take it and buy a house in the countryside. A perfect place to take a Queen hostage.”

“You would kidnap me?” Catherine said in false shock, placing a hand to her chest.

“The plan is already in motion. Now you can come with me quietly and you won’t be hurt, but if you try anything. If you try warn anyone…I can’t promise that I’ll be good.”

“Oh, so you’re a bad boy now?” Catherine said with a gleam in her eye. “Is that it?”

“The absolute worst,” he winked.

“You do know that the stones of power have been destroyed, right? There’s nothing to gain from kidnapping me. I hope you don’t expect a ransom from the people. They would rather come at you with their eidolons than negotiate with an enemy. It appears you’ve come a few years too late, good sir.”

“I don’t care about the Sages. Everyone’s a Sage nowadays. I can handle them.”