Chapter 5 #2
He tilted his head, “You already know the answer to that question Lanias. You know it as surely as I know your reason for searching for me.”
Feeling paralyzed, Lanias could only stare at him.
He moved toward her, “You have questions, but unfortunately.” He looked over her head at something behind her. “I do not have much time to answer them.”
Lanias had always envisioned meeting her father in some palace where he wore robes of silk.
Pretending to be some false god. The Surrem she’d learned about during her hunt for her father had all been like that.
Seeing humans as nothing but bugs, lamenting their need to be served by such lowly things.
“It’s your fault,” She muttered, lifting her head. Her eyes were red from unshed tears. “You’re the reason for everything. If you hadn’t let me live I could have—I wouldn’t have caused the suffering of so many.”
“Your existence was indeed a mistake.”
She sucked in a quick breath at his words.
“You are a child of two kinds that should never have been. The result of a union between a god and a flower, but—” He lifted his hand, catching a fist that was aimed at his face mid-sentence.
His arm shook from the force of the attacker.
“You are my daughter; I would do all that I can to protect you.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and shoved the other attacker away. “Come.”
She was suddenly surrounded by the sound of crashing waves then she heard the sound of cars. Opening her eyes, she found that they were now standing on the roof of a high-rise building.
Recovering she quickly pushed him away. “Let me go.”
Lanias staggered away from him, shaking her head in disbelief. She looked at the bruising on her arms. They felt like they were broken, and she wasn’t lucky enough to have a healer on speed dial.
“You shouldn’t have gone looking.”
Lanias turned her attention to her absentee father and glared at him as he looked at her with worry.
“How dare you say that? Do you know what I’ve been through as your daughter?
” she demanded as she let her black magic strengthen her forearms. Lanias wanted the truth about her uncle’s motives.
She demanded an answer, “Your brother knew you’d hidden me?
Tell me. He used the excuse of searching for a numb Witch to find me? Did he not?”
He didn’t answer.
Lanias’ expression filled with disgust. “The prophecy, the numerous allusions to a Witch with no specific magic. All tools to guide him to me.”
“It was meant for those who wished to return to where they belonged.” Her father explained with little to no emotion.
“We were banished to this realm. We were given only two chances to return home when ready. Some of us wished for it, the prophecy was a means to begin the process. I never intended for so many to be hurt by it.”
She laughed, “Well, lucky for you the prophecy wasn’t what came first. What came first was the deaths of young girls who were nothing more than cannon fodder to a madman's war with his brother.”
“There is so much you don’t understand. Pieces you’ve no idea are in place. Time, forward or backward it’s all meaningless and I wish that you weren’t so tethered to it.”
Glaring at him, Lanias tried to rein back her temper. “Time? Are you blaming the passage of time for abandoning me? For allowing your brother to live and harm me and those I love? You should have killed him when you had the chance. When he—” She bit back her words.
At this very moment she wished she’d never read her uncle’s journal. She wished she’d ignored the box of his things that were given to her after her uncle’s death.
Secrets, so many damn secrets.
“When he killed my mother. You could have stopped it then, but you didn’t. Why?”
This question had always burned at the back of her mind since she learned the truth behind her mother’s death from the damn journal of her uncles.
“Your mother’s death pained me more than you know,” Her father said, even though his voice remained calm she could feel the sadness rolling off him. “But the balance must be maintained, Zaharis, or as you know him, Legolas, death only leads to my own. We are all bound in this way.”
“Shut up!” Lanias yelled, bringing her knife to his throat. Breathing through her nose she forced herself to ignore the pain in her arms. “That’s just another excuse, another reason for you to do nothing. To continue doing nothing.”
“It may seem that way, but your actions have changed that. The door between here and there has opened.” He gently grabbed her arm.
“Shut up!” she yelled again, pressing the knife deeper. “Enough talking.”
“You are angry, I met another like you before.” He said, a slight smile came to his lips.
“I have watched you grow, and at times I feared for you. Other times I fought going to you, but now I wish time was not so cruel. You opened the door, and they now know our blood is alive in those who should not have it.”
The sound of thunder rumbled above, and her father looked up.
“They have come to wipe out every trace of our blood on this earth.”
“Stop talking,” Lanias yelled only to fall back when her father suddenly pulled her hand down. She held back a cry of pain.
This time he spoke with his mouth. “There are others like you out there in the world. Children that carry both human and Surrem blood. Tainted with the volatile line that cannot exist here on this earth. You don’t understand what you’ve done by opening the gate for Zaharis.
” Her father spoke as if she hadn’t just tried to kill him.
“I hid that gift in you, when you were born. Zaharis killed your mother attempting to obtain it but he failed. That is why I sent you away.”
She bit her lips glaring at him, “And what? I’m just supposed to believe this. How convenient it is that everything I’ve fucking been through is because you were just trying to protect me. That definitely makes everything better,” she snidely finished.
“Yes,” he said.
Lanias felt a wealth of emotion she didn’t want to analyze one bit. She wanted to kill him and start her life over completely guilt free from the things her existence had stolen from her sister. “Protecting you and those like you,” he continued.
“Eris,” a voice called from above. Lanias shivered at the empty emotion delivered and looked up.
Hovering overhead was the stranger who’d attacked her earlier.
Her father took a protective stance blocking her.
“You insist on protecting these abominations.” The entity said as it descended, the eyes were cold.
“The door has been opened by a tainted being.” It moved its eyes to Lanias.
“You must allow us to purge the world of them. We can only exist as designed by those who reign above or those who exist below, and that is all.”
Lanias felt like her world was spinning. Nothing was making sense.
“Her blood is not tainted Icarus; the beings of this world deserve to live,” her father argued without emotion.
“You ignore the commands,” Icarus said, it’s tone sad. “Those before were dealt with, their descendants surviving only by chance, but these new aberrations must be destroyed.”
“I will not allow it.” Her father said, the glow from his eyes dripping along his skin as he grew brighter. “Icarus, you’ve become blinded by duty, and I know I cannot convince you to change your mind. I can only protect those who were born without choice.”
“Wait,” Lanias cried out as he turned so his back was to Icarus and grabbed her up by her arms. “What?”
“Listen to me. The true ones have returned to kill those like you. They fear you and the volatile blood you carry. You must find the others and protect them, as I’ve tried to protect you.”
Grasping at his hands in confusion, Lanias tried to hold onto him.
“Wait, wait. Stop. This isn’t right,” she screamed as he moved her over the edge of the high building. Wrapped in white light, she couldn’t control her body. “Let me go!”
Eris leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead, drawing back he gave her a fatherly smile. His hands opened and he dropped her.
Lanias released a terrified scream as she fell staring upwards in horror.
Her father’s face wore a smile, as a hand pierced right through his chest.
“I’ve grown weak,” her father mouthed.
He turned around and grabbed Icarus by the shoulders and locked in combat they dissolved upward into the sky.
Lanias watched as the streak of light went higher and higher, the dark clouds swallowing them whole. She couldn’t move or scream, she could only silently watch as the man she’d just met, the father she’d just found disappeared from in front of her.
Silent tears ran down her cheeks as the unfairness of the moment filled her.
Damn it.
Damn it!
Damn—