39. Chapter 39 #2
The silence in the room grew loud. I read each word over and over, deciphering and processing a multitude of meanings.
Fyom immediately began discussing what the possibilities could be, leaning toward his hypothesis that it was a call to restore the balance.
To shift back the Wielding to its original state, the way it was before the ability to control life and death entered the threshold. What would our world look like then?
“There is mention of keys, as Fyom pointed out,” someone said.
“I’m curious if these are the same keys mentioned in Deric’s journal,” Fyom theorized.
“You mean from the tales of Graevick? That Deric?” Paige and Uriah asked simultaneously.
“It’s clear on one thing: the sisters, the ones who control life and death, are involved,” Fyom continued.
“What then?” Sury asked. “How are they to find these keys? Why is the Ancient One involved in all of this?”
Everyone around the table continued to guess and theorize, but what no one touched on was the one phrase that burned deep into my mind. The same name the ink had called me before: Sun Killer.
My throat became drier the more I read in silence, everyone’s words becoming a faint hum in the background. The breath in my lungs begged to be renewed, for something fresh. Stars crowded my vision as my heart’s rhythm turned rampant.
“Breathe.” His calming voice coated me in a soothing tone.
“You’re here.” He stood behind me and reached around to take my hands in his, wrapping me in his warm cocoon.
“Breathe, moonlight. Talk to me,” he whispered just low enough to where no one could hear above the chatter.
“What worries you about these words on the page?”
“That’s the thing about prophecies, right?
They can mean anything.” I chuckled at the last statement, more so convincing myself of the words.
Involuntary flashbacks of dark walls and stone beneath my feet.
A man with uptilted, silvering blue eyes shot across my vision.
The word keys echoed in my mind so violently I yanked my hands from Peiro’s hold and clapped them around my ears, hoping the sound would be muffled.
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Peiro’s breath coated the shell of my ear. Warm hands gently squeezed my shoulders, sending waves of unease through me.
“I’m fine.” I tried batting his hand away but he refused to let go.
Peiro hummed in response and took me by the hand, pulling me away and out of the room. We traveled through the manor and out to the garden, where the night was cool, a telltale sign that autumn was nearing. A frigid wind whipped through, filling my lungs.
We found a concrete bench that faced a wall of night-blooming jasmine. I had lost track of time, unsure of how the day had escaped us in the study. I stared at the arrays of white and purple blooms, taking in their aroma.
“If what is said is true, you are called to do something great,” Peiro whispered into my hair, and wrapped me in his arms to pull me close.
“But did you see what it said? What caused this to be in motion? A Sun Killer?”
I closed my eyes, shame threatening to take over, as I thought about those weeks ago when I had been so close to taking my own sister’s lifesource. Was it possible? What would happen if the line of Endromeon fell?
“The voice,” I whispered. “The voice has grown stronger, more real-sounding. Not like my own voice that I heard, but like it belongs to itself. The stronger my power has gotten, the more it talks to me. It’s even referred to me as the Sun Killer in passing…”
“Do you believe that is what you are?” Peiro’s voice cut into my thoughts. When I didn’t answer, he continued, “Prophecies can mean a myriad of things. Their meanings are endless.”
I thought more into what it called for. Balance. “It also demands for our true power to be restored. We’ve always known that Wielding the illicitus was just that—wrong. Unnatural. No one should have this giant’s power that courses through us. But…” I stopped. I couldn’t voice what was on my heart.
“But what, Ophelia?” Peiro pressed. To get it out of my mind and off my chest before it could fester into something wrong.
“But we don’t know what righting the balance will do.”
“Meaning?”
I pulled back, gazing into the browns that reflected the torchlight of the garden.
“Our best guess is that the Ancient One was created from the imbalance, right? If we right that wrong, restore the Wielding the way it is meant to be, what about all that has been created because of it?”
Peiro turned his gaze toward the garden, taking in my words. I searched his features for any inkling of what he was thinking as moments passed before he finally took a deep inhale and sighed.
He looked down sternly into my eyes. “As I’ve told you before…if you are to save a realm, what is one soul—”
“Because you are my soul.” I pulled back, my breath quickening. “You have seen me for who I am since the start. Before any of this. You had confidence in me that I couldn’t believe, and even when I doubted, you made me stronger.” I took his face into my hands. “How could I rid myself of my soul?”
Peiro smiled, caressing one of my hands with his own. “It would seem you have always been the fire and I am the one to burn, but I have been ready for a long, long time.”
“Don’t say that!” I all but screamed. “There could be a way these keys could restore you! Could take away that thing somehow. I don’t know how, but maybe we could—”
Peiro’s eyes flared as if he suddenly remembered something.
“She will restore…” he whispered before his lips clashed upon mine.
His arms wrapped around me tightly again, like he was too scared to let go.
He pulled away only when we needed air, both of us gasping for breath.
“Promise me,” he panted. “Promise me that if you cannot release me from the Ancient One’s claws, if restoring your Wielding takes me with it, or if you are given the choice between me or this world, you choose the generations. ”
I shook my head, refusing to give him the answer he sought.
He placed his palms on my shoulders. “Promise me, Ophelia. I’ve lived a dozen men’s lifetimes. I would never carry your blame to my grave if you made that choice. Please, please promise me.” The look in his eye was almost frantic.
I closed my eyes, tears taking hold. The name Sun Killer echoed against my mind as the man before me begged me to make a choice I forbade. The world around me wanted to crash into pieces, like meteorites embedding themselves into the earth.
But fuck prophecies. I would make the world burn before I let another piece of my life be taken from me.