Chapter 1 #2
“Lazaros,” Bronte whispered his brother’s name, making me nod. “Atlas told me what happened, that his brother had changed, but what if he was wrong?”
“Wrong how?” Aster asked with a frown.
“What if someone was just using him, pulling the strings in the background so that he could control Lazaros, control the crown and, with it, the kingdom?” I said.
Tiffany, who had been strangely quiet until now, asked, “But who?”
“I don’t know…” I said, turning to her before my eyes found Aster’s once more as I continued, “…But it felt like another brother.” I emphasized the word ‘felt’, trying to make them understand that I knew just because it was a feeling, that didn’t make it a certainty.
I forced myself to look at everyone around the room.
My uncle’s face was filled with confusion, as if he had arrived at this party too late and therefore still had his fair share of questions.
Tiffany’s mouth was slightly open, but her eyes were on Aster as she took in the information and what it could all mean.
As for Bronte, she was still leaning against the wall. Calm and unreadable as her fingers tapped on her crossed arms, her gaze solely on me. And Aster, well, his frown was skeptical, and I knew that he didn’t entirely believe what I was ‘feeling’ was concrete proof.
“I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous,” I said, hoping I could cut away some of the doubt plastered across his face.
“But this darkness that’s taken over the Myths, taken over Riley,” I paused, my throat tightening as if it didn’t want me to say the words.
“I just know, deep inside of me, that it’s taken over Lazaros, too. ”
Uncle Rick sighed next to me and placed a comforting hand on my knee before telling Aster, “I don’t know who is responsible for all this, but I know my niece, and if she says she feels the King has been deceived, then we must listen to her.”
I let out a little relieved breath, thankful that someone had my back in this. My hand covered his, and I squeezed it in silent thanks.
As for the one who was obviously calling the shots here, Aster released his own sigh.
“This other brother, you got a name?” Aster asked, his voice full of enough uncertainty that I had to refrain from rolling my eyes before snapping back.
“No, and as handy as that would be right now, it still doesn’t change matters, nor does it change what we must do.”
He looked thunderous but kept his tone level when he ground out, “You keep saying we, like this is something you will be a part of.”
It was now my turn to grit my teeth as I shot to my feet, my uncle right there to steady me as I swayed slightly.
“And you have lost your Minotaur mind if you think that I’m going to just sit back and do nothing!
” I shouted in my anger, but before Aster could speak again, Bronte shifted slightly where she leaned against the wall.
The subtle motion was enough to catch my eye in time to see her lift a hand toward Aster.
Her eye guard was firmly embedded into her skin, and now that I knew what it concealed, I could see the faint flicker of lightning behind it.
Something I used to think was just the light catching her eye. But now I knew better.
Her voice cut through the room, calm as ever.
“If Lazaros is compromised, then Atlas won’t see it until it’s too late.
And of course, brother three is, and will remain, a non-existent entity in his mind until it is too late.
The enemy within that will deal what I imagine will be his hope of a deadly blow.
One you know that the King won’t see coming until the snake strikes, Aster.
Not when he is overcome with guilt and pain once the act of vengeance has been delivered by his hand. ”
Though I already knew this, my chest still tightened at her words anyway.
“Exactly, which is why we need to go… Now. Every second we waste here, every minute we wait, it could be the difference between whether Lazaros lives or dies.”
“Hold on,” Uncle Rick said, his arm now on the inside of my elbow as if at the ready to hold me back from running from the room.
“Aster and Bronte just pulled you out of a basement where that bastard tortured you with a blowtorch, and you want to jump straight back into what could be another trap? No way, not happening, Alex.”
I could see every muscle in his jaw working as he fought to keep calm. That was something I definitely learned from him.
“Uncle Rick…” I started, my frustration about to bubble over.
“No.” Not surprisingly, this came from Aster. The word ‘no’ came out like a father scolding a reckless child. Even Uncle Rick’s eyes widened at the authority in Aster’s voice.
“Your uncle is right, Alex. We also don’t know what could be waiting for us on the other side of the Rift,” Aster added, folding his arms once more, as if this added weight to his order.
I could feel my heartbeat speeding up to an unsafe level and sweat forming on my palms.
“Just as Atlas didn’t either, but he still left me!
” I shot back, sharper than I intended, the shock of my own words hitting me hard before I tried to mask them as a mistake.
“I mean… he still left us all, to… to… try and end this.” I fumbled with my words, but it was no use.
The damage had already been done to my own heart, and Aster knew it.
Because for the first time during this conversation, his expression softened, and I hated the pity I saw in his eyes.
“Alex, Atlas is the King of The?kós. He had no choice but to leave,” Aster said, his voice now as soft as his eyes, as if he were dealing with a fragile heart.
“I… I know this,” I forced myself to say, my mind instantly going back to when Atlas left.
To his expression when he handed me back my journal and told me goodbye.
It was as if some secret part of him knew he wouldn’t be making it back to me, despite his promises.
As if he had known this was the end because duty took precedence over his heart.
A fact I didn’t want to face, and one Aster was forcing me to despite the fight in me to hide from it.
“He was once the General of the Kingdom’s army. He is used to facing the unknown, to navigating danger that would break the rest of us.”
“I know this, Aster,” I stated again, more firmly this time, swiping angrily at the tears that I felt escape unwanted. The frustrated gesture only softened him further.
“Good, then you will understand that whatever was on the other side, he will have dealt with,” Aster said, driving his point home, but I had one to make of my own, and I stepped toward him, adding emphasis to my words.
“And what of killing his own brother, Aster? What about taking that last step beyond the point of no return, huh? What about that? How many times has the great General of your kingdom’s armies faced that?”
Aster flinched back slightly before tearing his eyes from my water-glazed ones.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I snapped, his silence speaking volumes.
“Look, I managed to survive the Rift without any of you,” I said, looking to Tiff and then my uncle, silently letting them know that I didn’t mean to hurt them with my words, but it was a necessary argument I was forced to make.
“I faced things that still had the blood from their last kill stained in their fur, their scales, their smoke-covered flesh. I did whatever I could do to survive, but it was all for nothing if I walk away from this… walk away when I am needed the most. So please, Aster, at least give me some credit here.”
Aster let out a sigh, his shoulders slumping.
“And what of Atlas?” he asked me, surprising the breath from me with the question.
“What do you mean? He needs me,” I stated firmly, but he started to shake his head and finally let his big arms fall to his sides.
“Yes, he needs you to be safe, something I gave him my word would happen. Which means that despite failing him the first time, I am not about to do it a second time by willingly taking you into danger.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation, letting out a growl that wasn’t entirely my own. It came from the panic rising inside me.
“We are losing time! Why don’t you understand? If Atlas kills Lazaros, then…” I swallowed hard, the words catching in my throat. Saying it aloud felt like giving it form, like it would make it true, and it wasn’t something I was ready to face.
“Alex. I understand your frustration,” Aster said, softer now. “I get it. I do. He’s my best friend. But time works differently over there. It will take him weeks to get to the castle.”
I stuttered on my next argument, my words of objection quickly fading away in favor of new ones.
“What do you mean, time works differently over there?” I demanded, my eyebrows furrowed. Aster exchanged a quick, knowing look with Bronte and Uncle Rick, as if they were about to repeat something top secret.
“We call it a time fracture,” he said finally,
“The Rift doesn’t just open up between worlds, but it also separates time. For every day that passes here, only one hour passes in The?kós.” I narrowed my eyes, scanning all three of them in disbelief.
“How do you know this?”
“We have the same time keeping in The?kós as you do here, so when we were pulled to the other side, pulled through the Rift, we realized pretty quickly that time worked differently here, and as for those that were the last to make it through, they confirmed as much,” Bronte said. “A watch of sorts.”
An object so simple, an object taken for granted by so many, now bridging worlds.
“So that means if we wait a day to assess the situation and create a plan, Atlas will only have travelled for another hour in his time?” my uncle confirmed, and Aster nodded in answer to his question.
“Added to that, the time since he entered the Rift, too. We can’t forget that it was days ago,” I said with exasperation.
My mind felt like it was spinning as I tried to process the information.
It was good news for the most part, because it meant that time wasn’t entirely lost. Yet even as I registered the logic, emotionally I couldn’t trust it as my stomach still knotted with panic.
I knew that once we made it through to the other side, he would still be ahead of us, the longer we waited here.
That we would be travelling in the same time zone, and whatever advantage we had here would be meaningless once we crossed over.
The quiet in the room pressed down on me, no doubt giving them false hope that I was comforted by this fact. Which, yes, in many ways I was, because it at least gave me hope that I had a chance to stop this. That I could reach him before he made the biggest mistake of his life.
But if they thought for a minute that this new information meant changing my mind altogether, then they were sorely mistaken, and no one in this room really knew me.
Now, had Riley been in this room, he would have known.
The thought sobered me because we were clearly no longer friends. No, now we were fighting this war on opposite sides.
“Regardless, I can’t just sit here and wait as time ticks by, no matter how slowly it passes in your world,” I said, my hands clenching into fists by my sides as I added, “Atlas might have found a way to get there faster somehow,” I said, shaking my head as the panic rose again.
“We just need to go. We need to stop it before…” My voice broke, the sentence too awful to finish.
The image of Atlas standing over his brother, sword in hand, was enough to bring bile to my mouth.
“Alex, think here…” Aster said, clearing the disturbing image from my mind. “We can’t just ignore the possibility of an ambush. We don’t know what’s waiting on the other side. Whatever you saw in that vision, it might have been planted there. It could be a trap to get you to run straight to them.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head in defiance, even when he continued to say, “Atlas trusted me with your life. And I’m not about to let you throw it away because of a vision you barely understand. No, I will go when we have a plan.”
“I can’t sit here and do nothing!” I snapped, hitting my chest with my fist, the pain centering me in my growing anger.
“Alex, please,” Aster and Uncle Rick said in unison, both their voices carrying the same plea, but it was Aster who continued.
“We have to plan. We have to protect you. I won’t let you do this blindly.”
“I don’t need protection, Aster. What I need are answers,” I shot back.
My voice trembled with fear, anger and exhaustion.
But through it all, one thing suddenly became clear.
The enemy I had within my grasp. The one who would have the very answers I needed to diminish Aster’s fears, once and for all.
Which is why I looked back up at him and said with dark certainty, “I know just where to get them.” I then made for the door, my hand reaching out for the handle when Tiff made me pause.
“Alex?” The question came in the form of a name, just as the answer did, because I told her what they all dreaded to hear in the madness of my desperation…
“I will get them from Riley.”