Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Augustine was awake when Elarión arrived—early, just as they had agreed. Exhausted, she had barely slept a wink that night.
“Herald—” Elarión knelt before her in total adoration.
“What are you doing?” Augustine asked, her voice flat.
“I’m speechless… I don’t even know how to put it into words…” Elarión was visibly shaken.
“Did Ana remember her dream?” Augustine asked, though she didn’t seem surprised.
Elarión nodded vehemently, moved beyond words. “This morning she spoke to me. Even if she could no longer see me, she spoke to me. She remembered everything I told her last night.”
“Now it’s my turn to feel envy, Elarión… that you have today with Ana what I had with Alderian.”
Elarión nodded in silence.
“Is this just your anomaly, Herald? It doesn’t feel like it… but if it were, it’s a dangerous one. You must watch out for the Guardian of the Threads.”
“Ah, that woman… I remember her.”
“You have seen her?” he asked, stunned.
“She was snooping around here a couple of days ago, before they assigned that squad to watch us. She inspected my Thread in detail and then just left.”
Elarión looked at her, clueless. “Then it is certain she knows of your anomaly, Herald. She is the Sovereign of the Threads of Fate. There is no way she doesn’t know what is happening, and if so, why has she allowed you to remain alive?”
Augustine wondered the same thing. Pieces of the puzzle were still missing to have the full picture. From what she’d gathered, that woman didn’t know who Augustine truly was.
“Tell me about Alderian. Is he in Ilyr?”
“That’s not public knowledge, but I doubt they’ve moved him there. They need information from him, and if they transfer him to Ilyr, that becomes impossible.”
Augustine shuddered at the thought of the torture inside that prison.
“He is being treated as the source of the anomaly. His performance in the duel fully justifies it. You haven’t heard what happened, did you, Herald?”
* * *
Elarión was in the middle of the crowd, like everyone else in A’aru, watching the duel between Alderian and Prometius.
Even though he’d sparred with him countless times, the skill Alderian was displaying against the General blew him away.
They fought as equals, as if Alderian were an expert warrior himself.
Then he saw it. The Thread linking him to Augustine glowed intensely, straining with force. The crowd held its breath, awestruck. That meant the Thread was red in the human dimension, meaning that on the other side, his human was in deadly danger. But what happened next, no one could fathom.
Alderian noticed the danger just as Prometius closed in for a lethal blow, but he blocked it skillfully. He tried to vanish from A’aru instantly, but he failed. The bond of the duel had him locked in.
Elarión muttered under his breath, gearing up to go to Augustine himself, when Alderian underwent a bizarre metamorphosis. His black wings emitted beams of light… golden light?
Elarión blinked repeatedly, unable to process what he was seeing. A golden, reddish glow was erupting from Alderian’s black wings. And his sword… his sword no longer held a silver fire, but a burning, warm flame.
How was it possible?
Prometius was just as stunned as everyone else; Alderian was defying every bit of A’aru’s logic. No one had ever witnessed colors in this place. Ever.
“The duel is over,” the Guardian of Oblivion announced. “Alderian has proven what this contest demanded.”
Without wasting another second, Alderian vanished, leaving hundreds of A’aruin and the Sovereign Guardians themselves speechless in the silence.
* * *
“In A’aru, everyone is saying that Alderian is locked up in the High Council’s dungeons, not Ilyr. He went quietly, but some are claiming he killed a human,” Elarión added cautiously.
“He didn’t kill anyone,” Augustine stated flatly.
“Of course, I never doubted—”
“I did it.”
Elarión gave her a look of pity. “There’s no need to take the blame for him with me.”
“Agor,” she called out coldly.
The Hero of Darkness materialized in the center of the room, martial and imposing. Augustine’s bedroom felt cramped, far too small to house such epic beings.
Elarión sprang up, positioning himself in front of Augustine with his wings spread to shield her. She stood up and brushed past him, stopping dead in front of Agor. She reached out her hand, and the warrior took it with reverence, dropping to one knee.
“Apparently, I’m not the Herald you signed up for, Elarión. I am chaos. The Shadows are my birthright.”
“He’s a Shadow? That can’t be—he has matter.”
“Because I gave him a name. By naming him, I create his existence.”
The A’aruin stared at them, incredulous.
“If you don’t believe me, I can prove it to you,” Augustine offered.
Elarión nodded hesitantly.
“Emerge,” Augustine ordered.
Elarión watched as dark Shadows rose from Augustine’s feet, right where her own shadow began. He stifled a gasp of astonishment.
“Do you want to see what happens when I give one of them a name?”
Augustine looked strangely excited.