The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH DARKNESS IN THE NIGHT

On the balcony, Fleur was standing between Oshay and Oren, with Cinna. “You shouldn’t be here,” She whispered as she held their hands. They were all staring up at the darkness.

“My lady, I could not leave you alone to face this.” Oshay murmured back. “Lord Yurieth is very upset... he might refuse...”

“Of course, he is upset. The enemy he thought defeated, now hangs over his home. But I brought you here to protect Kaleth and Kalyssa,” Fleur hissed, interrupting Oshay.

“Please, let me stay. Something very wrong is going to happen tonight, I feel it,” Oshay begged.

She turned and took his face in her hands, touching his forehead to hers, in the language of home she said, “Little brother, you cannot protect me from what was and what will be. We know from his own confession that he was terrible to Fleur because she was a siren before he realized he loved her. We did not know what triggers his anger, but now we do and I will endure it. Now, please, go. You’ve been here too long.”

He nodded, “As you wish, my lady. It is my duty and my honor to serve you.”

Oren spoke quietly, “They are coming, Oshay.”

He nodded and slipped away into the chaos of the evacuating house.

“My lady, it is a dangerous game you are playing,” Cinna pointed out.

“It is one that must be played, in the few muddled memories they have after their imprisonment, they do not know that your Oshay and my Shadz are the same mage. We cannot risk changing the future in the past. They only remember that Oren and his cousin came to help us tonight.” She reached out and took Cinna’s hand, sandwiching herself between them. “When I take the children of the high houses forward, I want you both to come. I want you to have a chance at happiness.”

"My lady, our love is not allow..."

She interrupted, "Is commonly accepted in my time. Love is love. You will find things very different then. You won't have to hide who you are or who you love."

“Fleur?” Serapha came out onto the balcony with Abrieth and Yurieth.

Fleur gave her a wan smile, then turned to Yurieth and Abrieth, she announced ruefully, “I’d say this is like old times but neither of you has done this yet.”

Abrieth stared up at the bloated blackness, then looked back at her in horror. “How do we fight something like that?”

“With light and love,” Serapha answered softly as the moon moved behind the rift and vanished like the stars it obscured. They could see black vortexes beginning to dip toward the city from just beyond the atmosphere.

Holding out her hand to Yurieth, Fleur announced, “We need to hurry, it’s coming. Is everyone ready to leave?”

When he doesn’t take her hand, she frowned slightly. She could feel the battle raging in him, but they didn’t have the time for him to sort himself out. Once the tendrils touched the ground, they would begin to suck up every living thing. When he looked over her shoulder at the courtyard toward Kaleth’s cry, she sighed internally.

“Please, Yurieth, the power of the Light depends on love. I need you to relax and let yourself accept what we have. I know it’s hard because of Kaleth, but I am begging you, forget about it for just tonight. We have to do this, or a great many will die.”

Yurieth swallowed hard, he thought she thought she knew what his hesitancy was about. She didn’t know it had nothing to do with his brother and everything to do with her dual nature. Her ability to wield the dark magic offended him, and her transformation when wielding it had shaken him to the core of his soul. He knew he had to help her, together they could stop the darkness. Whatever she needed, he would let her take tonight, but at what cost to his honor and his soul? He looked up at the swirling fingers of death and nodded.

“I will help you.” Yurethi knew he had no choice; it was his duty to protect the kingdom.

“Are you sure you can do this, Lady Fleur?” Oren asked.

Fleur gave him a confident half-smile. “Kaleth and I once managed with just the two of us and another time, Kars and I held the harvest at bay while thousands escaped. ”

Yurieth flinched slightly at Kaleth’s name. In her jumbled memories, he had seen Fleur and his brother do many nearly impossible things together. The kind of things only the truly soul-bonded could do.

Standing in the courtyard after most of the household had gone to safety, Fleur seemed in a trance as she felt the encroaching darkness and calculated the power they would need.

“Adamos, Abrieth, push your power into Yurieth. Oren and Serapha will heal us as we weaken. Call your magic, Yuri and I’ll call mine, I will blend them with the rift’s own energy to create a shield over the city, then we shall use the light to seal the rift. I will shine for as long as we need to seal it and turn the encroaching darkness to dust. Do you all understand?” Without waiting for an answer, Fleur drew a deep breath, and Yurieth could feel her centering herself as his parents often did. “Hold out your hands.”

Warmth and love surrounded him, part of him rejoiced in the feeling and another part loathed it. He realized when this is over, she will know the depth of his love and his hatred for her and that his hatred was stronger. He felt the warmth of her oracle stone as she placed it in his upturned hand before placing her fingers lightly over it. The leather of his gauntlets felt smooth compared to his calloused palms as she curled their fingers together.

“No matter what happens, don’t let go.”

She began to wrap her love and light around them and felt him struggling to do the same, he shifted his focus from his feelings for her to his hatred of all things that belong to the darkness and his desire to protect against them. Her light, determination, and courage rose to meet his intensity, as she drew his father and brother’s magic into him. Yurieth felt like liquid power was being poured through his veins and gasped in pain. Suddenly, they were surrounded by a brilliant white orb that grew rapidly into a translucent dome, spreading out over the City of the Kings to protect it. Black lightning began to pound the dome, as the strange tentacles of smoke thrashed and beat against the barrier. Each strike was like a physical blow, but Fleur did not yield or even flinch.

Yurieth was amazed by her will as he poured his own strength of will and magic through the soul bond he accidentally created. Her love for everyone they knew, now and in the future, all those living and lost, became a fire within her and he joined his determination to hers when suddenly, almost painfully, the door between their minds are crashed open and their souls merge into one. She tried to shield him from the worst of her sorrows, but he was staggered by the horrors she’d faced and revolted by a single desperate choice she made. He knew, in seeing it, he had made the honorable choice by deciding to reject her love, yet he was fascinated but the math of magic she had created.

They still aren’t strong enough, recalculating Fleur began to pull power from the dark blasts and braid it into her light, weaving them like strands into rope. The others feeling her vow that she would overcome the darkness this night; even if it killed her, she would not fail. An immense beam of white oracle light wrapped in black lightning arched toward the rift, wavering and dancing like a stream of plasma, mending the sky. The rift began to close but she felt the blood magic increasing as their enemies tried to overcome her. Yurieth’s soul bucked against the vibration of the dark energy, but she held him firmly. Abrieth and Adamos were both on one knee. Oren had collapsed as another barrier in Yuri’s soul opened to her.

In that moment, Fleur saw Yurieth’s centuries on the battlefield, fighting and killing, his lovers and his enemies. She ached over that moment two centuries earlier when he almost lost himself, believing Abrieth dead in the siren battle. Flickering images of the truce, Demona, and a terrible lingering pain of Yurieth’s family being killed. She found his childhood; his schooling, his grief over being a huntsman and not an oracle, and so many unhappy memories jumbled like stones in a rock tumbler. She had been prepared for this, she had gone through it with Kaleth, but what she was not prepared for was the strength and determination of his hatred, and the realization that he now counted her as one with the darkness he hated so much. His hatred was so dark and so deep that no amount of love and light from her would ever be able to overcome it. He would never love her as long as he held his hate. A sob left her lips as she felt him drop to his knees under the onslaught.

They were all tiring quickly when Fleur felt Serapha’s power healing them, she had an idea.

Fleur spoke to them all. ‘We are being resisted... there is a group, to the north... they use blood magic... Pha, you must make them sleep... I will help you.’

Adamos spoke into their minds, ‘I have found them, daughters.’

As one, the power shifted to Serapha and she cried out, together they struck the blood mages and sirens.

‘You will not do this, sister,’ Serapha’s soul shouted at Demona’s.

‘We will, and you will surrender or die, sister. Your blind child oracle cannot save this world. The Devourer will come, and all will see I deserve to be Queen.’ Demona hissed back, resisting.

Fleur voice boomed like thunder as she softly declared, ‘You will never be queen, Demona, daughter of the shadows. Now, Pha, Adamos. Make them sleep.’

Brilliant white and gold light flashed, and the enemy was rendered unconscious, Fleur felt Adamos, Abrieth, and Serapha fall away. She inhaled the power created by the blood magic and struck the rift again, ignoring Yurieth’s pained exclamation. It slammed shut like a door caught by a violent wind, and the column of light and dark magic dispersed into the protective dome making it glow brightly. Fleur swayed as the numbness of using too much magic turned her limbs to clay. She couldn’t feel the others, only Yurieth, his regret, his resolution, and his rejection.

Her soul cried out her for him not to reject her, ‘Please, Yuri, I love you.’

‘I hate you, Fleur,’ he pushed her away violently.

Then she was alone, with the magic and the math swirling in her rapidly fading consciousness.

‘It is done, my daughter, finish dispelling the magic and return to us.’ Adamos voice was like a balm to her pain.

‘He hates me... oh, Adamos... He hates me, how can I save them if he hates me?’ Fleur’s heart cried like a child as her mind did the calculations to end the magic.

‘He will love you again, have hope, little flower.’ Adamos promised as she collapsed forward.

The dome flickered and began to fade like the glimmers of a suncatcher in the afternoon.

Yurieth blinked, his mind was muddled from the magic and math he barely understood, as it faded he could hear Fleur’s sobbing proclamation of love and he felt his hatred reply, then she was lying unconscious in his arms, with tears running down her face and blood trickling from her eyes and ears. The part of him that loved her cried out in anguish at the absence of her soul touching his and for a moment, he feared she was dead and that he was feeling the dreaded emptiness of losing a sealed one.

“Yurieth... Yurieth!” Abrieth shook him, shouting his name until his brother lifted his head and gazed at him blearily.

“Abrieth... I... She... didn’t mean... the darkness,” Yurieth stammered nonsensically. He couldn’t make the words explain that he didn’t hate her, he hated the darkness she could wield, but his brother’s eyes were fierce in rebuke.

“Let go of Fleur, we need to go... Give her to me, Yurieth.” Leaning over his brother, he whispered, “I heard what you said to her. She saved us all and you say you hate her. If you were not my brother...” Abrieth left his threat unfinished as he took Fleur from Yurieth’s embrace and handed her to Oren’s cousin.

Yurieth’s leaden arms barely moved as he tried to reach to take her back, instead he fell on his face. His whole body hurt, worse even than it had after the magical beating he had taken from the Dark Queen. He wasn’t even sure how either of them was still alive, and the last thing he had said to her was that he hated her. Yurieth just laid on the smooth stones, resting his cheek on the cool surface, unable to move. Trying to ignore that her heart had cried in out in pain and his had too, Yurieth let himself sink into exhausted sleep. Adamos and Abrieth dragged him up, one arm over each of their shoulders and carried him through the portal. Stepping out into the bailey yard of the Winter Castle, they trudged through the snow. Behind them, the portal blinked out with a pop and Abrieth looked back.

“Do not worry, young Oshay, went back and destroyed the portal to hide our escape,” Adamos explained.

“Father, why have we never met him before?” Abrieth asked as they hauled a now unconscious Yurieth inside.

“Because he has spent his life in the study of magic, he is very ill now, and will soon leave this world, so he came to spend a season with the last of his family,” Adamos said softly, answering in the way of the oracles, none of it was a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth.

“He and Oren seem very close.” Abrieth looked over from where they laid his brother on a couch, wishing he understood why Yurieth had done what he did. Through their twin bond, he had heard Fleur’s proclamation of love and Yurieth’s rebuttal. On the other side of the room, Oren and Serapha were bent over Fleur, trying to save her.

“Yes, Oren will be very sad when Oshay leaves us.” Adamos turned away and walked out to oversee the chaos of arriving so suddenly. Abrieth followed his father, then went to seek his mother and ensure his baby siblings were warm and safe.

The servants were rushing around, lighting fireplaces and starting the environmental systems to heat the giant castle but it could take hours to drive the chill away. Serapha went to find blankets to cover Fleur and when she returned, Oren was trying to wrestle a crawling Yurieth away from Fleur. Yurieth was ranting in gibberish and knocked Oren away.

"Abrieth!" Serapha shouted as Yurieth raised up on his knees next to Fleur. He clutched her hands to his chest, and her fingers instinctively curled between his almost like they were praying together. Then he passed out again, his cheek on her stomach, his tears wetting her dress.

Yllumina, Adamos, and Abrieth rushed into the room as Serapha helped Oren to his feet.

“He’s gone mad,” Serapha spat vehemently. “He tells her that he hates her with his soul, and now he wants to hold her.”

“It is not what it seems, daughter,” Yllumina tried to reassure her.

“I heard him say it. I felt his intent through Abrieth,” Serapha snapped as she tried and failed to get Yurieth and Fleur’s hands apart. “Abrieth, tell him to release her, he’s hurt her enough! Let go... Yurieth! Let! Go!” She began striking Yurieth until Abrieth pulled her away hugging her to his chest.

“Leave them, Serapha, perhaps he will wake feeling her love, and realize that his mind is wrong to believe as it does,” Adamos ordered. “We will put them in a room together. And pray that this will be enough to open Yurieth’s eyes.”

Serapha stared at him with tear-filled eyes, “It won’t change anything. His hatred means more to him than her love.” Then she pushed away from Abrieth and ran to the nursery.

Oren examined their clasped hands, “My Lords, my lady, I cannot separate them without risking breaking their fingers.”

“Abrieth, we shall move them together,” Adamos announced.

Carefully they shifted Yurieth to his back with Fleur tucked against his chest, their hands clasped between them, hers against his heart and his against her heart. They lifted the couple as one and placed them side by side. For days, neither stirred. Serapha and Oren exhausted themselves just to keep them alive. Potions and healing magic seemed to have almost no effect as they slowly recovered from using too much magic. Yurieth had released one of Fleur’s hands and wrapped his arm around her protectively. His unconscious mind and body refused all attempts to get him to release Fleur. Abrieth endured several of Serapha’s passionate rants about her new-found dislike of Yurieth as he worried that they were recovering too slowly. Despite the storms, pressing in on the mountains, Abrieth left to the City of the Kings to glean what information he could.

The display of power was a source of much speculation as to who had saved the city. The black dust that fell the day after was a source of much fear. Within an hour of the event ending, the royal guard had rushed to the manor of Adamos, only to find it completely empty. Fires burning out in hearths, beds abandoned, and every member of the household missing. The King was livid. Queen Eonae had sent a note through the House of Odini to Yllumina warning her to stay hidden with her novice.

Several families, royal and common, sent secret inquiries to the House of Odini about saving their children because of the rumors that the Houses of Odini and Adamos were seeking a way to spare the children of Aetheria from some future turmoil. It was also a source of great curiosity that the House of Adamos had vanished on the night the darkness ate the stars and the light of the oracles had shielded the city. All who lived in the City of the Kings knew something was coming, and most believed it was another war.

A/N: This is the possible division point to shift to a trilogy.