The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH HOPE ENDURES AS LONG AS LOVE LIVES

She blinked; she could see nothing but darkness. Everything felt strange, her mind hurt like the worst headache she ever had. She couldn’t remember what happened. Black and white images of corpse-like creatures, killing as many as she could, falling into his arms injured, two small boys clinging to her as she collapsed, and explosion of light, then nothing.

“Welcome back. How do you feel?” a very soft voice comforted her.

“I... I can’t see.”

“I’m sorry, we couldn’t heal your eyes.”

“Where I am? What happened?” she panted in panic, rubbing the scars on her face around her eyes.

“Shhh, it’s okay. Can you tell me what you remember?”

“Umm, I was in a battle? There were creatures... an explosion... I think someone stabbed me..."

“That’s right. You were wounded in battle. Do you remember who hurt you?”

She trembled as though she were afraid, “I... I think... I don’t know.” Images of another place, a ruined forest in the snow. She remembered turning and an arrow going through her heart. Brown and white feathers and bindings, the Huntsman who hated her.

“It’s okay, you can tell me. I am your healer and I won’t tell anyone,” the soft voice promised.

“Who are you?” She begged.

“I am the Master Healer, Lady Odini. What can I call you?”

“I think I know you... I’m Fleur... I... I belonged to the House of Adamos before the war. Then I... I think I was a warrior.”

“That is correct, I trained you. Do you remember me?” A deep monotone asked.

“You’re Lord Shadz of Odini, the black swordsman,” Fleur answered.

“Fleur, do you remember what you did for the House of Adamos?” Lady Odini asked gently.

Fleur bowed her head, her hands clenched. “I re-remember, I think... I think I was a concubine. The Lords sh-shared me b-before I joined the war, except Prince Karstien, h-he was kind to me.”

The two people were silent for several minutes, then the healer said quietly, “Fleur, it’s Asha, Lady Daisy’s daughter. Do you remember me?”

“I think I took care of you... tutored you.”

“That’s right, you took care of me and my siblings. You joined the guardsman corps. You were killed a few times, and revived, but you were caught in an explosion near the end of the war when your village fell. My brother Karstien is King now. Do you remember what happened to my father or mother?” Asha asked gently.

“The Guardian died, the Oracle freed me... Please don’t tell Lord Yurieth I survived.” Fleur begged, clenching the covers to her chest.

“Why are you afraid of my uncle?” Asha asked quietly.

“I... he...”

“The Huntsman hated her,” Shadz answered coolly. “He treated her terribly.”

“Do you remember him?” Asha asked softly, “Is this true?”

Fleur nodded her head, answering meekly. “Yes, Lady Odini. Just bits but he told me he hated me, hated what I was, and he... he killed me as did L-lord K-ka-ka...” she hesitated.

“I know my father killed you too, as did my brother, Damien when he captured you.”

“Yes, my lady,” Fleur whispered.

“Fluer, do you have any happy memories of my house?”

Fleur nodded her head, trembling, “Just of... of you picking red flowers and drawing them, you were so tiny. I... I remember your sisters always together... swimming... And... Aahhhh” She shook her head, whimpering slightly; the pain was terrible.

“Just breathe slowly... And after you left my father’s house?” Asha prodded gently, “Were you happy?”

"I think I was in love with another warrior... an archer, Yur... yur-something? I don’t remember his name,” Fluer cried.

“Yuriel,” Shadz answered, “You only knew him a short while. Your village was attacked, and you were the only survivor. It had been over a century since the war ended.”

Fluer looked traumatized, “H-How?” She strained to remember, but pain pulsed in her brain and she clutched her head, pressing her fist into her temples.

Lady Asha of Odini touched her hands and warmth spread pushing the pain away.

Images of digging through rubble, looking for her sons desperately, everyone dead. “M-my sons... my friends... I buried them all...” She was shaking so hard she felt like she was having a full body muscle spasm.

“Easy, Fleur, don’t try to remember. We don’t want you to have another seizure, when you strain to remember you black out and your body shuts down. You almost died last time, that was three days ago. Just relax, we’ll fill in the blanks as best we can,” Asha assured her.

“Lord Damien attacked your home. Many fled. There was an explosion during the escape, and you were gravely wounded, buried in debris, left behind. You alone buried the dead. We arrived too late to help. Asha remembered you fondly and insisted on saving you, so she put you in a healing sarcophagus hoping you might recover,” Shadz explained.

“We didn’t know until you came out three days ago that you were pregnant. I am sorry your eyes couldn’t be saved. You might have pain from your head injury, memory loss, and other side effects, but you should be able to live as normally as possible for your condition. Your elderly Aunt Meara has agreed to help you get settled in a new home,” Asha announced.

“My sister’s name was Meara, she died in the snow.” Fleur shook as tears ran down her face.

“That’s right, you were on Titan with group of warriors.” Shadz answered. “She was named after your aunt.”

“I don’t remember my aunt,” Fleur chewed her lip.

“There is a lot you may never remember, you had so much damage, but you lived, and we will help you in any way we can,” Asha promised gently.

“Thank you, Lady Odini, Lord Odini.” Fleur nodded then she asked, “Lady Odini, what... what happened to your mother?”

“The Oracle passed into the Light over twenty years ago, Fleur. She rescued a group from the past and sacrificed her magic and life to get them safely to us,” Shadz explained. “Don’t worry, Fleur. You were one of my best swordswomen. I’ll catch you up, and help you recover. The good news is we won the war, and there has been peace for over a century.”

“Peace is good,” Fleur murmured.

The healer patted her hand, “Rest now, Fleur.”

And Fleur suddenly felt warm and relaxed. “Okay.”

Asha and Shadz left her bedside and walked down the hall. Karstien, Meara, and Vole were waiting in a room.

“Isn’t it working?” Karstien asked. “She remembered Ben and Dan’s deaths in Jonstown with the Relic escape; those events were centuries apart.”

Asha’s brows pursed into thin lines. “I saw that too. We need to make sure she doesn’t encounter anyone who could trigger a cascade memory recall. It could kill her. The magic blocking her memories is as strong as we can make it without reducing her to a vegetative state, but I am not sure it is stable.” Asha frowned, “Her mind and soul are so fragile, I don’t know if I will be able to keep her alive next time.”

“We can’t risk more than the lightest mind viewing enchantment to determine what she does remember,” Shadz added.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her. I didn’t spend the last two decades in that damned chamber, so she would be alone.” Meara scowled, her wrinkles and white hair hid the energy and determination the ninety-two-year-old human had. “I’ll keep track of what she does remember, and we’ll make a narrative to fit her memories. We already have a believable start.”

“I still don’t like lying to Daisy,” Vole announced.

“But she isn’t Daisy any more, brother, she isn’t even an oracle. She has lost her light, and this was the only way to spare her life,” Shadz explained.

Karstien stared at the monitor, watching his best friend tracing her scars with her fingertips. He turned to look at his half-sister and oldest allies. “Do what you must. The Oracle died twenty years ago. Fleur is a retired, disabled warrior. Find a place for them.”

Vole grinned and gave Meara a wink, “We know just the place and it is already prepared for her. She will live among others like her. Ones who were loyal to the Guardian and are not known to the Huntsman, they will keep her hidden and happy.”

“Don’t tell me where, I don’t want to know. I am glad to know she and Meara aren’t really dead. I knew our plan, but you truly had me fooled, sister.”

“It was easier for you to believe we had failed, brother, and I am sorry for the pain it caused you,” Asha apologized.

Karstien swallowed against the tears he felt burning in his eyes. “Just... just make sure she is happy. She deserves it after everything our family put her through. It feels like I am losing her all over.”

Asha hugged him. “I know...” she said quietly. “But we don’t have a choice, I don’t know how to heal her.”

A month later, a large fishing vessel arrived at a small port on the eastern coast of the smaller of the three largest islands in an archipelago. Captain Vole’s human wife got off with their blind niece. They moved into the stone cottage by the lighthouse. A dozen retired warriors and their families lived in the small fishing and farming village called Soldiers Cove. Many beyond the town were told the blind woman had been one of those who survived the attack on Meridian 3 near the end of the war. Her scars and memory loss were a source of curiosity but learning her recovery took a century and a half in a healing sarcophagus because of the severity of her wounds earned much kindness from her fellow veterans. There was also a letter for the House of Odini asking that she be given sanctuary.

Nineteen months later, her son was born, and she named him Yulithiel after his father who had died in the war. The fishermen and villagers enjoyed the love, kindness, and compassion the blind Fleur showed everyone. Her Aunt’s attempts to teach her to cook so she could take over their fair-weather café was a source of much entertainment as was Fleur’s odd cat, Fishlover.

Years passed, and Fleur settled into a contented, routine life; the only sadness she experience was the passing of her 136-year-old Aunt Meara when Yuli was barely forty-two. Yearly, Captain Vole would arrive with the fleet, and at other times, Lord Shadz would visit his retired veteran friends and bring medicine for Fleur’s eye pain and headaches. She would help him with the medicinals harvest for the Healer's Hall because she knew she owed them so much.

Almost every morning, she baked sweet breads and breakfast, followed by rolls and made a hearty midday meal for the fisherman coming in from a long night and morning at sea, and the farmers who worked the fields. In the afternoons and during the long summer days, she taught the children of her neighbors, using a dimensional surface tablet to photograph the work for her to feel with her fingertips and ‘see’. Every night she climbed the steps of the Veteran's Lighthouse to polished the glass she had never seen, and turned on the light to warn ships of the shoals.

It was a wonderful life, but sometimes when she stood at the edge of the high railing, listening to the ocean below with the hum of the lighthouse beacon behind her, she would long for her lost Yuriel. She would sing to him as she sung to their son every night before bed, and she hoped that wherever he was in the Light, he could hear her.

Thirty years after the death of the oracle...

The Huntsman of Yophriel opened his eyes, it was two hours before dawn and again he had dreamed of his lost sealed one singing. Rolling onto his side, tears ran down his face unbidden. About ten years earlier, Yuri had woken to the sound of Daisy screaming in pain like she had the day Kalen was born. Since then, he had heard her singing in his dreams every morning. It was slowly driving him insane. Serapha could find no reason or source of the malady and heavily dosing himself with sleeping potion, only meant he slept through the music.

His new cat Diva purred and butted his wet cheek with her head. His old cat, Fishlover, had disappeared the night he heard Daisy’s screams. Her purring usually helped him settle back into sleep but not this morning. He went to the kitchen and made coffee, black and bitter as his heartache.

Looking out the window at the moonlight mountains, he whispered, “I miss you.”

The next morning, Yuri woke as he did every day, to Daisy’s soft song and murmured, ‘Sweet dreams.’ This time he fell back asleep and dreamed about his mother.

Yllumina wore the frown she had always gotten when he had disappointed her. “Why did you let them convince you your love died and give up your hope?”

Yuri shook his head slowly, “Mother, Daisy went into the Light.”

Mina held out her hand, in its palm was Daisy’s widow’s token, “Did she?”

He stared at the ring. Daisy as Fleur had told him she was no longer worthy to wear it. She had refused it when Regis had tried to give it back, but she had put it back on during the thirteen days of the Cataclysm, telling Regis she needed to remember who she hated and why to wield the Darkness. He realized it wasn’t with her clothes or her oracle stone in her empty healing chamber.

His jaw dropped as his mother smiled. “Hope endures as long as love lives and yours lives. Find your hope, my son.”

Yuri jerked awake when Yllumina tossed the ring to him. He had instinctively reacted to catch it. Getting up quickly, he went into his office and tapped his memo board, swiping through the screens. The calendars of classes, lists of students, notes on creatures and eco-studies flashed by until he found it. Opening the file, he looked at all the notes he had on Daisy’s death. Remembering every moment, he realized he had missed the detail of the ring Kaleth had made for Daisy. He needed to ask another about it, one who like he and Daisy had perfect recall of every moment. Someone who had the power and influence to make Daisy disappear, someone who hated Yuri more than any other.

High Lord Shadz of the House of Odini had vowed to make Yurieth pay for the pain he caused Daisy when she was Fleur, not in that lifetime but in the next. Yuri trembled, if his niece were not Shadz’s sealed one, he would torture the Master Mage until he got the truth then kill him. Dressing quickly, Yuri went to the portal and set the control crystal for the Crown City of Azimuth on Aetheria.

In the darkness, he looked around the Academy for Huntsmen and Foresters and wondered if Karstien knew. His nephew, the King of the New Aetherian Empire had let Yuri move his school to the second furthest habitable system and now Yuri had to wonder why. Above the horizon, the wasteland world of Meridian 3 rose like a golden gem. Yuri had always promised himself he would make it green again in memory of the friends he lost but first he had to find Daisy, he had to find his hope.