The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH THE BIRTH OF A GUARDIAN AND AN ORACLE

Suddenly, Yurieth lifted his lips from hers with a surprised gasp. Fleur could sense him talking to Abrieth, they hadn’t yet suspected how well she could hear them.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” She asked unnecessarily.

Yurieth looked down at her with happy silver eyes. “The twins, they’re coming. We have to go. Can you run?”

“You just promised to ask me to marry you someday... If you wanted, I could fly.” She raised up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss, grinning at him impishly.

He could only smile back at her, it felt good to have his heart beating again.

“Let’s go.”

Yurieth took Fleur’s hand and they ran back to the compound.

He was surprised at how easily she kept up. He had never met a lady or an oracle, who could run and work and love as hard as she did; and she had promised to be his for all time. Putting his arm around her waist she immediately looped her arms around his neck as he leapt up into the back of the flyer, holding her.

Abrieth laughed as he closed the hatch behind them. “I take it you said yes, my Lady Fleur?”

“Could I say anything else?” She smiled beautifully at the Protector of Adamos. The oracle stone around her neck glowed her happiness.

As Yurieth and Abrieth talked, Fleur reached out to Oshay’s mind, ‘We are going to Kaleth’s birth and Yuri asked me to be his for all time. I think this is the most bittersweet day of my life.’

‘I am happy for you, my lady oracle. I will continue to keep you informed of our progress through Orion and Oren.’ He responded.

Fleur felt the link fade away as she sat next to Yuri, silently amused that they had no idea she had been linking to the only ally she had from her time. Listening to the excited brothers, Fleur’s mind contemplated all that needed be done. She was worried about Oshay-Shadz, his soul felt weak, sick, grieved. She needed to finish the Tear of Heaven’s Hope and get him home as quickly as she could or perhaps she just needed to send Shadz home ahead of her. Could she finish it alone? Could she stretch it so they weren’t limited to two time-trips in the same orbital cycle?

Fleur knew she couldn’t go, once Karstien and future Yuri saw her condition, they would not let her return to this time. She needed to send someone forward with Shadz, who wouldn’t hesitate to come back, someone who knew they needed to be on the Tear. Maybe she could send Kaleth’s sister and mother and some of the children who didn’t make it on the Tear with them. While her tactical mind made plans and contingency plans, she smiled and laughed about how excited the sons of Adamos were to have siblings. No one said anything about how it would only be for a half year or so more.

The Sun was directly overhead when the flyer hovered silently over the manor of Adamos in the city of the kings. They jumped out of the open hatch and onto the roof, it was a drop of at least 5 block but while Abrieth and Yurieth landed using their strength, Fleur caught herself with her magic. She had let go of Yurieth’s hand as they dropped, trusting in him not to let her jump into harm, and floating, she held out her hand to him, stepping down the last few feet as though walking down stairs. She smiled up at him as he guided her from the roof with Abrieth grinning at him over her head. Yurieth just rolled his eyes at his brother.

Downstairs, the servants bustled about in the excitement of a third son and the first daughter to be born to this generation of Adamos and Yophriel. Madge, the head housekeeper, took Fleur’s hand and led her away as Yurieth scowled at her.

“My lady had asked for the blind oracle to join her.”

When Madge returned she scolded Yurieth for keeping such a lovely, well-mannered young lady away from the manor and her care. Yurieth had taken the chastising with a grim face because he could not refute her. None of the servants had been there the day Fleur arrived.

An hour later, Fleur walked into the room where Adamos kept his books and desk. All three men stood. She was holding a baby in each arm and smiled beautifully at Lord Adamos.

“My Lord Adamos, your third son, the guardian of Adamos is born. Kaleth will be the greatest guardian of his generation, a guardian peacebringer.” She handed Kaleth to Adamos then presented the daughter. “And my lord, your daughter Kalyssa, who will be the first oracle of the generations after the last war.”

“Thank you, Little Flower.” Adamos looked at her with tears in his eyes.

Adamos sat down with Kaleth while Yurieth took Kalyssa, then sat next to his father.

“They’re so tiny.” Abrieth was kneeling in front of them, running his fingers over each baby’s cheek. “I want to hold her now.”

“No,” Yurieth responded flatly.

“Please, I won’t drop her,” Abrieth was practically begging.

“No. You drop raw eggs,” Yurieth reminded.

“That only happened once,” Abrieth huffed.

Fleur winked at Adamos then taunted Abrieth, “Once this week, but what about last week?”

“Ouch, Fleur, you’re so mean,” Abrieth complained as his brother and father chuckled in an almost identical manner.

“You’re not holding her until she’s thirty.” Yurieth declared as their father laughed, “Kaleth either.”

Fleur leaned close to look at each child through her partial blindness and kissed them both on the cheek before straightening up suddenly.

“He looks just like...” Tears shone in her eyes and she stepped back, stammering “I.. I have t-to get b-back to Lady Yllumina.”

Fingertips trailing along the wall, she hurried back down the hall toward the bedrooms.

They could all feel her fighting the grief that was threatening to overcome her. Yurieth fought the urge to go comfort her. Looking at his baby brother, he suddenly felt very guilty for kissing Fleur this morning and promising to ask her to marry him.

Abrieth felt the emotions shift in his brother. “Did I miss something?”

Yurieth’s voice was tight as he answered, “She was going to say Kaleth looks just like his youngest son. Kaleth dies before he is born....” Yurieth is quiet a moment then murmured almost too low to be heard. “I am such a fool, she will never stop loving him.”

Adamos looked at Yurieth carefully. “My eldest, how much has the Blind Oracle told you about her time?”

Yurieth looked at his little brother, trying to reconcile the beautiful baby with the scarred giant in Fleur’s memories. “Not much, Father. I gained some of her memories when my heart heal magic went awry and she has clarified a few things. Most of it, I try to figure out myself. Her life before now was filled with so much sorrow and struggle. The loss of a son in a time of great darkness... a child whose heart never beat that she grieves for still, a daughter forever dead in her arms. Friends she lost. The horror of a world dying around her. She is careful revealing anything, even though she says we will remember very little after we are rescued in the future, but she can’t hide her nightmares from me. And...” Yurieth hesitated, then added, “And somehow we are healed, almost as if we have new bodies. Abrieth and I have new scars but none from our life now.”

“Are you sure brother?” Abrieth questioned.

“Yes, brother. We look different than we do now. I mean we look like us, but our hair and eye colors are changed. Serapha too. Sometimes I see her dreams as an oracle might. We three look very different. Serapha’s royal priestess tattoos are gone too. Whatever happens during our imprisonment means our skin has to be completely regenerated like a newborn’s. Do you know what it means, father?”

“Perhaps you are damaged, or they have a tech or magic, we do not.” Adamos shakes his head as he ponders aloud. “What else have you discerned, my eldest?” Adamos asked.

“Shortly after Kaleth’s death, I deliver their son to be called Kalen. Her memories of those hours is very clear. A third son of a third son of the House of Adamos to fulfill the prophesy.”

“A guardian to be greater than his father, the peacekeeper,” Adamos repeated reverently. “To follow my son, the peacebringer.”

“Unless he falls into darkness which Kaleth almost did at the time his other son was stillborn.” Yurieth said sadly. “Having his third son was the highest desire of the dark queen. Our brother wisely refused to lay with her, even resisting siren’s magic to deny her. After his death, they failed twice to steal the son Fleur bore the Guardian.”

Adamos scowled. “The evil woman wished to bring forth the murderer of worlds to be called the Marauder.” Shaking his head, Adamos continued, “Knowing such evil could exist, is warning enough. That anyone, even a Xelusian, would wish to birth such an abomination is an apostasy against all that lives.”

Abrieth sounded saddened, as he asked, “What of the child that was cut from her?”

“I know not.” Yurieth thought about all the fleeting jumbled moments he saw and how often he was with her and her son. “I only know I see myself with them often.”

“The shadows are changing time, what visions your mother has had are already altered. Lady Fleur was meant to be your sealed one, not your brother’s. Guardians don’t take a wife. The fact that she has chased them to this time is already changing what your mother has foreseen into what Fleur remembers. I fear how much further the change will progress.”

A few days later, Fleur was rocking Kaleth as she finished singing a song Yurieth had never heard before. As much as he felt he loved her, the feelings of guilt he had the first day he held his brother returned and his soul ached that she loved another so much. That she would sing those words over and over to him made Yurieth irrationally jealous, even if Kaleth was only a newborn babe.

Look to love you may dream,

And if it should leave then give it wings.

But if such a love is meant to be;

Hope is home, and the heart is free

Under the heavens we journey far,

On roads of life we’re the wanderers,

So, let love rise, so let love depart,

Let hope have a place in the lover’s heart.

Hope has a place in a lover’s heart.

Look to love and you may dream,

And if it should leave then give it wings.

But if such a love is meant to be;

Hope is home, and the heart is free.

Hope is home, and the heart is free.

“That is so pretty, Fleur,” Serapha said with a sigh. “He seems to like it.” She had returned from Xelusia yesterday.

Fleur’s voice laughed as she answered, but Yurieth could feel her soul sickness, grief was a disease he knew well. “He should, it was his favorite song. He heard me singing it to our daughter and made me sing it every winter festival for a century... or four... He was spoiled that way.”

“Spoiled? Like rotting?” Serapha sounded confused, just as Yurieth was while eavesdropping.

Fleur giggled, “In the time I am from, the word has a different meaning when applied to a person. It means loved too much, allowed to get their own way too often, and to get away with things without consequences.”

“Ha, like Abrieth.” Serapha laughed.

“Yes, like Abe but that’s your own fault, you made him that way.” Fleur scolded in a teasing tone.

Kalyssa made a grumpy sound and Serapha begged, “Sing an encore, so little sister can be spoiled too.”

As Fleur started singing again, Abrieth came around the corner of the hall and raised an eyebrow at Yurieth’s upset expression. His brother rarely showed emotions.

‘Brother?’

‘Upstairs. We’ll talk in the tower.’ Came the terse mental reply.

Silently, they climbed the tower. Abrieth sat quietly as his brother paced trying to sort out what he wanted to say. On the battlefield, Yurieth’s mind was tactical, analytical and brilliant but when it came to his heart, he was an unsteady as a newborn fawn. Abrieth waited.

Finally, Yurieth explained in a rush. “I am in love with my baby brother’s future wife. She is beautiful and kind, intelligent and driven. She is perfectly amazing, and I love her, and right now at this very moment, she is sitting downstairs with him in her arms and singing him his favorite song.”

“You’re upset because Fleur is singing a song to baby Kaleth?” Abrieth looks at his brother like he has lost his mind.

“It’s his favorite song from the future they will share. A song she will sing publicly for him at every winter festival for centuries. A song about love and hope. I think I hate myself, brother. I am dishonoring him, his future, their lives together.” Yurieth seemed truly grieved by Fleur spending time with the infant who will someday be the husband she will lose. “I am without honor if I pursue her. She will be Kaleth’s wife.”

His fist pounded the stone repeatedly for a minute. “I... I cannot... I will not forego my honor; it is all I have left.”