The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH THE BURDEN OF MEMORIES

Serapha and Oren both insisted Fleur take a sleeping potion each night to get enough rest, but still she moaned and writhed in her sleep. One night, Yurieth was watching her struggling in her sleep. When she woke suddenly, he stepped back into the shadows of the room.

Fleur rose, crying as she crawled out of bed. “I can’t do it... I... I can’t...” she stammered to no one. “Please, please... let it be my turn.”

Yurieth stared at her in confusion and followed her as she moved like a ghost to the nursery. She went to Kaleth’s crib and ran her fingers through his golden curls. “Oh, Kaleth, please forgive me for failing our son and daughters.”

She bent and kissed him, then she kissed Kalyssa who was glowing slightly as all oracles did. “Don’t worry. You will love and be loved in the future, little glowbug.”

After several minutes of standing over them, she turned and stumbled back to her room, but she didn’t go back to bed.

Opening the door to the balcony, Fleur went out into the freezing air in her thin gown and carrying a small medicinals box. She sobbed her pain out into the night, as she drank one sleeping potion after another until the box was empty. Yurieth watched her confused. Then she began to sing, she sang in a strange language, swaying as the potions leeched her consciousness away. It wasn’t long before she collapsed by the railing in the falling snow. Angrily, he realized she wanted to die, and she was trying to kill herself. Yurieth was sure of it, but he wouldn’t let her die until the Tear was finished. He hopped over two balconies and tapped on the window of the suite shared by the Sons of the Odini. Oren wandered out on to his balcony, looking over he saw Fleur laying in the snow and yelped.

In moments, Cinna, Oren, and Oshay rushed through Fleur’s room and carried her inside. Oshay seemed particularly distressed, but without his magic, Yurieth could not hear them through the heavy glass and oak door. He watched Cinna changing Fleur’s clothes as Oren healed her. Oshay had rushed out and returned in a few minutes with a potion and Adamos. They made Fleur drink the potion, and afterward Adamos placed his fingers lightly over Fleur’s temples. His eyes glowed with his magic and Yurieth was shocked to see his father’s calm demeanor morph into something that bespoke of great grief. Adamos spoke softly and Oshay nodded, answering. Oren trembled as though overcome with emotion causing Cinna to squeeze his shoulders.

Yurieth retreated as Oshay came to look out the door. He opened the door and came out onto the balcony, closing it behind him. Picking up the empty sleeping potion bottles and box, Oshay stood glaring out at the forest and Yurieth had a very strong sense that somehow Oshay knew he was close.

Oshay threatened in a loud, deep voice, that sounded so different from the one he normally used, “Someday, Lord Yurieth, I will make you pay for causing her to suffer so. It won’t be in this life, but I give you my oath, someday I will punish you as you deserve...” He turned and stalked back inside.

Hours later, they left her alone to rest and Yurieth slipped back into her room. Even in her sleep, tears leaked from her eyes. Part of him ached to comfort her and part of him hated her. At war with himself, he left her to sleep off her attempt at self-harm and retreated to his room to brood.

Fleur took her walk as she did every afternoon. Every step was like a meditation as she sorted her sorrow and resisted the urge to do what she had done two weeks ago. She was sleeping a little better. Adamos would ease her when she slept, but what she didn’t know was that he was reading her memories as her mind played them over and over. He had tearfully confided in Mina that he did not know how she had lived through it all.

Mina had told him to stop before he became as soul-sick as Fleur and Yurieth were, but he couldn’t. He needed to know every detail of the future to make sure it would happen as it had happened. The things he learned would burden his heart for several thousand years. Each afternoon, Yllumina wrote them all down so the burden could be shared, looking out into the snow, she watched Fluer leaving the castle grounds with her eldest’s trained wolves and prayed to the Light for healing for them all.

Abrieth had quit shadowing Fleur once he realized Yurieth’s wolves wouldn’t allow her to get lost or come to harm.

Oshay was too weak to walk with her now and she was secretly happy to be alone. Her heart ached with the acknowledgement of her weakness as she remembered how it had distressed everyone.

When Abrieth demanded to know about her nightmares and captivity, she had, through Adamos and Yllumina’ projection magic, shown them a tiny amount of her suffering. Then to relieve their hearts of the grief, she had shown them several of the amazing things she and Kaleth had done together, the gifts her daughters and son had, and Karstien. Abrieth was shocked to learn that she had never had any training of any kind, until the last mage began teaching her defensive magic, which resulted in several funny, and also terrifying episodes with explosive consequences. None seemed to recognize the healthy and dark-haired, clean-shaven Shadz from the future, as the gaunt, and red-haired and bearded Oshay who sat in the room with them.

Fleur explained she had learned to handle magic on her own and treated it like the energy formulas she had used when she was a researcher. “Magic is just another application of math,” she finished quietly, making Oren and Oshay laugh at Abrieth’s shocked demand to know why it had to be math.

She had given the Lords of the Odini a wink and innocently asked, “Isn’t everything math? Math makes things so easy.”

As Fleur walked that day, and the pleasant memory faded, her nightmares began to play again, they were slowly driving her insane and breaking her resolve. She was falling into a deeper despair than she had as a prisoner of war, she could still feel the burn of the dark chains and the slash of the blade that bled her for the Dark Prince’s blood altar.

A shift in the wind, brought her back to the moment and she shivered because her soul was cold. Cinna had made the pale gray crushed velvet into a beautiful winter dress, and with her heavy winter cloak, she was quite warm physically. The white she-wolf, Snow, had taken point, while the stone-gray male, called Fang, followed or ran large circles around them. Fleur stopped and let a few flakes fall on her cheeks, remembering the horror on the icy plains that she and Ezra had barely kept each other sane while they tried to get through to safety. It was there, suffering from near insanity and close to death that she had accidentally sealed her and Kaleth’s souls together when he almost died. She saved him then but he had died later and part of her died with him. Every happy moment with her friends and family lead to thoughts of a dozen tragic, or terrifying ones. It was overwhelming.

Her memories of Kaleth ached like the bite of a soul spider. Every time she saw his smile or heard the silent whisper of his love to her in her memories, it felt like a hand had closed around her throat. All their centuries of happiness were tainted by the knowledge that he knew... He knew he would leave her forever, not once but twice. He had appeared in her dreams, or in the Room of Light, until the final battle, then she had never seen him again. In her last moments, he had held her, and she had begged him to take her with him beyond the Veil and into the Celestial Realm. He had wiped her tears and kissed her gently, saying he would love her for all time and to find love again, just as he had in those moment before his final mortal death. Then she was back in the painful world of the living, healed in body and broken in spirit, only that second time it was her own blood that stained her hands and not his.

Fleur resisted the urge to pull off her gloves and see if her hands were still stained. She could almost feel the tackiness of his blood as he went into the light. She had spent decades trying to keep her promise to find her way back to life, to love, to hope, but as her steps lead her away from the castle of his father, she felt further from the Light than she ever had. It hurt more than the agony of the planet that had been harvested around her, more than the one that tore itself apart as she watched. Silent tears made frozen tracks on her cheeks, she trembled again from the coldness of her soul and forced herself to keep walking.

Suddenly, Yuri’s wolves stopped and started snarling. Fleur stood very still listening. She clicked her tongue and the wolves fell silent. There were four... no, five sounds of breathing in the still mountain air. She lifted her head and put her hood back, they were beyond her range of sight, and without her power, she couldn’t sense them.

“Who is there?”

They shifted to stand in a loose circle around her and Fang began to growl again. It was snowing harder and she could hear the whispers of the flakes as they fell. Fleur spoke the word for the wolves to sit and Snow obeyed, but Fang circled her. She placed her hand on Snow’s shoulder and waited as the flakes fell on her pale hair.

“We just wanted to meet you, Lady Oracle. You put on quite a show in the City of the Kings and it has taken us months to find you,” The man’s voice purred.

“Did you not enjoy being saved from having your life glow and your soul devoured?” Fleur demanded coolly.

“You ruined years of preparation,” another hissed.

She couldn’t feel them or their darkness, but she knew it was there. She turned slowly, running a tactical analysis of the situation. “The Oracles of Adamos and Yophriel won’t apologize for fighting the Darkness, Xelusians.”

They shifted nervously as she identified them.

“Five men for one girl,” she kept her face innocent, “Why not just ask my father, Adamos, to meet me? Or do you really want something else?”

The man with the purring voice spoke from her right, “Our master believes you will be the next dark queen.”

“I am not a siren,” Fleur said with a bitter laugh.

“You do not need to be. You are the child of two Oracles, both from houses of ancient power. I saw your transformation, it is a subject of great interest to me, to wield both light and dark powers is unique. You are very special, Lady Fleur, too special to be hidden in the mountains of the Northlands.” The voice tried to seduce her, it wanted her to go willingly, and she knew she had to get away because she did not have her power and with only her will to resist, she was unsure as to how long she could hold out.

“You did not see what you imagined you saw.” In her mind, she could see the opening coming, she began trying to push her power into her stone to call for help, but nothing happened. She realized she would have to escape without her magic or aid from her house. “You know nothing of who I am. Adamos and Mina are not my parents, they are my sealed one’s parents. And I am just a blind girl on a walk with my pets, I do not have the power you seek.”

“Oh, but you do, my beautiful maiden,” the seductive vibration of the voice made her want to swoon, but she focused on escape.

“No, I do not, and I never will. I may be blind, but I can see the falseness of what you offer.”

Her mind filled with the memories of the blackout maze training the General had put her through to see if her talent would work without sound and sight. It was part of her life before the Aetherians, a time when she was just Daisy, a human girl with no family and an extraordinary mind. She could hear them, and the river in the distance, it flowed past the castle. She had Yurieth’s wolves to defend her and guide her through the forest. She decided she could do this; she could escape them.

“I told you she was not the one,” a third man complained stepping left toward the two who had spoken before. “Oracles aren’t blind.”

“Prince Lucif and Lord Canus say she is,” hissed the second. “We are to bring her to them.” He moved to the right to confront the third. The two behind her shifted to watch the second and third arguing.

Fleur gave a quick, sharp whistle and Snow leapt to her paws, bolting into the forest with Fleur clutching her fur. Fang jumped the fourth one in a snarling rage when he tried to grab her as she ran past. She could hear the giant gray wolf fighting the cowards, and then several pained yelps. Fleur feared he has been killed, but she didn’t stop running. She could hear her pursuers shouting and giving chase. Snow leads her back and forth through the heavily falling snow at a full run. As they fled, Fleur pulled off her dark brown cloak, dragging it over their tracks. Her dress was pale gray, a much better color to get lost in the waning light of the snowy forest in than the darker brown of Adamos. Together, she and the white shewolf moved like ghosts through the twilight winter landscape.

Abrieth stood staring out at the falling snow, he was worried about Fleur, she had not yet returned from her walk. Serapha was aiding Oren with easing the suffering of the ailing Oshay. The young man was soul-sick and dying after having lost his sealed one. It was Abrieth’s greatest nightmare.

“Brother,” Yurieth announced himself when Abrieth did not turn to greet him. The loss of their twin bond had affected them both deeply. In all their lives, there had only been a two ten-day period where they had not been able to feel the vibration of the other’s life force.

Abrieth turned slowly, he looked worried and grieved. “Brother.” He gave Yurieth a weak smile then joked, “You haven’t come to hide a bear in my room again, have you? Because the last time you didn’t have magic...”

Yurieth punched him in the shoulder, in good humor, chuckling, “No bears, brother, Serapha would kill me and not heal me.”

“Oh, so if she wasn’t here, I’d be sharing my room again...” Abrieth raised an eyebrow, and Yurieth smirked evilly. “I’ve always been curious to see who snored louder, you or a bear, little brother.”

Abrieth snorted in amusement, admitting, “I do.”

They were silent as they watched the snow, then Yurieth turned away and sat down heavily. “What if my power never returns? What if this is the reason I struggle in the future war? The siren has sealed that part of my soul.”

“Yurieth, Mother insist that is it your soul doing it, not Fleur’s.” Abrieth said tiredly, turning to look out the window.

“If it was my doing, don’t you think I would release her? I want my magic back and I want to be as far from her as I can get,” Yurieth snarled, glaring into the fire.

“You loved her, I could feel it,” Abrieth reminded softly.

“She bewitched me. Just like she will bewitch our brother someday. So, she can betray him,” Yurieth growled.

“Yurieth, they saved our people. Made our nephew king, sacrificed so...” Abrieth started.

“I saw in her memories, he accused her of betraying him, it’s jumbled, but he killed her, and she escaped to kill him later, it was when they lost their son.” Yurieth declared. “And afterward, he loved her again. It doesn’t make sense unless she bewitched him.”

“I... I can’t... I won’t believe they killed each other; they were sealed. It’s forbidden.” Abrieth denied it. “The memories are unclear; how can you be sure of the context of anything you saw?”

“She hated Kaleth after his death, she and that Mage Shadz went back through time to confront him. She lures everyone around her into acting without honor. A youth who was like a son to our brother treated Kaleth with the greatest disrespect when he sided with her.” Yurieth revealed. “Brother, why can you not believe me?”

“Because Fleur is nothing like the person you describe. Serapha says there is no deception in her other than to not reveal things that could change the timeline!” Abrieth found himself defending Fleur.

Yurieth made a disgusted sound. “I will get the truth from her before I kill her.”

Abrieth clenched his fists and turned away from his brother’s hatred, “You can’t, Yurieth. We need her. We need her to finish the Tear and save us. Mother says the last war cannot be won without us, or without her.”

Feeling Oren seeking him, Oshay retreated from the alcove above them and slipped quietly down the hall. He was trembling with the weakness of just walking around. He had been reading a book on magic and had overheard the brothers arguing. He trembled with rage at how misunderstood Fleur’s memories were by the Huntsman. He knew how she had suffered, grieved, and struggled. That someone who had known her barely 6 lunar months would presume to know her intent behind any action enraged him, and his heart hardened against Lord Yurieth. Oshay vowed to find a way to protect her. Staggering, he fell against the wall and dropped his book. Adamos was suddenly there, holding him up and retrieving the fallen book.

Wise silver eyes regarded rusty red ones. “It is time you returned to my granddaughter, High Lord Shadz of Odini. Do not worry about Fleur, she is stronger than she seems and Yurieth is more at war with himself than with her.”

Oshay shook his head, disagreeing, “My Lord Oracle, her memories... he doesn’t understand them. He doesn’t know that they are the burden that is killing her now that he has stolen the hope from her soul.”

“Have faith, grandson. Everything will happen as it should, when she returns, you must overcome your angst and help them heal,” Adamos helped him into his room. “Especially Fleur, she will have to walk through the valley of the shadows before her task here is complete. She may lose herself for a time.”

Oshay’s mouth made a thin line, forgiveness and healing were his sealed one’s gifts, not his. “I will do my best to help her with her burden, my lord.”

Adamos nodded, then opened the door to the rooms where the Odini were staying, “Oren, I have brought your patient. He had snuck off to the library for another book, like you used to do.”

Oren laughed, "Oshay is the twin I never had."