The damage to the Water-Ice Leyline was obvious the minute they landed. The crystal that made up the pyramid had faded and cracked, and the magic had become so faint it could barely be felt. Racine walked to the exit to peer outside and then came back over. Her face looked grim. "The entire castle itself is surrounded by hundreds of troops. I'm not sure we have enough oomph to get through them and take down that barrier. Not with this Leyline wounded."
Someone gave a shout outside. "To arms! The D'Saroque Army approaches! To arms! We're under attack!"
Sunlight's breath stopped in her chest. "Oh my god," she breathed. "Felix!" She whirled toward her sisters. "He must be causing a diversion! They'll be slaughtered!"
"Arms up!" came a second shout. "Another army from the east! The Rosewood Army is approaching!"
Raven's eyes widened. "What the hell did Vargas tell them?" he wondered under his breath. "He obviously didn't tell them I was here or they wouldn't have given a damn." He drew his sword and moved to the door where Racine stood. "It looks like we've got a clean break toward the palace. The troops are too busy with the skirmish to notice us right now, but the instant that shield comes down, we're going to have to run like hell."
Jeo and Tasia exchanged a glance and nodded. The former said, "We can create a fog thick enough to cover all of us."
"Good." Theo stepped back from the center of the room. "Then kindly get this poor Leyline running again. I'm not empathic and even I can feel its pain."
The Alurian Defenders gathered together and formed a tight circle with hands linked. Power flowed over all of them as they called on their connection to their world. Power began flowing in from the other four Leylines and swirled around the area. The Water-Ice Leyline began to pulse, softly at first, then stronger, and suddenly it mended. The crystal cleared and turned white once more, and the five powers merged seamlessly into one. Beams from all five Leylines shot across the land and struck the shield at the same moment. There came a horrendous crack, and they felt the hair on their napes rise as they all heard Chaos screaming in pain.
The shield shattered and dissolved. The army noticed that more than anything else, and troops began to run toward the Leyline. A fog immediately filled in the air so thickly that they couldn't see inches in front of their faces. The advantage swung to the force of good for they could see through it as if it was not there.
They used the fog as cover and rushed toward the castle. The doors slammed behind them once they got inside. The feeling of emptiness seemed to permeate everything. It felt as silent as a tomb, and they passed not a single conscious person. Every courtier or servant in the castle had been rendered unconscious.
Their shoes made hollow sounds on the tile as they walked. "Be warned," Tasia said quietly. "Minstrel has snapped fully. What you will see . . . may frighten you."
The Alurian Defenders exchanged quick looks. Starlight nodded slightly. "She is right."
Vincent looked at Tasia for a moment and then said, "I am the Lead Defender of my team, but I will defer to you in battle given your strength and experience. You may command my team as if it were your own. In the case of absolute worst, who is under order to retreat under any circumstance?"
"Reagan, LeAnn, and Racine. I assume for you it is the triplets."
"Correct."
None of the six liked it at all, but they accepted it because they had no choice. "We will hope it doesn't come down to that," Moonlight muttered. "Can Minstrel really stand against twenty Defender Cultivators—eleven of which are Dual—and Raven as well? He could barely handle Raven alone before, not without cheating."
Storm's eyes looked very old for a moment. "Yes, he can, and he won't need to cheat. None of you have really understood what was in him, have you? Or what he should have been. Starlight can tell you later. Just trust that what's going to happen will be terrible, and that at some point, Tasia has to open a particular door behind which we don't know what lies."
Malevolence hung around the throne room in waves so strong that even those without a sixth sense could see it. Chaos cried around them and madness screamed at it like an abusive parent. Theo and Phoenix took deep breaths and then opened the throne room doors. Everyone hurried inside, the doors shut behind them . . . and suddenly it felt calm.
"What the . . .?" Lilac looked around quickly. "Why is it so peaceful?"
"We are in the Heart of Chaos; the eye of the hurricane, so to speak." Tasia could feel it pulsing around her in a warm and oddly comforting force. Her sharp eyes probed the gloom of the throne room to find Minstrel. She knew he was there, but something about the gloom blurred even her Gray eyes.
"Lights!" Sunlight commanded, and the overhead chandeliers lit obediently. What they saw then made even Tasia flinch.
Minstrel sat in the middle of the throne room as a miserable figure hunched into himself. He rocked back and forth with silent whimpers. Wounds lined his body and bled sullenly. A bloody knife lay beside him, as if he had torn at himself with it.
"Why?" Rose whispered. Tears welled in her eyes under her Mask as she hid her face against Beth's hip.
"Because he wanted to feel pain," Beth managed to say. "Because without the pain, there was no way to stave off the emptiness. But it wasn't enough this time." Pain filled her anew, but this time not from the emptiness inside him. This time it came from the horrid truth. "He learned a new emotion. Grief. He knows he can't stop it. He knows it will eat him alive. The terrible irony. If all you feel are the more terrible emotions, eventually they will eat you alive, too. After so many years of pain and hate and fear and envy, now that grief has come . . . he can't save himself."
Even Raven could no longer hate Minstrel in that moment. As if sensing it, Minstrel's head slowly lifted. Bloody tears slid down his face. His hat was held clutched in his arms and stained red with his blood. Like the floor, where his blood had fallen had wrought destruction. "Kill me," he whispered tonelessly. "Before it eats me. I don't want to be eaten." He began to rock back and forth, making wounded noises in his throat. "I can't feel. I can't feel anything. The emptiness will eat me."
"Minstrel . . ." Starlight wasn't even sure what she wanted to say.
"Kill me!" he screamed. When there was no response except for pitying expressions, he leapt up to his feet. "I'll make you kill me! Make me feel! Make me hurt! Then it can't get me!" He lunged for them with Chaos power, and they quickly scattered around the room in pairs.
Raven went with Beth and Rose; he would focus on protecting the small Defender first and foremost, at Starlight's behest and his own wish. Rose had not yet been born when he had entered his sleep, but he had been friends with April. He would protect his dear friend's daughter with honor.
Minstrel rolled up to his feet with two razor edged short swords in his hands. He looked around and realized that he was completely surrounded. A wild giggle emerged from his lips. "Killed by Cultivators!" he crowed. "There's nothing better!" He threw his arms wide as he whirled toward Jeo. "You deserve to take the shot! Do it! Kill me!" Jeo only stared at him in shock. He raked one of his swords across his leg and made blood fly. "Mercy!" he cried. "Kill me! I can't kill myself! I tried! But it won't let me die!" He ripped his shirt open to reveal vicious stab wounds over his heart. Anyone else would have died from them, but there he stood alive. His arms, when he lifted them, showed slashes across the wrists. Blood flowed, but he did not die.
Chaos power howled at the eaves and cried like a scared child. Tasia's face went very still, and she squared her shoulders. She held out a hand to call for her sword and slowly walked toward Minstrel. The madness of the emptiness screamed at her the closer she got. It ripped at her skin through her armor, burned her to the bone, seared her heart, and sought to break her. Her steps never faltered.
She stopped beside Minstrel and knelt down to face him. "I will kill you," she said quietly. "Not because I hate you, but because I understand you. I will set you free, Durante. I will set you free to atone, to be by Sabirah's side. I know what she was to you."
He looked at her in surprise. For a moment, just a moment, sanity and the beginnings of hope filled his eyes, but then the madness surged up wildly once more on a blast of evil emptiness that seared the air. He lunged for her with a snarl, and his hands closed over her throat to send them both tumbling. "You took her from me!" he screamed. In his frenzy, he neither noticed nor cared that she calmly held him at bay.
No one dared get close. They knew they did not have the fortitude to go into the heart of madness the way Tasia had, yet they had to do something to help her. She would break free of Minstrel, call out his real name, and he would try to respond only to be taken by madness again and go after her once more. This dance could not continue forever!
"It's like . . ." Kiegan shook his head. "It's like it keeps coming and going. Every time the madness takes him, I can hear Chaos scream. It's like . . . like a door opening and closing over and over again!"
Storm's bow fell on the floor with a clatter as his hands lifted to his head. The plaid had just torn apart wildly, and the threads swirled through his mind. Blue: Sabirah. Black: the death he craved so badly. Red: passion and the drive to feel. Green: envy for that which he had lost. And underneath it all, hidden, was a wild chaotic swirl of gray threads like the color of True Shadow. Storm watched the threads sew themselves together again . . . and become a door.
His head jerked up sharply. "He's the door to Chaos!"
"What?!" The startled exclamations came from nearly everyone. Only Tasia did not look surprised. Her face remained utterly calm as she stayed kneeling at range from a once more sobbing Minstrel.
"The door . . . it is Minstrel!" Storm shook his head so hard that his hair flew. "That's it! There are doors out there somewhere, behind which the full force of the three highest arcane powers are kept. The doors to Light and Dark stand wide open with Sayena and Shanae in front of them as filters. Chaos . . . its door . . . it's Minstrel! Sabirah was the key! Without her, the door just kept open and slamming shut! The madness . . . no wonder! He had never been meant to be born! He was incompletely born, without emotions of his own. They were inside Sabirah. That's why she was the thread holding him together! Her emotions literally completed him!"
"I get it," Vincent whispered. "That's why Chaos is crying. For so long, it had been trapped behind its door, but the moment the door opens, it exits into the heart of madness born of emptiness—its perfect opposite, the thing it fears most. The more it escapes, the more it fears the emptiness and pulls back. But because Minstrel fears the emptiness too, he utilizes 'bad' emotions to call the Chaos out to fill it. Oh god. It's a spiral. He never stood a chance from the moment Sabirah died."
"And in the end, we can blame Cashlin," Raven said painfully. "Because if Cashlin had not embraced evil so young, had not been slowly storing evil power to utilize in his rise, it would not have leeched into Durante and strengthened the emptiness until Sabirah's voice was drowned, Durante's madness made him strike her down, and his fate was sealed. Durante could have been saved."
"Can he still be saved?" Yuiki demanded. "I don't want to destroy him!"
To save him, you need to destroy him, but destroying him won't save him.
Sabirah's words echoed in Tasia's ears as she gained her feet. The rainbow-gray glow of her arcanistry swirled up around her body as she lifted her sword and drew an invoking pentagram in the air. "Summoning! Heed my call and come to my aid!" The floor trembled in the wake of her power.
Sabirah's spirit appeared in front of Minstrel. He jerked back from her and curled up on the floor in a sobbing heap. "No," he moaned. "I killed you! I killed you! The emptiness will eat me!" Madness consumed him anew, and he lunged for her with fingers hooked like claws. He passed directly through her to crash onto the floor where he could only make sounds like a broken animal.
"Are you sure you can do this?" LeAnn whispered to Tasia.
"I can save him. I can give him what he really needs." She left her sword on the floor and walked toward Minstrel. Pain ripped at her heart and soul as the madness wrapped around her, but then Sabirah took her hand gently and the madness could not reach. "Durante," she said softly. "It's okay."
He looked at her as bloody tears stained his face red. "I killed my Cultivator," he choked out. Sanity had filled his eyes for a moment. "Who can forgive that?"
I can. Sabirah drifted toward him and wrapped her small arms around his neck even when he tried to jerk back. We don't belong here, Durante. We were accidentally born. We belong inside Chaos. Once we go back, everything will be all right again. I will help you atone when Karma decrees your punishment for what has been done.
Tasia knelt in front of Minstrel and tenderly reached out to hold him as well. His blood stained them both and yet did not leave any destruction behind this time. "You're the only one who couldn't forgive you," she murmured. "It will be okay now. I'm here for you. I'm so sorry it took this long."
His eyes widened and then slowly closed. The heart of madness screamed and roared as it pounded at them, but the Heart of Chaos was no longer afraid. The infinite well of emotion, the endless love, inside the sorceress had brought the force of Hope to life. Minstrel's lips curved into a soft and genuine smile. "You're warm," he said softly. "I feel . . . safe. Is this happiness?"
"Summoning." She closed her eyes as streamers of arcanistry flowed up around them. "I invoke thee."
He dissolved away into ribbons of chaotic energy that ricocheted wildly around the room. They flowed and reformed together into a massive door of gray wood. The door looked scarred and broken as if it had been used too roughly for too long. Sabirah dissolved as well. The sparkles that made her up flowed together into a small gray key that fell into Tasia's hand. It felt . . . familiar to her. "Shields up," she said as she slowly got to her feet. "All elements." She could feel everyone behind her gathering together to put up protective shields. She waited until they were in place and then fit the key to the lock and turned it. A soft click echoed eerily.
The door blew open on a mad rush of chaotic energy as if it had been bottled up for too long. It tore through the room and then slammed into and through the protective shields as if they were not there. There was nothing anyone could do except grab onto their heads and try to endure the Chaos ripping at them. Pain. Despair. Anger. Hatred. Crucial emotions but so overwhelming in that moment that they erased every other feeling. Chaos had been abused for so long that it could not give anything else. It had become the abuser instead.
The raw blast of power hit Tasia the strongest. She had been braced for it, prepared to resist it, but the Chaos did not hurt her. It wrapped around her like the arms of a child clinging to its mother. Somewhere in the distance, she was sure she heard the sound of crying. "Chaos," she whispered.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she accepted what she had already known. What had slowly become so terribly obvious to her Pattern Mastery as more pieces to the puzzle fell into place. "Somehow . . ." she murmured, "I'm not entirely surprised. Everyone has a meaning to their existence. I thought mine was a bunch of things, but it's not. It's all together under one."
The Chaos tightened around her. She gave a soft sigh as she let go of the barriers she had erected inside herself to keep her powers under control. Why control them now? They were Chaos. She was Chaos. They all welled inside her. The infinite majik known as sorcery. The summoning and the Mystic music. The magic both Ruler and Defender—the latter of two worlds. The dragon blood that was so thin and yet so strong. Pressure built and built inside her soul until her Mask fell off and her armor dissolved. Her Flowers Marks both began to glow brightly, and hotly, and when she felt the pressure reach unbearable limits, she shoved away her soul mates, lifted her hands, and—for the final time—shattered her own soul. Amid the pain rushing through her more violently than ever before as she reforged herself, she held out her arms as if to hold someone or something. "It's okay now. I won't let you be alone again." Her eyes closed as she felt warmth gathering inside as she reached out to the universe for what she needed. "Let the Chaos sing out with Hope," she whispered.
Just when the Cultivators were sure they couldn't take any more, the Chaos power stopped beating at them. Warmth began to spread through their hearts like the purest of hope. Emotions that healed welled on the air and brought balance anew. Comfort, laughter, joy, love. Love more than anything else. It swept through their souls and healed all wounds. A miracle had been born.
LeAnn cautiously opened her eyes to see what was going on; her soul ached where she had been removed from her twin and then connected anew. Her breath hitched in her chest as she saw her twin soul hovering several feet off the floor in the middle of the room. "Goddess," she managed to whisper, her eyes now confirming her suspicions. "Guys! Guys!!"
The others groaned but managed to get themselves back up off the floor. One by one, everyone turned their heads to see what LeAnn had seen first. They all fell silent in utter shock. They all knew precisely what they gazed at.
Tasia wore nothing except swirls of pure Chaos shadows shot with black and white lightning and rainbow-gray iris blossoms. Gray wings had extended from her back and sparks danced over the feathers. Her dragon scales had appeared as well, but the most significant thing of all could be seen on her Flower Marks: wrapped around the blossoms of both was a beautiful gray crown that sparkled, and the same crown had appeared in the middle of her forehead.
"A power equal to an Apex," Storm whispered. "The only thing equal to an Apex is another Apex. She's . . . the Apex of Chaos. That's it. That's everything. How she can summon the Apexes of Light and Dark. Why she possesses every Flower Element in some fashion. Why she is Gray. Why True Shadow split inside her back to Light/Dark and then began to spark. Why she can use arcanistry. Chaos could only be mastered by someone who knew it intimately, whose own volatile emotions are as infinite as her power. The Apex of Chaos could only have been born as a Gray Sorceress."
Chaotic power rippled over Tasia's body and then toward the door. The rest of the power in the room drew in toward the door and it flared with gray color to become whole again. Tasia moved toward the door without fear, and power blazed out to blind everyone, even her.
She lowered her arm to find herself alone in the middle of a vast gray expanse. A sound echoed behind her and she swung around quickly. There she found Minstrel—Durante—and Sabirah, but not like she had last seen them. Durante looked whole and healthy, and his eyes echoed with hundreds of warm emotions. He had unfrozen from his fixed place in time and now looked properly in his late thirties. Sabirah was no longer a child and looked Tasia's age. She looked very much like what Anna would no doubt look as an adult, and that meant she could be mistaken for Tasia's sister . . . or daughter.
Sabirah smiled softly. "We wanted to thank you. Thanks to you, we are free."
Tasia shook her head. "There are no thanks needed."
Durante's arm tightened around Sabirah and then he let go to kneel in front of Tasia. "I cannot ever repay what you did for me, or make reparations for what I have done. I will accept whatever punishment you deem worthy of me."
She stared at him for a long moment and then smiled. She knelt in front of him anew and reached out to catch his face in her hands. "Durante, do you expect to be blamed for events beyond your control? Underneath it all, there was good inside you. You never wanted to do anything you did. Yes, there must be balance, and there is karma to repay, but it is not a punishment. Punishment is for those who do willing wrong for selfish reasons—and neither of those fit you. Your duty is simply this: to make Sabirah happy. Though you two may not have been supposed to be here, you still were, and she was a Cultivator. You are her Caretaker. It is the duty of a Caretaker to always protect and shelter their Cultivator's heart and soul, to make them happy for all time. Both of you will return to Chaos where you belong, but never fear to reach out, to make a right where you see a wrong. As long as you live from now forward doing only good, then any debt will be repaid. So mote it be."
She stood and drew him to his feet as well, and he hesitated before reaching out to hug her. He let go to return to Sabirah, and tears glimmered across her dark eyes as he pulled her into his arms instead. How long had she waited to feel such a thing? She looked to Tasia and smiled anew as the tears slid down her cheeks. "Thank you, Mother. We will never forget."
They disappeared as the gray faded away, and Tasia suddenly opened her eyes to find herself lying on the floor of the throne room with everyone surrounding her. That didn't surprise her. Also, perhaps oddly, she felt no surprise to discover Sayena and Shanae in full Apex form were the ones holding her. "I didn't intend to summon you," she murmured. She had no strength left for a louder voice. She had been brutally battered by the heart of madness and her own shattering. The lack of pain physically told her that Sayena had already healed the external wounds, at the least.
"We came of our own will," Sayena told her. She gently smoothed Tasia's hair back from her face. "We knew, honey. We knew all along what you could be. When we felt you born, we did not know you would be the Lead Cultivator of this generation, or our High Priestess, but we did know you could be our final Apex. It could have been you or Rodi, to be honest."
"We always knew you would be here," Shanae added softly. "We knew all along there would have to be a third Apex, but the universe had just never been ready to support the weight of three—until this Era began. The first day of the last year before the new Era, someone was born who could be the third Apex. Exactly a year later, the first day of the first year of the new Era, another someone was born who could be the third Apex. One to herald the end of an Era, the other to herald the beginning. It truly seemed it could go either way—until we met you. When we realized how familiar you felt to us, how you created sparks if you touched either of us. The moment I knew you were my kindred spirit . . . I knew you would be the Apex of Chaos."
"You even said it," Raine murmured. "You all but said it then. You and Tasia said you were not strangers, and we just . . . assumed it was because of Tasia's lineage. It wasn't. Not wholly. I'd bet you were not surprised either, when Rodi showed up and was revealed as her soul mate."
"Not a bit," Sayena agreed. "If he was not the Apex, then he could only be the Apex's lover soul mate." She took a long breath as she looked at Tasia again. "Would things have changed, had we gone looking for you the moment you were born? Of course they would. We would have immediately known you were not just a not-yet-Activated Dual Cultivator of Iris, but also the Lead given your birthday. We may well have known immediately you were our High Priestess and the last of Liena's lineage. But if we had known that, then we would have inexorably changed every event that happened after, possibly dooming Rodi and Aria alike. We could not know until certain critical things happened, so we did not ever think to go looking for you. We just thought . . . well, whichever it is will come find us when they are ready. And you did. But then we saw how complicated it had become, and how far from ready you were to know the full truth."
Shanae nodded. "We thought about it. Each time something terrible happened. To tell you the full truth of why you suffered as you did. But . . . we just . . . could not talk about it. Something always happened to keep us quiet, proving it was not our place to tell you. Then this war began. And we knew the waiting was over. I'm sorry, Anastasia."
"I'm not. I feel . . . comfortable now. Secure. The way I should have always been." Tasia closed her eyes on a ragged sigh. "I'm tired though. So very tired. I just want to sleep."
"Then let Sayena help you sleep." Starlight leaned over to take her hands firmly with her own. "Aluria is forever in your debt. The least we can do is give you a place to rest and recover." She looked at Sayena. "Can you help her sleep?"
"I can, because I came prepared." She held up a beautiful black poppy. "Rodi gave me this, just in case." She tucked it over Tasia's ear, and the fragrance almost immediately sent Tasia deeply unconscious to where she could truly rest. "There," she murmured. "Much better. There is nothing left but for her to someday pay the price of her birth."
"There's a price?!" Jeo asked in horror.
"There always is, for an Apex." Shanae looked at him and smiled. "Do not worry. She knows the price she will pay, and she is willing to pay it. Unlike the price either Sayena or I paid, Tasia will walk away whole. It is no less a terrible, needed, thing, but she will walk away at the end. I promise."
They had to accept that, though no one liked the idea that any life would have a price to be paid just to exist. Carefully, Ryan asked, "Am I wrong in thinking that her being True Shadow meant this was somehow . . . mandatory? That the moment she became True Shadow, this moment had been sealed?"
"You are not wrong." Sayena spied a lingering wound on Tasia and healed it. "True Shadow is the only thing that can evolve into Chaos, and the presence of True Shadow is effectively a guarantee that Chaos will follow. Chaos cannot be born. It must be evolved. Ironic, I suppose, when Shadow derives from Chaos. What happened first was her emotions split True Shadow back to Light/Dark, and her Gray core kept bringing them back together. She became volatile anew—a common state for her—and the Light/Dark began to spark and produce tiny bits of Chaos. Had she stayed there, she would have been stunted terribly. But what she did here was forcefully shatter her soul to break True Shadow apart again and this time she forced it to evolve into Chaos. Now, inside her, is a sort of chaotic calm. She is balanced. A Gray core with a Chaos Flower Element, perfectly in harmony. Everything magical and majikal and physical in existence."
"Will this change her role as Aria's Defender?" Racine asked.
"Of course not. Chaos is . . . Shadow 2.0." Sayena smiled as she said it. "Tasia has not lost anything she had. She gained. She will still be able to use True Shadow magic that Aria gave her, but she is not actually a True Shadow element anymore. It has become like the others in her majik; something she has but not something she is. You will notice quickly that what you feel from her will be Ice and Chaos with the tang of Glass." She thought about it and then said, "Claret and Racine both also use Time magic, but you don't notice because it is born of Memory; all you notice is the Memory. Chaos/Shadow work the same way."
"And with that said," Shanae looked at Starlight, "end this war, Star. Let the peace and rebuilding start."
Starlight nodded and gained her feet. She removed her Mask and handed it to Vincent, and as she walked toward the balcony doors, her clothes became replaced by her Ruler gown. She could hear the entire castle awakening with the madness gone; the Chaos outside had faded away to where it belonged—inside the heart and soul of its Apex. Beautiful sunshine across her turquoise sky greeted her as she threw the balcony doors open.
The battle no longer raged at all. The last of the forces belonging to Cashlin and Minstrel had thrown down their weapons the minute they had all felt the power emanating from the palace. It had felt like a goddess had descended.
"Hear me!" she said distinctly as the Alurian Defenders and her sisters came up behind her. "The Alurian Kingdom is mine once more. I will not tolerate fighting on my world any longer. Those of you who are my enemy, I give you the opportunity to lay down arms peacefully and return to your homes. Rebuild your kingdom. Find a proper ruler. And when you have mended what was broken, seek me out for I will give an alliance!" Her eyes moved across the field to where Felix stood with Vargas and the rulers of Rosewood. "King Felix, Captain Vargas, I would have you join me in the palace. And you as well, King Luther, Queen Eithane."
The soldiers of the allied armies began to gather the remaining troops of the enemy to escort them home, and Starlight went back into the throne room. Relief filled her at seeing all three Apexes back in normal clothes—or at least, their Ruler gowns. They felt incredibly unnerving in Apex form, even gentle Sayena. "Let's move Tasia to one of the royal suites to continue resting. Shanae, Sayena, will you stay?"
"No." Shanae smiled. "You have things in hand. What we will do is fetch Rodi. He did not like staying behind in the first place when we made Sabin open a time-space portal for us."
"Neither did our husbands," Sayena murmured.
"They ought to be used to it, really." Shanae gained her feet gracefully as a female Royal Knight wearing Alurian colors came into the throne room. Shanae evaluated her height at around five-ten or so, but visibly very strong, and asked, "Do you think you can carry our fallen Defender of Iris? She is far heavier than she looks, I'm afraid. Whatever you're guessing, add nearly a hundred pounds to." She felt safe assuming that this last evolution had rocketed Tasia's weight up even more thanks to her majik expanding again. It had certainly added a few more inches to her hair.
The dark-skinned Knight knelt beside Tasia and then nodded. "I think I can, actually. I can use my Metal Flower Element to briefly increase my strength." She gingerly lifted Tasia and then stood. She paused for a moment and then, "Alright, I have her, but someone is very much going to have to open the door for me because I won't have her for long."
"I'll do it!" Rose dashed over and opened the throne room doors. "Here you go, Dana!"
"Thanks, honey. At least this confirms I can haul Phoenix around the next time he gets himself into trouble."
Phoenix yanked off his Mask and snapped, "You would not dare, Dana!"
"Try me." She disappeared out the door with a swish of long auburn hair.
"One of these days I'm going to convince her she can't boss me around!" Phoenix muttered.
"Yeah, good luck with that," Beth told him on a snort. "She's totally your Caretaker, friend. You didn't see your face when she walked in, but I sure did, and I definitely felt your emotions. You may as well just give in now and save yourself some frustration."
Everyone else removed Masks and sent away armor, and more than one hid smiles. Raven felt far less jovial, and he had ever since he had heard Starlight call for his parents. "Star," he said, "I'm not sure I'm ready to face my mother and father. How the hell can I make them believe me now when they never believed me before?"
Kiegan eyed the witches around him. "Can you tell if someone is lying or telling the truth?"
"I can," Beth said. "So can Ryan. It's part of Empathy. And Racine can outright read minds if needed. Why?"
"Because I want to make sure the corruption didn't spread as far as King Luther and Queen Eithane." He crossed his arms. "There's no way of knowing if they were manipulated from the outside or inside, and I consider it as much my duty to protect Raven as I do Starlight, given he is our future king and critical to our queen."
Raven nodded. "I think that is valid, Kieg. I will stay out of sight until we determine things. They will be more candid if they do not see me." He gave Starlight a swift kiss and then walked over to stand behind the curtains behind the thrones. His skin tingled, and he looked at Reagan in surprise as he realized she had just cloaked his presence via Illusion majik. "Thanks."
"Of course."
Raine had taken over as leader of her team with Tasia down, and so made a little gesture and had her entire team step back to make them more of a support than an active part of the approaching conversation. This was something for Aluria to deal with. They didn't have a right to interfere here, though all fully intended to if they did not see an outcome they liked.
Vargas entered the throne room first, and he was followed closely by Felix. "His royal pain in the ass, King Felix," he said drolly. "Look, she's alive. Now stop being a prick."
"We're big on the informality," Moonlight told the Resurrection Cultivators over her shoulder. "In case you couldn't tell."
Reagan smiled. "It's just like being back home." She shared a grin with her cousin as Felix and Vargas both snatched up their fiancées and proceeded to kiss them thoroughly. "I guess it really is true that even as Cultivators are all cut from the same cloth, so are their Caretakers."
"And how," came the chorus behind her, Alurian and Blossom alike. And, pleased with their timing, they all shared grins.
©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.
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