Knowledge: The Fifth Division Saga: Book 1 (26 page)

              A memory tugged at me, “Is that where you held me captive on my birthday? That farmhouse?”

            
 
“Indeed. Rain and I lived there and she believed we could be happy. But I knew something was wrong, I knew the little girl sleeping in the crib labeled ‘Mirabelle’ was not the right baby. But not until I rocked her to sleep one night and she opened her eyes, was I reminded of a fact I had neglected to realize until that moment, that I knew for sure. Do you know why?”

              I shook my head, my heart pounding horribly, not wanting to know the answer.

            
 
“Because the eyes looking up at me were distinctly gray.” His face twisted into rage, turning his handsome features grotesque, “My daughter’s eyes were blue, WIELDER BLUE!”

              My breath caught in my throat, “Wait, so you’re saying…”

            
 
“You’re not my daughter.” He said, regaining composure, “You’re a changeling, something the Council passed off to us. They
stole
my baby and replaced her with you, an abomination. Rain wouldn’t believe me but I did my research. I discovered all of their sick plans. But Rain grew fearful as I delved deeper into my discoveries and she left. She broke my heart, but I moved on and traveled to Hartrain, where I knew I could find allies against Nostos so that I might have my justice. I started over…” He placed a hand on Wiley who winced.

              I looked between the two of them and noticed their similar jaw line and the way their eyes both curved the same way. Their face structure struck me with a realization of a resemblance so obvious that I gasped and said, “You’re…?”

            
 
“My son.” Xavier nodded and squeezed Wiley’s shoulder. Of course. I pictured Caspian’s face in my mind and finally noticed how much he looked like the both of them, and how much I did not. “The twin gene runs in my family. I had my son and daughter again. Both Wielders this time of course, my current wife is of the same magical blood as me. But now my daughter is dead. I have lost them both and the Council is to blame. You think you were rescued that night at the farmhouse? Child, I let you leave. You had served your purpose for the time being and I no longer needed you. It was all in the plan.”

            
 
“This doesn’t make any sense.”

              He shook his head, “My firstborn son, Caspian, received the dominant Elemental gene, eyes like the sea, just like Rain. And my firstborn daughter received the dominate Wielder gene, like me. You’re not my daughter. You’re some
thing
they conjured up in a test tube. It’s disgusting, unnatural. The
Boni Conuigator
, I have always wondered but once I finally extracted a vial of your blood and tested it I knew for certain. The Council created a monster.” He briskly stood and loomed over me, his eyes glowing and blue sparks shooting from his fingertips, “Allow me to put you out of your misery.”

              He raised his arm to strike and I knew this was the end. Far too shocked to summon any Cast or Knowledge power, I fell into a state of acceptance. All I could do was curl up and wait for the end.

            
 
“I cannot
believe
you thought that minor Cast would keep Ash the Magnificent down,” an all too familiar voice scoffed from the doorway, “It’s insulting, really.”

              Xavier barely had time to register the new voice when a small tornado swept him from his feet and launched him swirling across the room. Once my vision cleared of his wrathful snarl, I saw Ash crouched beside Erion, who created the tornado, step into the room. The two of them, light and dark, strode in as terrifying and beautiful as avenging angels.

              Everything moved in slow motion.

              Xavier pushed himself back to his feet and screamed at the Shade, who barely managed to stumble into a standing position, “DO IT!” The Shade, clearly spent from his encounter with my pure light magic, managed a weak nod and bared his fangs. But instead of attacking me or the boys, he rushed with amazing speed over to the window where Kelsey and Danny, who no longer hung halfway through the window and had slid back in the room, were quaking.

It all happened in an instant with a growl and a shrill shriek. An inhuman hiss ripped through the Shade’s throat as he swooped down and sunk his teeth into Kelsey’s neck. He yanked his fangs from her throat and blood poured from the wound. He turned to Danny and repeated the gory act. I could only stare in horror as the Shade looked down at my whimpering friends, without a sliver of remorse. His blood red eyes were rubies and his aura burned bright in triumph.

            
 
“Finish it.” Xavier growled.

              Without a second of hesitation, the Shade placed a hand on each of their jaws, and with supernatural strength and accuracy, twisted his wrist with horrible power. The sickening sound of my two best friend’s necks being lethally snapped rang through the salty air, followed almost immediately by my wail of utter distress and anguish. A single tear slid down Kelsey’s cheek and a ghost of a smile spread her lips thin. What she could possibly could have been smiling about, I had no idea. The Shade collapsed in exhaustion, completely unaware that he had just shattered my entire world.

              Meanwhile, a battle raged on. Blue lightning shot through the air, counteracted by wooden knives and gusts of billowing winds. Ash and Erion spun and dodged, nimble as acrobats but I could sense their weariness in their auras which faded with every jab they took. Wiley on the other hand, seemed to be gaining strength with his father’s critical eyes watching over him. He sent a Cast with such force that he yelled aloud in an ancient sounding language as he shot it flying straight for Erion’s chest. Erion was fast but not fast enough and the blue energy slammed into him, knocking him out cold onto the ground next to Ash’s feet. Ash glanced down for only a moment, concern flashing across his face.

              I saw his black eyes flicker orange as he fought to maintain control over his Knowledge. An obvious solution then occurred to me...

            
 
“Ash!” I screamed even though he fought mere feet from me. He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that he had heard me but not daring to take his eyes off Wiley while he still shot streaks of blue his way. “Use your Knowledge! It’s your best shot!”

            
 
“I can’t control it!”

            
 
“Ash…”

            
 
“Mirabelle, I can’t!” he pleaded, throwing knives expertly at his opponent. The two of them battled back at forth, punching and cutting and Casting until finally Ash broke through Wiley’s defenses. With a war cry worthy of Sparta, he swung his arm with all his might, dodging Wiley’s attempt to incapacitate him. All it took was for Wiley to falter for that millisecond and Ash’s wooden knife dug into Wiley’s stomach with a terrible slashing sound that cut through my ears. Wiley’s confident smirk transformed into confusion and blood dribbled from his mouth as he toppled over, shaking with pain.

              Ash leaned over Wiley’s quaking form and ripped the knife from his flesh. He stood up, breathing heavily and shot me a worried look and said, “Are you alright?”

              But I did not think I would ever be alright again.

I ran over to Kelsey and Danny’s limp forms as fast as my weakened state would allow. “Kels? C’mon, you have to wake up! Danny? Please!” I sobbed uncontrollably, I couldn’t help it. Normally, I thought that people who cried were babies. Tears made you a wimp. But at the sight of my two best friends, slumped over with death in their eyes and blood gushing from arterial wounds, I simply couldn’t help it.

            
 
“Oh, quit your whining,” Xavier’s smooth voice sung through the room, “they’ll be Shades when they awaken. You should be pleased. Now they can join your world.”

              Fury and sorrow tore through me as I spun to glare him straight in the eye, “You’re a murderer.”

            
 
“Well, technically, I suppose. But they will revive.”

              I shook my head, my fingers tingling with electricity. I fought to tame the current within me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, “You killed them.” I lifted my hands and saw they were burning bright blue.

              With all the control I could muster, I channeled the Cast through my hands and toward Xavier. The blue stream enveloped his whole body and he fell into a crumpled heap onto the ground. I breathed heavily as I stared at his form, in shock of my own abilities.

            
 
“Well, that’s new.” Ash remarked from behind me.

              I nodded. A searing pain inflamed the skin on my hands. I yelped in discomfort and gripped my wrist. By the time I looked down at my hand, a dark tattoo had stitched itself into my skin, glaring up at me with its black Ink. I somehow understood the strange eye-like symbol that now printed onto the inside of my wrist:
Control
. I gasped aloud. I had Discovered my Wielder’s Ink. A strange sentence in a foreign language was scripted beneath the eye. They were the same words that I had read time and time again on the wrists of Wielders like Roman:
dominium ex evocates mittebant
. I had always wondered what it meant and why it appeared on their wrists once they had learned to control their powers. But as I read the same words on my own wrist, the meaning sprang into my mind, clear as day:
mastery of summoning the Cast
.

              I opened my mouth to alert Ash of this discovery, but when I saw him I halted immediately. He hunched over Erion’s sprawled out figure, one hand on his best friend’s chest. I glanced back at Kelsey and Danny’s forms and felt trails of tears on my cheeks. This could not be happening. Erion couldn’t be gone too…

            
 
“Hey, chap,” Ash muttered, “time to get up. I know you’re fond of your lazy ways, but now is a terrible time to take a nap.”

              Erion didn’t answer. I stepped towards them and rested a hand on Ash’s shoulder, “Ash, I don’t think…”

            
 
“He’s fine!” he snapped. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he gave me an apologetic look before turning back to Erion and saying, “Seriously, mate! Quit playing with me. Get up!”

              In a fit of frustration, he slammed both fists down onto Erion’s chest with an unnecessary amount of force. As his hands crashed down onto his breastplate, Erion’s eyes sprang open and he sputtered awkwardly, sucking in mouthfuls of air. He coughed and pushed himself up so he could lean back onto his forearms.

            
 
“What the bloody hell was that for?!”

            
 
“Good Lord, it’s a miracle!” Ash smiled widely and tackled Erion back to the ground in an overzealous embrace, “I should be a doctor! Did you see how blasted amazing I am?”

            
 
“You’re something alright.” Erion’s muffled voice coughed from beneath Ash’s body.

            
 
“Shh!” I hushed the boys, my heart racing again as I heard the sound of thundering footsteps stomp down the hall.  I was so tired, I couldn’t be sure if I would be able to muster up the energy to summon any sort of power at this point. But I had to try to manipulate something, anything.

              The footsteps thundered mere feet away from the door. The door flew open and…

            
 
“Mira?!”

              A gaunt-faced Caspian and Laurel stumbled into Kelsey’s room, panting heavily. Their hair ruffled wildly, like they had taken a ride in a hurricane on their way there.

            
 
“Caspian?” I stuttered in shock, “What are you doing here?”

              But it was Laurel who answered, “We saw you guys leave in the portal. So I had to teach this dingbat how to fly.”

            
 
“We can
fly
?”

              Caspian grinned cockily, “Oh, yeah. I’ll show you later, it’s such a…” He trailed off as he absorbed all the carnage the room had to offer. Before I could warn him, his eyes fell upon the two strewn figures by the window and his gaze turned to ice. Forgetting all about our earlier fight, I rushed over to Caspian and threw my arms around him, desperate for some reassurance. Not everything I just witnessed had yet absorbed, but what I did know was that I would be unable to ban some of the images of crashing bodies and bleeding wounds from my mind for a long time. I would not allow myself to cry, but as I hugged my brother soft sobs escaped from the depths of my chest, revealing the sorrow I could not fully hide. The eerie smile Kelsey wore still tattooed her face like a lie one cannot see past.

              I’m not sure how long we stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, as if remaining that way would keep the awful things and creatures of this world away from us. I finally released him, wiping a runaway tear with the back of my hand. The black tattoo jumped out at me, the opaque Ink greatly contrasting against my ghostly skin. Caspian noticed it too. His eyebrows raised but he didn’t say anything.