Binarius (15 page)

A storm’s coming;
No
, Firinne
thought.
The storm is already here. What’s
coming now is just the violent sadness of what’s already been
done.

This’ll just be wet.

Firinne didn’t know what time it
was, but she hoped the forest would end soon. Her legs were aching
and the motion-blur from the trees, as she walked past them, were
now giving her vertigo. It was like riding through a blizzard and
watching all of the little white specks of ice come towards you.
You begin feeling like you aren’t moving anymore and everything
ahead of you is going faster than it should.

The sky was black. Everything was
black, but she could still see the gray clouds rolling over each
other in the distance. There was something ahead, just through the
trees. It was big, but she couldn’t make it out, not yet. She
focused her eyes on the spot where she had seen it, hoping that
with every step she would get a good view of it as the trees opened
up like split-second tunnels.

She tripped. Of course she had, she
was dizzy, tired, and it was dark. Mabon made a low grunt and
nudged the soft place underneath her ribs. She grabbed onto his
throne to pull herself up. She then resumed walking, but Mabon
walked ahead of her and placed his body in her path so that she ran
into his ribcage. He made another grunt. Get on, he seemed to say,
and she obeyed.

She was up higher now which helped
her visibility immensely. She still couldn’t identify the huge mass
ahead of them. Less than a mile, she was sure of it. They were
almost at the end and she hoped that things would be safer on that
other side.

Mabon was moving faster, now that
he didn’t have to keep pace with Firinne. She probably should have
swallowed her pride miles back and hopped on him like a steed, but
she was determined to treat Mabon as a friend, not her possession.
She would only accept his help if he offered it. She would never be
presumptuous or demanding.

They had just cleared the forest
when the first slice of lightning slashed through the sky. It lit
up everything and she could now make out what she had been trying
to see. It was a castle, well, more of a ruin. She didn’t have time
to think about who’s Castle it had been, why it was now in ruins,
or why she had never heard of the castle that lay beyond the river.
Mabon sensed her urgency or maybe it was the electricity in the
air, but he picked up his pace significantly to clear the field
between them and the Castle.

Another bolt of lightning. As they
came up to the broken gates of the castle, yet another bolt struck.
This time it touched the very tip of the center tower of the ruins.
What happened next took Firinne’s breath away. From a metallic orb
on the center castle, the lightning shot out in three different
ways — up, right, and left. As the current of electricity that shot
up lingered in the air, the currents that shot out to the left and
right, passed from one orb to the next along the upper walls of the
ruins. They both impacted on the same orb which was just above the
massive gate. Somehow, these two currents became one and shot
directly towards they sky where some force pulled both currents
towards each other. Once they met one another at an angle, two
other currents split in opposite directions so that there was a
huge, electrical pyramid — creating a ceiling of static for the
whole perimeter of the Castle. It stayed there for a little over a
minute and then dissipated.

Mabon was shaking a little under
Firinne’s legs, and she hastened to guess that it wasn’t from her
weight. She patted him absentmindedly as her eyes lay fixed on the
place the pyramid had been; its ghost still scorched into her
retinas.

“
C’mon Mabon, it’s alright.
Let’s…let’s, go explore.”

Within the castle walls, there was
the faint resemblance of its town, although it was clear that it
had not been inhabited for a long time. There were gaping holes in
most of the modest houses that littered the main street. Firinne
couldn’t understand what could have caused such destruction. She
had never seen anything like it. Whatever it had been, it had been
hot; there were scorch marks on almost every structure.

On the ground, there were charred
pieces of rubble and bones scattered everywhere. People had been
burned alive here. A world that had lived, and perhaps thrived on
Fia, had been destroyed. The fact that Firinne had never heard of
such a place — well it may as well have been ripped off the face of
the planet. Nothing left now but an imprint.

As they made their way towards the
Castle, which she had decided would be the safest place for them to
sleep, she thought she saw movement between the houses across the
road.
Maybe it was just a shadow…the
shadows of ghosts playing tricks on my eyes.

The doors of the castle were made
of silver with copper inlays. There were designs that she couldn’t
see clearly on the doors, they appeared to be corroded with a
white, chalky substance. She pushed hard and as she did so, bits of
that chalky substance became loose from the hinges. The grinding of
the door echoed through the dark castle. Firinne lit the room up
with spectralin and found that the great hall of the Castle was
completely broken away. Above them, she could see huge gaps in the
ceiling where something had smashed through it, and there was
nothing but rubble. They made their way down the corridor, all the
while, the spectralin hovered just ahead of them to light their
way.

They went through the dining hall
which had a huge chunk of the outer wall missing. The table was
broken in several places and cups and plates were scattered about.
They continued to move. At the end of the dining hall were two
doors. One for the kitchens and Firinne decided to choose the other
door. The deeper they went into the castle, and away from the outer
walls, the better.

The next room was the throne room.
There were two thrones sitting untouched just above a small landing
of stairs. They were the most beautiful she had ever seen. Again,
they were made of silver with fine copper detailing. This room lay
on the backside of the Castle. Most of the windows in the room were
still intact, and from what they had already seen, this was by far
the most undisturbed room they had come across.

Firinne went back to the dining
hall and gathered some pieces of wood that had broken off of the
table. She returned to the throne room and began stacking them in
the center, just below the two silver thrones.

The fire was built. She had found
some old curtains, and made a small bed for herself. She toasted
the last bit of her bread on the fire. It had been a long day, an
even longer week, and all she wanted to do was sleep. A dreamless
sleep that would leave her feeling weightless in the morning. She
was glad to have found the ruins.

Although Mabon was curled next to
her, she felt alone.

If she had stayed awake a few
minutes longer and had seen the shadow that moved across the broken
window, she would have realized that she wasn’t really as alone as
she felt.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

The
Prince

A crashing
noise echoed through the castle and woke Firinne. She looked around
disoriented. She knew that she couldn’t have been asleep for more
than a couple of hours because the sky was still dark, and the rain
was still trickling outside. They definitely weren’t alone in the
castle just as they hadn’t been alone while they were walking
through the town earlier that night. She tried to regain her wits
and decide what her best options in this situation were.

She could hide behind the wall of
the throne room and wait for whoever it was, or she could seek out
the source of the noise. Maybe then, she would have the upper-hand.
She decided that was the best option, slung her sword over her,
instructed Mabon to stay, and headed out of the throne
room.

The castle was almost pitch black
but if she used any light, she would be an easy target. She walked
carefully with her arms down at her sides, touching things as she
went, to ensure that she wouldn’t bump into anything and give her
location away. She passed the table and stopped to listen. She
couldn’t hear anything. For some odd reason, Firinne felt brave
tonight. She took her place, crouched on top of the dining table,
in the darkness, and she waited.

For a long while, there was nothing
— no movement — no noises. She began to wonder if she was wasting
precious time sleeping. Wondering if the noise she had heard was
just from a dream, or an animal in the castle. As she sat there,
the rain seemed to quiet, and then she heard the soft scuffing of
footsteps. They drew closer and she could tell that they were in
the corridor coming towards her. When the noise began echoing in
the dining hall, she spoke.

“
Tell me who you are and why
you’re following me.” She lit an orb of spectralin in her hand and
cupped her palms so that there was a solid beam of light shining
towards her prey.

His hands immediately flew to his
face. “Will you knock that off, you’re gonna blind me!”

“
Tell me who you are!”

“
Oh for—, my name’s Kaolin
Satel!”

“
Right, that means absolutely
nothing to me.”

“Listen, lass, why don’t you turn
down your
brighties
and we’ll have a chat?”

By the sounds of it, she was
talking to a boy. She turned her hand away from him. He was
definitely a boy, maybe around the age of fourteen, and he had
blonde hair that looked as though it was almost white. His face was
like ivory — piercing sapphire eyes. His clothes were ragged —
black pants with the knees torn up; leather boots, and his shirt
was gray and stained — too big for him.

“
All right, start talking.”
Firinne wasn’t going to take her guard down even if it was just a
boy — old ladies had surprised her enough already.

“
No need for the tone. I was just
poppin’ in to see who you were. I live here.”

“What do you mean you
live
here?”

“
Exactly what I said.
I—live—here—”

“
Don’t be a smart-ass, I heard
what you said. What do you mean? This place looks like it’s been
abandoned for a decade.”

“
Actually, it’s been four years.
‘Mazin what time can do to the world, eh?

“
Mm…so you’re not going to try to
kill me?”

“
Nah,” he said. “Not unless you
try to kill me.”

“
Fair enough, care to join me by
the fire so we can have that nice chat you suggested?”

“
Sure thing,”

“
After you…”

Mabon popped his head up as they
entered the room. Firinne reassured him while they took seats
around the fire. “So, what’s a kid like you doing at a ruin by
yourself?”

“What’s a kid like
you
doin’
here?”

“
I’m not a child. I’ll be nineteen
in a couple of weeks. What about you?”

“
I’m thirteen.”

“
Right. So, what are you doing
here by yourself?”

“
I told you I live
here…”

“
Okay, well why do you live
here?”

“
I don’t know. It’s been my home
since I was born…good a place as any I s’pose.”

“
Can you just…can you start from
the beginning? I’ve never heard of this place before. I don’t know
who you are. Can you just start from the beginning?”

“
You’ve never heard of this place
before?” Kaolin stared at Firinne in shock. He almost looked hurt.
“My name is Kaolin Satel, Prince of Stahrling Castle, and Guardian
of the Current. My family ruled this Kingdom and it was one of the
strongest on Fia. When I was nine, the Desideriums came in and
murdered everyone…everyone, except me that is. Guess they didn’t
know about me before they came. Lucky for me, I’ve been here ever
since.”

“
You’ve been here, on your own,
since you were nine?”

“
You don’t think I’ve got it in
me?” He questioned her as he puffed out his chest.

“
Well, I don’t know that I could
have taken care of myself at that age, so I wouldn’t see how anyone
else could.”

“
Ah, well, my parents you see,
they must’ve known somethin’ was coming because about six months
before the attack they put me through a sort of survival training.
Taught me how to hunt, forage, basic defense…that kinda stuff. If
it hadn’t been for that…nah, wouldn’t’ve made it.”

“
How would they have known there
was an attack coming?”

“
I don’t know. Don’t really
remember them ‘avin a talk with me about it. They just sort of put
me through the training and well, I was nine, so mostly I was just
having fun. Thought it was a nice little treat. Being a prince and
all…well, didn’t think it’d actually come in handy. Boy was I
surprised.”

Firinne watched the smirk flash
across his face. Then his eyes slowly fell to the fire and that
boyish smirk was gone. “I’m sorry about your parents.”