Blood of the Pure (Gaea) (81 page)

The ingenuity of his words left me even more frustrated, and I took a deep breath trying to at least control my Human feelings.

“You’re really an idiot,” I declared with a sigh and dried my eyes again. “Revert that!” I ordered and he frowned.

“I don’t want to. At least you’re not trembling anymore,” he pointed out, sounding proud of himself. And yes, suddenly being close to him was as easy and natural as being close to any of my schoolmates. Yet the pain inside me wouldn’t go away, nor would the persistent tears that kept flowing down my face.

“Are you a child?” I contested and sighed again as he seemed even more annoyed. “That’s ... painful, right?” I asked and he seemed intrigued. “That Seal, it’s cruel. It doesn’t just restrain your being, it crushes it.”

His eyes glowed dangerously and his hands pulled me by my sweater, making me fall at his side. His fingers wrapped around my neck, his face over mine so close that I could feel his warm breath, making me nervous and unsure, and a bit frightened.

“I’ve told you before, there are certain things you should not say.”

I touched his face, tracing the black lines, and couldn’t help smile at his surprising ignorance.

“Then I’ll tell you another of those things. I know you did this for me,” I said, following the lines down his neck and undid the buttons of his shirt that were in my way. “And yes, being able to touch you like this, not having to constantly tremble, is just ... incredible. But ...” I stopped, my hand in the middle of his chest, over the place where all the lines united in a strange eight-rayed star. “Your pain is my pain, my tears are for you.” He seemed confused, even more so when I locked my other hand at the back of his head and pulled him to me. “So, kiss me, Nyx,” I whispered into his lips and he did, with a soft, gentle kiss, and being able to feel his cold lips, without being constantly assaulted by that disturbing feeling that always reminded me of how different we were, was simply amazing. But even then, the pain persisted.

All I had to do was relax my body and I easily reached that point inside me where the inconstant ocean that were my feelings remained calm and unchanging. The warm wave that washed over me was brief, and the order that vibrated through all my cells, lightly touching my thoughts, was clear.
Break the Seal.

Gabriel pulled away from me with a jump, as if I’d just stabbed him in the back, and looked at me with an incredulous expression.

“What the …?” I smiled, happy to see the dark lines on his face receding and disappearing, and the tremors returned as his presence became stronger. As he understood what had just happened, his expression changed and the fury in his eyes made me recoil. “What was that for? After all I told you!”

“It was nothing,” I grunted, looking away.

“Mariane!”

The blast that filled the air was dozens of times scarier than his angry tone, making me cover my ears, my heart jumping inside my chest. When the silence returned I looked at him with a question on my lips, but received a warmer sweater and a coat that he negligently threw at me.

“Get dressed.” His whisper was cold and fierce, his face a mask of ice.

I obeyed automatically, pulling the sweater over the other torn one, and a new blast echoed through the walls, making me cower. It was as if the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the whole house, were about to explode.

“What’s happening?” I managed to ask and he gave me a pair of boots, but didn’t answer me.

“Suileabhan.” His ice cold whisper echoed throughout the entire room and a tall boy with silver eyes appeared out of nowhere. “It’s time. Just like we spoke.”

He nodded in silent agreement and walked over to me, bending to gently grab me by my arm, pulling me up.

“Lea?” I asked, confused, and he smiled gently.

“Everything’s fine, Mari,” he assured me and the deep tone of his gown-up voice, together with his teenager appearance, left me lost for a moment.

“Go.” Gabriel’s whispered voice woke me from my trance, as Lea pulled me, wrapping his arms around me, and I finally understood what was going on.

“No! No way! Let go of me, Lea!” I demanded, pushing him away with all my strength, but he didn’t even budge, his arms around me looking like an iron chain.

“It’s just for a bit, Mari,” he told me delicately and I turned towards Gabriel, stretching my arm as much as I could, trying to reach him.

“I want to stay! It is my wish to stay!” I said in one breath, recalling the strength my wishes had always had, and he just smiled with that gentle expression.

The room around me spun, covering me in darkness. I felt dizzy, and sick to my stomach, and had no other choice but to hold onto Lea, afraid I might fall in the dark precipice bellow my feet.

The cold rain and the sound of strange words, whose melody I’d learned to recognize by now, brought me back from a vertiginous world of dizziness.

I saw something shimmer on the floor, all around us, and a bluish wall rose from the ground and covered us, forming a small dome. I noticed I was in the middle of a huge Magic Circle, and that Lea was with me.

I stood up from where I was unknowingly sitting, my legs still shaky, and fought the dizziness that tried to pull me down once more. I looked around, still astounded, and dried my wet face, noticing that the barrier around us even protected us from the rain that kept falling on the outside.

From what I was able to understand within the dark shadows around us, we were somewhere amongst trees, maybe the small park near my house.

“Mari, are you all right?” Two big, warm hands held me gently, but I instinctively pushed him away.

“Take me back!” I told him and his worried expression was replaced by a deep disappointment.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Lea!” I contested and he ran a hand over his wet hair.

“Anyway, it won’t be long.”

“You don’t understand!” I claimed in exasperation. “She doesn’t want to just defeat him! She wants to make him cross his own limits, so that he himself ends up destroying everything, so that there’s nothing left that can keep him here!”

“Master will never do such a thing,” he guaranteed me with absolute certainty and I nodded.

“Exactly. And then what happened the last time will happen again!”

“My Master will never lose to such inferior evocations.”

“And so if he doesn’t? What about Alexander? And Jonathan?” I insisted and he looked away. “I can stop her!” I declared but Lea shook his head in absolute denial.

“Sigweardiel knows well the risks implied on this war. Besides, even if I did want to help you, I can’t. Master told me specifically to keep you in this Circle until everything was over. That’s what we all decided after our last encounter with Telane. I can’t disobey him.”

And that was that, I knew. It was as if the ground below my feet had disappeared. The certainty that Lea would never let me go, and that I had to stay in that place, far from him, drove my mind into darkness. Walls that I didn’t know existed rose inside me, closing over me, threatening to crush me. Just like Lea had told me, I knew he would never use his power to defeat Telane, afraid he might destroy everything around him. She probably knew that as well, I realized in terror, and that’s why she was attacking him, even though he was so much stronger than her. But that would mean that he’d be at her mercy, just like what happened eighty years ago, when his Brothers had Sealed him away. And a dark fear took over me when my mind played in front of my eyes all the possible terrible scenarios, until there was only one coherent thought left.
I have to go to him.

My own voice resonated through the ocean inside me and echoed back a similar response. It was the second time I could consciously access that point of total harmony and I finally understood what he’d meant when he’d told me about the synchronicity between my Soul and my Human feelings. The heat wave that washed over me left me breathless and a golden light broke through the shadows that had stolen my sight.

With trembling hands I looked inside my sweater for the origin of that glow and held the small, incandescent ring tight in my hand. I recalled his words, when he’d told me how and when I’d be able to activate the powers Sealed inside the Circle and reinforced my own will.

“Mari?!”

I ignored Lea’s worried voice and closed my eyes, squeezing the ring. Inside me there was only one will, only one command. I’d never felt so whole, so complete, so free of any doubts or questions. I took a deep breath and allowed my voice to echo my determination.

“Take me to him!”

Chapter Thirty

LIL

– The Vision of The Crowned and Conquering Child, the Lord Of the Aeon.
1
–

“If I was born when I loved you ... what will there be left of me once you’re gone ...?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

he blast that echoed around me, followed by the shrieking sound of something breaking, sent me at high speed through an incandescent and bright tunnel.

The sudden braking, just a few seconds later, left me lost and breathless, and the darkness around me blinded me again. For a moment I was completely deaf, the blast still echoing in my ears, but as the memory of that explosion started to fade, other sounds became progressively clearer.

I tried to focus my eyes, demanding that they’d get used to the sudden lack of light, and I almost screamed when I was suddenly aware that I was floating midair, very much above anything that could be called ground. For a moment I just stood there, terrified and unable to move, afraid that the Magic that kept me there might suddenly cease its effect, dropping me into a deadly fall. But then, the sound of metal against metal startled me, and I dared look down to where the sound was coming from.

I recognized the place with one glance, since Gabriel himself had taken me there just a few nights ago to show me his colorful barrier; the place where we had begun, where he had kissed me for the first time.

Practically below my feet there was a dome of light, much like the one where Lea had held me just until a few minutes ago. Inside it two shadows seemed to appear and disappear, clashing violently against each other, making the dome shake and vibrate in loud blasts.

I saw Alexander, standing to a side, trying to keep that barrier raised and, a few steps behind him, Jonathan, incarcerated in a barrier of his own, bending over himself, his young face a painful mask of suffering.

Jonathan …

His name echoed in my mind and, even before I could form a concrete thought, I was there, right beside him, my feet touching the ground as I regained my Human weight.

The protection around him melted away, slowly and quietly before my presence, crumbling into small bright sparkles of light that disappeared into the night. I looked at him, practically kneeling beside me and stretched a hand to touch him, and was immediately lost in the surreal way my skin was glowing. I still hadn’t noticed it, I mused as I looked down at myself, at how my entire body was covered by that strange glow, and I instantly decided I wouldn’t lose any time on that. At least that light seemed to keep me immune to the terrifying presence of the two
Shedim
fighting just a few steps away, for which I was truly thankful.

When I looked at Jonathan he was staring back at me, as if he’d just noticed my presence, and then his face seemed to come alight with an amazed expression of admiration.

I smiled at him, trying to reassure him, and he slowly took my inviting hand, allowing me to help him up. And then my eyes could also see it. See how, like me, he also glowed. But his light was incarcerated by numerous thin, dark lines, like a net of darkness that surrounded him, limiting and trapping his light. I wondered if that was what Alexander saw when he’d said that we glowed.

Jonathan seemed even more amazed to be able to easily stand up and I smiled proudly, knowing that, just as I’d wished, I’d been able to free him from the pain implicit in being Alexander’s
Medium
.

A blue and green electrical discharge crackled through the air, transforming night into day and crashing against the dome, leaving me deaf once more. My gaze turned towards the two shadows that moved so fast that I could hardly see them, and I noticed that, just like before, unlike Gabriel, Telane had dark wings sprouting out of her back, allowing her to move faster. Even so, the electrical discharges that periodically jumped from her white hands never seemed to reach their target, exploding against Alexander’s barrier. Her long coppery hair was like a trail of fire, burning behind her as she moved. And the bloody determination in her golden eyes was enough to make anyone aware of the danger of just standing close to her.

The air shrieked in a frightening sound and I felt Jonathan’s hand, still locked with mine, tremble. Alexander seemed to focus even harder, mumbling words under his breath, and then an enormous dark matter surrounded Telane, spiraling around her at a vertiginous speed.

I felt my stomach quiver in the first typical reaction I had, and forced myself to take a deep breath so I wouldn’t be dragged from that peaceful place that allowed me to keep my balance. I pushed down all Human emotions like fear or panic, emotions that I knew my Soul would never have, and tried to keep the harmony that I’d reached.

Gabriel stopped his attack, pulling back with two huge jumps, and Jonathan stepped closer to me, trembling uncontrollably.

“The barrier will never hold.” I heard his hoarse voice, and his fear made the constantly still waters under my feet vibrate.

Protect them.

The command bubbled up inside me, once more before I could even consciously think about it, and then a terrible blast echoed all around us, plunging us into darkness.

Even before I could see or understand what had just happened, I felt a painful and violent impact, and only then realized that it had been the result of trying to contain that monstrous strength. I almost fainted when I couldn’t breathe and pain coursed through my body, tearing it into pieces from the inside out, and I wondered if that was what Jonathan felt every time Alexander’s barrier was attacked.

I fought to raise my head, gasping for air, and warm hands supported me, helping me stand up.

“Mari! Are you all right?”

The urgency and preoccupation in his voice reached me as if coming from very far and, when I noticed, there were small bright lights everywhere, and not only covering the barrier, but also surrounding Alexander and Gabriel.

“Mari!!” Lea’s voice erased my confusion and I saw a small boy running towards me. Alexander, just a few steps from me, was staring at me in a mix of pure astonishment and terror. And yet my gaze didn’t stop on any of them, as I prepared myself to face his anger, knowing that what I was doing would probably make him furious. I found him easily enough, standing not far from where I stood, his long dark hair completely drenched, his shirt sticking to his chest, probably from being under the rain before Alexander had raised his dome. I noticed he held his crescent moon spear and that his eyes were glowing with that crimson light. And yet, the anger I’d readied myself to face as he looked at me, wasn’t there. And I felt kind of embarrassed when I noticed his dazed, almost mesmerized expression, as he kept staring at me.

My attention turned immediately to Telane, and the fury radiating from her left me tense. Without even making any sort of wish or request, voices invaded my head, hers sounding perceptible clearer than the rest. I instinctively took a step back as I realized that the reason behind her anger was me, and felt Jonathan gently tug at my arm, although I couldn’t really hear what he was saying.

‘You! How’s this even possible? I must be wrong ... She can’t be Human! And if she’s not, then ...’

All I could do was take a sharp breath, as I understood that those were her thoughts that I was hearing, and that she was about to kill me.

The blast that echoed around us was even stronger than the one before and the shrieking sound of Alexander’s barrier breaking hurt my ears. I know I screamed, although my voice was lost somewhere, and I pulled Jonathan to me, hugging him, fearing my light wouldn’t be enough to protect him. I cringed and closed my eyes when a savage, cutting wind whipped at my face, roaring all around me, and I had to make use of all my strength so that I wouldn’t be dragged away by it.

The cold rain that fell in heavy drops drenched me immediately and, when I dared open my eyes again I was startled by the gleaming point of the shaky dagger standing there, just two fingers away from my forehead. The pressure all around almost pushed me away from that silent place, clouding my thoughts for a moment, and all I could see was that metallic point and a grotesque, massive dark shadow covering the world, as if I’d gone blind again.

Struggling against the fear that had started to take over again, I tried to regain my balance, to make sure I did not leave that quiet place, even though invisible chains kept pulling me down towards the darkness. I had to stay there, I thought, even as my eyes followed that dagger, and the white perfect, shaky hand that held it, followed by a marble arm until I reached a pair of golden eyes that burnt incandescently as they stared hatefully at me. And then I saw it, the hand around her neck, a hand that I knew all too well, and I could finally see him, as if he’d just materialized from thin air. The darkness in front of me regained meaning and I knew I was looking at his back, that the black shadows that engulfed the world were really his wings of destruction. His presence was stronger than I’d ever felt before, more deadly and frightening, so cold and cruel that I had to struggle to keep standing and not be swatted by his intense rage.

I felt Jonathan being pulled from my arms and looked back at Alexander who had stolen him from me, hugging him protectively, while reaching out his other hand towards me, encouraging me to take it. Lea was hiding behind his legs, his silver eyes wide with fear as he peered at us, looking just like any other scared child would. And I knew, just by looking at his dark, severe expression, that Alexander was about to take them away, somewhere safe, probably somewhere very far from there. In his mind Gabriel had become too dangerous, gone beyond the point where he would be able to control his rage and power, and there was nothing any of them could do.

And so I smiled, as if thanking him for his offer, and turned my gaze towards that massive shadow that just kept standing right before me, holding at arms length the threat that would have certainly stole my life, if he hadn’t released his power that had allowed him to be faster than her.

This time, I consciously chose to listen to his thoughts, knowing I was once more borrowing the power Sealed in the Circle around my neck, and all that reached me from either him or Telane were horrifying scattered images of death and blood.

I forced my shaky legs to move and took a step to the side, away from that death threat still pointed at my head, and Telane’s golden eyes flashed in frustration as she followed my every move, although he kept her completely still.

I took a few more steps and, hesitantly, stopped at Gabriel’s side, peering up at him, completely ignoring her presence. His stone, white face carved on that enraged expression was dripping water, just like mine, his eyes completely red, without a single hint of violet, locked on her in a silent and deadly threat.

Moving as slowly as he used to, I raised a hand and placed it on his outstretched arm, the same that persistently tried to choke Telane to death, knowing that if she were Human she would already have her neck broken in two. The electrical shock that jumped at my fingers left my arm numb up to the elbow, and his thoughts invaded my mind, much clearer than before, causing me pain and trying to drag me towards a torrent of madness. My name echoed in his mind repeatedly, always associated with an abyss that went much farther and deeper than mere fear or terror. And yet, among the horrifying things that filled his mind, I found what I was looking for, the thought that would allow me to break through and reach his closed mind. I took a deep breath, focusing on the exact words I wanted to send him, trying to give him more than just words, enveloping every one of them in my own feelings to make sure he knew they were true.