Girl of Myth and Legend (38 page)

‘I’ll stand guard,’ he says.

I nod and go inside, creeping down spiralling stone steps, down and down and down, as if there is no end to it, making me dizzy. I reach the bottom, the torchlight illuminating an underground cavern. There’s a strange, pungent smell that clings in the air, of smoke and bone and dirt and death, and it’s cold, very cold. There are stone coffins fixed within the walls, inscriptions carved above them. The cavern is dominated by a stone sculpture standing on a rocky platform, two sets of steps leading up to it. It looks old and skeletal, and chains are wrapped around its outstretched arms as if keeping it in place, like it could just come alive at any moment. I shiver at the thought. On the ceiling above is a blue rune, shining ever so slightly, and I wonder what its purpose is.

I turn my gaze down and see a body. At this point, I’m not as shocked at seeing a corpse. I go over to the Magen, kneeling down. His eyes are open, and there’s a sword piercing his stomach, his hand around the hilt. I move him from his side onto his back and check his robes. There’s a set of keys in an inner pocket, and I don’t know if they’ll be of any help, but I take them anyway. One might be the key to my dad’s prison.

‘Is someone there?’ I hear.

I glance around me, though don’t see anyone else, and walk onwards. In between the stone staircases there is a hole. I go through it and into a small corridor where there are chains embedded into the walls, and bound to one is my dad.

I blink, taking him in. He doesn’t look injured, though his face is paler than I’ve ever seen it, and his hair is dishevelled, so different from his usually unsullied hair. He’s staring at me with wide eyes.

‘Leonie.’

Tears well in my eyes, and for once I don’t mind, because they’re good tears, joyful tears, tears to combat the maiden.

‘Dad,’ I say. ‘I found you.’

_________________

‘Korren! I found him! I found him!’ I cry, almost slamming into him.

‘Well, where is he?’ he asks.

‘I can’t break his chains. I tried using this key but it doesn’t unlock them. Please, help him.’

He follows me down into the crypt and to my dad.

‘Hold still,’ he tells Dad, and uses his talons to slice apart the chains as easily as rope.

As soon as he’s free, Dad holds me tight, and I squeeze him back. He feels so light, as if he’s barely here and will fade away if I take my eyes off him. I squeeze him tighter.

‘Thank the stargods you’re safe,’ he whispers in my ear.

‘You should be thanking Korren,’ I say. ‘If it weren’t for him, I’d be dead and so would you.’

Dad glances at Korren but says nothing. I’m about to speak up, when Korren says, ‘We should go.’

‘Wait!’ Dad grabs my wrist.

‘Dad?’ I say. ‘Come on. We haven’t got time—’

‘No, no! You have to listen to me, you have to let me explain—’

‘Now is not the time. I told you, the maiden, the rebels—’

‘I know. I know they’re here. I know what they’ve done. Please, you have to listen to me.’

‘You’re hurting me.’

He lets me go. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’ve kept something from you, Leonie, something very important, and if I don’t tell you now, if I die up there like I think I will, then you’ll never know.’

‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

‘Please, please, before it’s too late.’

I look to Korren and then back to Dad. He cups my cheeks with his hands, a gesture I’m not accustomed to. I’m about to flinch back, then I notice how he’s looking at me: intense, desperate and sympathetic.

‘You cannot
fathom
how strong you’re going to become, Leonie. You could change the world… or destroy it.’

I blink.

‘I… I had your future planned out,’ he continues. ‘I saw it, studied it, and took every action I had to, to make it happen. There are some things I did that… that you would hate me for, some things even I wish I could’ve avoided, but at the time I didn’t regret it, because the future I saw was phenomenal, Leonie, and you were at its centre.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I ask. ‘We seriously don’t have time for this.’

His hands fall to mine, holding them. ‘But please forgive me. I couldn’t predict
this
. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Truly, I didn’t know until this morning.’ His voice breaks and it takes a moment for him to regain himself. I stare at him desperately. ‘Fate is cruel, Leonie. She gives me visions like the one I had of you all those years ago before you were even born, but they’re just glimpses of a path. One of many. I didn’t know,’ he repeats. ‘What he’s doing, what he’s done for you, and now what I’ve seen! Everything’s undone. I never… I never imagined
this
would happen.’

‘What are you talking about? You didn’t do this.’

The temple trembles, casing us to stumble.

‘She won’t know things have changed,’ says Dad, as if the place wasn’t falling apart. ‘She won’t understand. She’ll hate me for setting you on a new path.’

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘Your mother.’

‘My… but she’s gone. She left.’

He nods slowly. ‘But you have to understand, though I saw the vision, it was your mother who set your path, Leonie, it was her who enforced my vision.’

‘What? She’s powerless. She knows nothing about this.’

‘She was never powerless. She’s like you and me: Chosen.’

Words try to form in my mouth, but I don’t say a thing.

‘We spent so long planning and scheming and doing the impossible,’ he continues, ‘all for the sake of your future, for what you would become. Though she left, your future remained the same. Always. You would meet her again one day and continue your purpose.’

‘What purpose? Didn’t you just want me to be normal?’ I say.

‘Normal? No, no never that.’

‘But you said… I mean, the things you did—’

‘A pretence,’ he says. ‘Just pretence.’

‘You lied to me?’

‘No person should know of their future. If I’d told you of what you were to become, it would never have happened.’ His eyes narrow. ‘Now that’s what
must
happen.’ He leans forward, staring into my eyes. ‘The day I showed you your future, when you wanted proof of my magic, it all changed. All of it. The entire future. You were in the Imperium, remember? You were its destruction… and I was horrified. This was not part of our plan, for you to be the
ending
. I couldn’t understand it. Why would Fate alter your destiny? I thought it was a mistake, a fragment of a vision that could have been. I thought that, until now. Before this destruction began, I was shown a future that was blinded from me, and I saw the maiden, I saw what it would do to this place, and I saw two outcomes. The first, you perish this night. The second, you live and by living you create many more paths. But none of them was the one your mother and I planned.
None of them.
They were worse.’

‘You knew,’ I say. ‘You knew this would happen?’

‘And you did
nothing
?’ Korren says. ‘Even though you were imprisoned, you still could have warned everyone. You could have made sure my keeper was safe. You could have prevented all of this.’

For once, Dad doesn’t reprimand him. His expression remains horrified, horrified over what
he
has done. ‘To be chided by a kytaen? It’s no less than I deserve.’

‘Then why?’ I say.

‘Because how could I stop it? Because from this catastro-phe spans an even darker path, one that
cannot
be overcome. Leonie, you are at its end. You will either be the darkness, or die in it. In order for you to divert from this fate, you have to run from this place. You must defy destiny. You must be a normal girl, one who doesn’t dabble in the fate of the Imperium. You must have a
normal life
. I… I never planned for you to have a life like that. The future your mother and I paved for you was tainted by death and power, by glory and eternity, but I would no longer wish for you to be the girl with no happiness, no longer would I want that for you. Live how you wish, but live any life other than what your mother and I wanted. Anything but that, because it will leave the world in chaos, worse than anything I could’ve imagined.

‘She won’t want this, though, your mother. She won’t ever know or believe the vision I showed you, and she won’t stop until the dream we planned comes to pass. She is
unstoppable
.’

He closes his eyes as if he sees the woman from so long ago before him. ‘Please understand: I never meant to cause you harm. Your mother and I saw greatness in you and we were going to use that to create a better world. Now I see how wrong we were. She won’t forgive me, she won’t understand why I’m sending you on a different path, but don’t allow her to dissuade you, don’t, for she will try all her tricks and schemes against you! Be a normal girl, Leonie, and live a normal life!’

‘Why are you acting as if you’re not coming with us?’ I ask.

‘I won’t make it out of this alive, Leonie, if at all.’

I remember what the angel said, and I glare at him. ‘Did you see that in one of your preordained visions? Like hell I’ll believe you’ll die today! What’s the point of living if you’re not there beside me? Get up! I’ve had enough of this destiny bullshit, OK? If I destroy the world one day, fine, whatever, but right now, in the present, I just want to get out of this
hell
!’

I stand and walk away.

‘You have to be brave, Leonie,’ I hear him say.

My fists clench. ‘I’d rather be a coward; at least I know I’ll live longer that way.’ I continue through the crypt and make my way to its entrance.

We’re getting out of here. All three of us. We will survive, and if that’s not in destiny’s plan, then we will make our own destiny. We will pave our own path, and we
will
survive.

KORREN

CATALYST

‘We’re never going to make it through the portal at the speed you two are going,’ my keeper complains.

Orin and I walk behind her. All of us struggle to walk, but, despite her injured arm, she pushes forward without hesitation, the mist and the maiden and even the rebels no threat to her determined mind. How quick she is to gain courage.

The mist feels colder, deeper than before. The rebels said they were losing control of the maiden, that it was killing their own, so I can only assume it is now looking for my keeper, its greatest source for food, and once it has found her there’s nothing that can be done. At the thought of that, I quicken my pace, though still not enough to walk by her side.

Time passes slowly as we walk towards the portal. I have to shout directions to my keeper so she knows where to go. She’s too stubborn to slow down and let me lead.

‘Left, round this bend,’ I call to her.

She does as I say.

‘We’re almost there,’ I tell her.

‘You both OK?’ she asks, craning her neck to look back at us, still walking.

‘I’m fine,’ says Orin, struggling to breathe.

‘Yeah, you’re the picture of health right now, Dad. What about you, Korren?’

‘Just keep walking,’ I tell her.

She turns her gaze forward. ‘There! It’s there! I see the orange light. It’s the portal!’ she yells. ‘Come on!’ She begins to jog ahead. ‘Come
on
!’

‘She’s determined not to believe what I told her,’ Orin says as we hobble forward. ‘I hope you’ll be able to persuade her.’

‘All this future business sounds like drivel to me,’ I say.

‘I wish it were. I saw her, before she was born, ruling over Duwyn, and she was
divine
. I wanted to see her above us all. It was fate, after all, and I’m fate’s tool. But the Imperium still found her, as expected. When her mother left I knew they’d find her, because her mother was the one, the only one, who could’ve found a way to protect Leonie from them. And then the vision that I saw when Leonie’s magic awoke, what Leonie would become… so distorted from my original vision…’ He shakes his head. ‘That destiny was set, but tonight’s events have been merciful.’

‘
Merciful
?’

‘They’ve allowed Leonie many more paths than the one I showed her. All I know now is that she must leave this place and find and follow the pathway. She must not go to the Imperium, but most of all, you must never,
never
become the catalyst, kytaen.’

‘Catalyst?’

He nods. ‘In the following years, Leonie will be tested like she has never been tested before. There’s a chance something terrible will befall her—because of you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’ll awaken something in her, kytaen, something that will—’ He stops. Pauses. Eyebrows crease together. ‘
No
.’ His eyes widen, as if he can see something I can’t. ‘It’s time?’ He turns around, gasps, and then throws himself in front of me. A blade penetrates Orin’s chest and through his back, a blade that was meant for me, and blood gushes out. It takes me a moment to comprehend it. A moment that costs me.

First, Orin crumples onto the snow.

Then, a rebel who jumps out from the mist pushes my keeper to the ground, shoving his foot into her neck.

And finally, my mind catches up with the situation. I realise it is Hau-Rai who is attacking my keeper, Hau-Rai, who I thought had died. I have to act. Now.
Now
!