In All of Infinity (17 page)

Anekaya looked at Windrew. He met her gaze
and she expected him to say something. She sensed he was going to
say “I cannot believe you kept this from me” but instead he stood
up and walked out of the room. She had wanted him to speak, but
realized it would take a while for him to get used to the idea of
her being a sorceress. She had to accept that. Instead of being
offended, she turned back to Reverie and smiled as she came
around.

“How do you feel?” she asked, wanting to
comb the younger woman’s unkempt hair but it was still filled with
static. Instead, she combed her own blonde hair behind her ear and
scooted her chair closer and smiled. “You look horrible.”

Reverie touched her hair and laughed when it
crackled. She yawned and wanted to ask the sorceress where her
husband was, and then turned to Isaac. He was standing at the foot
of the bed, smiling at her. Saena was doing the same. Reverie
wondered if they knew each other better than before, but didn’t
need to ask. They were getting along.

“Is she gone?”

Reverie looked back at Anekaya and nodded,
finding tears streaming down her cheeks. After all this time, the
dark magic that was Ediniah had disappeared. Reverie no longer had
to wait and emerge at night when the moon lulled the dark magic
within her to sleep. She was all there was... and all there needed
to be… at last. With a heavy heart, she wished that she had grown
stronger before she’d met the sorceress. If she had, she would have
been able to live her life and have others live theirs without
worrying about her.

“Reverie?”

A man stepped up and stood beside Anekaya.
Reverie looked at him, unsure who he was. He had light gray hair
with white at the temples, a weather-beaten face, and pale blue
eyes. She knew these eyes, even though they’d once been on a
younger face.

“Father?”

She sat up and he rushed to her, throwing
his arms around her. As she cried on his shoulder, he felt his
heart racing. He’d found her! He’d searched for her forever, it
seemed, but she was with him again and that was all that mattered.
He didn’t think about the miles he’d traveled, the faces he’d
searched, or the nightmares he’d had of growing older and older
without her. For a moment, thinking wasn’t important. He merely
took in what he knew and that was her in his arms alive.

When they pulled apart, she saw tears
streaming down his face. They laughed and hugged again, not
realizing the other occupants of the room were slowly departing. As
if from the back of her mind, a picture emerged. It came from a
time Ediniah had forced her to witness, and then had attempted to
take when Saena demolished her.

Reverie pulled away and stared into
Emmanuel’s eyes. They realized Anekaya was still in the room,
seated at a chair near the fireplace beside the bed. She was
whistling a tune and had her arms crossed. By the expression on her
face, they could tell that she was planning something.

“Do you know how to get there?” Reverie
asked. “You were once a servant—”

Anekaya turned to Reverie and hushed her,
then rested her head against the back of the chair. She remembered
being a servant of Nadia years ago when Esme was captured, had
actually been the one who gave the woman her baths. Despite this,
she didn’t want to go back just yet. She was savoring one victory
at a time, and she sensed that her next was just around the
corner.

♥
Part Four: If Anything, a
Soul ♥

The sunrise painted itself across the
horizon, then began pouring itself across the calm sea and into the
large floor-to-ceiling windows that were spread throughout the
front rooms of the Daonira Mansion. Within the large meeting room
on the second floor, seated on one of the couches, Isaac slouched
with a steaming cup of ivena in front of him on the table. He
didn’t like the liquid much, which was stronger and more bitter
than coffee, but he hadn’t been able to sleep. He needed it to see
him through the day, which he could feel was going to end in
disaster.

“Why the long face?”

He turned and saw Reverie standing only
inches away, dressed comfortably in a pair of jeans, a shimmering
pale brown blouse, and a pair of tennis shoes. Her hair was combed
into a ponytail, no longer filled with static. Isaac couldn’t help
feeling terrible that he had nearly lost her because of something
he’d done.

Still continuing to sprawl across the couch,
he looked into her eyes and realized that the person addressing him
was Reverie. Last night, though, he’d doubted it. She wasn’t the
girl he once knew, no matter what he tried to do to bring her back.
After four years, she had changed, and he knew that he had too.

Reverie sat beside him, placing her own cup
of ivena beside his. Her leg touched his slightly, which caused him
to jolt and scoot over. She tried to keep from thinking bad about
his reaction and smiled at him. He had an elbow on the couch’s arm,
holding his head up with that hand while he watched the sunrise
intensely. She knew that her presence was disturbing him, detested
being ignored, so she picked up her cup and stood.

“Where are you going?”

Reverie looked down at him, saw that his
eyes were still focused out the window. For a minute, she recalled
the boy he had once been. He would smile, laugh, talk, and make at
least an attempt for her to know his intentions. He used to follow
her around, even though he would never admit it, and that had
always made her feel special. She never confessed it did. Perhaps
that was why they would never truly connect? Because they hid so
much from one another.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said and
looked towards the sunset. To avoid her feelings, she recalled what
Anekaya had once told her: that looking at the sun from within the
mansion would never hurt a soul. Reverie had once felt like the
mansion, unable to feel anything for anyone, and now she was
feeling everything all at once. She couldn’t avoid her feelings,
and she was actually pleased that she had them back.

“I thought you asked me a question. Don’t
you want to know the answer?” he asked and looked at her profile.
He realized she was crying and sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. I just… I haven’t felt
anything in so long.... It’s as if I were a shell and…” she looked
at him and wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“God, no,” he said emphatically.

Isaac pulled gently on her hand and she sat
beside him. How could she think that she was boring? Had she been
able to sense how he was feeling? Surely he hadn’t been thinking so
negatively?

“I really and truly felt like a shell. I
mean, there were these emotions surging through me, but I couldn’t
express them. At first, Ediniah was in charge. When we were alone,
she would tell me what she was going to do. I fought her. Hard. Her
temptations for… well, you know… men… were especially hard. I knew
I had my own powers from day one, but I never knew how to use them.
After all, I had never been taught how, until I met Anekaya. Before
her, thought, there were times when I felt so… alone… afraid. Oh,
great. I’m crying again,” she began digging into her pockets,
searching for a handkerchief. “I need a tissue or something. I
thought I had one, but I guess I was wrong…”

“What about a shoulder?” Isaac asked
genuinely and smiled. “I’ve got two of them.”

She laughed despite the tears. “I’m
glad.”

“Hey, lovebirds, stop cuddling!” They both
turned and saw Windrew walking in, and guessed he was summoning
them. When he gestured towards the door he’d just walked in
through, he made their assumption accurate. “Meeting.”

When he walked out, Reverie looked at Isaac
and they locked eyes. “Is he often so blunt? He reminds me of
Tarzan or something. Hey, speaking of which, I haven’t seen a movie
in a long time. What’s out?”

“NOW!”

They laughed, grabbed their cups, and rushed
out, leaving the room and rushing across the carpeted hall to the
library. Their good moods died as they entered the room, which
smelled like a mix between old books and sulfur from the fireplace.
The flames cast long, foreboding shadows all around them. In the
midst of all this, Tanner sat at one of the desks, eating a warm
breakfast, being hated by everyone.

“Why is he still around?” Isaac attempted to
ask Windrew. He didn’t get to finish because he was silenced by the
older man, who was delving into his thoughts and trying to figure
out what Anekaya was thinking. She was standing with her back to
him, staring into the fire.

“The Cathene Continent is divided into four
regions: Idenia in the north; Peniolea in the south; Magaren in the
west; and Auzeil in the east,” she said without turning. “The
darkness was born in Auzeil, which is the place Luella calls home.
Esmeralda Reagan is located there as a slave. To those of you who
are familiar with history, she is known as Esmeralda Navy, the
Second Summoner.”

“Second?” Brornar questioned.

Anekaya merely nodded as she spoke. “Yes.
The first was Nadia. Every half century or Black Moon, whichever
comes first, the Ancient Ones of Cathene emerge from the stars and
choose two Summoners. The first is the one who has absolute
control, but the second can overwrite the demands should the first
attempt to tilt the balance in one direction more than another.
They were meant to serve as two neutral, immortal bodies whose sole
purpose was to summon the Ancient Ones when they are needed.

“Nadia didn’t want this. She wanted power.
She attempted to destroy Esme on more than one occasion. The
priests of Idenia wanted to protect Esme until they could prepare a
spell powerful enough to call the Ancient Ones. She became a
mortal, roamed Earth, and found you, Dr. Reagan. From there, it’s
very fuzzy. Some historians claim Nadia found her first; others
claim the priests brought her back, where Nadia captured her. The
next mention of her in the books is that she was imprisoned,
leaving many questions unanswered.”

“Am I her child? Or am I Nadia’s?” Reverie
asked with a small, frail voice. She suddenly felt all eyes on her,
including her father’s. Anekaya turned to look at her, sadness
filling her eyes. “You don’t know, do you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Anekaya said with a sigh.
“That’s one of the questions. The only way to know for sure is to
ask Esme, since Nadia is dead now.”

“Well, not entirely…” Windrew said and began
pacing in front of Reverie and Isaac, rubbing his chin. He stopped
and looked over at his wife. “Nadia exists in the boy. She is the
one her spirit touched before she passed on entirely. I believe we
have all we need to reveal the truth.”

Anekaya raised her eyebrows, and realized
that he was right. She was a sorceress who had been born of dark
magic; he was a wizard who had been born of good magic. She smiled
and he did too.

The place chosen for
the
camacray
,
which was, simply, the calling of spirits, was on the beach. There
were three circles of stones, with the one in the center being the
largest. It was made of gray stones while one of the smaller
circles was made of black stones; and the other was made of white.
The clothing chosen was the shade of the circles: Isaac and Reverie
were dressed in gray; Anekaya was dressed in black; and Windrew was
dressed in white. Even though the occasion was being looked over,
they knew this wasn’t a moment of leisure. Any second now and
Luella’s goons would appear and ruin everything.

Isaac and Reverie sat back to back, legs
crossed. She looked at Windrew, offered a smile, but he merely
continued staring at her. She wondered how Isaac was fairing with
his connection to the world, Anekaya.

“This is stupid,” Reverie said, agreeing
with a comment Isaac had stated earlier. She loved the sand between
her toes when they were walking over, though, and the warm breeze
coming in from the ocean.

“Silence!” Windrew barked. “Close your
eyes.” She wondered if his anger came from the fact that he hadn’t
known about Anekaya’s powers, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she
looked across the beach, then up the cliff at one of the onlookers.
She smiled at her father and closed her eyes. He was here with her
and that meant a lot, even if Windrew said his presence would prove
a distraction.

“Focus.”

Isaac received the same instructions and
closed his eyes. Since they were delving into the darkness that was
Nadia, not the soft person she’d become before she died, they were
handling fire. If anything went wrong, evil would release itself
and consume both of them. Anekaya and Windrew understood the risk,
but they weren’t sure the younger volunteers did.

Isaac received most of the visions, which
started with Nadia’s youth. Anekaya told him to speed up the
process, to fast forward to the time when Nadia captured Esme. He
told her what was going on, trying to keep from revealing anything
unimportant. When he reached the place that drew Reverie in,
Windrew began speaking to her, telling her to tell him everything
she could sense. In her vision, she was about to know who her
mother was, but something dark surged through her body and her head
fell forward.

“Reverie? Reverie? Respond,” Windrew said,
trying to remain calm. He was the “good” one. His senses had to
remain collected, not scatter into anxiety and stress. He was
tempted to leave his circle, retrieve his sword, but he
couldn’t.