Legon Awakening: Book One in the Legon Series (35 page)

“Kovos?”

He looked around from face to face, trying to hear,
see, or smell. That couldn’t have happened. He wasn’t dead. He
was…. He knew. He remembered everything. He brought his knees up to
his chest. There were tears in the other’s eyes now, no one
excluded.

“He’s gone, Legon,” Keither said, choking.

All this pain was for him. It was his doing. If he
hadn’t let them come…There was only one thing for it. Remembering
back to when he met Sara in Salez, he reached out to the others.
Not to their conscious minds, but to a deeper part, accessing them
in a way that could not easily be blocked. He found pain there. He
pulled at the last day’s worth, absorbing it in himself. He felt
the loss of a brother, of a friend, and an overwhelming fear that
connected it all together. All these emotions and more flooded in.
All of them were near the point of insanity, if even just for a
short time. The mind had its limits, and they were near theirs. At
first they resisted him, but it was so easy to let go of pain when
another was willing to take it from you. Eventually they stopped
trying. It was immense but somehow bearable, as if this was
something he was born to do.

Arkin had said that Venefica had specialties that
showed themselves when they hit a class four or five. One was that
of healing. Being able to take another’s pain was a gift of the
healer. The magic allowed them to take on pain and suffering
without destroying themselves. Still, taking this on and still
shielding his sanity strained his magic. Eventually the pain would
crush the Venefica and they would let go.

Legon didn’t want to be protected by the magic. He
wanted to feel it, wanted to know the damage it caused. He let the
walls down, letting it flood over him. He felt scared. It was too
much. This was stupid. Why did this have to happen? Why did there
have to be so much suffering in this life? Was that all life
was?

His body was shaking with sobs of fear and pain of
all kinds. He had opened the link with the others too far. He’d
been warned of this; he could lose his mind.

Darkness shrouded him as all light turned to dark and
the litany rang in his head, for it was a litany he realized; it
was more than a script that one recited. It was truth and hope.

Fear is the blinder. I am the light and master of
sight. I will master my fear and never again see night. I will
become the dark and the light, my fear will pass through me, and I
will stand alone in the light.

He repeated it again and again in his mind. It was
fear that he faced. He saw that now, but to face fear he must leave
the light. He let the darkness of pain and thought flow through
him, letting it saturate his mind and body. Leaving the others
behind, going on a journey that no one else could take with or for
him, he was the darkness. He wanted to die but the litany brought
him back. He saw a pinprick of light. It expanded and he felt heat
from it. Soon the dark was light. The fear was gone but the pain
remained as it should, as a reminder. No longer would he be afraid
of it. Pain was part of life. Without it there could be no
happiness. With this realization he found peace. He would not feel
pain and sorrow to the point of no return; it could only destroy
him if he permitted it.

* * * * *

Sara felt her body relax as her burdens of the last
day left her. This time the void they left was not replaced with
love and kindness like before. She would have to fill the void on
her own. The pain in her arm left her and she had a feeling of
euphoria. It was difficult to feel distressed because when she did,
it left her and went to Legon. She did not want to increase his
suffering, so she focused instead on the present and the break that
she was receiving from her pain. She was grateful for what she had
been given. She had experienced many trials, but she’d been given a
lot too.

She didn’t notice time go by as she knelt next to her
Everser Vald. She looked at her situation with a new perspective,
one that was not filled with doubt and hopelessness. Gradually the
pain in her arm returned, along with all of the rest of it. But now
from her reprieve she knew what she was to replace the suffering
with. She still felt stress and anxiety, but now she tried to see
the two perspectives separately. Adding them together, she came up
with a new one, one that was her choice, one that didn’t discount
the bad but pushed her to the good.

Legon sat quietly with his eyes closed. He was
breathing deeply. She and the others waited patiently.

Soon he opened his eyes. They were different. She saw
them in incredible detail, etching the image in her memory forever.
She locked eyes with him, and she attempted to look into his soul
to unravel the mysteries of the Everser Vald, but the answers
didn’t come. Still, the eyes were different, not just in physical
appearance but in substance. There was… more behind them now. Was
that from being an Elf, or from what he had done?

She looked away. She wasn’t worthy of holding his
gaze, not after all that he had done for her and what he would do
for them all. It wasn’t that he was deity or a prophet. No, it was
rather what he was destined to do that made her feel a sense of
awe. She also now knew his lineage, but Arkin wouldn’t reveal that,
nor would she. That was the Elves’ place.

Legon looked around the circle and Sara followed his
gaze. Arkin was looking down, but not at him or anything else,
judging by the look in his eyes. Keither was looking at him, not
believing what he was seeing. Here was one that looked at the world
through logic, Sara thought, but magic was still beyond him. Sasha
had great tears running down her cheeks now. Sara knew that they
sprung from happiness. Her brother was free of growing old and
dying. She wouldn’t have to know the pain of losing him. Sara would
have to look at Sasha differently as well. Legon spoke to her
then.

She was caught off guard by a finger under her chin,
guiding her face. No more was this the rough hand of a butcher, but
the soft tender hand of the healer. He looked her in the eyes, not
letting her look away.

“What are you thinking, Sara?”

What an odd question, but this whole scene was odd.
There was a reverence to it that wasn’t appropriate for the
mourning of a friend and loved one.

Her throat caught as she spoke.

“
U
n Prosa,” she said, using
what she knew of the old tongue. Her head jerked from his hand as
she looked down. She could just see his face. He paused, looking
curiously at her.

“Why do you look away from me?” He was hurt, but that
wasn’t the intent. Arkin answered for her.

“She means no disrespect. In fact, she respects you
very deeply, but I am afraid that she knows more about you than you
do.”

“Is it time to break your oaths, Arkin?” Sasha asked
politely.

“Yes, I think it is.”

* * * * *

Keither knew that something far greater than himself
was happening here and tried to clear his mind. It was close to
daybreak, but the moon would not set for some time to come. It was
that part of the year when the sun would be rising and the moon
would stubbornly hang in the western sky, refusing to bow to its
more powerful brother. He sat on his overly large behind. All of
them were sitting now. Sasha gave Legon a piece of bread to chew.
He would be hungry after all, wouldn’t he?

Arkin took a sip from his water skin, collecting his
thoughts. “It won’t do to get right to the part where you two come
into this story, so I will start further back.” When he said, ‘you
two’ he inclined his head to Sasha as well as Legon. How was she
involved in this?

“As you know, there was a war when the Queen took
over this section of Airmelia. And in that war, human, Elf, and
Iumenta fought. All sides took casualties, obviously; one of these
was a dragon. His wife was killed. Now it doesn’t matter what
killed her, only that she was killed and his grief was great. All
of you remember what I have said about what happens when an Elf’s
spouse dies, don’t you?”

They did. Keither wondered how a dying Elf had
anything to do with their current state, but he listened on.

“Before this great dragon expired, he used magic and
the Mahann to ascertain the future, for he wanted to know how long
it would be until the rest of his house fell to the Iumenta.”

Legon spoke, preempting Arkin. “But he didn’t see
their end.”

Arkin looked surprised at Legon’s intuitiveness. “No,
he didn’t. He saw in the future one man that would either choose to
belong to the Elves or the Iumenta. He would be an Elf, but the
choice would be his to make. Now this man would do many great and
terrible things if he chose, but in the end he would restore
order.”

When Keither first started to hear about a ‘prophecy’
he scoffed at the idea, but this was not so much a prophecy but
rather a probability. The Mahann used logic to figure things out,
and this dragon used the Mahann to tell of these things, so there
was logic here. It had to be a probability, but he didn’t see it
yet.

“That ‘hero’, as he was called, would be known as the
Everser Vald, meaning, in the Elven tongue, ‘the destroyer of great
power’. This meant that if he chose the Iumenta side the Elves
would fall, but if he chose the Elven side…”

“The Iumenta would lose control of the land,” Sara
said, beaming at Legon.

Legon interrupted them all. “Wait, wait. That doesn’t
mean that it’s me. You said that there had been others in my
situation before. There have to be signs or something to say who it
is.”

“Yes, Legon, there have been others. But let me
finish. The prophecy spoke of signs that would appear, of course,
and I will get to those, but there is more. This hero, this Everser
Vald, would be greatly influenced by another.”

Sara said incredulously, “An influencer? I have never
heard of an influencer in this story.”

“No, you haven’t. Only a select few have heard the
prophecy in its entirety. This was done as a protection, not only
to the possible hero, but to that influencer as well. This person
would be the deciding factor in what side the Everser Vald would
choose, and that meant that we had to step lightly when a potential
person fit the signs.”

“But I haven’t had an influencer,” Legon blurted. But
he had. Keither saw it, saw her for the first time. Pieces fell
into place now. It never made any sense at all to keep one like
Legon so deep in the empire but now it fit, she fit! Who else could
have had an impact on someone as headstrong as Legon? The same
person who had impacted all of them over the past few months. The
name came out without thinking.

“Sasha.”

Sasha looked at him, the little color left in her
face draining away. But it was her. She had taught him empathy with
her episodes, made him a better person. She was his drive for doing
everything; he would attack the Queen herself if it would save
Sasha from suffering. Keither had truly never seen anyone love
another person the way Legon loved Sasha. And it fit. How could he
not choose the right side?

“So this whole thing was a setup?” Keither said.

“How do you mean?” Sara said, sounding agitated.

“Sasha is the influencer, so he was put with her to
make him the Everser Vald, wasn’t he? And moreover, you said that
Legon has been using magic with Sasha during her episodes his
entire life. If he wasn’t around her then he may not have turned,
correct?”

Arkin looked uncomfortable. Keither knew that he was
right and that angered him. All of them had been through hell for
this and it was just a setup.

“No, Keither, this is not what you think. Edis and
Laura didn’t know anything about what Legon was or who he would
become. But yes, he was allowed to stay with them on account of
Sasha. Even at a young age it was apparent that she was an
unusually good person. If he was taken back to the resistance we
don’t know what would have happened. Even being raised on our side
wouldn’t guarantee that he was going to turn Elf or-”

“That I wouldn’t become a tool for the Iumenta. I
don’t fault you for what you did. I don’t want to think of life
without Sasha. Please, tell me of my father,” Legon
interjected.

Part of Keither’s mind told him what Legon had said
was probably right, and though this made his life harder, perhaps
it was better for the world as a whole.

* * * * *

Legon wasn’t affected by the news that Arkin just
shared. Somehow he knew it all. He wasn’t sure when he had figured
it out but he thought it was when he had been transfigured. The
White Dragon had shared a message with him, but he couldn’t
remember it. He wanted to know about his father and his mother, but
it wasn’t their character that he was worried about. After all, he
still viewed his adopted parents as his own. As he asked the
question he saw a look of confusion on Sara and Keither’s faces.
Sasha was firmly connected with him and she knew what he was
looking for.

She was feeling uncomfortable at the moment, having
just found out her place in all of this. She had disconnected the
weak network she had established with all but him. He sent soothing
thoughts to her, reached over and held her hand gently. She in turn
gripped his hand harder and he was aware of just how soft her skin
was. He felt all of the muscles in her hand contracting and
relaxing as she adjusted her grip. There was a steady pulse coming
from her. He had never felt someone’s pulse from their hand before,
but he did now. He also felt the moisture building from their hands
being together, all odd sensations to be having for the first
time.

He remembered what Arkin had said about Elf senses
and he concentrated on background noise seeing just how diverse it
was. He focused on his immediate area, breathing in Sasha’s and his
scent. Hers was soft and almost sweet; his was that of the dirt and
the horses. He listened to their hearts beating. Arkin was bringing
them up to speed about how rare Elf-human children were. He knew
this but he waited so the others would understand.