Moonshadow (13 page)

“Children of the Fallen,” Diana repeated softly. “That word—
Naphalei—
it sounds familiar, like I’ve heard it in a movie or read it in a book.”

“You are most likely thinking of
Nephilim
,” Darien said with a tone very reminiscent of Dr. Rodgers.
“Our legendary portrayal in biblical literature.”

With his mouth twisting into a grin, Darien put one arm behind his back and raised the other like a Shakespearean actor.

“When man began to multiply on the face of the Earth and daughters were born unto them, the Sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. The
Nephilim
were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the Sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children unto them. These were the heroes of old, the men of renown.”

His grin remaining, Darien dropped his arm. “Genesis chapter six, give or take a verse. Surprisingly accurate, for a human religious text.” His smug smile reflected the irony.

“It’s true?” Diana asked, eyes wide with wonder. “Elves are the offspring of angels and mortal women?”

“More or less,” he replied, crossing his arms. “Angels, Gods, Aeons—whatever you want to call powerful spiritual beings from another realm.”

“Does that mean you’re immortal?” she asked. “You’ve never really seemed like the typical twenty-year-old.”

From his slight smirk and playful sigh, Darien looked to be settling in for a long series of questions.

“We aren’t immortal or ageless, but our life-spans are substantially longer than yours. We naturally live around a thousand years.”

“How old are you and your siblings?”

“Actually, Andrew and Miriam—as you know them—are not my brother and sister.”

“I figured as much,” Diana replied. “What are their real names?”

Darien was debating whether or not to tell her. He had obviously never planned on being in this situation and his usual duplicity was likely hard to overcome.

“Their true names are Anderon and Miraena of clan Swiftriver. Terraiyah, who found the idea of using a human name degrading, is of the Dawnbringer—one of the ancient clans of the East. ”

Diana smirked. “Andrew and Miri sure picked clever human names,” she said with sarcasm. “What’s your real name—Darius?”

Though she’d meant the question as a lighthearted joke, he seemed troubled by it nonetheless. With all of his masks finally falling away, she could sense how very vulnerable he was feeling and how alarmed he was by it.

“
Nin
Endymion bel’Danel va’Laevanas
.” The sense of pride emanating from Darien’s words as he spoke his name in his native tongue took Diana’s breath away. “I am Endymion, son of Danel, of clan Stoneheart.” He brought his right hand up to his chest in a fist and then bowed to her like a knight before a queen. The act seemed natural for him and not meant as a jest.

“Endymion…” His pride brought her memory to bear. “That’s why you felt so sad the other night when you kissed my hand; you wanted to say your real name but couldn’t.”

“You sensed that, did you?” he said with downcast eyes. “It’s true. It pained me not to be my true self with you, Miss Selene.”

His tender words shook Diana from her dazed thoughts. “I’ve heard that name before, and not just when Terra came home the other night.”

Then she remembered.

“I know—it’s from Greek myth. Endymion was the shepherd that the moon goddess fell in love with. The gods put him into an eternal sleep.”

Darien, or rather, Endymion’s warm smile filled Diana with a sense of pride.

“You are correct; I am named for that Endymion of legend. The myth of the Greeks was greatly influenced by our own accounts of the tragedy of Udana.”

“Who is Udana?” Diana asked, curious about the name. It sounded familiar as well.

“Udana is the Keeper of the Moon.”

“Your people have some of the same myths as the ancient Greeks?”

She felt Darien tense up as his eyes went wide and his mouth twisted in disgust. He’d been horribly offended by her question.

“Endymion and Udana are not
myths
—they are the sacred parents of my people. Without them, the world as you know it likely wouldn’t exist.”

Darien’s reaction greatly surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to believe in mythological moon goddesses. But then again, elves were mythology too, weren’t they? Her worldview meant absolutely nothing anymore.

“I’m sorry, I meant no offense. I just assumed moon goddesses weren’t real. People nowadays hardly believe in one god, let alone pantheons of them.”

Darien closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head cynically. “For the last century, you humans have been obsessed with what your eyes can see and what your tests can prove.”

“That’s science,” Diana replied with a shrug.

“No. It’s not,” Darien quickly countered. “Science is the quest for nature’s truths, not a crusade for facts. Lately, humans claim anything once called magic was simply misunderstood science.” He chuckled with condescension. “I’m fairly certain science can’t explain how my people can live for a thousand years while your people barely live a hundred. And I’d wager that if one of your scientists took one step into the Veil, they would likely die of shock.”

“What’s the Veil?” she asked with intense curiosity and learned forward.

“The Veil of Madaera—the Soul of the Great Mother. It is the untamable realm of magic and dreams.”

Diana’s heart stopped for the briefest of moments before it began to race at the sudden epiphany.

“Magic and dreams are connected?”

“To an extent,” Darien replied. “Both require a soul, but human spirits are usually too weak to journey into a proper Veilscape; though for Naphalei, it is a nightly occurrence.  Your kind barely touch the Veil when they dream.” His mouth twisted into an amused smirk. “Once in a while, though, a human will find themselves in the midst of the Veil and experience a nightmare the likes of which they will never forget.”

“It’s true,” Diana said softly, more to herself than to Darien.

Somehow, in spite of the unbelievable insanity of the night’s events, it was true—elves, magic, her nightmares—all of it. She’d been wandering within the Veil for years, ignorant of the terrible truth. Each cackling Lurker, each horrifying Terrorfiend, the Dark Masters—they had all been real.

Diana began to shiver uncontrollably.

“Can people find each other inside this Veil place?” she asked, remembering the evil menace of the Dark Master. “Can dreamers interact with one another?”

“It’s possible,” he replied. “Though it isn’t a normal occurrence. Dreaming in the Veil is not quite the same thing as consciously journeying within the Veil through magic.”

“People can enter the Veil when they’re awake?” Diana asked, wide-eyed with surprise, wondering why anyone would want to willfully enter such a place.

“With powerful magic, yes, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Dreaming is different—the Veil reflects the dreamer’s soul. An individual usually remains within their own section of the Veil while they dream. It takes a soul of considerably strong will to make a journey into the dreams of others. Besides the Veilwalkers of legend, only souls that are woven together by the threads of destiny can stumble upon each other—and usually only once in a lifetime.”

Threads of destiny?
His words brought back the image of the strange being she had encountered in her dream world the night of the party—though she hadn’t known why at the time, she somehow knew it was Darien. What could it mean; that they were connected by fate?

“The night of Andrew’s party, I dreamed I was in a rocky landscape with an otherworldly red sky and a cracked moon. There was a strange man in the ruins of a white pillared temple, meditating. He was terrifying, yet also beautiful somehow…”

Darien’s eyes grew wide as realization dawned.

“It
was
you,” they both said in unison.

“You slapped me!” Darien exclaimed in anger, but then quickly became contemplative. “Then you were gone. I didn’t believe it was really you, only the Veil playing with visions.”

Though she was quite taken aback by the sudden revelation, Diana tried to look apologetic. “I’m sorry. I thought I was having a crazy nightmare; I just wanted to wake up.”

Again, she just closed her eyes and shook her head in wonder. The world Diana knew was blowing up around her and reforming into a new existence that she never thought possible.

“I just can’t believe it,” Diana said, finally. “All these years, my crazy nightmares had been real all along.”

Her declaration brought a genuinely puzzled, and deeply troubled, look to Darien’s face. “You experience the Veil on a regular basis?”

“I wouldn’t say a
regular
basis; it doesn’t happen every night. In fact, until I stepped foot on the Flinders campus it hadn’t happened in four years. When it started, though, it happened almost every night.”

She shivered at the memories.

“Curious.” Darien looked perplexed, studying Diana like a specimen in a jar. It made her feel incredibly uneasy. “Your spirit must have somehow been touched by the Veil when you arrived on campus. It occasionally happens to spiritually sensitive humans when they linger in places where the barrier between realms is thin.  The campus is one such place; I suspect that is why Flinders chose it to build his church and school here.”

“How could Flinders know about stuff like that?”

“That, Miss Selene, is a story for some other evening.”  After stretching the stiffness from his muscles, Darien offered his arm to Diana. “I should be getting you to your room. You’ve have had a very eventful night and must be exhausted.”

Though her mind was still a tumult of unanswered questions, Diana couldn’t argue with him. She was rather exhausted, mentally and physically. Hopping off the table, she took Darien’s offered arm and they left the secluded basement classroom.

“You never told me how old you are.” Diana said playfully as they reached the stairwell and began the ascent. “Embarrassed?”

“Not at all,” he declared with a roguish smile. “I am currently in my two-hundred and ninety-eighth year.”

“You’re almost three hundred years old?” she asked in amazement. “And here my dad told me I couldn’t date anyone over twenty.”

Darien chucked at her dad’s restriction. “Yes, I’m sure your father will be most pleased to hear that I am two-hundred and eighty years your senior.”

“That sounds so wrong,” Diana replied, shaking her head.

“If it helps, our aging process is just slower. Physically, I am the same as a twenty-eight year old human.”

“I don’t know,” she said impishly. “Twenty-eight is still too old for my dad. Wait—so you were in puberty for like fifty years?”

Darien just nodded.

“Man, that’s rough.” Diana couldn’t imagine being stuck in those awkward teenage years for decades. There was always a down-side, even to living for a thousand years.

Before they exited the stairwell, Diana stopped and let go of Darien’s arm and he turned to see what was wrong.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked with a wide grin.

He looked at her with questioning eyes, wondering if he had or not.

“I don’t think so.”

Diana brought her index finger up to her ear and Darien’s eyes beamed with recognition.

“Oh, how foolish of me,” he said, looking rather embarrassed. “I’m not used to being in my true form. I’m fairly certain that this is the first time any of us has let go of our disguise in human lands since we arrived here.”

He quickly took the ring from his pocket and placed it back on his finger. As he did so, the air rippled as it had before and the otherworldly appearance of Endymion Stoneheart became that of Darien Shepherd once again.

“How does that work, exactly?” Diana asked, looking at the ring.

Darien motioned for her to take his hand and investigate. As she did, Diana rubbed the ornately engraved letters as if feeling them would somehow help her understand their meaning.

“It’s called a beguile ring,” Darien explained. “It uses a particular magic called Runecraft. When someone wears the ring it doesn’t actually change their appearance, but rather, masks them in the image they project.”

Curious, Diana reached out to touch Darien’s ear. She ran her index finger along the upper edge until she came to the place where his elven ear should keep extending. Just as he said, she could feel the rest of the ear even though her mind couldn’t register it with sight.

“Amazing…” she exclaimed. “Can all elves use magic?”

“Not like a mage; no,” he replied. “All Naphalei experience the Veil, but not all of us can bend its energies to our will. Non-mages are magical enough to use enchanted items like these, though.”

Diana pondered his words a moment. “It’s sort of like art. Everyone is born with the ability to experience and enjoy various forms of art, be it a painting, a sculpture, or music. There probably isn’t a person alive that doesn’t enjoy some form of art, but not everyone has the ability to paint a masterpiece or write a symphony.”