The Blaze Ignites (32 page)

“All I could think about was how much pain
Cluna had caused Azrel over the years of torment and torture.” He
looked at me pleadingly, “and Azrel
defended
them! She even
joked with me about it sometimes, explaining it away as a normal
reaction when people don’t understand something. She smiled in the
face of her torture just so I wouldn’t hate them as much as I had a
right to.” He chewed his bottom lip. “She did it to protect me from
becoming hateful and spiteful and angry.” He shook his head and
looked out over the woods again. “In spite of, or maybe
because
of Azrel’s grace in it all, I truly hated those
girls. I wanted revenge for my sister. I wanted revenge for myself.
I wanted her to hurt just like she hurt Azrel.”

He stopped there for a moment and I feared he
wouldn’t continue. “What did you do?”

He sighed. “I did some investigating first
and found out that Cluna had a really big crush on me.” He shook
his head. “As soon as I heard that, I set my plan in motion.” He
swallowed heavily. “I started flirting with her and showing her
interest. As we talked over a couple days our conversations
inevitably came around to my sister.” He swallowed heavily again,
as if his throat was threatening to close on him. “I agreed with
every horrible, hateful thing she said about Azrel. I even
embellished a little on my own just so I could gain her trust.” He
was quiet a moment. Then he gave a mirthless chuckle. “She had the
audacity to say to me, ‘Wow! With you on our side, we can kill her
easily now! Will you help us?’”

Rabryn bared his teeth for a moment, but
quickly pulled his lips closed to hide them. “So she and I devised
a plan”—his mouth stayed tight like he didn’t want to admit
this—“to kill my sister.” He went quiet again then shook his head.
“All the while being so close to her made me want to vomit or rip
her hair out. She was a clever wench, I had to give her that. The
plan she came up with…” He shook his head again in disbelief, then
blew out a breath and hunched over, resting his elbow in his knees.
“After we’d been courting a while, I invited her for a hike and a
picnic up the Northeast Cliffs where the waterfall flowed.”

He went quiet again for a few drawn out
moments. “She was just standing there on the edge of the cliffs.
Everything was perfect. One push was all it would take. Not even a
shove. She was so close to the edge I could have tapped her
shoulder to get her attention for something and she would have
fallen.”

He shook his head. “I hated her. I
knew
I hated her! Azrel’s pain, her cuts, her bruises, her
humiliation all came back to me.” He paused and sighed. “But so did
Azrel’s acts of grace. All the times she joked about her torment.
All the times she shrugged it off. What was it all for if I turned
into a hateful vengeful person anyway? What was the use of her
smiling in the face of that torture if I became the person she was
trying to protect me from becoming?”

He shook his head for a long few moments. “I
couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it! I would
not
let Azrel’s
grace be for nothing.”

I softly blew out a breath I hadn’t realized
I’d been holding and my shoulders slumped. Whether I deflated from
disappointment that Cluna hadn’t been killed or relief that Rabryn
hadn’t killed her, I couldn’t even begin to guess.

Rabryn shook his head softly. “Suddenly,
close to the ground I saw a flash of gold light—which I didn’t know
at the time was my magic. It turned the rock she was standing on
into a bolder of ice in the middle of summer.” I flinched, but not
for the reason Rabryn might have thought. “She slipped. I heard her
bump and scream the entire way down the two-hundred foot cliffs
until she hit the water.” He paused. “They found her on the bank
two days later, drowned, and as broken as a porcelain doll.”

“No one pressed charges?”

Rabryn shrugged still keeping his eyes on the
forest. “Cluna’s friends were still terrified of Azrel, so they
didn’t say anything. They didn’t even say anything about Cluna and
me courting. Thank Goodness because that way Azrel never suspected
anything. She just knew that Cluna fell off the cliffs and was
dead.”

I sighed.

“Looks like I got the story straight now.”
Her voice came from behind us.

My eyes went wide and it felt like my spine
turned to ice. I could practically
see
Rabryn’s heart stop
with mine. His eyes went wide and his entire body went stiff as
both of us slowly turned to look over our shoulders. There she
stood, in plain daylight, with her arms crossed over her chest.
Both of us trembled, me more for Rabryn’s sake than in fear of
Azrel’s wrath.

Rabryn was panting in fear as he slowly stood
up to face her. “Azrel,” he said, choking on her name. Then he
couldn’t even speak.

Azrel’s jaw was working furiously and I could
see her shaking with rage. Why hadn’t she started screaming yet?
What was she waiting for? She bowed her head and stepped forward
stiffly before looking up at Rabryn again. “I’m pretty sure my
little brother doesn’t murder people.” Her voice cracked with the
effort of reining herself in. “So you’d better explain everything
that happened with Cluna quickly before I make assumptions and go
berserk.”

What? An explanation? She was actually
holding her temper and willing to
wait
for an explanation?
She was actually
pausing
before making assumptions? I
couldn’t believe it! It wasn’t like her to hold her temper
at
all
, for anything! Rabryn, not wanting to waste a split second,
immediately began explaining to her how his magic worked, using the
examples he’d given me. Azrel remained calm and neutral, nodding
here and there, and staying silent. The spectacle of Azrel doing
this had me mesmerized.

“Deep down, yes I
did
want to kill her
for what she did to you. But even though I consciously decided not
to, my magic did anyway because of the emotion, because of the
hatred I had for her.”

“Which made the rock turn into ice?” Azrel
asked. Rabryn nodded. Azrel then looked at me pointedly, picking up
on the oddity in that as I had. Azrel blew out a breath and bowed
her head. “Okay, I understand. All that really matters is that you
decided not to murder her when it came down to it. I’m proud of
you.” I thought Rabryn was going to collapse in relief. Azrel
smiled and held out her arms. “Come here. I missed you.”

Rabryn eagerly stepped into her embrace. “I
missed you too.”

They held each other for a long few moments.
“I love you, little brother.”

“I love you too.” After a moment, Rabryn
pulled away and looked at his sister with concern, no doubt over
her haggard and unhealthy appearance.

Before he could say anything, though, Azrel
looked at me. “And you.” She stepped towards me and smiled. “Thank
you for being so honest with me in Rocksheloc. You opened my eyes
more than you know, and I really appreciate it.”

I swallowed hard, unable to use my voice. I
wanted so badly to hold her, but I didn’t dare yet.

She looked down and pushed the toe of her
boot into the ground a couple times before she looked back up at
me. “So I guess you know who Cluna was, then?”

Again I had to swallow hard before trying to
speak as the visions Rabryn showed me flashed in my mind again.
Those horrible visions became more real because I could see her and
know,
as I looked at her, that she had actually
endured
such senseless abuse. My beautiful brave Azrel.

“Hey,” she said softly, stepping forward and
resting her hands on my cheeks, “I survived it, so don’t torture
yourself with thoughts of it okay? It’s done and I have to start
dealing with the scars as best I can. I have a long road ahead of
me in trying to rise above it, but with everyone’s help, I just
might be able to do it.”

My voice finally worked, but it was choked
with burning emotion. “You’ll do it. I know you will because you,
my darling, don’t know
how
to fail.”

She smiled gratefully but then bowed her head
and lowered her hands. “I feel like I’ve already failed so many
times on this journey.”

“Yet here you are.”

She looked up at me with a small smile.
“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“What you consider failures were just a part
of the process of digging up the warrior I know you are, nothing
more and nothing less. You
will
do it.”

Deep appreciation washed over her face. She
held her arms open. I walked into her embrace, her arms limp around
me and weak. I held her gently. For the first time since I met her
sixteen years ago, she appeared breakable to me, vulnerable.

“Thank you for believing in me,” she
whispered. We held each other for a few good long moments before
she pulled away, still smiling up at me.

“Okay Azrel,” Rabryn said. “Where in the
blazes have you been? You look terrible!”

All of us chuckled. “This, dear brother,” she
said holding her hands out to her sides, “is the result of no sleep
for five days, plus magic effects that demand twenty-four hours of
sleep that Reese and I fought through to stay awake. No food,
certainly no bathing, a nice big battle with Gibirs one night, and
another battle with Gorkors two mornings after that.”

I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
“That’s…”

“Bad?” Azrel asked.

“Really bad.”

“And now Welptacks…”

“Really,
really
bad.”

“What?” Rabryn asked.

We both looked at him. “Shadow Creatures
haven’t been seen in such numbers walking freely across Casdanarus
in about 2,500 years,” I said.

Azrel continued. “After the Nameless One was
defeated, ending the First Shadow of Darkness, bands of these
creatures hung around and caused some trouble here and there for
about two hundred years. With their master gone, though, they had
no leg to stand on, and eventually went into hiding.”

“And haven’t been seen until now,” I
finished.

Rabryn looked at us stunned. “That’s really
bad.” Both of us nodded. He grimaced. “So a Second Shadow is
looming?”

Azrel shook her head. “Not looming.” She and
I glanced at each other and came to the same understanding without
saying a word. She looked back at her brother. “It’s already
here.”

Rabryn squeezed his eyes shut and looked like
he was going to be ill. “How? Why?” He looked back at us. “Why is
it happening now?”

Azrel shrugged. “My only guess is because the
Anarran Gem is away from its owner. All this started as soon as it
was handed to Ortheldo. It’s a powerful artifact of pure Goodness
that these Shadow Creatures are homing in on.”

“So
we’re
dragging them out of
hiding?” Rabryn was terrified of the very idea, I could tell,
though he was trying to be brave and keep his composure.

Azrel shrugged again. “It was bound to happen
anyway. Remember Rabryn, I have a mission to destroy the last
living Evil in the world.” She sighed, “As unprepared for it as I
might be, it’s the only reason I was born.”

Rabryn seemed to visibly calm down, perhaps
realizing that this was Azrel’s burden and she was handling it
fearlessly. I asked my question, finally. “Who’s the newcomer in
the black mask?”

“His name is Lisswilla. He’s another member
of my team of protectors.”

“So someone told you who the Deralilya
is?”

She nodded. “Reese explained it to me.
Apparently there are more of these protectors of mine scattered
about and we should run into them along the course of this
journey.” I nodded. “Lisswilla was actually what saved me and Reese
and the Gleo’gwyns from the Gorkors.” Azrel smiled mirthlessly.
“After the Gleo’gwyns saved me and Reese from the Gibirs.”

I blew out a breath. “Sounds like you had a
busy week.”

“It was also Lisswilla who gave Reese and me
some special drink he made which keeps you awake and alert for two
days straight.” Azrel rubbed her red eyes with her thumb and index
finger “But the potion’s side effect is that you sleep so soundly
for twelve hours that not even a major battle will wake you up.”
She looked at me with her eyes half closed. “When I hadn’t caught
up with you all after two days, I was so terrified that something
happened to you that I fought off the mandatory sleep. Because I
was fighting it off, Reese decided to fight it off too.” Azrel gave
a small chuckle. “Lisswilla was flabbergasted beyond words that we
managed it.”

Just then, Azrel’s legs gave way and she
collapsed. Both Rabryn and I jumped to catch her, but I was closest
and caught her before she hit the ground. “I’m…okay. I need…” She
steadied herself, though she barely managed to hold her weight.

“You need to sleep,” I said, helping her stay
steady.

“I need a bath first.”

“And she needs to eat,” Rabryn piped in.

“Rabryn, would you go see if Forfirith has
returned?” I asked. “If he has, will you bring Azrel’s bathing
liquids to the stream a half a mile north of here?”

Rabryn nodded. “Sure.” He leaned in and
kissed Azrel’s cheek. “I’m glad to see you.”

Azrel smiled. “I’m glad to see you too.”

When Rabryn turned and left, I scooped Azrel
up into my arms. She gasped in surprise, then smiled at me as I
started carrying her towards the stream to the north. “Should I
even try to argue?”

I smiled at her. “You can try.”

She chuckled and then rested her head against
my shoulder. “So, what do you make of that?”

“Make of what?”

“Rabryn turning stone into ice.”

I blew out a breath. “I’m really not sure,
but it seems Rabryn is extremely powerful. More powerful than we
thought.”

“What makes you say that?”

I thought about how to say this, but there
was no easy way. “He can talk to nature too.”

“What?” Azrel lifted her head from my
shoulder to look at me.