The Fire Within (The Fire of The Soul Series) (21 page)

Within my pocket is a small, plastic bag and within
this is the only thing that a 'land-walker' can use to breath when crossing
through the waters, if they are willing to face the danger. These are a part of
legend too, small slimy leaves, harvested from the bottom of the waters, that
allow our bodies and lungs to take the oxygen from the water, allowing us to
breath. There is only one within the bag as I am the only one within my group
of four that need to breathe. Jocelyn, Scott and Edgar are all vampires, their
need for air is superficial, a want that their dead bodies remember from their
living days. I am a Shape-shifter, still a living, breathing person. My need
for air is simply that a need, something far more necessary than any of them
could believe.

I can feel eyes on me, and as I lift my eyes to
Jocelyn I find that it is she who has been watching me. I raise an eyebrow at
her, questioning her with the simple look, she only smiles and shakes her head.

"Eat it, Kayden. So we can get this over and
done with," She says, as she pulls out a slim hair elastic, pulling up her
dark curls into a tight bun. Edgar and Scott only give a slight shrug of their
shoulders when I turn to them. Looking back down to the slimy leaf, I bite my
tongue and gathered my courage, as I take the leaf out of the slim bag and
stick it down my throat. Instantly, I want to spit it back out, but I cannot
allow myself to do it, or rather, I should say, that I physically cannot do it.
My lips are already closing shut, my skin on the sides of my neck ripping apart,
leaving gaping, bloody wounds. The taste of the leaf itself is nasty,
revolting, it feels as if I am licking the back of a salty, slimy frog, but it
is working its magic because I can already feel as if I cannot breathe the air
surrounding me. I reach up to touch the skin on the sides of my neck and find
three open wounds on each side of my neck, slim as if the tip of a knife had
been sliced upon the skin, but the flapping open skin proves how deep the cut
is. I realize as I touch the wounds, that these are gills. Retrieving my hands,
I see the blood of the wounds upon my fingers, dark and awfully bright.

The call of the ocean is strong, beautiful and
all-consuming; it seems to whisper to me, calling to me as it promises love,
warmth and comfort. That the sins of the land-walkers will be washed away in
its depths, and I abandon all my doubts of Atlantis, and walk into its elusive
light that is within sight, but never within reach. I can hear footsteps behind
me, and before I can think, I've turned around snarling and growling at the
land-walkers behind me. Atlantis, the mother of all oceans, is no place for
them; it is a place where they are not welcome. My instincts are natural, as if
I've never known anything else, but my mind and my heart recognizes the hurt on
Jocelyn's face, and the surprise on Scott's and Edgar's. They were not
anticipating this, nor was I. I turn away from them once more, refusing to
think upon the hurt on her face, and I walk into the oceans welcoming depths
that recognize me as one of her own.

I don't know how long I walk for, I seem to float at
times and when I start to swim I find such freedom and joy in it, that I have
to remember who I am and where I come from. I am a Shape-shifter - a
land-walker - intruding on one of the only places that has been untouched by
anything above these waters.

Time loses its meaning in these cold depths and it
is only as I see the bright golden hue of Atlantis, that the hope of never
finding it flees my mind. My movement, my pace quickens as I approach Atlantis,
and before long I am walking on the golden streets of Atlantis. I can feel eyes
on me everywhere, watching me as I make my way through what appears to be an
empty city, but I know that they are here somewhere, their need to know who the
intruder is forces their attention to me, makes them watch me with every step
that I can take.

I want to scream at them to reveal themselves, to
show me their hiding places, demand to see their leader but I can not, my lips
have shut permanently when I had digested that damn plant, I cannot say a word,
but I can think it. I guess thinking it is simply enough though because soon as
I have made a single thought, I am engulfed in a swarm of Mer-men their fishy
tails making sharp cuts through the water, their broad shoulders and sculpted
muscles fill my vision, blocking out any part of their world that I have seen
as they create a circle around me. In their hands are weapons, either spears or
tridents, and I can feel the anger and hatred they feel to an outsider, to a
land-walker and I know that without a doubt I am in trouble.

Their raspy voices howl as one, demanding answers to
their questions, but the leader of the pack hushes them all as his voice infiltrates
my thoughts. "Land-walker, it does not matter how you got here. You have
broken the treaty between us and your kind, and for this the penalty is
death." I can see his trident pointed toward my chest, his intention to
thrust the weapon through my chest clear. I am waiting for the blow, and
wondering why it has not been delivered yet, when the look in the leaders eyes
change, from hatred to confusion and then to determination.

"Your death is inevitable Land-walker, but for
the moment you have been given the chance to evade your fate. For now your fate
rests within my queen’s hands, God have mercy on you." Those are the last
words that echo within my mind as he - the nameless leader - turns away from
me. Shackles bind my hands, and I am dragged to the castle of Atlantis and it's
Queen.

I quickly find myself kneeling before the Queen of
Atlantis, her cerulean blue hair floating softly around her, tossed gentle by
the constantly moving water. There is a dagger made from a sharks tooth held
against my throat, making me inept to move. Her black eyes take me in - gills
and all - and the wicked smile on her lips tells me she is up to no good, but I
cannot begin to think what can be going on in her mind, my mind being too
focused on all that is going on around me.

"I know of you, Land-walker. You are the pure
vampires king's most trusted. No doubt you have come down here on his orders.
The question is why did he send you down here?" She says at last, after
what feels like an eternity of waiting. Her pacing comes to a stop and her eyes
turn to me again, questioning. I realize that she expects me to answer her
question.

I try to open my mouth, desperate to explain myself,
but I struggle to open my lips, struggle to speak. She cusses in a strange
language before she says in English "Shadowblue! Curse you Land-walker, I
don't know how you got your hands on a Shadowblue leaf, but you should be
killed for even eating it! How dare you think you can walk into my kingdom, and
believe that we'll let you leave alive!" She continues to grumble to
herself, clearly upset that I'm down here in the first place. "Curse you
Stheno! Damn this silence!" She turns to me again; her eyes ablaze with
her anger, and points a shaking finger at me. A slight shudder races through
out my body, rearranging from my chest to the tip of my hairs.

I gasp, able to breath, to move my lips, to speak.
She has release me of the lock that the Shadowblue leaf had on me. "Now
that you are able to speak Land-walker, tell me why you have come here? What do
you want of me and my people?"

"My King has sent me here to speak to you about
joining us for the war. We need your help; we cannot win against the
Skin-walkers without the Underworld being completely united. Please your
Majesty, help us," I ask, gasping for breath from time to time. My lungs
inhale the water but it makes no difference to how I am breathing underwater.

"How unfortunate for you that the Skin-walkers
have already sent down people to persuade me, and unfortunately for them they
did not succeed in their task. The war of the Land-walkers is your war, it is
not ours, and thus we will not take part in it. However, fortunately for you,
you are smarter than they were as you came alone." I understand what she
means though; you only need one messenger to deliver a message.

"Your Majesty?" I ask, hoping for
permission to leave. I have to return to Jocelyn, Scott and Edgar. She simply
raises an eyebrow at me and sighs, whether out of frustration or exasperation I
could not tell.

"Leave now Land-walker, before I change my
mind." That is my dismissal and the order for her men to release me all in
one, and I swim out of there as fast as I can. I cannot hear what she says as I
make my way out of the door, but it doesn't matter, I am free now, released
from the Mer-peoples hold, and on my way home.

Waiting on the shore line is the three people I had
left behind. Scott is tending to the horses, Edgar is building a fire in the
sand, and Jocelyn sits by herself, facing toward the ocean. I know above all
else that she is waiting, watching for me, and I feel self-loathing as I
remember our farewell. Her eyes are the first to see me, and her gasp of
exclamation alerts Scott and Edgar of my return.

I crawl up the sand bank, straight out of the water,
shivering and dripping wet, coughing up the Shadowblue leaf, and the water that
had entered into my lungs. I can see that Jocelyn is wanting to help me, but
because of my aggressive nature toward her when I had swallowed the leaf, she
has doubts of whether to approach me or not.

"Joyce," I cry when I have finally spat
out that damn leaf. Her eyes shine with joy, recognizing that I am no longer
under the influence of the Shadowblue leaf, she runs to me, throwing her arms
around me as she cries to the guys to bring a blanket.

"Are you okay?" She asks softly, her words
holding so much meaning that I can not begin to describe. I look up into that
ever-beautiful face, and those amber eyes, my lips curving up into a soft
smile.

"I am now." She seems to be overjoyed at
this. Jocelyn helps me to the campsite, and sits me down on a log a few steps
back from the fire. We eat a light meal, consisting of a kind of meat - that
Edgar informed me he hunted for nearby - and bread. We sit in silence as we
digested the food that they had been able to muster up. As night falls, and we
sit around the camp fire, small talk beginning to rise from all of us, we came
to the discussion of what happened.

"What happened in Atlantis?" Edgar asks,
in his deep, dark velvety voice. He seems to almost blend into the night,
besides the soft firelight that illuminates his face, I cannot see him.

"Well I was discovered, almost killed for being
a Land-walker, was taken to the Queen who cussed and cursed like a Skin-walker,
was told that the enemy had beaten us down there, and that she had killed all
but one of them, for she only needed one messenger to deliver her message. I
was told that I was lucky to have come alone, because I didn't have to watch
any of my friends die, and was then released. Oh and they refuse to help us
claiming that our war is not their problem," I say, delivering the message
in one blow. None of them can say anything to that, and I can't blame them. The
rest of the night is spent in each others company, Jocelyn spending the late
night in my arms as the fire's embers dim, and I fall asleep, content for once
in this vast world.

The late morning light, and the sound of movement
and hushed voices finally wakes me from my deep slumber. Jocelyn has gone from
the tent, but I am aware of her presence just beyond it. I get up groggily,
dressed in nothing but my pants. I pull on my shirt as I exit the fairly large
tent, and find that all three members of my team are awake, and packing up
camp.

"So what’s the plan Kayden?" Scott asks,
his deep German voice resonating from his chest. They all seem to share the
same thought and I shrug my shoulders slightly as I sit down on one of the
logs, rubbing at my face from the exhaustion that had taken a firm hold on me.

"There is no plan, we have no more orders from
this point," I say. Jocelyn takes a seat next to me before she hands me
the second metal mug in her hands, filled with hot coffee; made from the
crushed coffee beans found in the Forbidden woods; where werewolves, elves and
other 'monsters' roam.

"So what do we do now?" Edgar asks, his
dark skin glistens with sweat as the sun beams down on us, and I can tell that
he'd been doing a lot of hard work while I had been sleeping, which makes me
feel instantly guilty, as if sleeping has become a crime overnight.

"Go home to your loved ones, there is little
time left before the war really begins," I say, my eyes hardening with
determination as a plan enters into my mind. Victor would be angry, hateful
towards anything that put me in danger, but if I were to succeed than it would
all be worth it, for
her
at least.

When none of them makes a move I add "You
better move quickly soldiers, as that was an order," Scott and Edgar jump
to their feet, unwilling to disappoint their leader. Jocelyn refuses to move,
and I cannot blame her, for selflessly I want her to be safe, but if I were to
be selfish I'd wish for her to stay by my side.

"Joyce you better go too, where I'm going it
isn't safe," I say after a while. Scott and Edgar are already riding away
on Jet and Star. Jocelyn places her hand on my arm, her amber eyes seeking
mine, wanting my attention.

"Do you remember what I said, when I first
joined your ranks?" She asks, her amber eyes swimming with her emotions. I
do not answer her, but I simply nod my head in recognition of her question.