gloominess.
“Son, I know your distress-”
“I killed him.”
“What?” she asked, shocked.
“It’s my fault. I’m the reason he’s dead.”
“James, you had nothing to do with your father’s death. Why do you speak so?”
“You weren’t there. I killed him. I killed all of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were trapped. There were nearly two dozen of Alvaro’s men in the forest. They had cast some kind of spell that prevented us from transporting. Father said he would create a diversion and I was to run to our safe point and wait for him. I ran and waited, but they captured him. I heard him arguing with them… then they were gone. I went looking for him.”
Tears began to stream down his face. Margaret’s sympathy for her son as well as her own grief kept her from pressing him for details, from asking him why he went looking for his father when he was explicitly instructed never to do so in the event his father was captured.
“It was easy to find Alvaro’s men. So easy that I thought that they were laying a trap for me, but I didn’t care. I dispatched three guards outside with enchanted arrows. I snuck inside and saw father. They were hurting him. Then it happened.”
“What happened?” Margaret asked, more than a little frightened at the detached manner in which her son was describing taking human lives.
“I saw that he was hurt and needed my help. I tried to run to him. They attacked me. I felt this power in my chest. It burned. I screamed and everything went black for a moment. When I could see again, everyone was lying on the ground dead, including father. I killed him. I killed all of them.”
Margaret was shaking. She hadn’t been there when James returned with his father’s body, but Tabitha had. James sent messengers to Tabitha to deliver the news. Before Tabitha had found Margaret in the city library, where Margaret had been looking for a book her husband had requested, she felt it. The bond had been broken and torn from her chest as if someone had reached inside her and pulled at her heart until it ripped free from her body.
James had sat alone with his dead father for several hours. The thought made Margaret’s body quiver. Now he was telling her he was responsible for his father’s death. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it.
“Son, you don’t know what happened. You cannot blame yourself for something over which you had no control,” she replied.
“I felt it. I felt the power in me. It exploded out of me like… like water from a geyser. I know what happened.”
“We will figure this out. Know this, my son. Your father would have died without a moment’s hesitation or regret a thousand times over to save you. You’ve brought so much joy and pride into our lives, and I will do everything in my power to continue his work. We must honor your father by continuing along the path he’s laid for us. Now, rise, my son.”
The boy paused for a moment, then stood with the stiffness of a much older man. He met his mother’s eyes through locks of charcoal-black hair.
“We must go. We are no longer safe here. We’ve stayed too long already, and I bear the burden of that blame. We must not be consumed by guilt. Let us be motivated by our quest to honor those who have fallen. Gather your things, we haven’t much time.”
— 4 -
Blood wept from wounds covering most of his body. With each step, James left a puddle of blood in his wake. Despite his best efforts to protect his skin from the ferocity of the giant-leaf plants’ underbellies, he had failed. There were too many. He only hoped he could find the edge of the forest before he bled to death. If the needles of the plants were poisonous, he surely would have felt it by now. He knew he must keep moving, so onward he trod, to his death or to salvation from this godforsaken forest. The forest began to spin, and his breath came in short gasps. He focused on something in the distance and realized he was looking at a body of water. He began to run. The feel of air passing over his injuries brought tears to his eyes. He plunged through the last line of plants and onto the sandy shore. He ran for the water, which rippled in the breeze.
The instant he submerged his ankle he let out a cry he believed himself incapable of. The seething, burning pain of his wounds dwarfed anything he had ever felt. His legs weakened, and he fell into the water. For an instant, the pain reached its apex. He tried to cry out again, but water rushed into his lungs. He quickly got to his knees and coughed up the salty water. Blood surrounded him like a halo on the water’s surface. Small fish began nibbling at the shorn flesh of his legs. He tried to focus his eyes, but he could only make out blobs of white. He closed them tight. All he could feel was the gentle pressure of the water encasing his body. James opened his eyes. This time he could make out the beach and the forest behind. To his right, the sandy shore wrapped around and out of sight until it was consumed entirely by the water. To his left, the sand tapered into small rocks, which grew into boulders until cliffs rose up in geometric pieces as if a beast fell dead and all that remained of its carcass was its spine.
Could this be a lake? he thought. He couldn’t imagine a lake being so vast that the opposite shore wouldn’t be visible on a perfectly clear day. He decided he was lying in an ocean.
He trudged slowly out of the water onto the beach, not noticing that the wounds covering his body only seconds ago had healed. James hadn’t seen anything living-save the oversize plant life-since he’d regained consciousness hours, perhaps days earlier. Suddenly he began to feel his body move. Before he could resist, he was lured down the coast by an invisible band toward cliffs far in the distance.
His body acted yet his mind lay dormant. It was neither present nor aware of the actions of his body as he crawled over the rocks that gave way to boulders, and then to the base of a cliff. When he’d reached the cliff face, whatever had a hold on his mind withdrew.
James looked around quizzically. He remembered being in the water, but he couldn’t recall how he came to be standing atop a large rock at the base of one of the lower sections of the cliff. He looked out over the water and considered his situation.
He had been exiled to The Never. He had only learned fractions about The Never during his studies. One of his instructors had surmised it was created by the greatest sorcerer history had known. The instructor had also said while people could go there, only one had the ability to return: the creator himself. It was for this reason those convicted of the worst crimes were exiled there. Akil had said even less about The Never, most of which was shrouded in underlying meaning James had been unable to comprehend.
He thought about everything that had been taken from him. Without given a chance to explain, a chance to defend himself, he was cast out never to see anyone he cared about again. That which he and all of Akil’s followers had been fighting for would fall to ruin. Alvaro would have his war and anyone who refused to join him would be killed or exiled. James wasn’t sure which one of those choices was worse.
Anger swelled inside him. Barefoot and naked, he climbed. Despite his uncertainty about his motivation for climbing to the top and what he expected to accomplish once he got there, he continued. Nearly falling to his death on two occasions- once when he grasped a loose stone and the second when his legs started to cramp-didn’t deter him from reaching the top of the first stone formation, the lower end of the spine.
Not waiting to catch his breath, he moved along the vertebral protrusion that extended toward the water until he reached the end of the first stone formation. The space between it and the next was well beyond any distance he could jump, and the fall to the rocks below would surely be fatal. He turned, hoping to gain a clear view beyond the high-growing trees. James was taken aback at what he saw sitting less than a half league offshore at the end of the stone spinal formation. A magnificent castle hewn into the granite on which it rested sat at the end of the spine like the skull of the ancient beast. He nearly stumbled down onto the rocks below trying to get a closer look. Its walls, battlements, and towers were carved from the darkest black granite he’d ever seen. It stood alone in the water. Waves pounded the base of the island, which James found odd because no waves fell onto the shore
