Part 2

Gwen’s eyes widened again and she pushed past several doctors to get to the elf laying there and looking extremely ill and uncomfortable. In less than a split second, something clicked in her subconscious and she just reacted, running a diagnostic spell. “You imbeciles!” she snapped. Right now, she didn’t give a flying crap about ‘respecting her elders’. All she knew was that she didn’t like what she saw. “You probably don’t even know what you’re doing!”
The others watched in something between shock and bewilderment as the young half-breed girl grabbed for various things and called Kite over to help her. How she knew what she was doing was completely beyond them, but they were bane to disrupt her at the moment. When she was working on something, and especially this passionately, no one dared interrupt her for anything. And even if they tried to get her attention, it would probably take a nuclear warhead just to get her to notice in the first place. No, the others were content to let her be and drag Kite into this. They’d probably follow suit if she asked them to, anyway.
The girl worked quietly save for any orders she gave out. She had no idea what had gotten into her, but it wasn’t important right now. Right now, the only thing she was worried about was making sure the elf was alright. Freaking out over her strange reaction to the situation was something that was going to have to wait for later. A life was very easily on the line at the moment, and Gwen was not going to stop for anything, even a bomb. In fact, the entire room could be on fire, and in the state she was in, she would probably just keep on working.
Eventually, there was a long moment of silence as Gwen stepped back as the woman’s expression became relaxed. At that very moment, she began to wonder fully what had just happened. It had been as if she had gone into some kind of trance that yielded to her knowledge she wasn’t sure she was even really supposed to know. It was common knowledge that Rika taught her a lot about science already, and had held miniature experiments in the basement of their home to test various chemicals and other things. But what Gwen had just been doing now was entirely different, as if she was tapping into other memories from another life.
Another moment passed, and the young elf began to prop herself up. “Ok, that wasn’t fun…” she grumbled. She looked around at the various scientists and the group of kids and blushed. “Er…”
“Exposure to chemicals, and you say, ‘that wasn’t fun’?!” Gwen nearly panicked. “What were you doing down here?”
The pink tint on the elf’s cheeks darkened. “I-I was exploring… I don’t get out much, so…”
Kite gave a nervous chuckle. “Wow, she’s nothing but trouble…”
“Like the rest of us,” Katlin tacked on.
Gwen took a deep breath to calm herself. Snapping at the woman would do absolutely no good. “I don’t guess you know much about chemicals, then?” When the elf shook her head shyly, she sighed. “Ok, then you should be very careful with them, because they can do all sorts of things.” She paused. “I’m Gwen Truscott,” she introduced.
“Emyira Willows,” the elf offered in return.
“Do elves not have many scientists?” asked Kite.
Emyira shook her head. “We let you all deal with science. Magic is plenty enough for us.”
Dr. Landers snapped out of his slight stupor. “You’re an elf?”
The young woman frowned a little at the man and pointed to her ears. “Yes, I am. My ears should have been enough of a clue.”
Jason could almost smell where this was going. He turned to her. “Do you know anything about stasis crystal?” he asked carefully.
Emyira let her hands drop to the bed and looked at the blue-haired man. “I know some,” she said noncommittally. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, we found a man stuck in a large slab of crystal in another room,” Tate blurted.
Jason ran a hand across his face in aggravation and sighed. “That’s why we’re actually down here in the first place… There’s some exceptionally powerful magic in that crystal. Do you perhaps know of someone who could do something to get him out or at least tell us why he’s there?”
There was a short pause before Emyira spoke. “I might be able to do something,” she said. She hopped off the bed and stretched her bones some.
“Hold on, I just—“
“You’d make a good healer considering what you are,” Emyira interrupted the half fairy. “I feel better than I have in a while.” She smirked a little at the now flushed girl. “So, where is this man?”
Gwen quickly realized the elf wasn’t going to give any of them a choice now that she knew about the man in stasis, and turned to the door. “Dr. Landers, could you please lead us back to the man?”
The tone in Gwen’s voice said it was best to simply comply. He nodded almost numbly and lead the group plus one elf back into the hall and down the various corridors again. Just what had he gotten himself into this time? It was well enough that the city was turned almost upside down by the apparently high concentration of magical people compared to other places. It spanned through LaVale, as well, and even into some of the other towns close by. That was one thing he wanted to figure out. Perhaps the man he and his group of scientists had uncovered would be able to tell him what was so special about the area, should Emyira release him. That was the only thing that really convinced him to agree without protesting orders from a teenager.
He opened the door again and let them stream in. “We’ve been trying various methods of releasing him, but nothing will work.”
Emyira rolled her eyes a little and made her way over to the crystal. “Of course not,” she said, touching the cyan-colored substance. “Magic only truly yields to magic. Let’s see…”
Kite stepped over to watch as the elf ran a hand over the crystal in hopes of maybe learning something. When she stopped, he spoke. “So… What’s the story here?”
“Well…” Emyira hesitated to speak some, but knew an explanation was needed. “It seems this crystal was formed close to sixteen-thousand years ago.” She glanced to see Kite’s eyes widen. “The crystal seems to have fully absorbed the damage inflicted by a demon’s attack.”
“Great, demons?” Kite grumbled. “Figures… He has recovered, though, right?”
Emyira nodded. “He probably still has a scar from it, but that’s only to be expected. Let’s see if I can get him out.”
Jeanne was about to say something, but felt a hand on her shoulder and looked to see Jason shaking his head. So she just stayed silent while Emyira did whatever she was going to do. Of course, she wasn’t entirely sure it was safe yet for Emyira to be doing anything that might prove strenuous on her. Despite what she said about Gwen’s abilities, there was always the chance the woman was just lying. And they really didn’t even know her, anyway. Perhaps she was being honest, but Jeanne really didn’t want to assume anything. After all, assuming something could lead to a lot of problems.
But the stasis crystal melted away easily, and evaporated into the air just as quickly. Emyira looked to the man's face and watched the peaceful expression in silence. He looked perfectly well, but she wouldn't really know anything more until he awoke. As it stood, he had been in the stasis for an incredibly long time. He was probably going to suffer the equivalent of what others called jet lag for a while.
There was a baited silence that seemed to last forever before there was any real movement. At first, the young man only furrowed his brow a few times before anything else. He twitched a little here and there, and eventually shifted around. Once his eyes had opened completely, he slowly sat up. He watched as the small collection of flowers fell to the floor and just stared for a moment. Then he looked to the group of people standing around him. It was still silent for an incredibly long and awkward moment, though.
"Where am I?," he asked. "I do not recognize anything here."
Jeanne's eyebrows shot towards he hairline. She didn't understand what he'd said, but she did recognize a little something from it all.
"Acceana seems so different...", he continued.
"Acceana...?" Katlin asked in surprise. "Hmm..." She paused, but placed tw8o fingers on his forehead and muttered a language-related spell she'd found in the past. When she pulled her hand back, she spoke again. "Do you understand what I'm saying right now?"
The man frowned a little. "Yes, I can clearly understand you. You are speaking common--"
"American English," the blond woman supplied. He didn't look pleased at being interrupted, but she continued. "Sir, you've been in a stasis for over fifteen thousand years. Almost no one even knows about Acceana these days. And what people do remember is mostly very skewed myth.”
This quickly got the man’s attention and his expression was that of pure surprise. “Then how is it you know of Acceana?”
Kite gathered up the flowers and investigated them a little before handing them back to the man. “Most of our parents were there,” he said. “They said it’s unusual for them to remember when they did, but they still did.”
The man took the flowers carefully and looked at them carefully. “These were from Caelienn…”
Trish moved closer to the man and crawled up onto the bed. She tilted her head some and stared at him in wonder. “Caelienn gave those to you? She really is nice.” She gave a bright smile. “She must have really liked you!”
“So she has been reborn,” the man concluded. “I do not know as she really did like me. She held everyone at a distance.”
“Yeah… She still does that when she’s around…” said Russett. “I mean, apparently she’s gotten better, but she seems to take pains in avoiding the past.” He paused. “I’m Russett.”
The man tore his gaze away from the flowers. “My name is Drell,” he introduced. “I was meant to become the emperor of Acceana.” He watched as eyes widened some and the rest of them introduced themselves.
There was a short moment of silence before Jeanne cleared her throat some. “So, er… Your Highness—“
Drell raised a hand to stop her. “If a new empire has risen in place of Acceana, I am no longer a prince.”
“Hold on, in place of Acceana?” Carl stammered. “I thought—“
The man turned to the scientist who was clearly just following along with everything. He knew the man had a small but important piece of information to share. “Precisely where had I been found?”
Dr. Landers stood straighter as he was clearly being addressed. “Not too far from here, actually,” he responded. “We were investigating something and found you buried in the earth.”
Drell nodded and turned back to the kids. “Even were I not found here, this is still the land where Acceana once stood.” He watched everyone’s shocked reactions for a moment. “Your parents do not sense this?”
“Ah… Our parents who were there didn’t really like how some things worked,” said Gwen. “I don’t think they ever really cared enough to find out where it had been.”
“And I know Caelienn never liked things there,” said Jason. “She seems to really like how the world is now, even if it’s still not the best.”
There was a moment of silence as Drell moved to stand up. He was a little unsteady at first, to his own embarrassment, but kept himself from falling. “I would have liked to change some things. Half-breeds were treated poorly, and humans little better.”
“Caelienn did her best to change things,” said Katlin. “Dad won’t say too much about how people lived, but he has said a few things. I know he was in some serious trouble with Mom at first for a few of the things he started.” At Drell’s expectant gaze, she continued. “Well, Dad was a ruling noble, apparently. Not that he really looks like it, but… I shouldn’t be surprised though. Er… He was Caelienn’s father.”
“Then your father is a good man,” said Drell.
Katlin blushed some. “Oh, yeah, he is,” she agreed. “But some of the things he’s done haven’t always made people happy.”
“I imagine not, with what Caelienn must have dealt with during her life,” said Drell.
Jason became a little uncomfortable at that point. “Y-yeah… She was not happy about some of those things…”
The former prince just shook his head at first. “You do not need to hide that she was a half-breed.” He watched as everyone fell into a shocked silence. “I am perfectly aware that something was different. James’ wife was clearly never happy with the situation.”
Skylar was the first to break the silence that ensued. “I’ll never understand how names worked back then…”
Jeanne cracked a nervous laugh at that. “It was that long ago… But, um, yeah. Ok, she’s a half-breed. It caused some serious problems, especially when it came to trusting others.”
“Where is she now?” asked Drell. “I wish to see her again.”
There was yet another bout of silence. Eventually, Jeanne spoke again. “Well, that part is complicated…” She paused briefly to get her thoughts in order for a decent explanation. “Some people considered her to be nothing but trouble, and she did do a lot of things to raise some eyebrows. Eventually, two of the priestesses got orders from outside to place a seal on her power. There was also a seal placed to hide her vampire blood. It was undone almost five years ago, but one of the effects it had on her can’t be undone. In more recent millennia, people found the spell to seal magic deteriorates a person’s soul to the point of splitting it into two or more parts. We think it’s been stopped, but unless they specifically let Caelienn out, she’s now mostly just a part of two women’s subconscious. And Mom was, oddly enough, born as a human.”
On the outside, Drell took the explanation in good stride. Inside, however, he found himself shocked and nearly speechless. It was several minutes of pure silence before he found something appropriate and dignified to say. Until then, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to believe what Jeanne had said, but he could sense that she was being honest. It surprised him all the same, though. He could only imagine how irritating it would be for someone to go on living knowing that they were only half of someone else. He certainly couldn’t imagine himself being too happy with the situation, anyway.
“So who lives in place of her?” he asked.
“Their names are Cari and Rose,” said Kite. “They’re almost like twins, for how alike they are at times. But Rose is a few years younger. She’s also the more calm one. You don’t want to anger her, but she’s better at keeping her temper in check. The biggest differences between the two aside from that is that Rose has scars along the side of her face, Cari wears glasses, and Rose is actually taller than her.” He paused to glance over and make sure Trish hadn’t run off somewhere, but she was sitting on the bed, entranced some. “Trish is Rose and Shaun’s daughter.” He paused a little as the more awkward part of that train of thought came up. “Jeanne and Jason have two moms, biologically. Cari is still technically a virgin, though, as well as Aster. That’s where things got really complicated. But apparently, Shaun acts like a father to all three. I think they should explain the rest.”
Russett snickered at Kite’s half-baked, awkward explanation. “There were virgin mother jokes going around about Cari for years. Jeanne and Jason further complicated things because of their unnatural hair color.” This earned him a light whack on the back of the head from a slightly embarrassed Jeanne. “Now, I don’t know about Emyira, because we only just met her, and Carl was born a human, but most of us have young parents. No one has reached seventy yet.”
“Yes, that is young,” Drell agreed. “Is there any reason why?”
Gwen shrugged. “Well, humans have only very recently found out about magic.” She continued before Drell could ask what she meant. “A lot of things happened between Acceana and now, and magic had been made into nothing but fantasy. There were still humans who knew about what some people really were, but it was kept more or less secret to avoid any more war.”
Before Drell could comment, Emyira spoke up. “Things haven’t changed much for elves, though. But when wars did start, we decided to simply stay in seclusion. We didn’t want to get involved in any fighting, even if we did want it to stop. A lot of us, sadly, are just watching for when the next one starts.”
“I can see where wars would start,” said Drell. There was a pained tone to his voice, and his accent just made it even clearer. “Humans were not treated as equals.”
“Huh? What—“
“I’m not sure knowing would be good,” Russett interrupted Tate. “Mom and Dad refuse to talk about it, and I already know some of the horrible things they’ve seen in this life. And if my guess is right, then I can see why they don’t like talking about the past.”
“Yeah… I’ve asked, but no one will tell me anything,” Kite added. “And Papa gets surprisingly angry when certain things do come up about the past. It’s weird.”
Jeanne cleared her throat some. “Well, things are a lot different from back then, clearly.” She glanced to the other kids before looking back at the former prince. “There is still some discrimination, but it’s considerably less than even a hundred years ago.”
Drell nodded. “Well, I would like to see this new empire now.”
There was a certain sense of déjà vu for Jason and his face became a little flushed. “We don’t call countries or nations that anymore,” he said awkwardly. “This is the United States of America, and a relatively young country compared to most others.”
“This country, then,” the fairy corrected. “I wish to see what has changed and speak with your parents.”
Carl laughed awkwardly. “My mom’s pretty well normal compared to the others’. She was extremely startled when I told her I was a werewolf a few years ago. Tate and Skylar are entirely normal. Unless you want to ask about their reactions to everything, they won’t have anything to tell you.”
“Duly noted,” said Drell.
________________________________________________________________
Jake stared at Garnet for a long moment. The smirk on her face as she leaned over the counter was extremely unnerving, but he wasn’t about to show how bad it was. Clearly, she had something almost dubious planned for the various things she had set in front of him to buy. And because of those things, the two were now engaged in what was effectively a staring contest. And as frightening as she could be at times, he was not about to cave first. It was like staving off a an avalanche, but the only thing caving ever got him was another embarrassing situation on top of all the others he lost count of. He didn’t want to add another to that list today.
“You know what, I don’t even want to know what you have planned,” he finally said. “Because I know I’ll just find out later, anyway. If Jaden doesn’t tell me, someone else definitely will.”
The silver-haired witch just laughed. “It’s not what I’m planning. I just really want to know what Kite has in mind this time.”
Jake paled, were it at all possible. It was hard to imagine someone being worse than any of his friends for various schemes, but the kids were somehow able to manage it. At times, he and his friends wondered how it was even really remotely possible for them to be even more trouble. Unfortunately, they never came up with a good solution beyond the fact that they were their children in the first place. General consensus was essentially that it just ran in the family. And he wouldn’t be at all surprised if their grandchildren would be the exact same way.
“Did he say anything at all about Gwen helping?” was the only thing he said after a long moment of silence.
Garnet gave a small shrug as he began to ring up the items. “No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Jake said, bagging the items and Garnet paid for them. “Whatever it is.”
The witch put her wallet away and took the items. “Yeah, well, with our luck, it won’t be a long wait.” She glanced to the clock. It was just about time for Jake to close shop for the day. “I’ll see you later,” she said, waving a little and heading out.
As soon as she did leave the store and got a bit away from it, though, she started hearing some music being played. Specifically, it was an acoustic guitar being played, possibly two. That only meant that either Shane or Cari were out, if not both. Due to a lot of experiences in their current lives alone, Shane had just about no sense of humiliation until Yuki or his brother got involved. Cari was still a bit shy at times, but they had become increasingly rare. These days, she had very little problem in pulling out her guitar and going with Shane to play at just about any place in town. Sometimes, she did so on her own.
She followed the music and found that the two were sitting on a bench and clearly trying to outplay each other. Ember sat a small ways away, unsurprisingly holding her video camera at them. Yuki was sitting on one of the snow-cleared areas of the concrete islands of the downtown mall. Who she was hoping to win this time was a complete mystery, and Garnet was definitely not going to ask at any point after the first and, incidentally, last time. Yuki claimed to be absolutely bane to choose one of them to sort of root for.
Garnet gave a small sigh and walked over to them. Competitions of all sorts were hardly uncommon, and everyone just sort of jumped at the chance for one of just about any kind. The most common was usually the prank war, regardless of who it was, but everyone had other areas of competition, as well. And Shane and Cari shared the music competition, though they weren’t the only ones. Nebula would, at any given opportunity, bring her violin out and join them, and Yuki had recently discovered the ocarina she’d had as Shinku. Though Aster wasn’t so competitive, partially as a piano was a lot harder to move around.
She cleared her throat, eventually getting their attention. “What’s the score this time?” she figured to ask, curiosity getting the better of her. Generally speaking, the so-called score was based on the length of time either one went before messing up a note somewhere.
The fox-faced man just laughed. “We lost track,” he admitted.
Cari just smirked a little and rested her chin in her hand. “We’ve been playing for a while now.”
Out of pure instinct, Garnet’s hand met her forehead with an audible thwack. “I’m guessing you were playing elsewhere?”
“The bus stop became too crowded,” said Shane. “We could hardly even hear each other play.”
“Or they made you move at some point,” Garnet shot back. She glanced to Yuki, who just grinned and shrugged. She would be absolutely no help at the moment. Garnet just shook her head and smirked, glancing at the brunette half-breed. “Ten years ago, and you wouldn’t have even considered this.”
Cari blushed some. “I only started playing seven years before that,” she quickly protested.
“Your excuse is absolutely pathetic,” said Garnet. She earned herself a small glare for this, but ignored it. Shane had years and years more practice than Cari, but she had taken to the instrument almost unnaturally easily. Everyone just assumed it was her subconscious affinity for instruments at some point. Nearly five years ago, it was all but confirmed. She glanced over to Ember. “You and I both know you won’t get a better video of them playing than what you got on Halloween.”
Ember just laughed. “No, but I want to make sure I don’t miss something good!”
“That, or it’s just ancient habits,” said Garnet.
The colorful werewolf blushed a little. “You know—“
Garnet waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I know. But it still stands that nothing has changed.” She smirked and moved closer to her friend to poke the collar Ember called a fashion statement. “Except the pup has another person to follow now.”
Ember gave a small, embarrassed snarl and glared at the witch. “It’s a fashion statement,” she insisted.
“You’re still a puppy, though.”
Ember turned to see Rose standing behind her, smirking a little as Shaun caught up with her. “Ok, I accept that,” she said. “But still…” Her expression had become something of a puppy pout.
Rose simply laughed some. “So are you hoping for something interesting to happen?”
“While watching another music competition,” the blond shape-shifter said, nodding. She hopped down from her seat and held up the guitar case for Shane to take. “But I think they’re done now.”
Shaun handed Rose a small box of chocolate, which she happily took and opened. They were not going to last long, considering she loved the occasional chocolate bit of chocolate. “Who won this one?”
Cari stood up after putting her own guitar away, laughing some. “We lost track, apparently.”
“Or maybe Shane just doesn’t want to admit to losing again.” Shaun caught a small scowl from his brother, but just laughed. “Dude, I’m kidding.”
Rose poked her husband with one of the pieces of chocolate, grinning a bit. “Evil twin,” she teased.
Garnet rolled her eyes. “Both of you are nothing but trouble.”
Off in the distance, Drell watched curiously as the group of people talked and laugh together. There was something almost surreal about it all, but he just supposed it was because of all the time that had passed. The people there had lived many thousands of lives by now, as opposed to the time of Acceana. Even though he didn’t know each of them that were there at the moment, he still knew who they were. The kids’ brief explanation had involved an explanation of who was whom. It was a little scattered in some places, of course, but he followed along well enough to understand the basics.
He smiled a bit, content for a moment—they all looked just so happy. Drell considered going over to them now, but there was a small problem in that he had to wait for the traffic of the street to catch a break. Once he had gotten out of the underground building, he had seen more than just a few little changes to the area. Even though he had quickly understood the changes were only natural, he was still in awe of them all. It had been over fifteen thousand years, and there was a lot about modern life that he didn’t quite understand yet.
By the time he could finally cross the street, another man had joined the group. Drell quickly figured from his appearance that it was Jake, who Gwen had said was her dad. It was strange to think that some of the people who had come up in the explanation were parents now. He had never suspected that Germaine, Caelienn’s primary tutor, would ever actually get married. As far as he’d known of her, even though it admittedly wasn’t much at all, she just wasn’t interested in romance. Though this was a new life, and like everyone else must have, Garnet had changed in some ways. A lot of things were different.
Jake caught sight of something from the corner of his vision and looked to see the man who was walking towards them. His eyes widened in recognition he had not expected, and cleared his throat a little before he choked on virtually nothing at all. Then he quickly nudged Shane and carefully gestured to the man who was approaching fast. At the moment, it was a little difficult to really say anything dignified or intelligent. But considering he could hardly believe who he was seeing in the first place, he really was not surprised at his speechlessness.
In response, Shane first looked at the younger man before glancing to where Jake had gestured him to look. His own eyes widened some, which got everyone else’s attention very quickly. “Please, tell me you’re not messing around, Jake…”
“You think I’d joke about him like this?!” the fairy hissed, glaring a little at his friend. He quickly reached out a hand to grab the handle of the guitar case before Cari could accidentally drop it in shock.
In that same second, Rose’s hands reached up to cover her mouth in shock, partially trying to keep herself from making any noise that would be embarrassing later on. She did, however, give a small squeak of sorts. “Wa-wait… Is that really—“
“Would anyone else be here but him?” asked Garnet. She wasn’t entirely sure there was no one else who it could be, but she was willing to bet only Drell would be here with the way things just seemed to work.
“Wait, I thought you said he was in a stasis,” Ember stammered quietly, having turned her camera towards the man in shock.
________________________________________________________________
“No!”
There was absolutely no warning for anyone as the demon sliced Drell’s briefly turned back with what looked like pure darkness of the most malevolent kind. Caelienn could feel it from where she stood—the tar-like stickiness. It was almost suffocating. And to be attacked with it… She wondered if there was really nothing worse than such. That was going to cause a lot of problems if the two even made it out alive. At the moment, things didn’t look very good. Caelienn was running low on power, and Drell was in absolutely no condition anymore to fight. Was there anything left either of them could do?
But Caelienn was not thinking much about that as she screeched and flitted to catch the prince. She put whatever power she really had left into pushing Anaya back with a barrier and attempted to heal the wound. The barrier kept the demon at bay, but there was little she could do to heal the young man. She tried, weakened as she was by all factors, to pray that he wouldn’t die. If nothing else, even if she died, she wanted him to live. It just wasn’t right that he die because she had wanted to go out for a while.
His eyes had closed and he fell limp, but there was still a steady, if slightly faint, pulse. He was still alive, at least. All the same, she screeched as loudly as she could and tears fell from her eyes. She held him closer to her. This had to work. If he paid the price for her mistake, she would never forgive herself. As it stood, she was already extremely angry. Even if they were alright in the end, it was still her fault they had gotten into the situation. And she had no clue how Drell would take the news of what she really was. Nothing looked good at the moment.
She screeched again, and tried to put more power into the barrier and make it stronger. Maybe the stronger she made it, the more chance she had of completely obliterating the demon. Letting her escape and go on to torment other people who didn’t deserve it—Caelienn could not allow that to happen. No matter what happened, Anaya was going to pay for the toll for this and be sent into the pits of Hell. And if she had to, Caelienn was going to see to it personally. She had slowly come to rather like the prince. She even thought she might call him a friend in the future.
As the demon worked to break through the barrier, Caelienn realized that she wasn’t going to make it out of this alone. But there were no guards around to come and help, as she had foolishly decided to give them the slip. Her father was busy with political matters with the Empress. There were no civilians around for miles that would be able to do much good, either. In the end, there were only the gods to turn to. And even then, would fate really allow them to interfere? They were supposed to act as guides and protectors, but they were just as subject to the whims of fate as anyone else.
None the less, she was going to try. And there was only one who she could call on right now.
“God of vengeance, hear me!” Her voice was cracking from the tears and pain, but she was not about to let that stop her. “Come to my aid and deliver punishment unto this demon!” she screeched.
For a brief second, there was nothing but her, Drell, and Anaya. She wondered if the god was being kept from interfering. He was supposed to always be the easiest to call on out of all the gods. But then a gale stirred up and she could feel a very powerful, frightening presence with them. She wasn’t nearly as affected by the wind, but she could see it whipping around the immediate area with complete abandon. Anaya was almost barely able to keep herself from being blown away. That was a good sign.
A form—more spiritual-appearing than much else for the translucency—appeared before her. Even from the back, he was terrifying. Looking at his robes was like staring into the eyes of the punished. It was like an abyss of mental screams begging for an end to their suffering. And if she had to look into the eyes of the god before her, she feared she might succumb to the inherent fear that was looming around him. But she wouldn’t escape the paralyzing, icy depths of his eyes. She had been the one to call him.
She watched as power flooded forward and the volatile god easily dealt with the demon. There was no way to describe it. As it was, she was set into a very petrified trance and it was all over within seconds. Caelienn watched as Anaya declared her sister would come to have her revenge as she faded into dust and was swept away by the wind. Of course that wasn’t going to be the end of it. Even demons had something of a sense of family. As one fell, another would surely come to take revenge. Many even had that as their driving goal in existence.
The wind died a little and the god turned back to her. She was extremely grateful she didn’t have to face his true form or even be exposed to a larger fraction of his power. Still, the ice in his expression was enough to send her into tremors of fear. Of course, she’d heard stories about encounters with the gods, and that some were terrifying depending on which god or goddess the person had encountered. The god of vengeance was one of the most terrifying she could think of for stories, and she understood why now. He was always spoken of with the utmost reverence, but that reverence was laced with terror.
The look told Caelienn everything she needed to know. This god was the easiest to call upon, but there was always a price to pay. And that price could be very heavy and burdensome. Justice had a price of her own, but she was much less volatile. Revenge was the darker half of justice, fueled by hate and anger of those who called on him. Actions out of wrath always came with some kind of price. Caelienn was not going to be the exception to that rule. In time, she would pay her toll. And desire for destroying a demon, no matter the reason, had an especially heavy price.
She gripped Drell as tightly as she dared. The god was waiting for her to speak, and she knew it. Did she have the courage to speak? She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
“I will pay the toll.”
Her voice was quiet, but that didn’t matter, either. Her head was bowed lowly and tears streamed down her cheeks. She could sense and hear the general of the guard hurrying over. This was not going to go well, regardless of Karlon seeing the god, himself. She was an absolute mess, and would be lucky if her secret didn’t get out, and it was clear she had called the god. Drell was growing paler by the second, even if he was still alive. Exactly what were the effects of the attack, and what had her efforts and prayers done to counter it? But she knew in the depths of her heart that, somehow, she was going to live to pay her price.

To Be Continued