Chapter 2

“Niku is my brother!” Rone yelled, horrified. He stared at the woman in front of him. He was angry but at the same time he felt happy. The two emotions waged a war inside him.

The woman’s eyes were cast down. Her fair blonde hair wafted in a small breeze. She shifted a bit uncomfortably as she rubbed her hand over a rough, octagonal-shaped scar about midway up her forearm.

The woman was someone Rone had thought dead for over fourteen years.

She was also his mother.

“First, I find out you’re not dead. Then I find out that you abandoned me to go run off with a Terraquois you fell in love with and now you tell me that Niku is my half-brother.” He was so mad, he couldn’t think straight. Above all else, he felt betrayed. He felt hurt.

She’d left him and she hadn’t thought twice about it.

“How could you do that to me?” he asked her.

“Rone, maybe you should stop,” Keiara said. She could see the anger etched on his face and was afraid he might do or say something stupid.

“I never planned on any of that happening,” the woman said.

Keiara knew Rone's mother well. She had been very close with Niku after all, before Rone came into the picture. Her name was Gwen. She’d always seemed a bit odd, but basically harmless. The shocking revelation on her true origin however, left Keiara speechless.

Rone ignored Keiara’s warning. Instead, he took hold of his mother’s arm and dragged her after him. He rushed her through the camp and she let him. Soon after, they came to an empty tent and Rone ushered her inside.

Keiara followed them in.

“I don’t think you understand,” he said immediately. “I thought you were dead! I cried for you. I longed for you. I went to your grave almost every day over the years. Why would you do that to me?”

“I didn’t want to,” she said again. “It was never the plan. I wanted to take you with me.”

“Don’t give me that,” Rone spat.

Gwen flinched and tears sprang up in her eyes.

“I planned on taking you the night I left!” she yelled. “I was going to sneak into your room to get you but your father was there, watching you sleep. I knew that if I tried to take you, he would stop me. I couldn’t…I couldn’t risk it. I had to leave.”

“Why?” Rone asked. “Why was it so important that you leave?”

“Because I loved Cyrus!” she yelled. “I never wanted to marry the King! It was just a way for my family to gain more power. A marriage of convenience. I did the best I could for you. But then I met Niku’s father and everything changed. They’d captured him and tortured him for information. At first, I was wary of him. I’d seen him a handful of times and he always looked like a cornered animal. Ferocious and dangerous.”

Rone glared at her. The hurt of hearing his mother’s confession was intolerable.

“Then, one night, I started talking to him. I was curious. Maybe young and foolish too. To my surprise, he actually talked back. He was gentle and nice. He treated me like a real person and not an object to show off at Upper Tier functions. I came back to see him almost every night for three months. Then, one day, I came there and he was lying across the floor, bloody and beaten. I found out later that your father had questioned Cyrus. It was at that moment I knew I couldn’t be with him anymore. I’ve grown up hearing so many stories about the Terraquois. About how they were savages. That day I realized who the real savages were and I wanted no part of it. I made a plan to escape. I was going to free Cyrus, take you, and we were going to run.”

“So when you couldn’t get me, you chose to leave me behind instead?” he asked, outraged.

“I know what I did to you is unforgiveable and I can never tell you enough how sorry I am, but I couldn’t live there anymore. You of all people should understand that,” she said, looking at her son earnestly. “I was in Vitari when you were recovering. I know what you and Keiara were trying to do before all this chaos happened. You were trying to bring peace between the Rooks and the Terraquois.”

Rone held up a hand, interrupting her.

“Wait. You were there?” he asked. It felt like someone had driven a six inch spike through his heart. “You were in Vitari when I was recovering and you never came to see me?”

Gwen’s throat worked, her words sticking there.

“I could’ve died! And still you didn’t think to check on me? You didn’t think to let me know that you were still alive?”

“I was ashamed,” she explained.

“You damned well should’ve been,” he yelled at her. His next words came out harsh. “Don’t come near me again. Go back to pretending I never existed.”

Ignoring her bout of sobbing, Rone walked out of the tent and away from her.

“You don’t mean that,” Keiara said, rushing after him.

“Yes I do,” he replied angrily.

“She’s your mother, Rone,” Keiara tried to say as she rushed to follow him.

“No. She was my mother,” he replied. “When she left me behind, she gave up that title.”

Keiara couldn’t think to say anything back. His words were true.

“Are you okay?” she asked instead.

“Better the farther away from her I get,” he told her.

Rone had a rush of confusing thoughts inside his head. So many emotions kept tearing at him. He felt anger toward his mother but a part of him was overjoyed at the fact that she was still alive. A huge part of him was disgusted that Niku was his half-brother, but another part of him was happy to have one. He’d always wanted siblings but his father never remarried. Now he had one. He wasn’t overly fond of who he’d been stuck with for a brother, but he still had one.

He clenched a fist, irritated at the jumble of thoughts cluttering up his mind.

“The One Born of Both Worlds,” Keiara whispered suddenly.

Rone turned to look at her but her words sank in and he realized what she was talking about.

“Niku. A Rook for a mother and a Terra for a father. He’s half of both races.” He wondered, idly, what that really meant. He wondered if his mother ever really had a choice in the decisions she’d made or if fate had played a bigger role in her life…and in the choices she’d made.

No. She abandoned me, he thought. It doesn’t matter if she never really had a choice in the matter, she still did it. And willingly.

He pushed the rest of those thoughts aside and tried to focus on the bigger picture instead. Wilhelm was getting closer and closer to destroying Purga. He had Niku, the third Sentinel. Somehow, they had to get him back and free him of the control Wilhelm held over him. Then, by some miracle, Niku needed to agree to fight alongside someone that he’d expressed on numerous occasions he despised. Oh, and he also needed to come to terms with the fact that Rone was his brother.

Why can’t things ever be easy? he asked himself.

**

Asher sat in front of his mother, staring openly at her. Sitting in a dark corner of their house was the fat man that kidnapped Keiara. He was grabbing his knees and blubbering like a baby. Snot dripped from his nose like a faucet and his cheeks were bright red.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbled over and over again.

Asher had no idea what was going on or what his mother did to him. He wanted to ask, but he was a little afraid to hear the truth.

“Who else knows that you’re a Caller?” he asked instead.

Aeole didn’t answer right away. Then she took a deep breath and smiled wearily at her son.

“No one. I never told anyone. Even my own parents,” she responded. “You and those that saw my power today are the only ones that know.”

“Why did you hide it from us?” he asked.

“I love you, Keiara, and your father. I think I didn’t tell anyone the truth because I couldn’t bear to see the shame in your faces. Our people have never liked Callers. They think we’re abominations. To control and contort the will of nature is something that isn’t exactly tolerated,” she explained. “You know that.”

“Did you think we wouldn’t love you anymore?” he asked.

“I think you and your sister might’ve been able to move past it but your father is very stubborn. He believes what he believes and it is rare for him to change his mind. The only one that has had any success with it is Keiara and even then it is still difficult for her.” Aeole shifted her gaze to Lord Guilder when he let out a loud snort.

“Well, I don’t love you any less,” Asher said.

His mother cried a little, but she was smiling happily. She motioned for him to sit next to her and Asher did so. She hugged him tightly, holding him there for a long time.

Lord Guilder sniffled and wiped his nose with his shirt. His eyes were bloodshot and greenish liquid seeped out of the wounds where the tree branches had punctured his skin. He looked at the two of them with huge, round eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“What did you do to him?” Asher asked, finally giving in to his enormous curiosity.

“I showed him the pain he’s caused. I showed him the price his greed and selfishness took on him. He felt the desperation and hopelessness he inspired in his own people. He felt their humiliation. He felt all of their grief,” she explained.

“How long do you think he’ll be like that?”

“As long as it takes to come to terms with the suffering he’s caused.”

Asher looked at the man and shuddered visibly. He couldn’t imagine what suffering the man had caused to get that reaction out of him. The way he was crying and blubbering, he must’ve spent nearly his entire life causing people pain.

“What are you going to do with him once he goes back to normal?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” she responded. “Are you hungry?”

“How long is he going to stay here? I don’t like him being in our house. He’s dangerous,” he tried to tell her. “No one else wants him here either.”

“They’ve been instructed by me to leave him alone. I told the Tribunal that I will see that he doesn’t cause any trouble,” Aeole said, patting her son’s leg. She got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. “Do you want something to eat?”

Asher nodded his head as the Rook let out a soft sigh. He looked over at the man and found him lying across the floor and snoring heavily.

Asher's mind wandered over recent events, cycling through horror after horror. It touched on something that he remembered from yesterday after he’d come back to warn Vitari of the Rooks scattered throughout the forest.

It was something about a prophecy.

“What were you talking about yesterday?” Asher asked, remembering the weird look on his mother's face when she’d mentioned it. “What prophecy were you talking about?”

His mother didn’t answer for a long time. The sounds of her cooking suddenly stopped. He wondered if he should’ve brought it up.

A minute or so later, however, she finally responded.

“I suppose there’s no point in keeping it from you. Not after everything you’ve been through." She looked at him and smiled wearily. Then she went on. "The prophecy was entrusted into the care of the Callers for centuries. It told of a day when a very dangerous creature will break through its prison and try to consume Purga,” she said, her words short and clipped. “The creature’s name was Blak but it goes by another name.”

“What’s its other name?” Asher asked with rapt attention.

“It also goes by Chaos,” she responded heavily.

That’s fitting, Asher thought. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be nothing but chaos. His world, and everything he knew, was dying because of it.

“What’s this prophecy got to do with Keiara?”

Aeole took a deep breath. Sometimes, Asher’s relentless barrage of questions tried her patience.

“It also spoke of three guardian spirits called Sentinels that would be embodied by three very specific people. The Prince. The Savior. And the One Born of Both Worlds. Together, only the three of them can defeat Blak.”

“What do these Sentinels do?” he asked as he remembered his sister throwing fire at the enemy and the weird way Rone had stopped the bullet-thing that had almost killed him.

His mother walked back into the living room carrying a plate of delicious food. She handed it to him and watched as he devoured it.

“No one knows for sure. The prophecy didn’t speak of it,” Aeole finished. “Now eat up so you can go to bed and sleep. You look exhausted.”

She took the plate back from him when he was finished and brought it to the sink.

Asher wondered idly if he should leave his mother alone with the Rook. Then he remembered the devastating power she wielded and he knew she’d be fine. He really was exhausted and sleeping in his own bed sounded like Heaven.

He gave his mother a kiss on the cheek and headed up the stairs to his room. He pushed the door shut and was immediately met with a series of beeps and mechanical chirps.

“Quiet down Blink,” Asher warned. “Do you want my mom to find you?”

The hover craft floated out from beneath a chair in a dark corner of his room. A red light blinked on and off rapidly from the front of its rounded nose. The blinking light is what inspired Asher to name it Blink.

“Ball,” Asher commanded.

Blink burst apart into a cloud of nanos only to reform a second later into a solid, uninteresting metal ball. It plopped to the ground and Asher picked it up, bringing it to bed with him. He got himself comfortable, pulled the covers over him, and was asleep within a few seconds.

He dreamed of terrifying, nightmare creatures that only wanted to kill him and his family. He saw silent, wraith-like forms flitting through the trees and murdering as many people as they could. Then he dreamed of panicked screams and wails of pain that grew louder and more insistent. Even Blink made it into the dream and was chirping at him nonstop. The Rook machine went so far as to start bumping itself into his arm. He did it repeatedly and Asher thought he could actually feel the pain.

The dream Blink gave it another shot, ramming itself as hard as it could into Asher.

“Ow!” he cried, jerking awake and shooting up in bed. He glared menacingly at the machine. “What’d you do that for?”

Blink hovered up and down for a moment more and then flew to the window. Asher suddenly realized that the dreams of shouts and wails hadn’t been a dream at all. They were real and they were getting louder.

He got clumsily out of bed, tripping on his blanket and crashing to the floor. He let out a grunt of pain, got up, and then went to his window. What he saw made his blood run cold.

Rooks were everywhere and more of them were appearing from behind veils of camouflaged nanos.

Vitari was under full-scale attack.