Plans are Forming
“No but you all will be if you don’t listen to me now.” Agni stated. “Which one of you is Zara?”
Zara gasped softly, as Nasir squeezed her hand. He pulled out his sword, as Agni approached them triumphantly. “You have been warned that you are not meeting your own potential. Your people need you to guide and rule them, but you are so quick to allow others to rule you instead.
“I don’t have people.” Zara replied in shock. “My sister is the Queen not me!”
“And yet both daughters have claims to two different kingdoms hailing in Beshumaar.” Agni stated, her hands reached out and held Zara’s face, her eyes flew open, as visions flooded her mind.
“Do you see now, daughter of the Witch?” Agni asked.
Zara watched the visions of herself as a child playing in the Enchantresses Isle. She had always bowed to the creatures that roamed that world, not quite realizing that they had bowed to her first. Verena had been right, there were people who waited for her, that longed for her to rule.
Zara blinked as Agni let go of her, Seraphina and Nasir seeming to suddenly wake from a daze. “What did you do?” Nasir asked, leaning towards Zara who shook her head.
“She just showed me something I’ve been blind to.” Zara said softly.
Seraphina scowled. “What might that be?”
Agni turned to her with a sparkle in her eye. “You can feel it can’t you? Your bond to the monster world, to him? Severed.”
Seraphina startled, swallowing a curse. “Is he?”
She closed her eyes, barely able to even imagine what she now thought of. “He is alive but no longer tied to you or your block.”
“Does she mean Shazir?” Nasir asked sharply.
“Is Zaya in danger?”
“He has chosen a different path.” Agni murmured, looking at Seraphina. “His revenge is no longer what plagues his mind. Not his revenge at least.”
“Why are you speaking in such riddles?” Seraphina begged.
“Because I must. Shazir and Zaya’s path has been intertwined but not for the reason you might think. Not that you will have the time to return there. You have another promise to fulfill.”
Seraphina bit her lip looking torn, before straightening herself and looking at Agni once more. “Do you know where the Dragon Pearl is?”
“Yes, and so will you.” Agni murmured, putting a hand on Seraphina’s face flooding her mind with storms and a hidden cave sparkling with black stones that mirrored the night.
“Goodbye, pirates, we shall not see each other again.” She grinned, stepping away from them and snapping her fingers once more.
Shazir had assumed that he and Vanna would be under house arrest. He had not assumed, that Vanna would wake in the early morning, throw him over her shoulder and tap her staff, transporting them somewhere that was definitely not the castle.
She dumped him on the hard ground, and he grunted, glaring up at her before rolling to his knees, standing shakily in the soft grass. They were in a clearing of some sort a woodcutter’s cottage right before them. A man was shuffling among the trees that surrounded the hut, pulling a cut log behind him. He dropped it, and stretched, his form startling as he realized he had guests.
He seemed to narrow his eyes at them both, as he moved closer, towards them. Vanna walked towards him Shazir following at a respectful distance. The man stopped at a foot between them his eyes arresting on Vanna, before he smiled and crossed the distance embracing her and spinning her in a circle laughing all the while.
“Vanna, you glorious girl!”
“Llyr!” She smiled, as he finally put her down, and she took the time to look at him, her eyes awash with tears. “You can walk!”
Shazir frowned deeply at her words, before he remembered the story she had told last night of the Piper. “Only a blind girl and a boy confined to crutches couldn’t follow.” He murmured.
Vanna and Llyr turned to Shazir in surprise. Llyr smirked slightly as he turned to Violet. “Whispering tales again?” He asked, before his smirk turned to a frown as he looked at Vanna more closely. “You’re not blind.”
His voice was quiet and careful as his gaze returned to Shazir, his eyes wandering down his slightly open shirt, to where the key sat curled. Llyr looked back up to Shazir’s eyes solemnly. “Did you make your choice already?”
“It’s our time now.” Vanna murmured glancing at Shazir.
Shazir watched as they both suddenly turned to him, Vanna smiling slightly with a curl in her lip, and Llyr with shock in his face. “You refused revenge?” he gaped.
“There is no revenge to be had, when everything that has happened to me, is my own fault.” Shazir explained. “The only thing I want is to return to my love and my penance. Which cannot happen until Kagan is defeated. Evidently.”
Llyr’s face smoothed neither a smile nor frown on his face. In fact, he seemed to be at a loss for words. Vanna smiled, slightly moving to take his hand in hers before looking back at Shazir. “We have waited nearly a century for someone with the Key Orlaith to choose something beyond revenge. We can do this.”
Llyr smiled. “Together.”