Chapter 22 Marcus in Prison

Chapter 22 Marcus in Prison
Luna POV

I went to visit The Architect in the luxury prison under the mountain where they were detained. It was underground in caverns which had been cut thousands of years ago. There were guards at all points of entry and they ensured that he could not escape.

The former Marcus, the oldest, was sitting in a stone cell. He had become thinner than earlier and his cold confidence had disappeared in his eyes. Something in him had been destroyed in prison. Or was it something healed? I couldn't tell which.

"Why did you want to see me?" he asked. His voice was quiet.

I have to know something, I said. I sat opposite him with bars in between. "You had power. You had authority. Why should you like to have a war, instead of living with what you were?

The Architect had a very long silence. Then he started to laugh. It wasn't a happy laugh. It was the laughter of a person who had finally perceived himself.

It is because power is nothing, he said. I had so long been living that I lost the idea of wanting something that was real. I had lost the idea of creating something as opposed to merely destroying it. So I generated conflict since conflict was life to me.

"And now?" I asked.

And now I see I have lost centuries, Said the Architect. He looked at me with sad eyes. There is something good that I should have done in my life. I would have allowed people through my intelligence and my power to be served rather than be ruled. But I converted to be scared as well.

"Of what?" I asked.

Of being a thing of becoming irrelevant, The Architect said. As the world got different, I was afraid that unless I was powerful and scary, no one was going to concern him/herself with me whatsoever. So I held tighter to power. I became more controlling. At least a monster was noticed, and that was why I became a monster.

Something inside of me changed. This man had burned my bakery. He had used Shadow Entities to kill. He had tried to start a war. But now as I sat here I could see he was just like any person who had made such bad decisions.

People working against what we are building, I said. They are attempting to establish the separation between humans and werewolves. Will you help me stop them?"

The Architect stared at me as though I requested him to jump into fire. "Why would you trust me?" he asked.

I told them because everyone deserves a chance to be better. Just the way you are now getting a chance.

I will assist you, said The Architect. "But not for redemption. No, I do not believe in that anymore. I will assist you since you are correct that collaboration is more effective than fighting. And that I am fed up being single.

So I dropped him, I did not know whether what I had just done was prudent or not. But I needed knowledge, and he was old enough to know a great deal of secrets.

In the evening The Architect wrote to him via the guards. It was concerning the first mate of Elena.

It was a message that said: he was called Thomas. We named him The Rebel, as he was the first commonwealth to interfere with our modes. At least hundreds of years ago he wanted to establish peace between all species. But he was ruined by the other immortals. Or we thought they did. Suppose he is living now, and going here, it would mean that he got away. He means something. Pay attention to why."

I showed the message to Elena. She went very pale.

Thomas was different, Elena said to herself. It was in my kitchen and my mum was acting deaf and dumb as she made tea. He did not think of eternal excellence. He did not think that immortals were supposed to dominate human beings and werewolves. His desire was to make the world equal and where every creature enjoyed equal rights.

"But they destroyed him," I said.

Yes, we supposed that they did, Elena replied. But the deities are immortal and much-to-kill. Thomas may be coming because he gets an opportunity to complete his work, which he began centuries ago, the argument goes, if he survived, if he was waiting all this time.

Or he comes to you, my mother said to herself. Every person looked at her. I am sorry but we would have to think of everything. He was your first mate. You left him. Perhaps that is what he has been waiting to do, to punish you for that betrayal.

Elena shook her head. Thomas would never do such a thing, she said. But uncertainty played over her face.

In a couple of days, I attempted to learn more about this Thomas. Margaret had heard tales of him. He was remembered by the oldest Marcus two thousand years ago. Elena explained how they had been together, in how short a time and how lustful and unclean it had been until it was brutal and beautiful.

Nevertheless, no one knew when he was coming. Nobody knew what he wanted. We simply knew that something was in the offing. Something that can make it all be different.

Then, one night, I felt it. My feeling of existence changed. It was immediately outside Pine Ridge. At the edge of the forest. Waiting.

I grabbed Elena. "He's here," I said.

Together we went to the fore-edge of the woods. Kieran came with us. Margaret came. Sarah came. There we all stood as the sun went down, and awaited the arrival of a man who had been dead for many centuries.

He came out of the shadows as though he had been there all along, it was he we only had to see. His stature made him beautiful, but not in a human way. His eyes were aged, melancholic and full of hope simultaneously.

And his face was altered when he saw Elena. He had the appearance of having just discovered the one thing they had been seeking.
"Elena," he said. His writing was music and pain combined. Four centuries of searching I have done to find you.

Elena didn't move. She didn't speak. She was simply gazing at him in a ghost-like manner.

"I'm not dead," Thomas said. And I had no business here to make war and cause havoc. That is why I came, since I heard what your granddaughter was about. And I knew you because you were in touch with her, you were not dead. You were still attempting to make something better.

"Why now?" Elena asked. "Why after all this time?"

The world is at last ready, Thomas said. He gazed upon us all collected together. "Humans and werewolves are finally conscious of collaborating. And because there is something on its way that will call us all unanimous. Something ancient. Something that is eager to bring back war that must have been over thousands of years ago.

"What are you talking about?" Kieran demanded.

Those who ruined me, at least as I was, Thomas said. The same immortals who attempted to divide the world. They're still alive. They're still plotting. And they know about Luna. They are aware of what she is constructing. And they're going to eliminate it unless we eliminate them, first.