Wish upon the Stars chapter 999

The red lightning surged across the room, but shockingly, it didn’t fork towards me, just towards my dad. It never made it to him. He raised his cane slightly, ready to rap it on the floor, but before it could strike him, a spike of ruby ice erupted from the floor, interposing itself between him and the attack.

As it struck the ice, the lightning was swallowed, bouncing around inside the facets of the ice crystal, unable to advance.

My grandfather, Malachai, stepped in front of the ice, his face grave. “Arabella,” he said softly. “You need to stop.”

She shook with rage. “Stop? STOP? My son is DEAD. Destroyed. Gone forever!” Her eyes, the grey of steel in the morning sun, began to shimmer. Not with some kind of power, but with unshed tears. “My baby is GONE. And it’s HIS fault!” She pointed a shaking finger at my dad. “He brought his fucking games here and now my boy is dead!”

“It’s not his fault,” my grandfather said sadly. “You know it isn’t. He had nothing to do with this. You’re angry, and heartbroken, and you have the right to be. But killing Elijah won’t bring Derran back.”

Turning, she lashed out with a fist, smashing it into the wall so hard the room shook, a long jagged crack running up the dark stone to the ceiling. “SHUT UP!” She screamed at him. “Shut your fucking mouth! My son doesn’t just die! Someone has to pay! Someone needs to BLEED!” The tears were pouring down her face now.

He smiled sadly. “I know they do, love. But it won’t be Eli. He didn’t cause this. It wasn’t his job to protect Derran. It was mine. And I failed.” To my absolute astonishment, his own eyes started to water. “If you need someone to die, I understand. It’ll be me.”

She flinched so hard she almost fell over. “That’s not…what are you even talking about? I could NEVER.”

“When you were born,” he told her in a choking rasp. “I was SO happy. Percival was…well he was the heir. He had his job to do, and I always knew that. But back then I wasn’t an S-ranker. I was just a run of the mill politician. You were my baby girl. And I swore. I SWORE to your mother I would protect you.

“I pulled every string I had, called in every favor, to get you exempted from the succession war.” At the looks of shock that ran across the faces of everyone else in the room, he smiled. “I know. It’s unthinkable. It used to happen occasionally, though it was always rare. They closed that loophole not long after that, but I kept you with us. Raised you. And I kept my promise. Even after your mother died, and I realized how precarious my position was, and started making moves to expand and consolidate, I always kept you safe.”

Arabella was staring at him, and the absolute devastation in her eyes made me want to weep. “Daddy,” she whispered. “You didn’t DO this.”

“I did,” he told her stonily. “I was supposed to keep him safe. Was supposed to watch over him when you were in retreat, and I didn’t. And now he’s gone. A debt is owed. And I’ll pay it. Because I failed you and broke my promise.”

She stared at him for a solid minute, eyes swimming with grief and unwillingness and confusion, and then she turned and punched the wall again. Except this time she didn’t stop. Her fists pulverized the stone as she screamed, again and again until something inside her just broke and she collapsed into a pile of bloody rubble, her hands ruined and face covered with dust and tears as she sobbed on the floor.

Malachai walked over and knelt beside her, pulling her against him as she cried. I just…stood there. Because I didn’t know what else to do.

WAS this my fault? I didn’t think so. But no matter how you sliced it I was involved. And I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine the pain. The grief. Even thinking of losing anyone in my life like that tore me open in a way I had never even considered.

“I’m sorry,” my dad said after a minute or two.” She looked up. “I didn’t have anything to do with you losing your son. But…I AM sorry. Sorry you had to go through that. I can’t imagine Ari. I just can’t even begin to comprehend it. I wish I could have just let you attack me. Could have allowed you to hurt me to try to take away some of the pain. But I was afraid after me you’d have gone after Shane and-”

She SPAT at him. “He’s a CHILD Elijah,” she hissed. “I’m not STUPID. I know it wasn’t you. Know I’m being unreasonable. But I also know that whoever did this most likely wanted me to blame your son. I refuse. I won’t let my boy’s death be a weapon. Won’t allow them to cheapen him like that. YOU I might kill out of rage, but I won’t attack my nephew at the behest of the monsters who murdered my son.”

The admission seemed to make her…smaller. Not the part about me. But saying out loud that my dad hadn’t been part of it. It had been hope. In a way. That she might get justice. But now that hope was gone. Her son was dead and she had no clue who had done it. She might never find them, and all her hate and rage had nowhere to go except for inward.

“We’ll find who did this,” I said suddenly. “I promise you. I don’t know what this is about. I don’t know if it’s about the Wishmaster title, or something about the Void, or if I was even really involved. But whatever caused it, I’m going to find out what did this. WHO did this. And I’m going to have them punished.” I swallowed hard, averting my gaze from her scorching glance. “And…I’m sorry about Derran. I didn’t know him very well, but I really liked him.”

It seemed so pathetic to say that. So insubstantial. But it was all I could say. It was all I had to share and I felt like I needed to share SOMETHING. That I owed it to her to let her know that her son had made an impact on my life.

To my surprise, she smiled weakly at me. “He liked you too,” she said sadly. “He told me all about you when he got back from the succession war. He wasn’t one for all the games the kids play around here. After he got back when he reached D-rank, he mostly kept to himself. Spent time with me and his father.” Her eyes overflowed with tears. “He was such a good boy.”

My mom walked over and knelt down next to her, wrapping her in a hug as Malachai pulled away. As she held her close, a warm white flame consumed them both. Flames of purification. Nothing offensive, just…warmth. Nurturing comforting warmth. Helping to soothe the grief. She couldn’t wash it away, and even she could I don’t think Arabella would have wanted her to, but she was able to do SOMETHING.

My grandfather cleared his throat, looking up at the familiar form that filled the door. “Davis,” he said softly. “How are you?”

“Enraged, sir,” said the big man. “After I contacted Ari I took control of the response units sent to take care of the other potential targets. There was another attack.” Our heads all jerked up, but he held his hands out to forestall the reaction. “No other fatalities. They attacked Roland. Which proved to be…unwise.” His smile was cold and angry.

My grandfather sighed in relief. “Do we have the assassin in custody?”

“Gone,” Davis said grimly. “We found him in his room, heavily injured. He was comatose. Based on the damage to the surroundings, we think he drove them off with a surprise attack. Roland is one of the more combat capable members of his generation. It would make sense he’d have contingencies in place. Der-” he choked, closing his eyes. “Derran was never one for violence. That was changing, after Kara…he asked me to help train him. I was busy with the coronation security.”

“This is NOT your fault,” Arabella said fiercely. “If I don’t get to blame Eli you don’t get to blame yourself. Besides, we’ll just have to make up for it when Dana comes home.”

At my surprised look, she smiled sadly. “Dana is Darren’s little sister. We’ve probably got a decade or two before she comes home.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was so excited to meet her.” She closed her eyes, forcefully shaking off the grief. “In any case, you’ll have to make sure she gets trained right when she gets here,” she told him.

It struck me how…absurd this family was. Malachai had needed to trade away what sounded like quite a few favors to keep his daughter, had been alienated from all his other children. Darren had only met his parents probably a few decades ago, and he had a sister he would never even get to see. And all of it because of some absolutely ridiculous decree from some previous Wishmaster. I didn’t even know if the cuckoo bird strategy for raising kids had been proposed by the old man himself. 

This invisible…thing, that we all accepted, that had shaped our whole lives. How many families had it ruined?

And that, ultimately, was what turned the fear off. And the grief. And even the self pity. I wasn’t sad anymore. I was MAD. Someone had come into my home, my family’s home, and killed someone I about. Maybe it was some evil Void plot, but maybe it was just some petty asshole who wanted a JOB. Who wanted to keep things the way they were, and keep things like THIS happening to more kids.

I’d let myself get lost in the weeds again. Let myself get distracted by the how and abandon the why. I wanted to be the Wishmaster for THIS. For these people. For my friends and family and loved ones and even people I didn’t like much. So that people like my aunt wouldn’t need to wait for their children to come home after growing up alone. So that they didn’t need to worry if they would come home at ALL.

The flickering embers of a mission that had been guttering under the weight of Void wars and politics flared into an inferno and then CRYSTALLIZED. Into a certainty. Whoever did this wasn’t going to win. Not in any way.

I WOULD find them like I promised. Would see them punished. But more than that, I would make sure that none of their goals came true. I’d change the family, prevent the Void from taking over, and foil any other nonsense they were hoping to accomplish. Because they’d woken up a part of me that had been sleeping since I’d beaten Travis to death on an ice field back on Callus with my bare hands. My pettiness.

More than just winning, I wanted THEM to lose. I wanted them to suffer. To experience the pain they inflicted on my family and on me.

“Do you need somewhere to stay?” I asked, finally snapping out of my rage fuelled daydream. “Sorry, I should have asked earlier. I mean I know you have a place but I don’t know if you want to be there right now…”

“She’ll come home,” my grandfather said firmly. “Both of them will. “Ari’s old room is still untouched. Davis can stay with her there.” He gave his daughter a small, broken smile. “It’ll be nice to have you back in the house.” She smiled back, and her smile was as broken as his. Oddly though, it seemed like those jagged pieces might fit together into something resembling a whole. But only time would tell.