HTG - Chapter 195

Kalon

Chapter One-Hundred-Ninety-Five: Anakor - Part Two

Planet: Etheria

Time slips from my perception as darkness embraces me like a lost quilt of comfort. Everything I have come to know as normal begins to fade as my senses are dulled and I am lost in the waves of gentle movement.

Until I see it…

A dim light that grows in the oppressive darkness.

Golden eyes flicker against the oppression, becoming strengthened by it even. As though reality’s cruelties can only increase its power.

A balance… something that deep in my heart of hearts… I understand.

The eyes move closer to me, the owner’s pace is calm like the rhythm of a tide on a powerful ocean. Their face is my face, but it is ever shifting. I see the black bearded man from Ioquin’s memories, and others whose faces call to me as though they are my own.

His voice trembles the fabric of our existence.

From the darkness we are born.

His hand raises and light blooms in orbs that float in the periphery around us. Growing in countless colors and shapes. Each one is a whisper of intention. Left behind…

Anger… despair… hopes… dreams… love…

Countless lives that leave pieces of themselves in the void.

When the balance is not fulfilled, we rise.

The orbs of light condense until it becomes a tangible thing, a flicker of defiance that does not submit to the darkness. A flame that can burn black… my flame.

We are that which will be… the beginning and the end.

He moves his hands through the air creating two strands of mana, each glows brightly in the darkness. One strand a deep and lustrous red and the other a brilliant blue. The two strands entwine until they mix into purple. A pulse of his will envelops the mana and it suddenly becomes golden, turning liquid and malleable in his hands, and then solid as he forms it into a blade of golden light. The design is so beautiful and familiar.

He moves it gently through the darkness and the fabric of existence itself shears against the will of true mana. The blade falls to stardust as he finishes and turns. His appearance no longer changes, it rests on the bearded man I saw in Ioquin’s memory. I feel a pulse of his will beckoning me to follow him through the darkness.

We walk in silence against the endless darkness, part of me knows where he leads us. To a place that I have known many times… the Realm of Dreams.

Light splits in the darkness and he steps through it. His body is cloaked in a black garb with silver accents. His skin is tanned like he lived under a desert’s sun. His hair is covered by a head wrap of some kind with intricate weaves. His beard neatly trimmed to a point. He is a handsome man with a frame that looks chiseled from brimstone and marble.

All around us are the endless seas that rock gently. The black island that Krotha shaped is no more.

“What do I call you?” I ask.

He does not reply, instead he moves his hands and shifts the seas in a circular motion, then releases them and turns to me. His golden eyes flash and the command is understood.

He means to show me how to control my Soul Realm.

I try to follow the movements but they do not move the waters as he did. There is patience in his eyes so I try again and again, until I turn and look at him for guidance.

He shows me again, and this time I feel a small difference, like he’s projecting his will into the waves. Now I just need to figure out how to do that…

***

Time is elusive in this place between places. There is no real air that I must breathe, no real food that I must eat. No concept of day or night, just the endless expanse of the waters. The man does not speak in the Realm, it reminds me of Zarae, she never speaks either. Perhaps he cannot speak to answer questions, perhaps he is my memory… or perhaps he thinks that showing is the better form of teaching.

I have never met anyone as patient with me before, even the Sage would have left me to stew in my thoughts by now.

***

It has been days since I opened my eyes in the real world, I am sure of it, yet still he waits for me to understand the intention of shaping my own Soul Realm. He does not coddle me, nor scold, as though his only goal is that I learn how to do this myself. Like he is passing me the torch of our flame.  Whenever he shapes something, he always erases it. Remembering what Ioquin said, I think he doesn’t want to taint my Soul’s Realm. I think he wants it to be my choice of how it is.

A guide without expectations. Each time he studies my mistakes, he repeats the parts I do not understand, even if I think I do.

***

It feels like weeks have passed and I finally feel a rhythm in the way he shaped them. The waves move in silent recognition of my will.

He crosses his arms and nods, still not having spoken to me again. He points to the stars above which number much more than they did before I used Ioquin’s Legacy. He twists his hands to beckon them. Orbs of energy that pulse with strange feelings descend and compress. He moves his other hand to grasp the next set before compressing them into a ball as well. The colors shift and hum, stirring the endless seas.

Until they shift and I feel them pulse Etheric and Netheric. He releases them and they shift back into their old nature, falling upwards into the skies once more.

“You want me to combine them, like you did in the darkness?”

He does not reply. He still never has since we entered my soul’s realm. Perhaps it is a test. To teach me the patience that he has. But something is different this time. A portal of darkness stirs near him, and he steps through it, disappearing. Somehow his meaning finds me though. Once I have learned to combine them, he will return for the next lesson.

For a time I find myself trying to combine them… but then as though out of nowhere, my memories flow back into me and a sense of urgency that I did not have while he was here finds me.

Suddenly I remember that Arkon was dying, that I need to get back and help him. I need to find out more about the mysterious man from Ioquin. I need to know more about my past self. About my destiny.

The call of reality beckons me as I slip from the Realm of Dreams.

***

Realm of Reality

***

Everything is calm when I awaken, my body is free from pain. The overwhelming feeling of maka pulsing in my chest is gone. So too though is the heightened awareness. The intense smells and the bright colors are duller, less distinguishable.

As I rise the light greets my eyes gently, unlike the gravity. It is more oppressive than I remember. Reminding me that my bounds are gone…

Yet as I manage to stand, physically, I do feel different than before. Like the maka that flows does so more easily around me. It is strange to understand. Three steps forward tell me that my body is not as weak as it was before I broke the Netheric bounds.

There is hope in this, and even a question of how strong can one become if they reset their bounds again and again…

“Kada…” a voice says that brings warmth to my heart.

I turn and see Arrum. He looks at me and I see a small joy on his face for a moment. He steps forward and looks me up and down.

“How do you feel?”

“Alive. And you?”

He turns, looking down a hallway, “I am glad you are awake. I will tell Dargo.”

“Did Arkon survive?”

Arrum looks at me puzzled for a second, “I did not know he was in danger.”

“Before I entered the Realm of Dreams, he was dying.”

“Kada, you have been asleep nearly a month. Arkon came and left back to Raven Prime already. When I saw him, he looked strong, not almost dead.”

“Nearly a month… so I wasn’t wrong about time passing.”

Arrum measures me, I can tell it is strained, he wants to comfort me, wants to be overjoyed that I am awake, but the memories that have driven us apart play on his mind still. Me not telling him that Isola was dead, not telling him that Adonius was her true killer. Not telling him of Adona… Riza’s role in it.

I have wronged him, and in a way, even with the best intentions, I have betrayed our trust. A trust that was forged in the harshest of fires is not easily regained. Time will tell if he forgives me for wanting him to live more than wanting him to know the truth. For I know that he would have done the same.

“Kada,” I begin, but he holds a hand up to stop me.

As though he is in my thoughts, he turns away from me and says, “When we have burned down House Hellenius, then you can call me Kada again. Until then, know that I wish you health and cherish that you live, but there is a tear of trust between us that only blood can fill.” His eyes find mine and I see the glow of his Kuwathi eyes, “You took my revenge, now you must help me find it.”

He holds my gaze until I say the sacred oath of our people, swearing on my honor, “Bata U’ton.”

Arrum closes his eyes for a moment and then opens them and the glow is gone, he nods slowly and then turns to leave, “Solara is here, at Dargo’s request.”

“And Luna?”

He shakes his head, “I do not know where she is. Perhaps you can ask Solara. I return to train in the mines to the north. Find me there when you are rested, I would spar with you.”

“I will.”

He leaves me in silence. Letting out a sigh, I look around the room, it reminds me of the master’s facilities under the colosseum, stark white walls and minimalist designs adorn the room. There are no windows, only a hallway with a door that now closes after Arrum. I am about to leave after him, but I feel a tingling in my chest. It takes me a moment to understand it. I feel the rhythm, it is Ioquin. A moment later she appears. Strange, I never would have felt her presence until she appeared. Is this because I’ve become more sensitive to maka fluctuations? Even when I looked at Arrum, I could feel the pulses around him. The interactions of intentions meeting maka.

Her voice finds my mind.

You have already found your soul’s realm. Remarkable progress. One does not typically find it so quickly after using the Legacy.

“I had a guide,” I admit.

She tilts her head.

Akronos?

I shake mine, “The one I saw in your memories, with the black beard. He helped me.”

He is like you, an incarnation of Akronos. Thus you can call him such.

“What was his name though? I do not know this Akronos that we come from, but I would know his.”

She smiles.

He was known by many names in his lifetime. King of Spirits and Fateslayer are amongst them.