Genesis

Chapter 50: The Price of Power

The room Sarah entered was mostly barren. The only carpeting was an old, frayed rug that rested beneath a three legged, rickety table. The table was grey in color, with splinters poking out at every angle. The boards it was made of were cracked and bowing. Nothing sat on the table. The two chairs around it were no less aged. Any attempt to sit on them would turn them to dust by the touch of the air of one's strides.

Hugging the left wall was a small bed on a sheet of stone. The bed was old, fashioned from straw and the fur of a long dead beast. There was no pillow in sight. The occupant would have to rest their head on the flat stone.

Behind her, there was no dark space to even hint at the gate even being there previously. In its place was an indentation within the wall blocked off by a prison cell.

"What is that for?" Sarah asked an obvious question.

"Observe the room in which you stand in its entirety before you speak," was Edom's response.

Sarah did as requested, eyes falling on Edom first. He stood near the decaying table unraveling a tightly wrapped object from within a highly discolored, blood red rag. He did so slowly, building suspense.

Behind him, to the right of the bed, was another object hanging from the wall. On the right and the left, two chains shackled two wrists to the wall. Following one of the arms down, Sarah observed the person's hanging head, which was covered by a matte of black hair. The person was feminine in stature and wore familiar clothes.

Sarah gasped.

She knew those clothes. They were the same ones worn by Jules the day they had left Eastwood to this stupid island.

"What is this," Sarah seethed, rushing forward towards Jules.

Edom stepped in her way, brandishing a dagger.

Sarah stopped immediately, standing back beyond Edom's reach.

The dagger was made of bronze, and just as old as everything in the room. Its pommel spiraled out, leaving a small space where the gem would typically be placed. The blade was sharp and shaped like a wing, curving backwards into three protruding points.

"This," Edom began. "Is the culmination of thousands of years of planning. I have longed for this day since this wretched place fell to ruin."

"I don't understand," Sarah said.

"Gayadra is not a place where the powerless are allowed to tread. Do you truly know so little of this place?"

"In a note the Jules wrote for me, she stated that my blood flows through this island," Sarah admitted.

"Then you know more than most."

"That is only because no one else knows of this place."

"True," Edom said. "Gayadra holds safeguards that prevent its existence from being known."

"So how does Jules know of it?"

"Two lines remain from the days of old, when Tiamora and her brood roamed the seas."

Edom saw the confused look on Sarah's face.

"The Leviathans," he enlightened. Edom continued: "My line and hers," he pointed to Jules with the blade, "are all that remains of this ancient land. Her ancestors fled to a place untouched by the Leviathans, but Gayadra was brought to collapse before any others could leave. I was forced to remain here for thousands of years in wait for one to return, to set me free. But her blood is not enough. She does not hold power. But you..." he flicked the blade to point at her, tapping it on the air. "You are unique. The blood of the Wyra runs deep in your veins. One of such sheer power has not been seen for centuries, and I could not successfully draw the last here."