Archer Lumen: Earth's Version of Hell (Unfinshed)[Edited Up to Escape]

Chapter 10 | The Talk: Part One

Chapter Ten

With the crowd still surrounding us, I walked toward Wren slowly.

Kate and Perrybrim approached us and Lucas let out a groan. I looked at him and visibly winced.

  His nose was a red blotchy mess, and his grass green eyes were dull and lifeless. His jaw was slack and purpling. I frowned at Milorn, who was focused on Kate. “Hey!” I growled. “Look at me!” Milorn reluctantly moved his eyes and met my gaze. “Who did this? Who did this to Lucas?”

  Milorn sneered and let go of Lucas, stepping forward so our faces were only inches apart. While he was taller and muscular, I figured that with my sword, I could take him. Maybe that was an arrogant way of thinking, but I didn’t care. I was ticked, because I knew that Milorn had been the one who had hurt Lucas.

  Lucas collapsed on the ground, moaning incoherently. I looked back at Milorn and pushed him back angrily. “Get out of my way. I thought you ice Elementals were supposed to be diplomatic,” I said.

  Milorn moved back easily, allowing me to step towards Wren, who was glaring at Kate. Perrybrim was looking up at the entry ledge nervously, a trait that I wasn’t used to seeing on him. “What do you want?”

  Wren smiled easily, showing the tips of her white teeth. “To help you. Look at your friend Lucas, see what we’ve done to him. I’d rather not do that to you, but I will if I must.”

  “Who are you?” Kate asked, her voice steely and cold. “Kaden Carvet is the leader of these people, not you. Yet for some reason, you command authority. Enough for everyone to cease their training and watch you.”

  Wren’s smile now seemed frozen as she turned to Kate. “Well…”

  I looked at Lucas again, holding his dull grass green gaze in my silver one. The lion Shifter was propped up on his elbows, his mouth set in a permanent scowl. I realized that something was odd about him. It was a fuzzy lining, smaller than what I usually saw. It was like something was trying to fight my vision. Trying to keep me from seeing.

  See what you need to see, not what you want to see, I reminded myself as I stared harder into Lucas’s eyes. The fuzzy line that followed the contours of his face began to grow hazier, glowing a bright gold. Suddenly I saw the afterimage, sharp and clearer than I’d ever seen.

  It depicted a boy with golden robes―a prince. His eyes were auric and he had short straw-colored hair. His features were harsh, but handsome. In his hand was a scepter with a fiery orb as the headpiece. The Sun. It rotated, spitting flares of red and yellow this way and that.

  In my heart, I knew what I was seeing.

  The Sun Guardian―Kaden Carvet.

  My brother.

                                                                    ☽

Wren Ka’ard recalled the prophecies that her mother had recited every other day when she’d been young. Sonnets of heroes falling, explorers discovering treasures, rulers leading their lands into dark times, some had been of the gods. Whether or not Coln would seek out Dastin. Or Rahthr and Wyn’s dwindling unity.

  Some had been about the Fractured. Those beings that had been cursed by Dastin, the Soul goddess. Wren had always tried her best not to think of the men and women with more than one aspect of themselves.

  Now, all she could think of was the prophecy that had told of a hero’s lineage:

  The Moon's child shall stay neutral no longer