Entanglement of the Dark

One

"There is a group heading across The Glass," Julian's father muttered at a barely auditable level. Her mother looked up from her task with the washcloth with widened brown eyes.

Across the Glass, Julian felt as though the words were rattling around in her mind. There would be a group heading across The Glass Bridge, across Blackened Bay, and into the Kingdom of Secil. Only the desperate were pushed to cross The Glass feeling hopeless enough that they would risk their lives to get to the other side only to face more danger at every turn to be granted one request. Even then, after the difficult journey, there was always a price to pay at the end. Julian shivered.

"And what of it, Jonan." Her mother whispered harshly back as if all of her children had not already heard what Julian's father said. It was not common to speak freely of The Glass especially not about heading across it.

"They informed me after I told them or Roane's condition-"

"No, it is not an option." Her mother was shaking now. She wrung her hands as if her palms were made of soaking wet cloth. "It's not."

"Gwynn, there is no other option unless we sit here and watch our son die." Everyone glanced at Roane, still unconscious laid out on their dining table. If one were to pull open his eyelids, they would find that he was close to reaching the last stages of the Grey Death with bloodshot eyes and pupils dilated large enough that it would nearly cover the normal brown color.

"We should take him to the Temple of the Gods. Only a day or two ride away-"

"The Gods have not been listening to you so far, Gwynn. Why should they listen to you in their home if they do not listen to you in ours?" Julian's father's dark brown eyes narrowed, similar to her own and to Roane's. "Do you think they have listened to anyone praying for The Grey Death to leave the body of a loved one? No, they have not. But they do listen to Him across The Glass."

"I heard that those in Secil call Him a God," Julian whispered towards her hands clasped tightly in her lap, startling herself. To say something like that out loud was dangerous.

"May the Gods smite Him for allowing them to," Julian's mother spat. "He is nothing more than a Conjurer-"

"Which were once considered vessels for the Gods powers and wills." Julian's father reminded her. 

"Tales! That man is nothing but a powerful King using black magic." Her mother was nearly in tears of both anger and sadness.

"That's what they thought his father was too and somehow he lived almost two hundred years." Julian's father sighed.

"And they say his son is even more powerful," Julian muttered. She should not talk about such things and she knew it, but she could not help herself. This was a topic only discussed in secret and barely.

"We cannot take Roane to – to that thing, Jonan." Her mother, Gwynn, looked at Julian sharply. "Stop your muttering in my home. He is not. He will not be and to speak it is to wish it. You should not even know of such things. Please guide us, Xarona."

Julian's mother's last words for the Queen of the Gods, Xarona the all-knowing, before she turned back to her little brother and began washing his face again while muttering continuous prayer. Edyleise stayed silent, an entirely different behavior than her normal laughing and smiling self normally exhibited. Her face no longer looked seventeen as she sat there eating. Her dark brown hair fell in waves around her face and down her back. 

The family all looked keenly similar to their father and his features. All of them had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and full lips. Almost none of their mother's features showed through of Gwynn's red hair or ivory skin save for her children's eye shape. It would be a difficult reminder for her if Roane parished. She would see him everywhere in her husband and her daughters. Still, she did not want to offer any more of her family up for sacrifice than the claim of the Grey Death had already made. 

Many of the family members felt her fear including Julian.

Julian stood up from her seat and placed her bowl on the small counter for washing. She could not stand to be in the room any longer and would wash it later.  Edyleise followed Julian in silence outside. Both of them took deep breaths as the wooden door to the cottage closed behind them and the breeze pushed their hair around lightly. 

"What do you think they will decide?" Edyleise questioned as they began walking into the trees. 

"About what," Julian said absentmindedly. 

"Crossing The Glass-"

"We should not talk about it."

"But we are," Edyleise said. "Because Roane is dying and there is nothing that we can do. But He can."

"He is dangerous," Julian reminded her. "He is not a savior. He kills, and lets others kill, for more power."

They walked in silence for several minutes before approaching the second cottage on their land belonging to their grandfather. 

"Do you intend to talk to him about this?" Edyleise looked puzzled. "He is much too old to be thinking about these things."

"He told us storied from a time that we were never part of. Papa might have something, an insight, about this that we could never understand."

"Fine, but you're going to be stuck in there forever. I am going for a walk," and with that, her little sister was off into the trees. 

Julian approached her grandfather's wooden door. Her grandfather did not know the desperation that the family had received as no one wanted to stress him until they knew for sure that it was The Grey Death at their doorstep. Edyleise had been right, he was old, much older than the average person lived to be without help and they found him fragile though none dared to say that to him. Julian hoped the conversation she was bringing to him did not stop his heart.  She prayed, "Xarona, give me guidance."