With a soft click of the lock, the door was pushed open, and a shadow slipped inside. Seemingly gliding through the dark apartment, moving with effortless grace from one room to another, the lithe man eventually stopped at a bedroom, though the sole occupant hadn’t made use of the bed in two decades.
Graceful as a swan, the tall shadow that was a human man in his thirties flitted inside and approached the woman lounging in a reclining chair in front of the stained-glass window, the last rays of the twinsuns glinting off her vacant eyes.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Rouge said, adjusting the thick soft woolen blanket over her bosom. “Ran into an old acquaintance of yours.” He moved over to sit beside her, pulling up a straight-backed teak chair. “Captain Dorianil,” he declared, casting a hopeful glance at her direction.
The eyes never showed any hint of recognition. But Rouge wasn’t discouraged. Despite what young Subrilia proclaimed, her wounds would eventually Heal. The Crown of humans was incredibly resilient.
“Still investigating your father’s death,” Rouge continued. “Kabilinal.”
Even mentioning that despicable man’s name did nothing to rouse her out of her catatonic state. Or did it? Was the pain in her eyes a reflection of his own state of mind? Or was there a slight flicker of recognition?
“Let me fix you a nice cup of calming cardamom tea.” Rouge got to his feet, moved to the kitchen, letting his thoughts drift while his hands performed the familiar actions.
Subrilia may be the greatest Healer on this side of the Kailash, but she was only two hundred and ten, a mere child before him. He refused to believe that the only person he’d loved in the last couple of centuries was beyond saving. A second opinion won’t hurt. He’d heard good things about Emerya.
Of course, if he’d been gifted like his elder brother, none of this would’ve been necessary. But his was a rare talent, even among his adopted kind.
Last time Rouge had cared so deeply about anyone was when his young boy had nearly been ambushed by agents of the Ancient Enemy. Fearing for his safety, Rouge had abandoned him and fled, going so far as to kill himself. Even if he’d been another duty to begin with, Rouge had eventually become attached to the boy. Swallowing his grief over losing his only child, Rouge concentrated on his future plans.
This was his domain, the Future. But every instance of using the Sight beyond Sight has repercussions. He had to look no further than his brothers and sisters to know this.
The relationships he’d formed with aditarus and humans over the centuries is what has kept him sane, unlike his siblings. One was lost in the past, his Crown breaking down faster than he can repair it, the duty entrusted to him still far from done. While the other….she had embraced her duty too eagerly, always living in the moment, to the exclusion of all else, so much so that her Crown, or even her physical form, no longer resembled their elder brother, who all five of them were based on.
Taking a deep breath, Rouge opened himself up to the Nodal Network of Reality, letting his senses drift, not in Space, but in Time.
The River ran rampant in some areas, sedate in others. Nearer to the Present – her signature a glowing sun – one particular vortex caught his attention, and he gazed deeper into the corresponding Strands of Fate. What he saw startled him, even if it’d been long Foretold. By him.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
First time in millennia, looking at the Future with clear unseeing eyes, a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
She is his salvation, so he must become hers. No cost is too dear. The Strands of the Nexus and the Tome were already tied together. Rest should follow the natural flow of Time.
Rouge returned to his wife holding a cup of Dargil tea, a broad grin on his handsome face. Reaching over, he clasped her cold hands in a grip of fresh hope.
“How does a long journey sound? You did always say you’d like to visit the University one day.” He placed the cup on the table in front.
“But before that, one last Action.”
As the sound of hooves retreated, with both the horses heading for the northwestern part of town, the boy named Hammond heaved a sigh of relief. Then, his head snapped up as a whistle sounded somewhere far.
“Maybe we should wait until morning. Seems the Guards are busy…” He hung his head. “Hunting him.”
The girl called Shiyelia nodded glumly, sitting with her back to a banyan tree. “Inspector Born will understand. Arjun is our friend, after all,” she said, trying and failing to convince herself.
A gentle breeze murmured through the countless broad leaves of the old tree. Shadows of the leaves swayed with the breeze, shadows created by the meager starlight. One patch of darkness, behind the wide trunk, stayed still.
“That wasn’t Healing, was it?” Shiyelia asked after a while.
Hammond gulped. “No. I don’t think so.”
“What do we do?”
“Tomorrow, when we tell the Inspector what happened, he’ll know what to do.” Hammond’s voice wavered, more from fear than worry. After all, the Clerics weren’t renowned for their sense of compassion. The glance he threw Shiyelia was full of doubt, and within a few blinks, instinct for self-preservation won out against all pretense of friendship. “Perhaps we should…”
Shiyelia shot to her feet. “Yes… They already have a decent head start, don’t they?”
A man-shaped shadow detached itself from behind the trunk, and a ball of darkness Enfolded the two youths. The ball then began shrinking rapidly, and in a fraction of a blink, it vanished, leaving no sign that there ever were two humans sitting under the old banyan tree.
Rouge glanced over at the empty spot. “True friends are getting harder to find these days.”
Time for Actions was at an end, at least for the immediate future. Before his passage through the area could catch that upstart priest’s eye, Rouge opted to withdraw.
The wind picked up, the air rushing in to fill the momentary Vacuum created by the two Portals. Nature abhors Vacuum. Or so humans, even aditarus, seem to think, while in reality, nature was mostly made up of nothing but Vacuum, or Null to use the term that was more in vogue these days.
But Rouge knew most of the fun stuff happened in the small percent of Reality that wasn’t empty. Matter, Energy, Space. Time, and the three Fields. The Soul. But most all, the Mind, the substance that gave all the others meaning.
An echo of this sentiment was felt by every aditaru, almost instinctively. But they never truly appreciated the depth of this truth, which was arguably the most fundamental truth of Reality. One mind in all of Sindria did appreciate it. Indeed, it did more than that. It agreed wholeheartedly with that truth, despite possessing no Heart. Or heart.
The one mind that holds every Aspect of Reality together.
The mind that knows everything.
Well, almost everything. As someone who he considered an elder brother used to say, “Future has too many variables for even the greatest mind to keep track of.”
It was also the same mind whose insatiable thirst for knowledge had landed them in this mess to begin with. But that was even beyond the domain of his little brother, far enough into the past that cause and effect had snowballed into a calamity of world-ending proportions. With the Ancient Enemy striving to break free of its chains, such was always expected, and Foreseen. And thus, the Grand Plan was formulated, a good fraction of which fell under Rouge’s purview.
Thankfully, most of the pieces were already in place. For the Foreseeable future, he only had a solitary duty to perform, which, for once, coincided with his own goal.
The goal to visit the City of Genesis, the city of his birth, and Heal the only two people he’d ever loved, though he might need to kill them both in order to fulfill that goal.
Despite his sister’s cautionary words, Rouge was confident of success. He’d been a pawn in that entity’s schemes for over a millennium. It’s time to take back control.
For Fate is not suffered, nor is it shaped.
It is Manipulated.