As they finally reach a snowy peak that she could have sworn they had stumbled upon at least five times, Finnley finally asks, “What exactly are you the Captain of?”
“Excuse me?” Elek grunts over the loud whipping winds that toss his wild curly hair around his head.
Reaching a hand out, Finnley grasps his out reached hand as she reaches the end of the treacherous incline that they had ventured up. It doesn’t pass her mind that his hand is extremely warm compared to her own numb hand or the freezing air around them. Her hand practically burned as it met his warmth.
“You’re called Captain Abilenne” She shrugs, “so what are you actually a Captain of? Or is it a weird nickname?”
He lets go of her hand once she’s steadily standing beside him. “I’m the Captain of the Star Bender.”
“Star Bender?” She echoes back in confusion.
“Yes, it’s a ship.” He quips back before looking out towards the large cliff side ahead of them.
“What kind of ship?” She can’t help but wonder if its a spaceship, at this point she wouldn’t be surprised.
“The kind that floats.” He quips back with a raised brow.
She rolls her eyes and tucks her hands into her coat pocket again. “And how do you and I know one another?”
“We don’t.” He says gruffly.
She mirrors his annoyed tone, “But we clearly do.”
“We don’t really know one another.” He clarifies, “You found me before you disappeared and we spent all of a hand full of hours together.”
“Why?” Finnley pushes for an explanation.
Elek takes a deep inhale, his chest rising and falling beneath the thick black furs. “You needed someone to take a blood oath, and you found me and bound me to the oath, so that when your Kingdom needed you someone would bring you back.”
“But why…you?” She squints at him against the cold wind, “No offense. I just mean why would I choose someone I’d never met to swear an oath that could change the projection of whatever it was that I was doing?”
“Because…” He quickly stops himself, but she stares at him waiting for her answer so he continues, “Because you knew I would do what needed to be done.”
“How would I know that if I didn’t know you?”
His amber eyes flicker darkly. “I suppose you’ll have to remember that for yourself. You only told me what you thought I needed to know, and that wasn’t very much.”
“We had never met before?” She pushes. “I was just some crazy person binding you to me with a blood oath?”
He catches her arm when her feet slip beneath her on a thick patch of ice. “Thank you,” She mutters gratefully.
He nods absentmindedly, “You showed up at the Star Bender and told me that come sunrise Noctarae would announce your sisters death to the Equator but that it would be a lie. You convinced me that this oath was what you needed to ensure your return.”
“So how did you know when to bring me back?”
He purses his lips, “The last village of the Northern lands have been taken.”
“Taken by who?” she prods. When he doesn’t answer her question, she tries again, “And so you just waited?”
“By a false ruler.” His jaw tightens. “I waited, yes.”
What an odd thing, she thinks. To have some stranger bind you by some magical law to only have to be forced to wait for who knows how long to actually have to fulfill your oath. “Why would you wait? Why go along with any of it if you didn’t know me?”
“Because I believed you.” He reveals with a deep exhale.
But still she questions, “How could you believe something from someone you didn’t know?”
His eyes are warm when he turns to look at her, “I suppose you convinced me to believe in you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, and it turns out he didn’t want to hear whatever it was she had to say as he treks ahead. Each step he takes leaving a soft footprint in the icy ground, and she follows.
Step for step.
She can’t see how much of an incline they have climbed, because as she glimpse behind her all that’s in her path is a thick sheet of fog and snow, but they are high enough that the snow has stopped falling and they now stand in the thick mist. On the opposite side of the mountain range down a steep, snow filled cliff side looks to be the tops of more trees, all the way down until the point that she can no longer make anything out.
“Is the oath how we have matching markings?” She asks as she follows his zig-zagged path through the snow covered trees.
He huffs loudly, “You could say that.”
She makes note that he seems to have issues with giving straight answers.
“What can you tell me?” She doesn’t mean for the rumble of her voice to come out so loud or aggressive but her frustration gets the better of her.
After a long moment of silence he lets out a sigh, “I can tell you that the Guardians were only gifted with one offspring.”
She thinks nothing of it as she presses her heels deep into the icy snow. With each step she takes and each intake of breath becomes more and more difficult the further they walk and gradually a ringing starts to form in her head. The air is thin, and dry up here despite the falling snow.
“So they only have one offspring. What does that…” She thinks back to the words of the video before her eyes flick to him, “I have a sister.”
“You do,” He nods. “And you need to find her. She is the rightful ruler Noctarae.”
“And how do you purpose I do that?”
Elek raises a brow but smirks, “First you need to make it off this mountain.” He motions for her to continue walking, “She’s trapped inside that mind of yours with whatever information you had. Once you can remember, you’ll have a better shot of figuring out where she is.”
The hike had given her plenty of time to think of anything but how cold her nose and hands are, and how much pain was shooting through her leg. It had given her plenty of time to stop dwelling on her physical pain, and to dwell on all the painful memories she was missing. To try to link together the small pieces she had been given but it had been no use because every time she started to think about it, her chest would tighten and she thought she might pass out from not getting enough air, and they would have to stop and Elek would become frustrated and so she stopped thinking about it. Stopped thinking about any of it, and just kept her mind on what was happening right in front of her. The snow, the wind, the sounds of whatever wildlife could survive in this horrible terrain. She counted the amount of seconds it took for Elek’sfootprints to disappear into the snow, and how many times he glanced back at her. She thought about how there was no way the leather pants he wore were comfortable, and about how if his fur coat wasn’t so long she would be able to rake her eyes over the rest of his muscular legs.
Until finally she couldn’t not think anymore, “Why do you think she was claimed to be dead?”
Elek shrugs, “There could be many reasons.”
“Like what?”
“She could be dead…like your father. Perhaps you thought you knew something but they knew more.” He shrugs, “But the coincidence of your sister being murdered on the night of her coronation and the night your father was also murdered under mysterious circumstance right before the Realm went to war…” He shrugs, “Perhaps she ran away herself. But…it could also be that to keep her quiet, those in power took the opportunity to make her disappear.”
She knows she should feel something. Be more emotional for her stranger of a sister, but there’s nothing there. Not even a slight ache of grief in her chest. Nothing but the sting of the chilly air. Elek’s intense stare meets hers.
“Do you think she knew what I knew? Would someone be trying to keep her quiet because she knew the information I made myself forget?”
He huffs out a chuckle, but he never denies it. Instead he says, “When Alora was birthed from her star, along with all the other children blessed by the Gods, a choir went out across the realm of the new heir of Noctarae, a new protector of stars would bring safety to us all.” She nods to pretend that she understands what he means, “I was on an isolated ship in the middle of the Star Sea with my father and I still heard it. It was all that was talked about in every corner of the world. Every celestial being heard the news. A female ruler in a world of Guardians. There had not been a female Guardian since the Original rulers and she was here to bring peace back to the lands.”
Something within her sparked at that.
This sister whom she didn’t know, who had the pressures of being the first female ruler since her line was to bring peace back to lands that had not known peace since her bloods reign had began.
“We all heard of Alora’s birth.” He glances down at her, now having slowed his pace to walk beside her, “But I felt it when you were born.”
“What does-“
“The entire realm felt it. The realm shook. The entire realm was flooded with water from the skies that don’t produce rain, and the Realm broke into parts. I remember how terrifying it was as a child, and I wasn’t even at the heart of it. They call it The Great Break, the original battle for this land. The equator was broken into six pieces with no rhyme or reason. Many died and not nearly enough survived and it was… a good thing for the Guardians who came to take control of the land. While the Guardians were at war, you simply appeared one day from nothing.”
“What do you mean just appeared?”
“You weren’t here, and then suddenly Guardian Astrophel won the battle, you were created out of his power.” He glances down, watching as the snow melts beneath his feet. “So I imagine there’s always been things in your mind that you were trying to hide.”
Abruptly, he turns and walks ahead with no other glance towards her.
She struggles keeping up, bulldozing after him as she sinks down into the snow. “Wait!” He continues on. “You can’t just say that and not explain to me what you mean.”
He doesn’t look at her when she finally reaches his side instead he looks out at the gray clouds around them on the cliff side. For her, its all blurry shapes and thick coverage but she can see in the way his eyes flicker that he can see what she cannot.
“I had never seen a storm before.” He starts, “I had never seen cracks of lightening or felt the drip of rain, or heard the clash of thunder. My father had never seen it, my mother had never seen it, my grandsire had been born to dry land.. The Star Sea was stagnate, it had never produced a currant or had a tide, these mountains were simply rock, dirt, inhabited for lifetimes. Our people had never had water fall from the sky. Our sky had been that of the stars, home to only them and we new nothing of the Darkest Hour as we do now. Our land was stable, allowing the Equator to thrive. These lands…this realm had always provided for our kind. We worshiped it and in turn it gave us peace until suddenly one day, it changed.”
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“And your saying that was my fault.”
His look is as cold as the harsh wind that rips through her hair, “Yes.”
And then he continues on.
The thick snow cover nothing to him as he plows through it. He takes no mind of the wind that chapped her cheeks or the flakes that clung to her eyelashes. She barley notices them either as her hands warmed in her coat pockets and her toes stayed toasty despite the snow that had fallen into her boots.
Her limbs beg her to stop.
Her bones beg her to give up. To lie on the freezing ground and close her eyes one last time but for the first time since waking up in that hard hospital bed, the ache for answers is stronger than the call to give up. And the words that drift past the cloudy sky are too good to not meet the Captain for each step.
“The realm had never known weather, or anything that wasn’t in a stagnate state until that day. Most said it was because the Guardians killed the original King and Queen’s of the realm, the war had ended and therefore the peace the realm had once known was gone. That the great Mother of the lands was crying for her children and the Gods were scheming.”
“But the creatures of this land all believe that there is only light and darkness. There are the light of the stars above us and the darkness below us. And they all believe each is correct yet they forget that its our world in between. Our world in the gray.”
The longer they walk the more painful it is for her to take deep breaths, and the pressure on her chest becomes greater, and she’s reminded with every powerful step that he takes that the man before her is not human. He’s nothing like she is.
“Your birth was never announced, never celebrated by the people. You simply just appeared out of war.” His husky voice raises over the howling winds, “It wasn’t for many years that I put two and two together. That the great break was not because of the fall of the original rulers but because of your birth.”
He give her a quick glance before continuing, “You’re the first child in this realm to not be blessed by the Gods.”
“Why wasn’t I blessed?” she asks.
He assists her up onto another level of the terrain, grasping her at the hips and lifting her so she doesn’t have to place extra strain on her leg. “I don’t know. But Finnley,” He starts up a steep path then, and she follows his steps precisely, stepping in each spot he does, grasping onto the tree branches in the way that he does, the bark thick and moist beneath her palms. “I know that you were not born the way the other guardian children in the realm were. I believe Astrophel used something dark to produce another heir, something unacceptable in the eyes of the Gods.”
Something unacceptable in the eyes of the Gods.
She was unacceptable in the eyes of the Gods.
“What does the storm or the break have to do with me?”
“ You were born moments before an entire realm broke itself apart, and two of the oldest living beings in the realm died, resulting in the takeover of said realm. You were born out of the death of what our world used to be.”
When he starts to climb faster she realizes its the end of the conversation. He has ended it.
It’s impossible for her to calculate how long it had taken for them to reach the opposite side of the mountain range when it seemed like the sun’s place in the sky never drifted and the moon that seemed impossibly large never shifted from its high set position beside its opposite. They had gone long enough that they had stopped for water multiple times, none of which Elek drank, and Finnley’s legs felt as if they had disappeared from her body miles ago. She had stopped asking hours ago how much further they had left when Elek had responded with a calculation of the moon she had not understood and when she asked him about it, he continued to recite the same thing again and again and yet no matter how many times he did, it still did not trigger anything in her mind.
When Elek finally stops and helps her drop down into a small alcove in the side of the mountain, she wants to cry out with joy but instead she flops her body down on the large rocks and cradles the canteen of warm water he hands her but to her dismay, her legs begin to tingle back to life and a groan escapes her as she flexes her ankles.
The alcove covers them from the intense winds and ice that accompanies the high elevation and for the first time since she disappeared out of her apartment she feels as though she can actually breathe easily.
“What did Classisa mean when she said my human body?”
Leaning against the cave wall, looking out towards whatever lay at the base of the mountain, Elek tracks some unseen movement with his dark eyes. “I fear your body grew accustomed to Earth, and to protect you, adapted into a human body.”
She hesitates before asking. “How…how would it adapt? Was my body not human before?”
“Listen Sparkly, I’m sure there’s someone in your Kingdom who can explain all of this to you.” He lets out a small chuckle, his eyes never moving from whatever target he had found over the edge of the cliff. “Hell, maybe you’ll get your memories back by then.”
“What if I never get them back?”
“Then you will thank the stars,” He doesn’t look at her, but the intense staring in his eyes changes slightly as he frowns. “and we’ll send you back to Earth to live a full human life, and you’ll forget this ever happened.”
“And if I remember?” Instead of an answer, he turns and for the first time since they had arrived to this strange place that shes still not quiet sure is not all a ploy to get her off into the middle of nowhere to kill her and hide the body, he looks at her. Actually looks at her. Takes her all in, and even when she looks away out of the embarrassment that runs through her at his engrossed gaze, she can feel his eyes travel across her.
“What happened?” He asks with intrigue, the first expression aside from overall irritation that he’s allowed to show.
She follows his gaze, down to her left ankle where it’s sticking out of her skirts, pale and thin, shaking with anger and pain. “It’s a long story.”
His eyes move back to whatever he’s watching, “Well, we happen to have a lot of time.”
She groans, sliding her long skirts and coat back over her leg to keep in the heat and to tuck away from his prying eyes. “I was thrown from a window.”
His eyes whip up to her, his eyes finding hers. “What?”
She nods, “You aren’t the first person to break into my apartment.”
A scowl paints his face, “When did this happen?”
“About six months ago.” She explains, “Chances are I’ll always have the limp, but the doctors said I was lucky to be alive. Which is odd seeing as how they’ve told me that twice in the past two years when waking up in the hospital.”
He looks away, deep in thought before a deafening noise from below distracts him and suddenly the world around them is shaking. Packed snow falls in sheets from above the cave opening as the entire cave shakes violently, like some kind of earthquake. When she glances back at him, Elek has steadied himself against the cave wall looking over the edge of the cave, fresh snow decorating his curls. With no words he gestures for her to go over to him, and places a finger against his lips, signaling her to be silent.
Pulling her body up she attempts to keep her feet under her and the cave shakes once again. Attempting to take careful, powerful steps she reaches the the edge of the cave. Elek pulls her towards him, placing them right on the edge of the mountain side, his lips against her ear. “Look, just there,” He points down the snowy mountain side below them, “Do you see it?”
A large creature, so large it practically towers over the mountaintop. Elegantly camouflaged in with the snow, it’s long talons raking against the mountain-side, climbing its way onto the peak opposite them, where they had been just hours before. The mountain trembles again as the creature continues its climb, paying them no mind.
“The winter whites are native to the Orion mountains.” His hot breath whispers against her ear, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Beautiful was an understatement in her mind. The creature was the most magnificent thing she had ever laid her eyes on.
The winter white’s spiked tail whips back and forth with the wind as it crawls up and over the mountain’s peak before disappearing over the other side, the mountain shaking gently once more before stopping completely. “That must be where it beds for the night.”
She whirls toward him, his chin just above her brow. “That was a dragon!”
His warm eyes meet hers finally, “Indeed.” He confirms, “You’ve just seen the first Winter White of the season. Looks to be a babe.”
“A babe?” She gasps, “That thing was massive.”
“Oh, no that was small for a winter white.” She laughs breathlessly in excitement and disbelief.
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
She hadn’t realized the warmth that had flooded her body until she had parted from him, and he had stepped back. The crisp coldness covered her body instantly. “I doubt that’s the amazing thing you’ve ever seen.” He walks towards the back of the cave where he had abandoned his bag, “Just the most amazing thing you remember seeing.”
He could be right, she could have seen dragons everyday of her life but that didn’t matter because she can’t even remember what her favorite color was let alone dragons.
“If that’s a baby,” She starts, “Does that mean there’s a mommy somewhere?”
Elek rustles around in his endless magic bag and pulls out a long wool blanket, similar to her coat.
“Somewhere, yes but probably not here.” She watches as he digs into the bag again, elbow deep when the bag should go no further then his mid-arm. “Typically they are on their own by the harvest moon. Take off you’re wet clothes,” He casual adds.
Finnley blinks at him, “Excuse me?”
He dramatically rolls his eyes, and his hand emerges from the bag with what appears to be a thick, grey wool tunic and thick pants similar to the ones he has on. “You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
He tosses her the new set, turning his back to her, looking back over the edge of the mountain side.
“You’ve had these the whole time? I just walked that whole way in a ballgown?”
He lets out a soft chuckle, “You wouldn’t have had warm clothes if you had walked that whole way in them.”
The tunic is impossibly soft…and warm, almost too warm for her bare hands. As she strips away her coat she takes a moment to finally look at her arms, at the marks that had not been there yesterday. Scars of faded angry red, and bright white line her arms with no rhyme or reason, and right in the middle of all of that is the star. Glowing an almost orange color from beneath her skin, as though a flashlight was shining beneath her skin. An illuminated brand on her skin, right where all can see.
“Finished?” Elek questions causing her to reach for the zipper on her dress but it’s not a zipper her hands find but rather ties.
“I think I might need some help?” She sheepishly informs him.
His eyes imminently land on her when he turns, “You forget how to dress yourself too?”
She shoots him a dirty look, “No, it’s laced.”
She catches the way his eyes look towards her star brand as he walks over to assist her, “Pretty ridiculous of you to have worn this out here anyway.”
He grabs her bare shoulders, turning her to face the back cave wall. “Well, I didn’t make the choice.”
His warm hands slide down her shoulder blades, causing her to sigh a little too loudly at the warmth. “Once upon a time, you ventured out here in the middle of winter in that dress, hiked the mountain and went through a portal before anyone even realized you’d left the party.”
“What party?”
His hands stilled for a quick moment before he continues pulling the laces, “Your sister’s coronation.”
She grabs for the front of her dress as more laces loosen. “Oh.”
He pulls the last lace, releasing her from the incredibly uncomfortable dress.
She slides the tunic over her head and her body feels as though it can relax for the first time in hours, the warmth cradling her. “What can you tell me?”
Chiming into the pants, she pulls them around her waist and reaches for the warm socks, sighing as her feet are finally warm for the first time all day.
“I can tell you we will sleep here, and then start again in the morning.”
She glances around at his chosen accommodations for the night. Her eyes pausing on the small lantern that now held a simple flickering flame. She hadn’t seen him light it, hadn’t seen where he could have possibly been carrying a lantern this whole time but still it sat poised beside his feet as though it had been by his side their entire journey. “We could have kept going. It’s still light out, perhaps we could have made it to a place with actual walls.”
He raises a brow, “I would say this is an upgrade to those accommodations you had on the mortal realm.”
She shoots him a look, “At least I had a real bed there…and a door.” She gestures towards the cave mouth.
He hums at that, “Your door didn’t do you much good though, did it?”
“It did against the cold.” She shot back with a raised brow.
“It won’t be light out for much longer, and you do not want to be out there when darkest night falls.”
“Darkest night?”
“On the equator there is a time of night when the stars and the darkness meet. It’s in this time that the celestial equator is at its most dangerous. The creatures that sleep during the day wake, and the veil between the dark and light is opened. You never know what you’ll run into in the darkest night. All of the land is alive.”
She takes a seat beside him, her back scraping lightly against the rough cave wall. Her gaze follows his out past the cave mouth, “What roams during the darkest night? Goblins?” She smiles softly to herself, “Dragons? Great beasts with sharp teeth?”
“If only.” He mutters.
Where she once could not see past the misty clouds, she was now taken with the twinkling of the sky in the distance. Bright blinking filled her vision but just as quickly as they had appeared the stars flickered out as though they had been eradicated completely. There was no light beyond that of the small lantern that still sat at Elek’s feet. The world around them had gone truly dark, nothing like she had ever seen on Earth. This darkness was not just the absence of light but something thick, something alive as it ate its way through the light.
“That’s amazing.” She mutters, glancing over to see his face hardened, his eyes still gazing out into the darkness.
“Some say its a punishment from the Gods.” He starts, “A punishment for the Guardians having failed at protecting the equator. Others say the darkest night is a warning from the Kings of Hel. A reminder that no matter how safe we believe our world, they still dwell beneath us and despite the Gods, despite the Guardians, are still able to lift the veil as though it’s cheap cloth.”
“What do you believe?’
He quickly stands, marches over to the blanket, “We are done with questions. No more, I won’t answer any more. Get some sleep. You need it.” Chucking the warm blanket at her, he starts for the caves opening, “I’ll keep watch, so you don’t worry about dragons or beasts with great teeth all night.”
A breathe of a smile slides along her face as she tucks herself into the soft and warm blanket, for the floor of a cave, it was somehow the most comfortable she could remember herself being in some time.
“Elek?” She finally asks after a long silence, “What do you think is in my head?”
The darkness does not respond for a long time but before her eyes drift close, heavy from the day and her body allows itself to find sleep, he softly responds, “Something that is going to change the tides of our world.”
She lets out a sleepy hum at that, “I was thinking it was a really good pie recipe.” She hears the soft breath of a chuckle come from his direction, “Wake me up if you catch sight of him again.” She mutters, tucking her head beneath the warm blanket.