My name was called. Was screamed, was cried, even. At least I thought.

I was somewhere and nowhere at the same time, wandering through spaces and voids, hearing all sorts of things from every corner and nook of the universe. I was drowning, gasping for air while water filled my lungs and suffocated me, my arms and legs beating the nothingness all around, although my eyes couldn’t see, my ears couldn’t hear, my skin couldn’t feel, my mind couldn’t understand what I was experiencing.

My name was called. Yelled. I was getting yelled at. I tried connecting with my body, tried opening my lids as the sensations around seemed to reassemble. As the atoms of every little thing in the whole world were adjusting to the new setting, and as I was launched in it, a spectator watching from the skies, witnessing the lives of other beings. Who I was, where I was, nothing could have mattered less.

The environment slowly unblurred and I focused over what I had in front of my eyes. At first, only a small cube, a room, appeared in my range of vision, unraveling among the darkness of my spirit. The walls were painted a beautiful shade of green, pretty light, only for the upper part, the rest being slats of dark wood joining the gray marble tiles on the floor. A soft glow emanating from the glass tube chandelier reverberated over the dining table, long and large enough to fit a whole family, covered in small rounds of light casted by the ceiling lamp.

Chairs had been put all around, I counted six, and were not correctly pushed under the dark, almost red wooden table. This was a home.

My body started to move and I swiftly advanced toward the cube, until I was fully in it, but still navigating through the air. Gawking from afar at what was untangling in front of me.

Even the sounds floated into my ears and the muffled noises of nothing ceded to a man exclaiming a name. “Nua!”

“What?” she finally responded, entering the room with thundering steps. Her dark hair wavered as if they were under water and reflected no lights at all. Her face was round and young but her attitude was sharpened, like a knife ready to stab and slaughter.

“Would you mind acting like the adult that you are for a second?” The man entered, his golden almost white hair contrasting with the darkness whirling around the girl. His features were clean and subtle. He was gorgeous. Both of them seemed familiar and I realized I had seen them before. In another dream. Or was this really a dream? Was I fantasizing?

“None of you care about what I have to say,” she snapped. “All of you seem to make it a goal not considering me as an adult.”

“This is not true, Nua,” he tried calming her temper. But it only resurrected the embers.

“I’ve had enough listening to you three as if I was not around, not useful enough, not grown enough, not powerful enough! Am I not powerful, brother?”

Her whole body burst into flames, her skin switching color with a profound darkness I’d never witness, the cracks along her forearms swirling lava back and forth, following the rhythm of her frantic heartbeats. “Nua, please, you don’t need to do this,” the man answered, his face still stoic but I’ve seen the shock and the wince he made while watching his sister erupted. One second later, she recovered her normal look and crossed her arms.

“Then listen to me. I know what I’ve seen.”

“Your powers are still young. We don’t know what it was, who it was.”

Two others immersed the room and one of them sat around the table, his long and muscled legs stretching underneath, his hand behind his head. I remembered their names instantly and wondered how. Kino and Nina. The latter walked past the white-haired gentleman and stationed by Kino, who looked her up with a smirk full of malice. She was breathtaking. And he was horrifyingly attractive. “Stop undermining my capacities!” Nua yelled again, her fire at the verge of appearing anytime.

“What you’ve seen is highly improbable. That’s all we are saying,” Nina explained, her voice low and graveled.

“Of course, lil’ sister, you could burn the whole house down if you wanted,” Kino added, his playful smile still plastered on his face. “Your visions are rather unpredictable. What you’ve seen might be the future, as much as the past, or in an alternative universe.”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” Nua insisted, her hair jolting as she stormed out of the room, her siblings sighing and shaking their heads as if they were used to that kind of discussion.

Kino stretched his arms above his head, his dark hair fumbled through Nina’s touch, before catching her wrist and making her sit on his lap. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle this kind of shitstorm every morning,” he said, tickling Nina’s side, her laugh shining bright into the whole room until she managed to withdraw from his embrace. “Be kind to her,” she answered, her smile stopping my heart for too long. “She wants to be a part of us, of our family.”

“This, I don’t mind. Acting like a spoiled brat is another problem,” he chuckled, Nina flicking her fingers over his forehead. He lifted his brows as a challenge.

“If what she saw is true. If all of it happens,” the other brother started, watching the landscapes through the window, his mind wandering here and there.

“It can’t. It’s purely impossible, Kéra,” Nina interrupted, her hands in front of her body as a protection. She made a face to Kino, gesturing to him to stay serious.

“Don’t call me that,” his brother frowned and power rumbled across the room. Nina lost her smile.

“I mean…You are blond. It’s only an observation,” Kino stood up and physically moved between Nina and the other, whose name I couldn’t seem to remember.

“That nickname doesn’t really mean ‘blond’ and you know it,” he growled, his eyes so harsh and unmistakable.

“It’s affectionate…” the other whined, with a grin that would have deserved a slap for its annoyance.

“Would you want me to call you Iblis, brother?”

“Lyen,” Nina warned, her voice even lower. That was it. Lyen.

The two brothers stared at each other and their powers filled the place, suffocating the air to the point where the lights even dimmed and almost vanished.

Their physiques were very different, one large and muscular, the other long and thin but nonetheless powerful in every way possible. They stared for a long time, not moving a single finger, even Nina silently begged for them not to start a fuss. “This name, only my preys are allowed to tell, when their bodies and minds are so deeply terrified that they mistake me for the deadliest of things. You know what to expect, Lyen, if you do use it.” Kino gnarled, his teeth bared and I noticed his fangs. My body trembled with shivers of fear but his brother didn’t feel anything of the sort. He even smiled.

“Remind me your age, Kino,” he asked, so calmly I shivered harder.

“Thirty-six,” he responded.

“Remind me of mine,” Lyen continued, his chin up looking a little bit lower. Kino answered a few seconds later.

“Eighty-nine.”

“That’s right. Keep that in mind next time you feel like playing with me,” Lyen snarled.

“I think you played enough,” Nina tried separating the two and they finally broke their glances, as they both sat back around the table. Light music engaged and I wondered if it was there all along and I hadn’t noticed.

“This is more important than your little egos,” Nina carried on, while she sat on the backrest of a chair nearby. “If someone were to enter this realm, someone from another planet, it would change everything.”

“As you said yourself, it is impossible,” Kino admitted, his attention suddenly not focused over the conversation. “Should we talk about this when the problem will be at our feet rather than exploring the possibilities over a vision that lasted half a second from our precious little twenty-year-old sister?”

“Something tells me it won’t be the last,” Lyen conceded with his gaze drifting into another place.

“Mom would want to know,” Nina shifted on her feet, uneased.

“Don’t think for a moment that Nua has not already warned her about this,” Kino laughed, his fangs glistering under the soft light of the room.

“Then what should we do?” She moved to the window and looked down, worrying.

“Nothing until we have more information,” Lyen concluded. “Besides, tonight is Oityia. It’s been a while since we had not celebrated together.”

“Right. We should help for the festivities,” Nina clapped her hands together with a shy smile on her face.

“For fu—,” Kino abruptly stopped. “I really rather spend my evening elsewhere.

“And where would that be exactly,” Nina asked, her hands over her waist, her head bending to one side as her short crimson wavy hair slumped on her right shoulder.

“Between someone’s thighs for example.”

“Kino!” Lyen exclaimed, his eyes wide as Nina rasped a laugh before giving up to it. “Don’t mock me.”

“Oh, please, you have to unsheathe that stick you have in your ass, you’re being unbearable these days.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation with you too, do whatever you want, I’ll be helping for the party.”

“You go do that, my dear brother.” Kino grinned, his smile reaching all the way to his ears as he turned over his sister. “He’s so… serious.”

“He has a lot on his plate, give him a break,” she responded, her back resting over one wall adjacent to the window that she opened for the fresh air of the night to come inside. I could almost feel it between my curls over my head.

“He should enjoy the pleasure life shares. Where does all his… frustration go?”

“How would I know?” Nina threw her hand toward the sky, amused. “He barely never talks about what he likes to do. I don’t even know how he spends his days when he’s not around.”

“Probably mourning around his darker thoughts.”

“More reasons to come to Oityia tonight and have fun with him!” Nina grabbed her brother by the shoulders and tangled her arms around. “It’ll be nice. All of us, together. Like a family.” She lingered into his glare for a while before adding. “Moreover, a large part of the town will be there…”

Kino only sighed and kissed his sister hand before standing up and making her twirl again and again, until she was dizzy from the spins and ecstatic of the joy she was feeling, that I could reach and touch with my hands as it was so obviously palpable it made my heart stutter. They looked so loved and close, it reminded me how much I never had and never will have that kind of relationship with anyone. I would never allow myself to open my heart this much, as it was already covered in titan, cement and caged with adamant walls.

Nolis.

Another voice called me from far, far away. My head turned over and over again, but I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel where it came from. By the time I glanced back at the room, I was somewhere else.

The scenery had changed and I was outside. All green, trees, grass, flowers from every color surrounding a stage and tables draped with a white cloth that must have measured more than ten feet. People gathered and ate from the enormous buffet aside, some seated some standing up, watching and listening to the musicians playing. They were dancing, laughing, singing. I had never witnessed such joy and happiness in my entire life, and I was living it through my imagination, at least I thought because all of this couldn’t be possible.

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I realized the party had been organized over a hill and the landscapes that enveloped it grazed my spine with vibrations of awe.

As the sun was falling down, the sky containing shades of gold, purple, pink and red, I was attending the most beautiful panorama I had ever seen. Valleys after valleys, pure sanity brazing over my face, I felt a tear roll down my eye, as I was watching around. From the hill, stationed above the rest of the village, every path was traced with white stones, as the roots of a tree, leading to a particular place below. Most were habitations, resembling the cottage Hidram and I had, but the colors were more striking and the houses a bit larger than we were able to afford. All the roofs were made of dark and mat tiles, fading perfectly with the colors of the sunset, as they were reflecting the shades all across the valleys. We were so far up, it was only possible to differentiate the suburban areas from the crops they used for farming, gardening and cattle, although it already looked so peaceful and precious without all the details.

I recognized Kino’s dark suit and hair, talking to a pretty man with petals of red flowers crowned over his head, their gestures transparent regarding their intentions on each other. Kino’s thumb and index grabbed the man’s chin and his gaze only seemed to hypnotize his partner, his lips imprisoned by his teeth as they escaped the event silently through an arch of ivy and orange tulips.

Lyen was sitting facing the stage, watching the concert in front of him and tapping his foot shyly on the ground, following the tempo the musicians had set up, his arms crossed over his chest dressed with a white flannel shirt. His light-colored hair struck even more around the others, who, for the most part, wore darker shades of hair color. Nina surveyed close, sometimes talking to his ear, sometimes beating the rhythm with her head, looking right and left, probably for Nua, who did not attend the party.

The people feasted with huge smiles on their faces and sang until the night fell completely and beacons attached to the trees lit up and led the way to each and everyone’s houses down below, assuring their safe return when they would decide they were done. As the minutes passed, I realized the siblings had reunited and discussed around one of the tables, and for once, they seemed to handle everyone’s temper. Even Nua, who had decided to join eventually, her fingers picking on her skin and her head looking down, had a quiet and restrained smile on her mouth, mostly because of her brother next to her, waving his arms as he was telling a story I was too far gone to hear.

Nolis!

My name was shouted again and I almost broke my neck watching in every direction for the source of the voice. Only the purest of nights answered and its soft and cold breeze caressed my whole body, still flying into the air. I tossed and turned, as much as I could until I found it. The light. Beautiful and blinding light whispering to come close, to join her, to reach for the stars and be born once more.

A powerful force thrusted toward the light and I waited for my body to reach the opening and reveal what was behind. Would I join these people? This magnificent place I wondered how I had imagined without even seeing something so spectacular in my life? Right before the response was about to be given, I sensed a gaze that rose the hair behind my neck. And as I looked back, receding to the surface, Nua’s widened eyes fell into mine and stripped me to the soul. Who are you?

My throat hurt. My head hurt. My whole body was hurting so much I couldn’t bear the pain. And I understood I had been unconscious for a long time when I recognized the Jalyon that had followed us on the floor, his skull broke in two that a sharp and short knife must have done, and I ogled at the pool of blood that had spread around him, that had already dried. My fingers were humid and I realized I was myself, around blood.

I remembered his scream. The launch to reach me and the knife that sliced through my entire torso. My lids wouldn’t open as much as I wanted to and my lungs had been punctured, because I could sense the very little amount of oxygen I could inhale at once. “Nolis! By the heavens…”

Kâl sobbed and placed her palms over my wound, while I winced at her touch. “How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Bad,” I managed to whisper, but that one word had drained my gauge of energy instantly. She waved her hands and added.

“Don’t talk, I’m sorry. I’ve been healing you for an hour straight. This part of the tunnel is safe, but Samay said we need to be careful for the rest of the path. I need you to fight, Nolis, alright? Please.”

I nodded. My head was placed over the wall and I only could wait, until her magic fingers and healing powers would do their work. But for now, the pain was excruciating and I didn’t know how long I could stay focused. “Kâl,” I tried to warn her.

“Shut up!” she screamed, another tear rolling down her eye. “Just… don’t move, don’t say anything. I’ll save you.” Her hands were shaking and I realized she had destroyed my clothes from the front, torn them apart so she could reach the laceration at the closest. I thanked the universe she didn’t rip the back, for she would have discovered my true nature. Although I doubted she would decide to slaughter me for my real identity, as she was also one of the pariahs. Maybe she would understand my mistrust if I was being honest with her, she had been when she told me about her family. Or was she? Vishan had revealed a whole different person when he admitted what she had done for him behind my back. But again, why would I hold grudges when I was the first one to lie in order to see my missions fulfilled?

She held my gaze and frowned her brows while she wept, “I would give a lot to know what’s happening in your head right now.”

And I couldn’t respond. Even when I opened my mouth to retort, her eyes burned with a deep and lurid fire. But my throat was still sore, and I wondered if the Jalyon hadn’t hit my vocal cords.

My lips stretched into a smile as my lids closed again, the striking white shot of pain in my abdomen luring me into unconsciousness once more. “Nolis…”

The music had stopped, but the shushing of people trying to clear the mess while others had fallen asleep over benches or directly on the floor filled the place. I was standing in the dark, but from the lamps surrounding the house, the light crossing through the window, I could discern a canopy bed, the cloth attached to it gently resting on the mattress, slightly open on one side, probably where the owner would enter to lie down. A nice and comfortable dark carpet was disposed at the foot of the bed and two little tables, where a book and glass of water waited, had been placed on each side against the wall.

My eyes had taken two seconds to move and search for a lightning switch when I saw a figure moving inside the bed and rising at incredible speed.

Two seconds later I had my back sprayed over the opposite wall and a knife under my chin. I swore loud enough to be heard and felt the tip of the steel incise the barrier of my flesh. “Who the fuck are you?”

A woman. Deep and graveled voice. I knew who it was before someone walked in front of the window with a lantern and her striking fierce red hair glimmered in the night. “Nina…” was all I could whisper.

“If you do not answer me right now you can say goodbye to your balls.”

Her body was so close to mine, her scent, dark chocolate, filled my nose and I sensed my entire being falling down for her. I could have dropped on my knees and let her slice my throat, I would have thanked her for the relief of not being worthy enough.

Her gorgeous and full lips had grazed my cheek while she had smelled my person and her other hand had started to descend over my stomach as I remembered her order. “I don’t want to harm you,” I stuttered, and realized, a bit too late, it could have been interpreted in a very different way.

She grabbed my collar and threw me over the bed with a strength I only encountered with the Jalyons. She advanced, like a feline playing with a prey, a night gown so thin I could imagine everything beneath and my breath caught up in my lungs, my heart stopped beating. Something about her felt perfect and incredible and my brain couldn’t think straight for one second near that woman.

But she placed her knee over my groin and pushed down, a sharp scream froze in my mouth. “Do I need to repeat myself, pervert?”

“No… I’m Nolis. I mean no harm, is what I tried to say.”

She withdrew the pressure ever so slightly. “What are you here for?”

And I wondered how I could respond to that question. Could I say I wasn’t from this place? I didn’t know where I was, nor what I was doing here, only that in times of distress or while I was sleeping, here was a place I would return to, almost every single time, without having a single clue as to the why or how. Maybe I was still dreaming, maybe I was still hallucinating while Kâl was trying to heal my wound, but everything felt so true, and real, I couldn’t bring myself to act as if nothing mattered and I would just wake up from the nightmare when her blade would end me.

My mouth opened and closed and I could see she had lost her patience, as her knee continued his course and I yelped like a baby. “Please,” I stuttered.

“Then, speak, because I’m one movement away from disintegrating you.”

“I have to be dreaming…” I whispered, shut my lids and tried my hardest to wake up, to disappear from Nina’s chambers before she destroyed my genitalia. I patted my chest and realized my wound was still here, still visible and still touchable, and Nina’s eyes had fallen on it.

“Did Kino try to eat you? Is that it? And you took refuge in here because my window was open? This man, I swear, I’m going to…” she mumbled as she stepped back and lit up the room, opened her closet and snatched a long robe to cover her body that I couldn’t seem to take my eyes away from. She was spectacularly strong, physically and mentally, and my inner soul was bonding with her in a way I could never explain with words.

She turned around and watched me, really lingered and frowned while she inspected me entirely. “You look…”

Nolis.

No. I was pulled back again, but I didn’t want to leave her. She walked toward me and waited not a foot away from me, at least one head shorter than I was, and her beautiful round face explored my features. “You are…” she continued with her hand lifting forward, wanting to touch me, and my breath quickened, glancing at her, imagining what her caress would feel like over my skin. “Nua,” she murmured. “I need to find Nua. Stay right where you are.”

But I could sense the surface pushing me up, the heavens collecting my body while Kâl had succeeded in healing. My eyes followed her all the way out, and I waited for the dream to end. There were more, I realized. Times where she and I were close. Close like I’ve never been with someone before. All the souvenirs floated back behind my lids and I had to shut them for the strength of them rushing back was too much to handle. But she hadn’t recognized me as I recognized her. She had looked at me with anger and disdain, when other times she had even moaned — moaned — and shuddered under my touch, all of it felt terribly impossible and incoherent and I only shook my head, as if there was nothing else to do with that kind of hallucinations.

One sharp inhale was the first thing I did, and collapsing on the ground, my hands barely holding my body was the second. Kâl patted my back and swore, praying to the heavens and the entities for being able to save me. Although she had cried so much and trembled from her head to her toes that I frowned. “Are you better?” she demanded, but her spirit was elsewhere, she wasn’t really waiting for a reply.

“How long have I been out?” I answered with another question, glancing at my disappeared wound and taking deep and long breaths to verify all was in order. Kâl moved away, her body thumping over the opposite stone wall, her eyes red and puffy, drops falling endlessly from them. “Kâl, what is going on?”

Her lids shut for a second but she responded, “It’s been three hours. I’m exhausted, that's all.”

“Are you hurt?” I enquired surprisingly, even if I had shown care and attention more than once now. Especially for her. She had saved me twice.

“I’m fine.”

We stayed silent, listening to our breaths and heartbeats as only company. I winced seeing the bow completely destroyed and the quiver facing the same fate. Fortunately, the Tiara was untouched, as it had dissolved around my scalp but I could still feel it there, channeling its powers wave after wave, the tunnel being dark and damp, the last drops of putrid water stagnating inside for maybe decades.

“I was so afraid it would happen,” Kâl’s shy voice perturbed the silent air around us.

“What?”

“I was terrified to face him because I was ashamed of what I did,” she tried to explain. I frowned.

“My mind is very foggy right now…” I said, closing my lids for less stimulation.

“I’m sorry, now is not the time.”

Her soft and remorseful tone made me wince again. We had already talked at the library, back in Maorat and I had seen her in a different shade when I had realized she’d saved me, when I was a little boy trying to do good for his father and failing. I had begun to trust her and like her, although my bad attitude and bad habits were hard to put away, and to understand she had done a selfish act that had provoked Hidram’s death had damaged me harder than I would have wanted.

Life without expectations was easier.

“You can talk if you feel the need to,” I moaned, lifting myself up against the wall, our feet almost touching. She blinked and stared a long time before speaking.

“When I led them to your cottage, I was convinced they would find the stone and be gone with it. Leave us alone.” She searched for her words, physically looking anywhere else than in my eyes. “When they continued torturing me, I wondered why I had even talked. I hoped they would let you go, since I was able to defend myself. And I was still resenting you from uncovering my true nature to them. I didn’t really think it through.”

She crossed my stare, and drifted away again. “After everything that happened, I wasn’t even planning on going back there to finish the job. I had made peace with my long term mission because you didn’t seem to care about the death of your father and we had bonded in a way I had never experienced with anyone, and I figured we could try to live something new. Something better. Despite your hate for your father, I saw that tamed light inside your eyes, that you cared. You were just hurt over and over again and for some reason I wanted to help you see that life could offer some happiness.”

“Because you know it well?” I interrupted.

“Better than you, that’s a fact. I’m sorry for what I did. I really am.”

“Do you know more than you declared about the stones?” I asked. I couldn’t yet bring myself to say I wasn’t mad at her anymore. Not when another lie could hide from the rest. I needed her to spill her entire bag while she felt vulnerable and sad.

“Not more than what we know now. My mom’s legend was true, I only knew Vishan was after something similar.”

Minutes passed as we remained silent. And before I could process what I was doing, my mouth opened. “I might have stuck with you because we were very much alike. After losing the only person I knew, I might have been afraid to stay alone. Despite my capabilities, my strength, I didn’t want to face the rest of what my life would offer on my own.” I stared at my hands and played with my knuckles. “And what we’re about to face is too much for one man.”

She smiled when I dared look up at her visage, so sweet and approachable regardless of all the cruelty she had to experience. “I gave you my word, the Weapon’s word, when it comes to that, you’ll never have to second guess,” I concluded.

“You’re not the Weapon anymore, Nolis.” She corrected me.