Page 27 of Darkness Rising
With a wild gust of wind, my body breaks down into that deadly magic, the breeze carries my particles of life in the wind.
And in a flash, I’m standing right before him.
“I do not need your help, Jer.” I love belittling his fucking name. I love seeing the seething look in his eyes. “So stay here. Keep safe. Hide away and let us take care of our problems for you.”
All eyes are on me as I initiate a stand-off between us. Waves of his power wraps around mine, pushing and threatening. It coils around mine like a snake. And I let it. I let him try to snuff my magic from existence.
His breathing becomes heavy as he squeezes tighter and tighter.
Until I give a small, insignificant little shove right back.
The unseen magic between us bursts from my force. It collides with the wind and throws the large man before me to the dirt.
My frame is unmoving. I stand tall over his body, my jaw ticing with fury.
“Stay seated, Jerry. We’ll see you soon.”
I don’t give him a second glance before gripping Cameron’s hand and letting the wind pull me away. It’s a slow process at first, a few grains slip away into the morning sky. Then it’s as if the breeze owns my soul as much as I do. It tears greedily until I’m gone entirely.
The other two men follow after me. Their magic brushes along mine, tingling against me.
They’ve always been here. They’ve always been by my side.
But it isn’t until this moment that I truly notice them.
Link and Nollix might be the only two people on the planet who care if I live or die tonight.
By tomorrow morning, the kingdom will know if we succeeded or not. By tomorrow morning, there may not be a King to rule the kingdom.
***
Despite the size of my large family, no one knows my father better than I do. No one else spent their life on the outskirts of the family looking in. I spent my childhood watching him and, sadly, wishing he’d notice me.
It wasn’t until I was older that I stopped clinging to the scrap of hope that he’d love me more than he loved himself. That he’d show me some fraction of affection.
He never did. But it didn’t stop me from watching him.
All my life, I’ve watched him. Studied him. Hated him.
It’s suddenly paying off.
“Are you sure this is where he is?” Link shifts at my side, his shoulder brushing lightly against mine.
It took far too long for us to travel here. My father’s favorite place is hours out of town. The day wasted away just getting here.
“I’m just now getting the vibe that this man might actually be raising an army of the dead. This could only be less creepy if your father liked to hang out in the underworld itself.” Nollix’s attention shifts slowly over the cemetery.
The grave markers are worn down by time. White stones peek out every seven feet or so in haphazard lines that trail across the land. The graves are barely more than dust at this point, but they stand with a minimal amount of pride against the cruel winds.
There, on the far side, where the dawn would meet the horizon, is where I know my father is. A building sits wide and disruptive among the quiet headstones. It towers into the dark, night sky. A rusting and warped bell is unmoving at the top. It must have been gleaming and beautiful at one time. Hundreds of years ago, it must have been a masterpiece at the center of this place of mourning.
Now it’s all but forgotten. Along with the dead who keep it company.
But one man clung to this solitude. As a family, we’d come here once a year to place beautiful, billowing flowers on my grandparents’ graves. I never knew the exact count of how often my father came here alone, but every time there was a crisis, every time our neighboring kingdoms threatened war, every time my mother set him on edge, my father would come here to figure it all out.
And when he returned, everything suddenly made sense to him. The answers were all crystal clear.
“He’s here.” I take a single step toward the ominous bell tower.
