Split by Fate

Chapter One (2/2)

“That’s a good idea, I’ll add that to my search.” Pleased with having another clue, contentment settled on his face and I couldn’t help feeling happy.

“So… are you really here? Like I mean if I touch you here, am I really touching you?” My cheeks burn with embarrassment when I realize how that sounds and I scramble to think of something else to add, but he answers before I can.

“I think so, but I’m not completely sure. Wanna find out?” he asks, just a hint of excitement laces his voice but his eyes sparkle with mirth and I can’t help but feel excited too, if not a little apprehensive.

“How can we do that?” Biting my cheek to keep my face from reddening even more from my thoughts, I notice him trying to hold back a smirk, looking at me like he knows what thoughts came to me first.

Saving me from my embarrassment, he answers my question instead of acknowledging the obvious. “We could cut each other and if we wake up with a cut, we’ll know that we’re somehow here in a sort of physical way.”

“You want me to cut you?!” Unable to keep the shock from my voice, I jump to my feet but he pulls me back down. When I realize he’d grabbed my hand and hasn’t let go of it yet, all I can think of his how warm his hand is.

“Don’t worry, just a tiny cut. A little more than a paper cut, just enough to see if it’ll be there when we wake. Okay?” The warm calmness in his voice settled down my uneasiness and I eventually agreed.

Taking a dagger out of his pocket, I try not to laugh but it comes out anyway and he looks at me with a brow raised in question.

“You hold a dagger in your pajama pants, I just wasn’t expecting it.” I explain, trying to banish my smile.

“You should, too. Always keep a dagger with you, no matter how safe you feel. You never know who could want to hurt you.” The pain and anger in his eyes makes me regret acknowledging his dagger. I can’t help but wonder who tried to hurt him and my own anger rises at the thought.

Ignoring the rising tension, he continues neatly slicing into my skin as gently as he can. Blood pools in the palm of my hand and he rips a piece of fabric off his shirt to tie around my palm.

“Sorry, that was deeper than I meant to go.” The genuine regret and concern in his voice as he wrapped my hand made my lungs freeze inside me, unable to breathe until it hurt.

Taking the blade from him, I held is hand with his palm facing up and cut through the skin as gently as I can, ripping my own shirt before he could do anything and wrapping it around his hand.

“You didn’t have to do that, my shirt was already ripped.” He protested as I finished tying the fabric around his hand.

“I wanted to.” Was all I said, smiling to myself.

“Don’t tell anyone in that coven about this, okay?” suddenly turning serious. Pulling my chin up to meet his gaze again, he presses. “Promise me Row.”

He just called me Row… no ones ever given me a nickname before.

My chest constricts at the sudden nickname and I promise not to tell anyone.

“I won’t tell anyone either, I promise.” He assures me, even though I’m not sure why it’s so important.

"If that coven knew you were connected to me in any way, they’d feel betrayed, they might even kill you.”

“But I’m not part of their coven, why would they feel betrayed? And why can’t you tell your coven? Aren’t you their leader or something?”

“They won’t care if you’re not officially in their coven, you’re living with them and could give me insider information against them. I’m not the leader, not yet, even if I was there’s always people trying to climb the ladder and would use anything they could against me. The current leader would try to use you as a pawn to force me to obey his every order, giving me worse tasks than he already does, knowing I’d do them to keep you safe. The others would use you as a pawn to get ahead of me. There is no loyalty in war.”

“But I wouldn’t –”

“I know you wouldn’t give them any information, but they don’t care. They don’t want to take any chances.”

“I was gonna say I wouldn’t want you to do anything you were against doing just to keep me safe, but yeah I wouldn’t give them any information either.”

This time it’s him who blushes slightly, the tips of his ears going pink and I have to fight the smile that tries to force it’s way onto my face.

Clearing his throat he pulls my gaze back to his when he says, “Yeah, well I’d still keep you safe, even if you’d rather I not follow an order.”

Just as I go to say something back, everything starts turning fuzzy and panic grips me.

“What’s happening?” I ask frantically, instinctively grabbing his hand.

“Don’t worry.You’re waking up, that’s all.” He replies in a calm tone, rubbing small circles on my back to stop my panicked breathing.

Just as I meet his hazel eyes again, everything fades away.

My eyes shoot open, looking out my window I notice the sun hasn’t risen yet, but there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep with everything that just happened consuming my thoughts.

Maybe it really was just a dream… maybe my subconscious made up that crazy scenario to bring me some kind of comfort.

But why would being able to see him in my dreams comfort me? It wouldn’t, that’s ridiculous. He’s a murderer… a monster. Nothing about that would comfort me, nothing about him.

But it did…

When I realize despite everything I’ve been told, every moral I have going against what he does, that being near him, talking to him, brings me comfort I question everything about who I am.

How could I find comfort in someone who admitted he’s a monster?

But he also said they’re monsters too… is he right?

Does it matter if he’s right? Even if they’re monsters too doesn’t mean finding comfort in another monster is suddenly okay.

What is wrong with me?

Hopping off my bed, I grab clothes I’d laid out on my chair before and get in the shower, letting the hot water wash away all the thoughts threatening to drown me.

After my mind clears, I quickly get dressed, throwing my hair up into a messy bun instead of taking the time to brush and braid it.

Keeping my pace quick, I stick to the shadows on my way to the stream, hoping no one else is awake, not wanting to risk someone seeing me and trying to talk.

Finally reaching the stream after what felt like an eternity but could only have been twenty minutes, I sit with my legs crossed, breathing deeply and relaxing my muscles.

For an hour I sit there trying to meditate, but as soon as my mind clears and everything within me is calm, thoughts of him and my dream slip through making it impossible.

With a frustrated huff I finally give up, heading to the garage on the other side of the coven’s base. When I first got here they told me their coven changes locations every couple months so no one knows where they are and they can’t be attacked by Eternal Aether.

Eventually they’re going to have to fight each other, it’s inevitable, but I guess it’s smart to stay hidden until they’re completely prepared for the fight. From what I’ve heard the Eternal Aether has more people fighting for them. From shifters of every kind to goblins and trolls to dark fey and even some light fey.

Their reach throughout the realm is much stronger than Silver Spirit, even though most people who aren’t involved in the war silently hope they’ll win the impending war. Too many people aren’t willing to fight.

As I reach the garage, I notice the light is on so I quickly turn to leave before whoever’s in there sees me, but when my name is called I release a defeated sigh.

“What’re you doing up so early Rowena?” Aksai calls from behind a magi-ship, the top of her head just barely peeking over.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I mumble, rubbing my neck. “you?”

“Same, and it’s a lot easier to work out here before the guys come. They don’t understand a woman can be a better mechanic than them.” Rolling her eyes, she lets out an amused snort at the thought and I can’t help but chuckle myself.

“Yeah, men can be pretty stupid.” I agree, checking out one of the speeders sitting next to the ship she’s working on.

For a while we just work in silence, both focusing on our own machines before I let out an appreciative whistle and she looks at me in question.

“I used to tinker with whatever I found in the ruins of the Great War back where I grew up, and sometimes Lazar would get me to check out some of the older ships and speeders that survived, but these are so much more advanced. The core is still the same, running on magic for energy, but the solar panels? The weapons and shields? Amazing.”

Nodding in agreement, she smiles and says, “Yeah, with the solar panels contributing to the energy input we don’t have to use so much magic and now we don’t need someone to constantly pilot and feed their magic into it. It’s great because we can send out more ships and speeders since we don’t need one person to fight and another to fly or drive. You ever use one of these bad boys?”

“Nah, never had the chance. Lazar would’ve killed me if I tried.” My smile fades as I think back to my old life and how hard it was.

“Wanna give it a go?” she offers, smiling like a lunatic.

“I’d probably crash and kill myself,” I tell her, laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

Shaking her head, she smiles and rolls her eyes again, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right there with you. Just because it doesn’t need two people doesn’t mean there’s not room for two. Come on!” she gestures for me to follow and hesitantly I do, nervous but excited at the same time.

When Aksai disappears up the ramp into the magi-ship I increase my pace to catch up to her, the ramp slowly lifting beneath me, and hear hysterical laughter coming from the cockpit.

“Why would you close the ramp while I’m still on it?” I ask incredulously which makes her laugh even more and I can’t hide the smile that forces its way onto my face.

“What?” she asks innocently, “I knew it’d make you hurry up.” Is all she says with a shrug before bursting out in laughter again.

The ship is filled with silence and I’m grateful she’s letting me stare through the glass and take it all in. It’s so beautiful.

Everything is bright and colorful, green grass and leaves, pink, purple, and blue flowers, clear calm streams. I’ve never seen anything like this, never thought I would.

As we fly high above the trees, racing through the clouds, I feel completely free.

She doesn’t say anything while flying, but occasionally she looks over with a smile and an excited glint in her eye.

After a few minutes the content smile drops from her face, her brows scrunch together in confusion before her eyes widen in panic and she speeds up the ship, veering off to the side. When I look in the direction that changed her mood so quickly, I spot wisps of smoke coming from the valley behind the trees.

They must be hundreds of miles long, the only way I can even tell there’s a valley there is how the trees go down with the hill into the valley. It’s only a few minutes before we arrive above the tree line and when I realize what’s going on my heart drops.

It’s not just a valley, there’s a village there. And it’s not an accidental fire… they’re being attacked.

“You said you’re a great fighter, right?” It takes me a few seconds to process her words before I can even try to answer, at first my words stick in my throat so I just nod. Steeling myself, I clear my throat and with determination say, “Yeah, I can fight. What are we gonna do?”

With a devilish smile she nods to the ground where there’s a small clearing in between some of the trees before the valley.

“Is there even enough room?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve landed in way smaller areas.” She shrugs casually and whips us over to the opening.

“But won’t they see or hear our ship?” Scenarios of a big group of men circling the ship before we even get out fill my mind. The only way I can see us getting the upper hand is with surprise on our side, not having that makes anxiety fill my chest and sweat pool at my temples.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had the shield on the whole time, they can’t see or hear us and even if one of their attacks came flying in our direction it’d just bounce off of us. We’re good. You ready?”

Taking a deep breath I straighten my shoulders and stand tall, hardening myself for what’s about to happen. Leading me to one of the storage closets on the ship, she opens an armory and my breath hitches in my throat at everything there.

Aksai stashes weapons in her many holsters before grabbing an energy sword and motioning for me to grab my own weapons. Before I pick one up, she throws a few holsters at me, asking if I know how to put them on.

I’ve only ever had my makeshift holsters, but quickly figured out what to do and started filling them up with as many weapons as possible. Finished, I went back to the closet to grab my favorite weapon, an energized quarterstaff.

I’ve been working on building my own, but this will be fine.

Locking the door behind us, she leads the way to the ramp, putting in the code to lower it and I notice Aksai make hand motions in front of her and see magic crackling around her fingers.

“I covered us with a silence bubble, they won’t be able to hear us until we separate.”

Making our way through the woods, we discuss how we’re going to fight. With roughly twenty trained fighters all over the village, the smartest thing to do is stay as concealed as possible while taking out whoever we can.

As soon as the village is close enough, we move through the trees to the building closest to the tree line. Parting ways, she goes right and I go left around the building, staying in the shadows as much as I can.

The men are all wearing the same black clothing and kicking down doors and dragging people out to the middle of the village where the biggest building is covered in flames, and with every home they clear, they start a new fire to destroy everything this village is.

Anger floods my veins at the sight and I sneak up on the man closest to me, using the energized quarterstaff to cut his head clean off his body, the energy instantly cauterizing the wound.

After helping the family that’d just been dragged from their home flee into the forest, I continue on through the village. For about fifteen minutes I kill anyone in uniform I see and help the people escape, until I make my way to the center of town and stop dead in my tracks.

Those familiar hazel green eyes stare back into mine and everything around me blurs until it all fades away.

Why is he here? Why is he wearing all black like – no. Please no… He can’t do this.

Just as my internal war raves within, he raises his hand and shoots a blast of magic in my direction. I don’t even have time to respond but… I don’t need to.

Looking behind me in shock, I see one of the uniformed men crumpled onto the ground unresponsive. Did he just save me?

My mind can’t process any of this right now, I’m frozen in place, unable to do anything. When I look back toward Saul, he’s slowly walking over to me and my heart begins to race more than I thought possible.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, staring down at me with an unreadable expression, and that’s when my brain decides to catch up to me.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!” I practically screech at him, hurt and angry by what I know he’s doing and wish desperately it wasn’t true.

“I’m obeying my orders. Your turn,” His voice is devoid of any emotion and I can’t merge the man I’d been with in my dream with the man standing before me.

“I – I saw the smoke from the sky and came to help these people.” I stuttered, feeling compelled to answer him honestlyy even though everything inside of me is telling me to leave and never speak to him again.

Opening his mouth to respond, he’s cut off when my name is called from somewhere to my right. Just as I look over to see Aksai, Saul throws his hand in her direction, shoving a blast of magic at her that knocks her into a wall at least ten feet behind her, leaving her unconscious on the ground.

Panic for her and rage at him draw me out of the shock seeing him here brought and I fight back. With my energized staff I swing at him, an angry roar ripping from my throat. He meets my staff with his own and we parry for a few minutes, his expression going from shock to emotionless again. For a second I thought I saw hurt cross his eyes but it was probably my imagination.

As we fight, he’s visibly tiring and I’m not too far behind him. I haven’t fought someone like this for this long before.

Blinking sweat out of my eyes, he takes advantage of the second that took and knocks me to the ground, his staff hovering above my throat to keep me down. The heat from the energy is so strong my skin burns just from being an inch away.

Without taking his eyes off mine, he calls over his shoulder for everyone left to board their ship. Glaring at him, I try to convey how utterly disgusted and furious I am without saying a word. Before I could even blink he removed the energy from the staff, hitting me in the temple with the blunt end and everything went black.

------

When my eyes open, everything’s fuzzy and it takes a few minutes to remember what happened. Movement in the corner of my eye draws my attention and I’m on my feet in an instant with my staff raised. The quick motion makes my head spin and I stumble slightly before catching my footing and I realize the energy has been turned off on my staff.

Looking up in the direction of the movement I saw before, I realize it’s one of the people I sent into the woods. Searching the area, Saul and his men are all gone and the people we’d saved have returned. The woman coming toward me has a pitcher of water and a filled glass, offering it when she’s within reach.

Nodding my thanks, I sip the water and rub my throbbing temple. When I ask about Aksai, the woman points behind me and I run toward her, stumbling a little before catching myself.

Kneeling down beside her, I clear a strand of hair from her face and sit patiently by her, waiting until she wakes on her own.

“Thank you, for what you did… helping us.” The woman from before slowly walks toward me with her head slightly bowed.

“You don’t need to thank us, we just did what anyone would.” I reply noncommittally, my mind racing through everything that happened. Sadness, anger, frustration, hurt, surprise, and denial all fighting for space within me when I remember Saul.

Letting out a deep breath, I turn back to the woman, still standing there shyly with a cloth held between her hands and children hiding behind her legs.

“Most wouldn’t help, not when the Eternal Aether are involved, especially not when shifters are targeted. We’re ‘not worth’ the trouble.”

Scrunching my brows, the sincerity in her eyes fills me with a deep sadness.

Now that I know they’re shifters it makes sense why they weren’t fighting back with magic, the only shifters with magic are hybrids and they’re exceedingly rare.

“I’m sorry they feel that way, it’s not right,” shaking my head, I sigh and can’t stop the question bubbling out of my mouth, “why did the Eternal Aether come here?”

“For the young ones… eighteen and younger, only the babes they leave… until they can walk anyway.”

“Why do they take the children?” The thought makes my stomach turn, I’d heard they take children but I thought it was just a rumor to villainize them but no… it’s true. And Saul was doing it.

“To train into soldiers mostly. Either by raising them to believe in their cause or by forcing them.”

Before I can reply, Aksai moves around, grumbling under her breath, and I turn to make sure she’s okay.

After drinking some water and sitting up I explain to her what happened, leaving out the conversation with Saul and how it affected me, just sticking to how he knocked us both out and left.

“We’re lucky he must’ve been in a good mood today, anyone else who fought him hasn’t lived to tell the tale,” letting out a deep sigh, she gets to her feet, stretching out her limbs and gathering up her weapons. “we should get back, we’ve been gone too long without contact.”

As we walk through the courtyard, Aksai decides to go talk with the elders about what happened and since I missed my training for the day, I go back to my sleeping quarters to try and process everything.

It seems like all I’m doing most of the time lately is processing some crazy s**t that happens… I almost miss the boring and plain life I had before… almost.

After taking a shower and dressing in sleep shorts and an undershirt I place a thin blanket on the floor, trying to relax by meditating.

Closing my eyes, I try to clear my mind of everything but after a while, frustration overtakes me and I almost give up. But right before I do, a strange sensation fills me, like an invisible string guiding my movements.

Closing my eyes, a feeling of rightness swells within me and instead of trying to clear my mind, I focus on my center, a familiar feeling deep in my gut. It’s less like I felt it and am following it and more like my awareness is being pulled toward it and I noticed it when it first tugged on my consciousness.

As my inner self gets closer to the feeling, I recognize it as my magic, and tiny dots of energy, like stars, slowly appear around me. When I finally reach the pulsing ball of magic, I’m in a galaxy of my own creation.

A deep peace settles over me and I bask in the wholeness of connecting to my magic. Through the pulsing around me, I feel a different pulse. Smaller, fainter, and off-beat from the pulse coming from my magic, but once I notice it I can’t ignore it.

It becomes stronger and louder, almost like a heartbeat. Confused and curious, I follow the thread connecting my little galaxy to this heartbeat-like sound.

As I move further away from my own pulse, it grows fainter but a layer of my magic covers me like a faint glow, keeping me warm and safe, peaceful and calm.

The stars don’t spread further out like they would if I was leaving my galaxy the way I came, which adds another question to my ever-growing list. Maybe I’m not really leaving my galaxy? Or maybe wherever I’m going is connected to my galaxy?

Before I can think of other possibilities, the pulse grows enough to startle me at the sudden strength. When I finally reach it, instead of four colors like mine, this one cycles through three – grass green, a dark blue like the sky before a thunderstorm, and blood red.

The feeling it radiates is familiar, I figure out why when a face appears before me – his face.

Fuzzy at first, his face gets clearer as more of his body appears. Soon he’s standing in front of me completely visible, looking as solid as me.

Is this his inner-self, too? It has to be. But why is he here?

When I look around I can pinpoint where my own world of energy is located in my galaxy so far away, but as I really pay attention to everything, I realize there are other faint pulses in every direction. Some I can see, others are so far I can only feel them, but the closer attention I pay, I can feel where they all are.

“How are you doing this?” his voice snaps me out of my awe and confusion about this new discovery and my anger at him returns.

When I turn back to him, I realize I can see not only him, but his surroundings.

“Can you see my surroundings, too?” I ask before even realizing the question left my mouth.

For a second he doesn’t answer, surprise and confusion taking up his face before returning to neutral, “Not really, its all blurry. I can’t make out anything specific but some things I can pick up on, like your bed behind you.”

“What is this?” I wonder aloud, not completely directed at him, but he answers anyway.

“If I had to guess, I’d say you’re Seeking or Travelling, whatever you want to call it. There's different names for it depending on skill level.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can feel other life around you, connect with it, seek it out. One day if you’re strong enough, you might even be able to travel through to wherever you seek.”

“Travel through? Like–”

“Like you could travel to where I am, seemingly out of thin air.”

“I thought no one could do this anymore…”

“It appears you have abilities no one has had in centuries. You shouldn’t tell anyone about this one either. People want power and the more power you have, the bigger target you are.” He says, his voice getting deeper as he becomes more serious.

“And what about you?” I look back up to meet his eyes, anger filling mine. “Is power what you want? Is that why you were k********g people today?!”

He visibly flinches at the tone in my voice or maybe it’s my words, but as quickly as it happened, his mask comes right back up.

“I was following orders.” All emotion leaves, like he’s a robot, no more humanity. Maybe there never really was and I just saw what I wanted.

“Following orders?! Children! You stole children from their homes, families!”

“You don’t know anything! If I wasn’t there tthey'd have been taken by force!” he roars back at me, his tall frame towering over me.

“And what do you call what happened earlier? They were all forcefully removed from their homes and their children taken away!”

“But none of them were killed, were they?!” Before I can even respond, the connection to him is severed and he disappears, leaving me reeling.

Was he really protecting them? Or is he lying just to make himself look better… And how did he sever the connection? Does that mean he appeared like that because he wanted to? Was his consciousness pulled here or did he feel me somehow and then come?

Feeling emotionally exhausted by all of this, I retreat back into the real world, mentally promising myself to explore whatever this is some other time.

Climbing into bed, part of me hopes I’ll see him in my dreams and the other part scolds myself for even thinking about him. It doesn’t matter if he stopped them from killing anyone, he should’ve stopped them from taking the children.