He didn’t know how it happened but now he stood in the middle. They surrounded him, the ones they had found, united under Artema’s command. Jonas held the watch in his hand, watching the hands turn, unable to discern the strange symbols adorning its face.
Taria spoke first, her hat pressing the bangs of her hair down, covering her right eye more than usual. One intense, purple eye bored straight through him. “So how’s this thing supposed to help?” she asked.
“That’s what we need to figure out,” Jonas said. “We know it’s Mageian. And so is Jhana. There has to be a way to harness that same type of power and find them.”
“I hope that’s not just wishful thinking.” The emotionless voice spoke from behind him. “Because if it is, we’re all trapped here.”
“There has to be something to it, Luna,” Jonas said, turning to face her. “Besides, what other choice do we have?”
“Yes, Luna, we have to have hope,” Mirelle said from beside her. “It’s our best shot.”
“I’m all for trying whatever we can,” Elyn said.
“And so am I. I just hope we can find Meryn before then...” Saira said from behind Elyn.
After all speaking their piece, Jonas held the angry, green-eyed gaze of their purple haired leader. Artema took the watch from him and the hands immediately stopped moving.
“Whatever that woman gave you, it’s no lie,” she said, handing it back to him. “And if it’s Mageian it’s bound to be drawn to Lanala, wherever she is.”
“Exactly. And we find Lanala, that means we find Celia. And we have our way out of here, access to all our homes and resources. We’ll have what we need to take the fight back to Jade and the law,” Jonas said.
“So we do plan on going through with that,” Taria said.
“We have to,” Jonas said. “It’s what we do.”
“One step at a time. We still have no idea where Lanala and Celia wound up. And I won’t stop until we’re all together again,” Artema said.
“That’s the goal,” Jonas said. “And speaking of... could I talk to you alone when we’re done?”
“You heard something?”
“Not sure. I want your opinion. But that’s for later.”
Artema simply nodded.
“Thanks. Now, let’s see what we can do here...”
Jonas carefully touched a small dial on top of the watch, winding it a few times, before disappearing in an instant, reappearing outside the circle, taking his hand off the watch and stumbling.
“Well that works...” Elyn said.
“Have to learn to control this,” Jonas said.
“I still don’t see how that gets us to opening a portal,” Taria said.
Elyn parted the circle and sauntered over to Jonas, taking the watch from his grasp. The hands stopped moving again and she turned it over in her hands. She met the eyes of Taria, her oldest friend, and held it up.
“This thing comes from Mageia. It’s the source of all magic across every known world,” she said.
“The source? And how do you know that?” Taria asked.
“You know me. I love my research.”
Taria just rolled her eyes but let Elyn continue.
“It was Mageia that perfected the craft of Scrying and Reading and the like. Teleportation is adjacent to that.”
“In what way?” Taria asked.
“Take Scrying, for example. In it you have to use a black mirror to find another place and time in order to determine a sequence of events. Reading requires you to split your own consciousness between yourself and another person, meaning you are practically in two places at once. The Mageians created Teleportation by essentially combining the two. It’s far more nuanced than just that but it would take me weeks to explain that much of magical history.”
Taria just sighed and shook her head. “This magic stuff is so far beyond me...”
“No, I understand it,” Mirelle said. “Being able to blend magic that takes your mind to another place and time, and another that makes you able to be in two minds at once, all you’d have to do is translate that to a physical plane...
“Exactly,” Elyn said. “See, Taria? Not so hard to understand.” She smirked.
“Just continue whatever gibberish you’re spouting... and wrap it up.”
“As you wish,” Elyn said, bowing before Taria with a wry smirk on her face. “So once that’s all done, you’ve got what this little trinket can do. Obviously someone from Mageia enchanted it with this new power to be used without draining one of magical stamina and tiring the mind.”
“So it’s a mode of transportation?” Luna asked.
“You’re catching on, Moon Girl...” Elyn said, smiling.
Luna folded her arms and chuckled. “Keep going, Fire Witch.”
Elyn held the watch up again, stepping into the middle of the circle, a wide smile, very much enjoying giving her lecture.
“But teleportation wasn’t enough for the Mageians. Their scholars long ago figured out there was more than just their world above Esterlin. They knew of the place that houses Weston and back home in Ikaatan. And they knew about this place. This dried up, dead valley. So they planned to send envoys to each one to discover what they could.”
“This is starting to sound theoretical, Elyn,” Artema said. “No way you found all that in your books.”
“This is all based on my research. Trust me, this is the only logical conclusion. It tracks well, doesn’t it? It’s clear that Mageia used to exile people to these worlds. How else would Jonas and Starling have hunted down those two in that ruined village? Or left behind these artifacts? Like the watch, that king’s sceptre, the orb of the Labyrinth...”
“Wait wait wait...” Artema said. “That orb was Mageian?”
“Obviously,” Elyn said. “It had to be similar to the watch. A way to create portals to the other worlds without draining oneself. One of them left behind one that dragged us to Weston. We know, as well, that the orb was imbued with even more power than just that. As when both Lanala and Jhana, of Mageian blood, laid their hands on it, their inherent power ‘remembered’ itself. That explains Lanala hearing whispers, Jhana wanting to harness its destructive power, and so on.”
“If only Lanala was here. She knows more about this,” Artema said.
Elyn shrugged. “Well, for now, we only have my theories. Which, admit it, Artema, they make sense.”
Artema said nothing, folding her arms and standing straight and tall. “So keep going then.”
“All right. The Mageians, their plans in hand, utilized their knowledge of Teleportation, and applied it much more broadly. They blended it with Conjuration and created a physical gate to travel between the known worlds. At first, they only worked one way and their envoys were trapped for some time before they managed to summon the power to create permanent, two-way portals. But this took them years. Makes it all the more impressive that Lanala created one out of nothing, in a blink, without study, as soon as she understood her true power.”
Artema sighed. “You speak all of this as though it’s fact... and yet we have no other choice but trust your theories as accurate. Which presents a problem.”
“And that is?”
“We likely don’t have years. On top of all the other years the Mageians perfected all that other magic. All we have is a watch they enchanted. None of us have the knowledge.”
“I know something of these schools of magic,” Elyn offered. “I just need Scruffbeard here to help me out and keep the watch active. Because he’s the one the Mageian offered to give that old Mageian touch to...” she said, dangling the watch from her hand and holding it out to Jonas. At his touch, the hands began moving again.
“And you think you can open a portal to where Lanala is? We don’t even know where they are. And it can’t be one of the other three worlds. Lanala would have been here by now.”
Elyn sighed. “That’s something I still have to work out. But for that, we need something else. Mr. Jade.”
“Um... what?” Jonas gave Elyn a sidelong glance. “There’s no way that’s happening.”
“Not him, necessarily. But something he carries with him. You hear all kinds of rumours about someone who calls himself the ‘Devil of Harrison’ you know.”
“Such as?” Artema asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Heard talk in a bar once. About him and this snow globe of his. That he hears the ‘Whispers of Hell’ within it. Want to bet it’s a Mageian artifact like this watch?”
“So we need another damn trinket,” Taria said.
“As it happens, Taria, yes,” Elyn said. “Which is why we need to get after him proper.”
Jonas let out a long breath and took the watch back from Elyn. “Guess that means accelerating the plan a bit, wouldn’t you say?” He looked to Artema.
She uncrossed her arms and the two met eyes. Artema, too, let out a long breath. “Whatever it takes then...”
...
Elsewhere...
“Anazitelet...” Lanala whispered aloud, clearing her mind, listening for its call in her mind. She felt herself consumed by the word as she sat, beneath the lone tree in the field, her eyes closed, legs crossed, muscles relaxed... and then she felt it.
Mageian power. It was there. Faint but... present. Attached to something. “A... a watch...” she said to herself. “I see it. Winding hands, Mageian symbols... and a man.” She concentrated on the man near the watch and “Jonas!” She bolted up to her feet and her eyes shot open.
“I found it! I found where they are!”
Lanala rushed toward the house, barging her way inside, eager to tell her mother.... but stopped. Alhanna was tightly hogtied, ropes wrapping her ankles, calves, below her knees, above them, and then two more places on her elegant thighs. Her chest was framed in a rope harness, wrists crossed and tied behind her back. A leather muzzle gag, reinforced with glowing steel, covered her mouth, straps criss-crossing her face, around her forehead, under her chin, tightly pinning a large leather panel to her lower face, from her nose to under her chin. Something soft filled her mouth to further silence her.
Her crossed and bound wrists were tied to her ankles, so tight that she could touch the soles of her knee high sandals. This was reinforced with a rope running from her ankles to the bonds framing her chest and pinning her arms, elbows bound and touching behind her back. One further cord was tied to a ring atop the muzzle gag, also tied to her ankles. And a final rope extended from the ring in the gag, to the one wrapping her waist and tied between her legs, and all in one, tied to her wrists and ankles so that every struggle pulled and wrenched on the one between her legs.
She was also suspended in mid air, ropes around her ankles, wrists, torso, waist and upper thighs anchoring her to the ceiling in her uncomfortable hogtie. Lanala wanted to ask why... but stopped herself when she noticed her mother’s black eyes, seething, glaring at her...
“What is it, Lanala?”
The kindly voice of her father asked, his ethereal form materializing in front of her.
“I was just going to tell mother... I’ve found where they are. Her tactics worked. I... I sensed Mageian magic. I saw Jonas...”
The mention of his name brought another presence into the room. Celia had been busy, deciding to keep a journal of her time in Alhanna’s prison world. She had also found time, and considerable practice with magic learned from innumerable Mageian books, to keep herself occupied, bound and gagged in her quarters and done so by her own hand.
Some of the rope was dangling from her arms, a cloth pulled down and hanging loosely from her neck when she stumbled into the room.
“Did you mention Jonas!?” she asked. “What about him?”
“Celia... you’ve been busy...” Lanala said, noting the still on her.
“Nevermind that! What about Jonas!?”
“I saw him... there’s a watch. Or something. He was dressed like some old west gunslinger...”
Celia furrowed her brow. “So they got dragged to some other world? Because that doesn’t sound like him...”
“I saw him. I felt power... within him. Mageian power. This place, wherever they are, it was influenced heavily by Mageian magic. As was the watch he was holding. So we can find them! We can get back to them!”
Celia frowned. “I’m waiting for the ‘but’....
“Well, there is no ‘but.’ I just need to figure out how to break myself out.”
“MMMMNNNGGHHH!!” All three figures jumped and stumbled backward at the ferocious, muffled screech from the bound and gagged figure, hanging in the centre of the room. Alhanna swayed back and forth as she bucked and thrashed, unable to escape her tight bonds, distracted and thoroughly restrained.
“Oh jeez...” Celia said. “That looks... severe.”
“These are her instructions,” Khal said. “When she is overtaken by The Power, I have an incantation but to whisper and this is how she is held. These traps are her own design, her only way of self containment.”
Khal sighed sadly. “The pain in her eyes when it overtakes her... it breaks my heart, even in death...”
“Pain?” Lanala asked.
“A mix of panic and sadness, really,” Khal said. “And because you’re here, her worry only grew when she felt it coming. She feared harming you...”
“I can imagine,” Lanala said.
Her father’s spirit turned to his daughter, looking in her eyes.
“You’ve grappled with it, I can see. But you’ve won. You may have sacrificed your mother’s unstoppable, limitless power for yourself but that is for the best. And I can feel it. You are strong, Lanala.”
“I try to be...” Lanala said, still staring at her mother. Alhanna’s black eyes still glared right through her, her face turned into a sneer, struggling wildly, growling behind her gag, her voice distorted...
“You are. And you will find your friends.”
“Don’t have much choice...” Lanala said. “We can’t just stay here. Much as I’ve loved seeing you again...”
“My time has passed. It’s all right,” Khal said. “This is my duty now. To hold and care for your mother in her eternal life.”
“Mmmpphh! Nnnmmmmm! Mmm mmmnngghh!!” Alhanna continued her furious struggling, her eyes remaining dark.
“I’ll see about figuring out a way to draw us back to our friends,” Lanala said. “I’ll leave you to it.”
With a final forlorn look, Lanala left Alhanna, still suspended, bound, gagged, and struggling helplessly. She let out a heavy breath and headed back outside, sitting under the tree again, legs folded under her, eyes closed, clearing her mind....
...
Elsewhere...
Meryn strolled into Harrisville, loaded for bear. People cowered at her approach, noting the dual bandoliers crossing her chest diagonally. A pistol rested, holstered, on each hip, a double barrelled shotgun on her back, and a lever action rifle in her hands. She made her way through town, the locals skittering away from her like frightened deer.
Her golden eyes remained fixed on her goal; the jailhouse and office of Sheriff Mac. Her mind, occupied by the letter she had read that morning. Mac had called her here.
So on she went, scaring people who usually regarded her as a friend. Her ferocious eyes forced them aside, fearful eyes upon the mountain of ammunition she wore on her body. Many wondered what she was planning...
Meryn had made up her mind. It had taken a few days of silent pondering, tossing her father’s words around in her head over and over again. She wandered the forest, alone, making camp, sleeping outdoors, weighing the options in her dragon heart... until finally reaching a decision.
They were her friends. But if Drake heard what he heard then there was no other choice. They had to be stopped. And Meryn had to do what she always did...
Meryn stepped inside the main doorway, entering the small jailhouse. The familiar grey eyes of the raven haired Sheriff fell upon her. At first, Mac smiled when she saw Meryn... but her face fell when she saw the pile of bullets.
“Meryn.... what-”
“You sent for me,” Meryn said, her voice ice cold. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hold on... what happened? And where have you been?”
“Not important,” Meryn said. “Tell me what you mean to tell me.”
“Oh, I see...” Mac said. “This is about your friends, isn’t it? What they’ve....” Mac trailed off before finishing her sentence.
“Just tell me.”
Mac pulled out a chair from behind her desk. “I’ll need you to sit for this... just don’t shoot the messenger, all right?”
Meryn growled under her breath but sat down, waiting.
“I don’t know how it happened. Or why. But I guess... Saira-”
Meryn lurched upward from her chair. “What!?”
“Let me finish! Go on...” Mac said, motioning for Meryn to sit again.
Meryn slowly lowered herself into her chair again, her golden eyes practically filled with fire.
“She was getting herself into trouble, sometimes. Rolling with Elyn around the territory. Elyn kept her from the hangman’s noose. So Saira’s alive.”
Meryn’s nostrils flared and she leaned forward, remaining silent. Mac felt herself tense up, no longer able to hold Meryn’s gaze...
“But the rebels, I guess, they got to Elyn. She joined them. And now... they’ve got Saira.”
Meryn stood up again, slower this time, but her stare only intensified. “They’re holding her?”
“As a prisoner. Yes. I’m sorry, Meryn...”
Meryn said nothing more, turning on her heel and heading out the door. Mac chased after her. “Where are you going?”
“You know exactly where,” Meryn called back.
“It’s two days ride, at least! Somebody ought to go with you!”
“You stay here!” Meryn barked back, stopping in her tracks. Her chest heaved, her muscles tensed, her golden eyes blazing... all of her anger, barely kept in check.
“I am doing this alone. And you will not see me until I have Saira back.”
Meryn said nothing more as she threaded back through town, leaving her worried friend behind. As soon as she was out of eyesight, Mac’s worried expression dropped, a cold scowl upon her face. Her form became shadow and Mr. Jade quickly stood in her place. He plucked a snow globe from his vest pocket and listened to the many whispers.
“Mother.... it is happening...” he said. “The time is at hand.”
...
Everything was set. The plan was in place. Someone was going to get to the Devil of Harrison. The rebels stationed themselves all over town. Jonas and Artema awaited on standby on the Harrison outskirts, awaiting the signal.
Mirelle moved with Luna, milling through the crowds, disguising themselves as dishevelled deputies in the service of Marshal Fa’rah. The Marshal, herself, was oddly absent from town. But, even still, the two stayed together, walking a patrol, keeping their eyes and ears to the ground.
Elyn remained at a distance, her long range rifle at the ready. Saira was with her, with binoculars, ready to spot targets if the time came. Elyn’s scope was fixed upon the tavern, watching for any signs of the woman inside.
Taria was inside that tavern, sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey. The place was said to be a frequent haunt of Mr. Jade, the Devil of Harrison. Most rumours said he whispered to his snow globe within the place, often fixated on it. Nothing confirmed but it was their best shot at getting to him.
Minding her business, a clean-shaven man, wearing a bright red bandana around his neck, leaned on the bar beside her.
“Well howdy there, ma’am,” he said.
She noted the badge on his chest with a sidelong glance but otherwise didn’t give him a second look. One of the Devil’s men... she thought to herself.
“Couldn’t help but notice a pretty little thing like you sitting all by your lonesome... mind if I join you?”
“I do, actually,” Taria said.
“Apologies, ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend but-”
A hand fell upon his shoulder from behind him. “I do believe the lady wants to be left alone,” a deep, emotionless voice said.
He turned around. “And who in the hell are you to...” he stopped speaking as soon as he met the eyes of the man. “B-boss!”
Taria snapped to attention then and sat up straight, turning her head to look... and there he was. Mr. Jade. She tensed up and her hand moved toward her hip, touching the handle of her gun.
“Leave. Now,” Jade said.
The deputy lowered his eyes and said nothing more, hurrying off, and blending into the drunken chatter and murmuring crowd inside the tavern. Jade took a seat to Taria’s left, keeping his eyes forward. Taria tensed up again, and flexed her hand, gripping her holstered gun...
“I wouldn’t do that,” Mr. Jade said. “Unless you’re looking to be shot to pieces, I’d take your hand off metal if I were you.”
“What do you want?” Taria said, relaxing her grip slightly.
“I hear it’s you that wants something,” Mr. Jade said. He reached into his vest and pulled out the snow globe, sliding it across the bar toward her. “Am I wrong?”
“How did you-”
“Jonas forgets,” Mr. Jade said, turning toward her and tapping the side of his head. “I know what he knows. Though I suspect he forgot by design.”
Taria let out a long breath and eyed the snow globe.
“That is what you’re after, isn’t it? You think it might help you create a portal? Is that it?”
Taria said nothing, keeping her eyes fixed on it.
“Go on. Take it. It stopped being useful to me long ago.”
“What?”
“I no longer hear from her. The one I call Mother....”
“Wait... her?” Taria’s gaze narrowed. It can’t be... she thought. She turned her eyes to him.
“So you came seeking information on the snow globe. I shall give it. In exchange, your rebels will leave town without causing a fuss. Then we will be square.”
Taria hesitated.
“I’ll let them know...” she said.
“Very good. Now permit me to tell you some things...”
Mr. Jade snapped his fingers and the barman brought him a glass, poured whiskey, and hurried away. He took a long swig.
“Your eyes are upon a Mageian,” he said. “As you surmised, knowing who I call Mother.”
“It was all her design. All of it. Jhana...”
Taria felt herself deflate on the inside. It was impossible.... it just had to be.
“She created me in the image of Jonas. Why... I cannot say. Perhaps as a way to break him? She is a vengeful sort...”
“But how? She’s imprisoned...” Taria said.
Mr. Jade waved his hand over the globe and the purple clouds within it began to stir and an image appeared inside it... Jhana’s form, still bound and gagged as Lanala had left her in Esterlin, trapped in a small, dark wooden room, suspended and kept eternally imprisoned.
“She is. But her mind can still reach me. I am... well, I am her son after all.”
“Unbelievable...”
“With me she broke the ancient Mageian edict... we were once beings of no gender. Such as The Faceless One... and they lived well. But soon, knowing the possible persecution they may face upon making contact with the mortal kind below, decided from then on to be, as the edict goes, ‘the form of the feminine.’ And yet, here I sit. An aberration. Breaking the code. All for my Mother’s vengeance...”
He paused and took another drink of his whiskey.
“From her prison, I came to be. Forever doomed to be the shadow of Jonas. But my Mother made one mistake... I have retained too much. Too much of him. So my mind, is of its own. I found my own purpose, rather than hers. I will not destroy, as she wishes of me. Instead, I will remove the monsters of this world and all worlds. So that there may yet be peace.”
Taria just listened. He almost started to sound like Jonas. And all her friends. Was he really after the same goal?
“And yet... the hatred, the need for vengeance, it remains. That I cannot escape. So I am to be your enemy... all of you. Your group. Until you are destroyed. And then I may be destroyed, the monster that I am...”
Jade took yet another drink of his whiskey.
“I remain to fulfill Jhana’s wish. Her wish, ultimately, was power. Dominion over all. And if she should not achieve that, destruction of all. That was her aim.”
“Wait... you can’t be saying...”
Mr. Jade leaned forward on the bar. “The necromancer, Morrina.... she would never have been awakened. But Jhana... she created a spell. It was designed to awaken the necromancer of Ikaatan after a set number of days had passed. To be disabled when she wrested control of the island for herself. And to remain in place should she not rule it...”
“No...”
“In her time in Weston, Jhana created the super solider program. The one that created Silver, the one Meryn battled in her time as The Maiden. All to ensure someone would be created to tear the city down should she not take it for herself...”
“This... this can’t be!”
“And Jhana’s whispered messages were sent to one Nara the Blade as soon as she was imprisoned, telling her to become the Empress of the land and how she could achieve it, and the existence of the book Midanyami... to claim untold destructive power...”
Taria went silent again. All along... all along it had been her. It had been Jhana. All of it...
“And now there is me. Her last resort. Her last chance at vengeance,” Mr. Jade said. “All this, she whispered to me. What she wishes of me, she whispered. I still attempt to speak to her. For guidance. For some... reassurance. That I am doing right. Yet she has fallen silent. I suspect the globe’s power is fading. It was not made at her full strength. Trapped in her prison as she is.”
“So... it’s useless?”
“For you, yes. You will not create a portal with this. So take it. I am tired of hearing nothing...”
Taria stood up from the bar, leaving the snow globe where it was. She finished her whiskey and tossed down a pair of gold coins. She shook her head. “How am I to know what you told me was the truth?”
“Have you reason to doubt me?”
Taria sighed. “No...”
“And please, Taria... remove your hand from your gun. You would not kill me, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jade drew the pistol at his side. “Allow me to demonstrate...” he stood from his stool and raised his gun, pointing it at the side of his own head.
“What the hell are you-”
Taria was cut off by a gunshot. She jumped back and reached for her own gun on instinct. The entire tavern fell silent at the sound, staring at the tyrant who ruled the town of Harrison.... still standing. Still breathing...
No sign of the bullet remained. It was, instead, lodged in the wall behind the bar.
“Jonas knows as well. There is only one way that I can die. As was my Mother’s wish, I am inexorably linked to him. I am, as she created, a literal manifestation of shadow. His shadow. And you can tell him what you witnessed here today...”
Taria turned on her heel and headed for the swinging doors. Jade called after her. “Oh, and Taria?”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I must thank you for your work with my men at the border. Made it much easier to purge them....”
Her eyes hardened but Taria stormed outside, ignoring his words, ready to give the all clear to her friends, still dumbfounded by everything she heard...
...
Elsewhere...
Lanala felt a shadow fall over her as she sat beneath the tree. She opened her eyes. Alhanna stood there, free of her bonds once more, her eyes returned to normal.
“Your father says you found them?”
“I know where they are... but I can’t find the name of the place they’re in. I need it to get there...”
“Among other things... do you need my help, Lanala?”
“No, I don’t think so...” Lanala said, still remembering her mother’s eyes, her contorted, wrathful face, the distorted voice...
“”I may be able to help mask you so that you can find your way out. This place was only meant to hold me and my blood. If we can disguise it...”
“Just... let me do this,” Lanala said.
“Lanala... dear...” Alhanna knelt down. “Please... I... I need to... I want...”
“To be a mother?” Lanala asked.
Alhanna sighed sadly. “I have to try...”
Lanala sighed and then shuffled over. “Fine. But we do it my way.... and soon as you turn-”
“Your father knows. It will be done. No need to worry. Thank you, Lanala...”
“Just... help me do this, all right?”
“Of course, my girl...
...
Artema and Jonas stood alone, in the desert. Still awaiting the signal of their friends arrival. Artema leaned against a dead tree, carving open and slicing an apple, eating small slices.
“So what was it you wanted to talk about?”
Jonas sat on the log they had settled around the small fire of their makeshift camp. His glassy, tired grey eyes fixated on the horizon, watching the road into Harrison.
“It’s Jade...” he said. “He keeps talking. In my head...”
“So you’ve said,” Artema replied. “Why? Is there something important I need to know?”
“He’s told me a few things. One of them bothered me. A lot...”
“More than usual?”
“Yeah...” Jonas let out a long breath. “He’s going to kill all of you. He won’t say why but it’s what he says he has to do. And that... dragging us all here, to this world... it would make us the monsters we need to be to him. To justify it.”
“Well then simple. We kill him first. Then we open the portal.”
“Neither is so simple, Artema. You know that.”
Artema sliced off another chunk of apple. “I know, yeah...”
“But you don’t know all of it. How he says.... there’s only one way to kill him.”
“Suppose that could be the case,” Artema said. “He is more sentient creature than human.”
“And do you know what way that is?” Jonas asked, looking up at her finally.
Artema started carving into her apple again but then stopped dead. She let her thoughts wander... and then jammed the knife into the tree behind her.
“Jonas, no...”
“Yes, Artema. And I know it’s true. Our thoughts are... they’re all the same and-”
Artema walked to him and picked him up by the scruff of the neck. “No talking like that, you hear me!? Don’t you dare!”
“But-”
“Enough! We’re finding another way! End of discussion!”
She put him down again and retrieved her knife from the tree.
“You will not. You understand?” she said, glaring at him, her scowl looming large over him.
“Yeah, Artema...” Jonas said, sighed. “I understand....”
But he couldn’t help it. The thoughts remained with him. The only way to stop his friends from getting hurt.... the one way to take down Jade for good... the way he saw it, there was only one choice. And for them? He was willing to make it when the time came.
Story Theme Song- The Phantoms: World Gone Mad