Of Gaea Read online

  “I do.” Nasya sounded pleased. “But I’m not telling. Let the boy have his surprise. It’s good for both of you.”

  “I’m assuming you approve?”

  “You don’t need my approval.” She squeezed Ari’s hand and let go. “You should strive instead for what makes you happy. And in second, what makes the both of you happy. Here comes Sasha.”

  It was annoying to not be able to see. However, Ari felt the air change as Sasha grew closer. It was strange to see without actually using her eyes. There was so much she could do but didn’t know how or why. It left her tense and frustrated.

  “Okay,” Sasha took her hands. “Come on.”

  “Welcome, welcome.” Someone was shouting.

  Sasha hurried passed.

  It felt like a maze. He turned and guided her so quickly Ari thought she would get motion sick. He stopped as quickly as he had been moving and stood behind her.

  “Ready?”

  Ari nodded. “Yes.”

  She had her eyes squeezed shut when he removed the blindfold. Something about the anticipation forced the childish action. She felt his touch against her temple.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Riotous colors fanned out in front of her. Flowers bloomed in every shade and size in every direction. Butterflies rose from the blooms in flocks and danced through the air towards their next meal.

  “It’s beautiful. Where are we?” Ari reached back and linked her hand with his.

  “Norfolk. Botanical garden. I figured a six hour drive would ruin the fun of any kind of surprise.”

  Ari turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thank you for making it special.”

  He held her tightly. “You deserve more than I have to give, but I will do everything I can to make up for it.”

  Ari laughed and couldn’t resist a teasing kiss. “You are mistaken. I don’t deserve you. I’ve done nothing to be worthy of this kind, loving, protective, skilled man.”

  His grip tightened almost painfully. “You could have a thousand others.”

  “Grains of sand on a shore.” Ari smiled into his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want the sand. I want the flower that dares to bloom on the empty shore.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “Never doubt who you are to me, Sasha.”

  “The same goes for you.” He rested his head against the top of hers and they stood there entangled in each other until a child’s laughter warned them of impending spectators.

  “I wish I had a camera.” Ari watched the couple and their children come up the path as Sasha drew back.

  “Here.”

  A black blob filled her vision, and she had to draw back and focus to see what he was putting right under her nose. A camera.

  Ari whooped a rather unladylike sound and snatched the camera, rather rudely. “You are the best!” Then she took off to document her first, and probably only, visit to the botanical garden.

  It wasn’t just the gardens that were fascinating. There was a park with a hill the kids climbed and flew kites in dazzling displays. There was dinner overlooking the bay and fireworks over it for no reason other than the simple joy of the lights and laughter.

  Ari prolonged leaving for as long as she could. Sasha was silently patient as always as she snapped pictures for memories. At the same time he was different too, though.

  He touched her more. Her hair, her arm, her shoulder, his hand at the small of her back. And he smiled more, too. He was still the formidable soldier to be reckoned with – the rude man in the outdoor diner had found that out – but he was softer at the same time. Or maybe, Ari was just noticing it for the first time.

  She was half asleep, cradled in his arms when he finally talked her into summoning Nasya to take them home. Ari could have done it if she hadn’t worn herself ragged with all the excitement of the day.

  She didn’t remember being taken into her house, or being changed for bed. She didn’t remember being tucked in. But she remembered the good night kiss and the gentle touch of a hand brushing her hair away from her face.

  “I love you.” Sasha whispered quietly.

  Ari didn’t respond. She was already fast asleep.

  The screaming smoke detector jolted her out of sleep. Ari choked as soon as she sat up. Thick black curtains of smoke filled the space where clean air should have been.

  There was no way to make it through the house, not when she heard it crumbling around her. She felt the heat, but couldn’t see the flames of fire through the thick clouds.

  Ari staggered from bed to the patio doors and tried to get them open. The heated wood was warped and stuck in its frame. She pounded on them to no avail, and as a last resort threw herself through the glass.

  The patio stones were hot when she landed on them and the drifting embers were the obvious reason why. Sluggishly, Ari dragged herself from the patio into the safety of the yard.

  When she was finally coherent enough to glance around she wished she hadn’t. Ari wished there was a way to undo what had just burned into her mind. The entire block was on fire. Some houses looked like they had been burning longer than others. Even the forest at her back burned.

  It looked like a war zone without the shooting guns and running soldiers. Soldiers… Sasha. Where was Sasha?

  Her heart faltered as she stumbled to her feet and ran across the yards to Sasha’s house.

  A blazing inferno greeted her arrival. Fire consumed every inch of what was his.

  “SASHA!” Ari screamed at the house even as she knew there was no possible way for anyone to come running out of the collapsing structure. “Sasha!” Tears streamed down her face. The roar of the fire was the only answer she received.

  She wasn’t thinking clearly enough to think about putting out the fire. If she had she could have been able to save the house. But in her current state of mind she could have just as easily brought the house down.

  Angry and rather childishly, Ari picked up a stone and chucked it at the house. She collapsed in sobs on the warm grass. She didn’t sit for long.

  Someone had to take account for this action. Someone had to pay for all of it. The balance had to be maintained. It would be maintained. She would make sure of that.

  Ari stood and rubbed the tears off her face with her arm, inadvertently smearing soot with it. No one deserved to die this way. No one deserved to lose everything they owned in this manner.

  She needed weapons. Her oversized tee shirt, bare feet and wildly unruly hair were not going to avenge anyone. A quick scout of the yard gave her hope, if very little.

  The shed still stood. There were pockmarks on it like someone had repeatedly shot at it with something and the weapon of choice had burned for a second then fizzed off. Ari examined it up close and could see the Gaea Script lining every edge of the building. Why hadn’t that been done to the house?

  Inside everything was familiar and still in place. Ari rushed around and grabbed a dagger belt. One of the daggers hung horizontally at her back and the other had another belt that closed around her thigh to hold the longer of the two. A full quiver was tossed across her back and her bow was taken down from the pegs.

  The nightshirt and the bare feet meant nothing to her. She was armed. It would be a fool to think she was weak.

  Ari ran the three blocks down and two blocks over to Main Street. She didn’t bother with the roads or sidewalks. She cut straight through the yards and fields.

  Everything was decimated. The closer she got to Main Street the worse it became. Main Street itself was a disaster zone.

  Tainted and Pure fought bloodily but it looked more like a game. The Tainted would destroy and maim and kill. Then the Pure would jump in and fix it all up. There were dozens of them along the street.

  Ari didn’t have enough arrows for all of them. It didn’t matter; she didn’t need arrows for all of them. She drew, and fired in rapid succession as she walked slowly up the street. She targeted back and forth between the Pure and
the Tainted. Not one more than the other and not one less. Balance was essential.

  By the time she was halfway down the street all eyes were on her. When she ran out of arrows she stopped and scanned the street.

  “Well? Are you going to keep me waiting?”

  What remained of the Tainted and Pure gathered together into one conglomerate. Ari recognized the shape they took. They had haunted her nightmares.

  Ghita and Lyris stared at her.

  “Now that I have your attention.” Ari stood straight and unyielding. “This has to stop. This is not your playground.”

  “The entire world is mine.” Lyris murmured in a creepy, dreamy voice.

  “Not before I. I came first.” Ghita hissed.

  The two turned on each other once more.

  “Enough!” Ari drew both daggers. “I was here first. The world is mine.”

  “You play at something you don’t understand.” Lyris jerked her head back. Her body warped and twisted painfully into the horse creature Ari had seen before. There were no words to describe the darkness that encompassed her. The darkness of the night was a luminous candle in comparison to the abyss that was Lyris.

  “You are the last stone in the foundation of my world.” Ghita smiled and transformed. Her glorious white wings stretched out to the sky, but they looked razor sharp and dripped with blood. She radiated light that made the sun pale and fragile in her presence.

  They hurled towards Ari.

  She braced and raised her daggers.

  The force she had expected was intercepted. Ari barely had time to see the familiar hair and form before he was encircled and fell under their combined force. She couldn’t see him anymore.

  “Sasha!” His knife like sword skittered across the asphalt and stopped at her feet. Ari was rooted to the spot. She couldn’t move. Sasha was… Sasha had been…

  The Tainted lifted her head and her muzzle dripped with blood. Sasha’s blood dripped from her like splattered paint. She tossed her head and moved towards Ari just as the Pure rose above her. Blood rained from the sky when she flapped her wings.

  Ari shoved the daggers back into their sheath and picking up Sasha’s sword she took point. “I will not cower!” The words were more for her than them, but they had no way of knowing that. “I am Gaea!”

  She ran to meet them.

  The Tainted reared. Her hooves danced above Ari’s head dangerously close and Ari thrust the sword into the unarmed flesh even as the Tainted hooves struck Ari on their descent. Several of Ari’s ribs snapped as she was thrown back. The sword stuck out of the Tainted’s chest and Lyris crumpled to the ground, motionless.

  Ari laid just as motionless willing her ribs back into place. She wasn’t done yet. She had one more to content with.

  “So you will side with the Pure.” The creature landed and Ghita formed. “I am so proud of you.”

  Even if Ari could get to Sasha’s sword in time, she wouldn’t have been able to lift it. Her abused ribs wouldn’t handle the strain. Ari struggled to her knees and reached for the dagger at her back as Ghita approached.

  Ghita’s arms were outstretched as she bent for a hug.

  Ari whipped out the dagger and shoved it into Ghita’s heart. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “No.” Ari stood on shaky legs. “I am Gaea. I bend to no one.”

  Ghita’s arm lashed out and the pain of her fingers digging into Ari’s chest was monstrous.

  Ari’s shaky legs gave out but she didn’t fall.

  Ghita held her upright by the hand clamped around her heart. “If we go so do you.” She yanked her hand and its contents out.

  Ari fell in slow motion to her knees; from this vantage point she could see what was left of Sasha.

  Blood gathered in a lake around him. He looked like he had been mauled by a wild cat. There was nothing recognizable left about him, save the fan of his gradient hair.

  Ari slowly fell sideways and her last thought was she had failed. She had failed everyone. She hit the ground hard.

  Ari jolter awake on the floor of her room tangled in the sheet. Her hands rushed to her chest to find the unsteady heart beat beneath her tee shirt. She was alive. She was breathing. She still had her heart.

  It had been a dream. An all too real dream. Maybe it was a foretelling of things to come. Maybe Ari had entirely too much stress. Maybe she was over exaggerating what was coming and her subconscious was running wild with those thoughts?

  Ari painstakingly unwound the blanket from her legs. She focused on carefully smoothing it out and folding it neatly on the bed. The deliberate action, somewhat calmed the rising panic.

  She pulled on a pair of shorts and without thinking about what she was doing, she left her room. In the living room, Ari downed the slides next to the front door.

  The warm night air greeted her when she left the house. She didn’t bother locking up; robbers were the least of her fears. She even welcomed something as trivial as a human robber. That would be comic relief to what she faced.

  The main problem was she didn’t know what she faced. She knew the basics, of course. That had been hashed out enough times. She knew some of why, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that what she had been told was the full truth. There were pieces missing she needed if she was going to survive.

  Idly, Ari walked the same path she had run in her dream. Nothing was on fire. The street was quiet but for the occasional dog bark and the cricket’s chirp. The lamp posts were close enough together the circles of light overlapped each other.

  Main Street was darker than the neighborhoods. The lights that would have poured out of display windows during business hours were absent. Street lamps were a bit further apart and the single stop light in the square flashed a steady red.

  A heartbeat of darkness; a heartbeat of red light. Repeat.

  Here in the square her dream overlapped with reality. She could see what she had dreamed over what stood silent and proud. But she didn’t know what it meant.

  “You won’t find it.”

  Startled out of thought Ari glanced wildly around. In the heartbeat of light to shadow and back Madame Erelah appeared standing across the street.

  “Find what?” Ari stuffed her hands in her pockets as if it didn’t matter.

  Erelah smiled as if she withheld a secret no other had. “The beginning of chaos.”

  Ari looked down the street again, but the dream was gone. Only what was real lined down the blocks. “What do you want?”

  “Peace tonight, Goddess Embodied.” Ari could see her eyes sparkle with mischief even from across the street. “I have not come to quarrel with you.”

  “Could have fooled me.” Ari muttered and stalked back down the street away from her.

  “Doesn’t it bother you not knowing the whole truth?”

  Ari didn’t stop walking though for half a heartbeat her step faltered.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that your supposed guardian isn’t linked to you?”

  Ari turned on her heels. “What do you know about Sasha? Nothing. Stop shouting at me. I’m trying to think. That’s all I want tonight. Peace and quiet to think.”

  “I know Sasha isn’t the one bound to you and without your real guardian, you cannot make the claim you want.”

  Ari didn’t move, but lifted her chin. “You obviously have my attention.”

  “You are doomed, simply because you do not have all the truth. You will die a frightening death. I have seen it.”

  “You have seen what your patron wishes you to see. No future is set in stone.”

  She nodded sagely and swayed. “There are many futures. In most of them, you die. In the few you do not, well… they are few and far between. Perhaps you are looking in the wrong direction for answers.” She held out her hand. “I can give you the whole truth.”

  “More like your take on them.” Sasha stepped out of a dark alley. “I am not as blind as you think I am, crone.”

  “No, but you cannot act on your o
wn either.” Madame Erelah pointed behind Ari.

  She turned and Leonidas stood casually against a building, half hidden by shadows with a cigarette to his lips and a walking stick in his free hand. When she turned back Madame Erelah smiled evilly and vanished in the blink of the light.

  Leonidas cursed himself for twice a fool. He should have known Sasha would have come in time. Sasha was after all loosely linked. He had made the link himself to get Sasha to leave him alone.

  It had been irresistible though. Her turmoil and fear had been so tangible it had awoken him. If for no other reason, it had been enough for him to search her out.

  He could have tried to ease her mind of whatever was bothering her enough so they could both sleep. Instead he stood half a block down with his cane and cigarette, and watched her interact with Erelah.

  It was interesting to see how much the Voodoo Priestess feared Ari. He was sure Ari couldn’t see it but he had. No doubt, Sasha had seen it as well, or he would not have been as confident against Erelah as he was.

  Ari watched Leonidas flick his cigarette into the street and disappear in to the shadows. “She’s right.”

  “No.” Sasha wrapped his arms comfortingly around her waist. “Well, not totally. She does know things. But to know what she knows will come at a price. I don’t want to lose you to the Tainted and that’s what would happen.”

  “I’m tired of not knowing, Sasha.” Ari stepped away from him and tilted her head up to look at him. “Tonight is the second time I saw you die in a dream. I won’t let that become reality. I won’t.” Ari walked away from him, and for once he didn’t follow.

  Sasha watched her walk away. He wanted to follow her, but knew she would only feel smothered if he did. She needed the time. After her birthday, quiet time would be very sparse. He respected her enough to give her the space she needed because he knew she wouldn’t have it later.

  He would be close regardless but not close enough that she would even notice. Just as he also knew, Leonidas was still around. Leonidas would still, no doubt, be close enough if Ari absolutely needed it.