Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (76 page)

“So you’re saying you found some kind of record of an actual trial run?” ShinGaru asked.

“More than that. We found actual extracted flames, six in all, being kept in some form of stasis within the root system of an ancient tree apparently grown for this particular purpose.”

“You said
six?
” Rex asked.

“That’s right. The next seven years were spent going over and cataloging all research material stored in the tree’s database. It proved difficult at first because it had been designed to respond only to the scientist who had grown it and presumably ran the experiment. I was charged with the task of breaking its pre-existing parameters and making it so the research team could commune with it directly.”

“I assume you managed, right?” LyCora asked.

“It took a bit of doing, but yes, in the end I was successful, and soon the researchers began compiling enormous amounts of data on the nature of the tree’s physical and flame makeup.”

“I remember seeing the way SeroFiya’s face would light every day when they would discover something new,” BaRone said, smiling over what were, for him, fond memories. “Still, the primary concern was everyone’s safety. Keeping the six flames in stasis was crucial, for no one knew if they would attach themselves to a host like a parasite or simply return to the cosmos like flames do naturally when the living form dies.”

“Wait one moment,” EeNox interrupted. “How exactly did this DraGon or whoever even manage to…how should I put it, ‘extract’ these flames in the first place? Wouldn’t the act alone kill whoever they belonged to?”

“A valid question, and one the team asked themselves,” VoRenna explained. “However, because so much of the data was encrypted in a way they had never before seen, there was much of the actual experiment that remained a mystery.”

“Were there any bodies?” AnaSaya asked with a look of curiosity. “Something that may have pointed to the identities of who the flames were when they were alive?”

“None, though we were unable to penetrate very deep into the entire facility, so it is quite possible that such remains could have been buried further in.”

“All right,” Rex said, dropping his arms and looking back and forth between BaRone and VoRenna. “You explained the who and the what, now tell us about the how?”

“The how?” VoRenna repeated.

“How we came to be.”

“Ah, yes, I suppose that would be the next logical question.”

“Wait,” BaRone interrupted. “Before we say any more, there is something you must know. Understand that what happened was beyond our control. Everything we were doing was. We had no idea at the time, but were playing with forces beyond anything that anyone alive had ever dealt with. Still, despite all that we lost, we have no regrets…I have no regrets.”

“Father, please,” DiNiya urged. “No matter what it is, we are your children and we love you. So please…tell us.”

With a heavy sigh, he spoke the words he always knew he would one day be forced to but knew would never be prepared to. “The team was communing with the tree in an effort to unlock several encrypted logs left by the lead scientist, when there was a sudden overload in the system. We don’t know exactly why it happened, but we suspect it was due to the tree being so old and no longer able to handle a communion with so many flames at once. In any case, several of the key systems went down, including the containment field keeping the flames in stasis. Something happened, we don’t know what, but somehow they, the flames that is, they…”

Seeing BaRone was finding it difficult to express himself, VoRenna mercifully stepped in. “As we feared if they were ever released, the flames bonded with hosts, but to our surprise it was not in the way SeroFiya had theorized. We do not know why, but they had bonded only with the females that were present.”

“TarFor and I were both there that day, providing extra security for the team after some aggressive advances from one of the neighboring tribes,” VyKia explained. “I can’t remember everything perfectly, but I recall feeling something…incredible, like a will other than my own was burning its way into me. It was terrifying at first. My head was filled with feelings that I could not understand. It felt as if the whole of my being was being rewritten, when all of a sudden it was gone…like nothing had happened.”

“It was apparently the same for the other women,” TarFor said. “We quickly evacuated the facility and immediately sent word to KaNar for rescue. We managed to make it down the mountain in one piece and found several CyTorians dispatched from KaNar awaiting us.”

“I awoke back in KaNar three days later with only fragments of what had transpired,” VyKia said. “My memories were all mixed up, out of order.”

“It was the same for all of those who had been afflicted,” KyVina said, speaking up for the first time since they had all come together. “We had our healers do their best to diagnose them, but the results were conclusive. Aside from an extreme case of fatigue, and a minor case of shellshock, there was nothing wrong with them.”

“But you said that they had been in some sort of an accident,” EeNox protested. “How could they not have been hurt?”

“And what of the flames?” AnaSaya asked.

“Well,” BaRone said, looking at the others, “That’s where things get truly interesting. After the incident in ClyVen, the Guild decided to cease any and all work on the laboratory. Your mother was not happy, believe me, even going as far as to file a motion to overturn the Guild’s ruling, but in the end it stood.”

“So did she and the others return to the capital?” DiNiya asked.

Her father shook his head. “No. In fact, she would never see the capital again, for by that point your cunning father had managed to woo said beauty, and the result was the two of us forged anew as mates and she with child. Two, in fact!” EeNox and DiNiya exchanged quick glances. “Nine months later, you two were born. I had the honor of naming you, my son, while your mother reserved the right to bestow our beautiful baby girl with one.”

“Three days later, you were born, AnaSaya,” VyKia said, smiling affectionately at her daughter. “You father was unfortunately away at sea but rushed home once he received word of your birth.”

“LyCora,” VoRenna said as she regarded the young blue flame. “You were born around the same time.”

“But how did I come to be in your care?” LyCora asked. “What happened to my biological parents, and why would you of all people take me in—a SaVarian?”

“Well…that has to do with him.”

“LyCora followed her mother’s gaze where, to her surprise, it landed on Rex, who had remained silent this entire time, but now unfolded his arms. “I was wondering when you would get to that. I couldn’t help but notice all of you dancing around the issue of me.”

“There is a reason for that,” BaRone declared.

“Is there now? Well, then, I believe now would be the time to clue me in on what that is. Who were my parents?”

“Do you remember that there was a mysterious energy signature coming from the lab which tipped us off to its existence in the first place?” Rex nodded. “Well, it turned out that the majority of the trickle of power the lab was still producing was being funneled into a secret chamber. That was the energy source we were detecting.”

“Secret chamber?” he repeated, cocking his head to the side. “What was in it?”

“You.”

“What?” he asked, startled.

“Or rather it would grow into you. You see, we found a tank being fed with what we later learned was a type of embryonic fluid through the roots of the tree. Inside was a tiny embryo. We had no idea what it was growing into until about three cycles later, when SeroFiya positively identified it as a SaVarian. It seemed to be the remains of an experiment that began long ago. Probably during the war.”

“But wait,” DiNiya protested. “How could he have been from so long ago? You said you only found an embryo.”

“We can’t be sure, but we believe it had been growing at such a slow rate due to the tiny amount of power the lab had been running off of over the centuries. But when the team began communing with the tree, powering it to reactivate more of the systems, they must have inadvertently reactivated the growth process.”

“So let me get this straight,” said Rex in a voice that borderline on shock and anger. “You’re saying I
never had
parents?”

“I’m afraid not, Rex. You were not born but rather created. By whom, though…we really don’t know.”

Rex staggered backwards. He felt as if someone had just taken the wind out from beneath his wings, and his head began to spin. “How…how can this be real? Any of it?”

“I am sorry, Rex,” VayRonx said. “Do not blame any of them, for it rests solely with me.”

“I don’t understand…”

“It was my decision to keep the truth from all of you, and furthermore, it was my order to have you all kept apart.”

“Why, though?” Rex shouted. “Why was I sent so far away? Why maroon me on Earth?” He fought back his seething rage. “Why did you abandon me?”

“To save your life!” VayRonx exclaimed with a loud roar, startling everyone.

“Save my life?”

“VayRonx, what are you saying?” DiNiya asked.

“Go ahead,” KyVina said as she leaned against her mate. “It is time we tell them the truth of that day.”

“Very well,” he replied with a sigh. “Unbeknownst to any of us was that locked away deep beneath the lab were seven DraGons, all having lain dormant for ten thousand years. No doubt something made possible by the laboratory itself, but for what purpose, we never did find out. We only learned of them when they awoke and began scouring ClyVen in search of something they called the Doom Bringer.”

“The Doom Bringer,” Rex repeated, mulling the words over before suddenly growing wide-eyed. “Wait, that’s what KyGahl, I mean DayKar, called me. But why, what does that even mean?”

“We don’t know Rex,” KyVina said. “But they did say ‘he’ would be of the red flame.”

“It was around the same time that we began receiving word from several fishing vessels who had been communicating with a few of the ocean tribes, off the southwestern coast, that there was a strange disturbance on the sea floor. No one knew what it was until someone was bold enough to swim close enough to it. What they found shocked us all and changed everything.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” EeNox insisted.

“He’s right,” LyCora added, surprised to hear herself utter such words. “Tell us already.”

“It was a gateway to another world, one somehow existing parallel to ours but also entirely removed from it. Until recently we had no idea what this place was, only that it seemed to have a level of civilization not all that dissimilar to our own.”

“Furthermore, it appeared to be filled with SaVarians, or rather something like us,” BaRone explained. “We surmised that it could very well be the ancestral world of the SaVarians.”

“But I thought that was only a theory?” AnaSaya asked.

“What was?” Rex asked.

“That we—SaVarians, I mean—did not evolve on EeNara but were brought here from somewhere else.”

“I have long suspected it to be much more than a theory,” said ShinGaru. “Why else have we never been able to find any fossil evidence linking our ancestry to any point prior to the war? It was as if we simply popped into existence.”

“So what you’re saying is that this gateway led to Earth,” Rex declared.

“That is correct,” replied VayRonx.

“And you thought it was a good idea to just drop me off and never look back?”

“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Do you truly believe we would just abandon one of our own like that?”

“Apparently I’m not one of your own.”

“Don’t say that,” BaRone shouted as he marched forward and grabbed Rex by the shoulders. “Don’t you ever say that! Don’t even think it! Giving you up was the hardest thing we ever had to do!”

“Giving me up?” Rex asked with a look of confusion.

Tears now ran freely down BaRone’s face. “From the moment SeroFiya saw you, Rex, she knew she wanted you to be a part of the family we would raise together.”

“Wait,” DiNiya said. “Are you saying Rex was to be raised alongside EeNox and me?”

“As what?” Rex asked. “Your son?”

BaRone nodded. “Where some may have seen an anomaly, SeroFiya saw a child in need of a loving family. She wanted us to be that family…we both did.”

“Then why weren’t you?” Rex shouted forcefully, pushing BaRone to the ground and baring his teeth angrily. “Why did you just throw me away?”

“Because
they
found you,” he said solemnly, slowly rising to his feet.

“They?”

“The DraGons that had awakened. It had been some time since they had last been spotted, and we all began to suspect that they had not survived. Indeed, they were only seven, and in a place like ClyVen, it would be easy to see how they could have met their end. However, that could not have been further from the truth.”

“Those monsters killed many amongst the tribes of ClyVen,” VoRenna said with a hint of malice in her voice. “Including my mate and brother, the alpha of my tribe.”

“Your brother was the alpha of the Black Frost Tribe?” LyCora asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” her mother replied. “He was a wise leader. One who insisted on unifying the tribes of ClyVen. His beliefs, however, were met with all manner of opposition. In the end he never was able to put his plans into action.” Her feathers fluffed up as a shudder rippled through her body. “He and my mate were killed while trying to defend our two young boys.”

“Wait…you were a mother? Before you adopted me?” The perception LyCora had always had of her mother was now crumbling. Where she had once seen a stoic and powerful huntress, now she only saw a wounded flame who had suffered an immeasurable loss, one she hoped she would never have to share. “Mother…I had no idea—”

“I shall speak no further of this,” VoRenna cut her off with a hint of frailty in her voice. “What happened fifteen years ago cannot be undone, and to dwell on it will bring no one any peace. What matters now is that you are my daughter, and I have and will continue to do whatever I must to keep you safe, just as I promised your parents I would.”