Yin and Yang: A Fool's Beginning (39 page)

“What's happening?”
the Princess questions hesitantly.

“The Savior’s blood
attracts the Night,” Castor says as he takes a steadying breath.
Actually wincing, he closes the scroll himself. His hands shake as
he does so.

As he rolls it up completely, he lets out a relieved
breath.

Without realizing it, I let one out, too.

“That is a myth,” the
record keepers say as one.

“I do not mean to be
impolite, but until several weeks ago, you believed the legend of
the Savior was a myth too. Trust me, I know what I'm speaking off.
These scrolls must only be looked upon for a short amount of time
and only when it is absolutely necessary. To do otherwise, will
bring on the onset of the Night. It will shorten this
age.”

I can see Garl wants to question Castor, but I can
also see he doesn't have the courage to do so.

Everybody looks at
each other until the Princess breaks the silence
, “what did it say? What am I to do?”

“You must complete a
series of tasks.”

“What tasks?” Mara
asks in a small voice.

“You must gather
together the armor of light,” Castor says.

Silence meets his assertion.

The armor of light?
It doesn't exist. It can't exist. It goes far beyond legend, into
the realm of pure fiction.
Armor made
from the essence of magic itself. Not from metal, not from wood.
But from the very spirit of every summonable force.

According to the myth, isn’t even Arak in origin—it
comes from a time before that ancient race.

“What . . .
how? It doesn't exist. I've always been told it was a story,” the
Princess stutters.

“It exists. It has
to. Without it, the Savior will be unable to fight alongside the
spirit of the earth. You must acquire every single piece before the
final day of the age.”

“If I don't?” the
Princess asks.

Castor doesn't even bother to answer. He just looks
at her.

Eventually she shudders back, running a hand up and
down her arm as if she's suddenly cold.

I have been cold
since I stepped into this room. Colder since the scroll was
unraveled and the blood dripped on the
floor.

Either I'm overreacting, or I can feel something she
can't.

She's the Savior, so clearly, I am the one at
fault.

Perhaps the fan dance unsettled me somehow.

. . .
.

How could it?

It left me feeling stronger than I ever have
before.

So why do I now seem terrified when nobody else
does?

Nobody else but Castor.

Still, he's holding
himself together better as he stares at the
Princess
. “You must gather together every
piece of the armor, and only when it is complete, can you complete
your task.”

“But where will we
find it? Does the scroll contain instructions?” she points towards
it.

“Not this scroll,” he
says as he holds onto it protectively.

“So where do we find
instructions?” the Princess presses her hands together, worry
forcing her fingers tighter and tighter into her
knuckles.

“We follow the
legends, Princess,” Castor says as he bows.

Mara doesn't say anything, she looks up at Castor
pleadingly.

“We must travel to
each of the five ancient temples. When we are there, we must
uncover clues that will lead us to the piece of armor within. You,
as the Savior, are the only person alive who will be able to
retrieve the armor and complete this sacred quest,” Castor
concludes.

Everybody is shocked by his words. Even the record
keepers, who previously looked as if they couldn't show emotion
other than disdain, now look surprised.

“What? Did you think
this would be easy?” Castor now asks quietly. “You are the Savior,
the first Savior in an age. To fight this war, you will need to
call upon the forces that are ageless. You must plumb the depths of
your own courage and seek out the secrets others deny,” Castor
says, briefly looking at me, “if you are to succeed.”

The Princess glances from Garl to the record keepers,
back to Castor, then across to me.

It's clear she is waiting for me to say
something.

Should I tell Castor what he's suggesting is
impossible? That the armor of light could not possibly exist?

Or should I tell her to trust him?

Before I know what
I'm doing, I nod
. “We need to try,” I
say, surprising myself.

I also clearly surprise Garl, as he twists on the
spot and looks at me calculatingly.

I ignore that gaze.

I level my own at Castor.

This better not be some play, some ruse. If he's
manipulating the Princess, I will make him pay.

But if he
isn't
. . . then I will
follow.

The Princess closes
her eyes, grasping her hands before her. After a few moments of
quiet contemplation, she nods
. “I will do
as you say. Return the scroll to the sacred archives,” she gestures
at the record keepers, “and please organize this . . .
trip,” she says as she glances from Castor to Garl.

She takes a step backwards, nods at everyone, and
turns. She shoots me a rather desperate gaze.

I can see she's confused and scared, but somehow
pushing through it.

It’s just what she needs to do in her position, I
tell myself.

She’s the perfect person for this, the only person
for this.

The Savior of the ages.

In short order, we all exit the library, and Garl and
Castor and the Princess return to one of the palace's many meeting
rooms to discuss their options.

Though I’m invited to join in, I quickly excuse
myself on the premise of returning to the barracks to make
preparations.

Soon enough I find myself powering down the steps of
the Palace, and practically running through the streets of the
city.

My mind is swamped by thoughts. The armor of light?
Could it even exist?

There's so much
to
organize.

But as I reach the
barracks, I don’t begin to
organize it.
Even though I told Garl I was returning to do that, I find my feet
taking me somewhere else.

It's drawing on to dusk, and there’s a strange chill
in the air.

I keep rubbing at my arms, but no matter what I do, I
can't chase back the cold.

Nor can I push back my nerves.

I run a little faster until I reach the right
door.

Yin's door.

I shouldn't be seeing
her. With the weight of the world on my shoulders and an epic
journey to
organize, I know where my
priorities should lie.

That doesn't stop me from knocking. It doesn't stop
me from sliding the bolt to the side and waiting for her to
answer.

I want
. . . .

I don't know what I want. Resolution. Understanding.
I want to find out what happened during the fan dance. How I
reconnected to my magic. I want to know how to do it again.

Castor is right. Though I feel closer to my Arak
device and the essence of magic than I ever have, I also know
there’s a long way to go.

That doesn't dishearten me; it invigorates me.

I feel more alive than I ever have before.

So I wait for her to answer, my heart pounding in my
throat. When she doesn't, I figure she's simply being obtuse as
usual, and I push the door open.

There are no soldiers in the corridor, nobody
guarding her, there's no point anymore.

So there’s nobody to see my reaction as I push that
door open.

She's seated on the far side of the room, her back
pressed against the wall, her legs pushed up, her head resting on
her knees, her left arm covered in blood.

I lurch forward, skid to my knees, and reach her.

“What happened? What
happened?” my words rush out, gut wrenching fear making them quick
and little more than bursts of breath.

She looks up slowly, her cheeks streaked with tears,
her eyes red from crying.

Maybe she can't speak or she doesn't want to tell me
what happened, but with a hesitant, gentle touch, I try to pull her
bloodied arm away from her knees.

She doesn't resist.

I carefully pry back her sleeve, looking for the
injury.

I turn her arm over and over, looking at her palm,
her fingers, her Arak device even, but I find no sign of
injury.

No injury.

Yet her arm is still bleeding.

“What happened?” I
ask in a shaking whisper. “What's happening to you?”

“I don't know,” she
shakes her head over and over again, more tears streaking out of
her red, swollen eyes and trickling down her cheeks and chin. “But
it hurts so much.”

I can't ignore the emotion in her words.

Her arm is covered in blood with no sign of injury.
Perhaps it would be easy to assume the blood isn't hers, that
somehow she covered her arm in it and tried to pretend she injured
herself.

I can't even consider that possibility.

As I try to dab away the blood on her palm using my
sleeve, more comes up. It's flowing from somewhere, I just don't
know where.

She’s shaking.

I'm shaking.

“What do I do?” I
plead.

She just grits her teeth together and sobs.

If I weren't a Royal Army sorcerer, maybe I would
doubt her. Maybe I wouldn't be able to feel how raw her emotions
are. The fear, the pain. The overwhelming pain.

“I'll get help,” I
say as I shift back, intending to run to the infirmary.

“No,” she says as she
grips a hand on my sleeve, holding me in place. “No,” she
begs.

“It's okay,” I say as
I place a hand lightly on hers, “they'll be able to help
you.”

She shakes her
head
. “I don't want him to know.
Please.”

I don't need to ask who he is.

Garl.

Though I self
admittedly know a lot about the worlds of magic, there are still
things I don’t know. Mysteries, whispered
rumors. There are so many powers, so many kinds of Arak
devices. The illusionists are a prime example of this—people who
can make themselves invisible. Beyond those strange abilities,
there are others I have only ever heard of. People who can
manipulate light, some who can even warp space. And a rare
unscrupulous few who can poison blood, torturing people with little
more than a look.

. . .
.

Could something like that have happened to Yin?

Could someone have attacked her?

Garl.

“Did he do this to
you?” I ask, unable to hold my tongue. As I speak, my cheeks become
so cold with fear, I know they’re whiter than powdered
plaster.

She looks up, tears
still streaking down her face, trickling along her chin and neck
and soaking through her collar
. “I don't
know,” she says. “It just happened. I can't stop it. I can't stop
it,” she starts to sob again.

I have to do something.

Anything.

But the first thing I have to do is keep her
confidence.

Standing up, I move towards the door and I carefully
close it behind me, glancing down the hallway as I do.

Hopefully if somebody walks along, they won't notice
it's still unbolted.

“We have to get you
to a doctor,” I hiss at her as I walk over and lean by her
side.

“Nobody can know,”
she says as she stares at me with tear soaked eyes.

Reluctantly I nod my
head
. “We have to stop the bleeding, and
I don't know how to do that.”

“I think
. . . it's stopping itself. It's not coming as quickly as
it did before.”

I need to confirm that fact for myself. So I reach up
to her bed and pull off a section of sheeting. Then I use it to
clean her arm. She lets me do it, even though I know it's causing
her pain.

But sure enough, as I clean off the blood, using up
most of the sheet as I do, I soon confirm that she's hardly
bleeding anymore. A few trickles here and there, somehow escaping
her skin with no cuts. But that's all.

Reaching back up to her bed, I grab one of her
blankets and furl it around her shoulders. Then I go over to the
small water basin kept in the corner of her room, and I clean her
arm as best as I can, washing away as much blood from the floor
beneath too.

Once that's done, I force her to drink half of the
bottle of water she keeps by her bed.

Then
. . . I sit next to her and look at
her.

I'm a mess. Understandably, so is she.

Eventually she flops
her head back onto the wall behind her and closes her
eyes
. “It's stopped. I can feel
it.”

I take a stuttering
breath and nod
. “Are you
okay?”

It takes a long time for her to flop her head to the
side and stare at me. She nods.

Then we just, look at each other. It's a little like
what happened this morning when she followed my moves at the
beginning of the fan dance. Try as I might, I can’t look away.

And, though it sounds impossible, I feel as though
I'm sharing her burden, sharing her pain. A dull throbbing picks up
in my left arm, radiating out from my magic Arak device,
accompanied by a terrifying scratching sensation.