Airel - Aaron Patterson [128]
I swept her behind me with my arm and instinctively crouched, in my fighting stance. She doesn’t know what she’s saying and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Kreios had told me to run if I ever met Stan alone. He was speaking in two voices, so obviously the Seer was with him. My spine tingled as my body poured adrenaline into my fear.
“Come here, girl,” Stan’s eyes glowed red even in broad daylight; his pupils cat-like and piercing. He held a length of heavy chain in his hand.
“You really think I’m just going to go with you?” I could hear Kreios coming. I stepped forward slightly, to try to fend the villain off, but he didn’t budge an inch.
“You’re crazy,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to signify my courage. I could feel everything; every beat of my heart, every fiber of nerve and muscle in my body. I was a coiled panther ready to unleash raw fury—and deep within me, I could feel She gathering up all the frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and crushing powerlessness I had felt ever since I had begun my change, and distilling it into hate for the evil one that dared to stand before me. I wanted to kill, for the first time in my life, and what’s more I was ready to do it, couldn’t wait to begin.
When Kreios landed, it was a seismic event. There was maybe twenty feet of open space between me and my attacker, and Kreios landed right in the middle of it, cracking the earth deeply, making the boulders shudder. The swirl of light that danced around him almost looked like wings, but it moved around his body as if the light itself was protecting him. His jaw clenched.
He held no weapon in his hand, and he was clothed in the same simple robe that he had worn for my training. “This time, brother, you will bow to your Maker or I will take more than your wing.”
The Seer laughed maniacally, extricating himself out of Stan as if his body was a used container, kicking him aside when he was through, sending the heavy chain he had been brandishing into the grass. Kreios lunged in attack, and the thing backhanded him with one massive movement. Kreios flipped over, righted himself, and hovered in the air.
“Airel! You must take Stan; it is the only way.” He looked at me, and in his eyes was strength and trust. “You must walk through the door, child. Walk through it and take that which awaits you there. It is your destiny.”
This is getting real. And it was getting hard to believe.
Time stood still in that moment of my existence. My eyes wide open, there appeared before me, somewhere or somehow between the real and the supernatural, a door. It was made of a single piece of wood and stood apart from everything. There were no handle or hinges, as far as I could tell. I looked at Kim; she was frozen and didn’t seem to be able to see me. The trees were stuck, motionless. I reached my hand out to the door, and as I did, it opened to me.
I could only believe one thing as it swung open and revealed what was on the other side: this was the Sword of Light. The Sword of my grandfather, an angel of God, who had once lived in paradise, heaven, in the company of God Himself.
The Sword was brilliant; it illuminated me, my spirit, my mind, and called to me. I strode through the door, a petite girl of seventeen, and wrapped my hand around the grips. As I passed through the door, it evaporated, leaving me once again at the top of the cliff, Kreios, the Seer, and Stan before me, Kim behind me, all frozen as if I had been taken out of time. And the Sword was immense, but seemed to shrink and grow light in my hands. I sensed that it would do the work; all I had to do was hang on.
I moved the blade in a wide arc over my head, feeling far more wise and graceful than I ever had; I felt like a warrior. And I knew that I was. I took to my fighting stance, this time with the Sword in my hands, and closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes again, I was still holding the Sword. Everything was slowly starting to regain its momentum around me. I saw a branch move in the breeze. I looked at Kim, who was looking at me as if she had seen