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Rukem filled him in fully and got to his issue. “Telling Nidev of these developments or any other King feels…wrong somehow.”
“Follow your instincts, King. What do you think of your coin?”
“If you’re asking what I know about it, nothing. No dreams, no hunches, no inclinations. Maybe I am not the one to learn what it is. Maybe another member of my…quad will.”
“Perhaps.”
“What about you? Have you seen anything since?”
“Only what Seer and I are commissioned to do.”
“Find the lost.”
“The innocent.”
Ah yes. “Right.” Rukem was curious. “How do you see this…Seer?”
His mirrored shades lowered. “I am very fond of him. He has…a power in his spirit that…calls to me. Commands me in a strange way.” The reflective lenses moved up to Rukem again. “I must protect him.”
Seemed like he’d just learned that out of thin air.
“And he will protect me. We are…symbiotic in our mission.”
Interesting. Jinxx hopped onto the couch next to him and Rukem slid his hand over her soft belly. “How…dark do you think this will become, Brother?” It was one of the questions he’d pushed to the back of his busy mind, mostly because so much was in the theoretical realms still. All the Kings had worn facades of fierceness during the meeting, holding fast to their noble stoicism. But he knew what brewed beneath. Foreboding. Rukem didn’t much care for the prophecy education he’d received but there was no denying his logical brain’s submission to them.
“Verydark, Brother.”
Rukem stared at his downturned face, the warning in his words now cemented within his mind. “Death?” he asked, needing particulars.
“Pain. Sorrow. Fear. Despair. But there will also be freedom, joy, courage, and hope.” He aimed his mirrors at him. “This is not an end. It is a beginning.”
His phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. His entire body lurched at the sight of her name. “I need to go,” he said. “I’m sure you need sleep.”
“And I’m sure I will not get it,” Zodak said, walking him to the door.
“I don’t think any of us will. Thank you for helping.”
“Always,” he said, nodding once at Rukem.
Rukem returned the gesture, finding the etiquette of noble recognition most worthy with their odd brother from the deserts of Morocco. None of them would forget the dangerous trials of learning his powers or the night of the rare Crimson Moon when Zodak had fused all of them together. The event caused his powers to spike and threaten to devastate all within a five-mile vicinity. The Kings used their own gifts to form a plasma gate around him and fearing for their life, Zodak begged them to leave, even attempted to sever the power they’d formed. But they held fast. And when the Syphon King's power reached its apex, the phenomenon filled them with radiant auroras of beautiful light. Before that night, Zodak had held them all at bay, his trust always trembling with wariness. But when the event finally ended, he wept brokenly in the center of them, begging…“Why? Why didn’t you leave me? Why would you stay? Why would you stay?”
He now resided in a sacred part of all of them. And they in him. A brotherhood forged from a divinity none of them really understood. But each of them knew.
****
Sophie listened to the sounds in her head as her breath moved in and out of her lungs. She’d had an episode. The nurse said Ace brought her in unconscious. Oh God, what had she done? How did the episode come on and did she behave in such a way that it ruined her chances with him? The last thing she remembered was seeing his face as he made his way up the little loft stairs in the enchanting hobbit home in the marsh.
There were differences in the aftermath, however. There was no fatigue. No headaches. No nausea. And the nurse said when Ace brought her in, she showed no symptoms that her episode involved embarrassing things. But…seizures were not a pretty sight, regardless.
What had poor Ace endured?
The door opened and she spun from the dark window. There he was. Beautiful as ever. Eyes…fearful. Of what? She needed to touch him to understand but there were things in her hands that had other business to attend with him. Not just her hands, her entire body screamed to release what it had collected during the episode.
Her heart beat faster with his slow steps toward her. His eyes were the same, full of endless, nameless passions so powerful she might faint if she imagined them all. When he stopped just out of arms’ reach, she assured her lungs that consuming all the air in the room was dramatically unnecessary.
“Are you okay, Tresor ?”
She let out a gasp at the name.Treasure.“I need you.”
