The Heroes Fall -1- When War Calls

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  The ring light shimmered in the gentle ocean currents, waves lapping against the shore of white sand. The leaves of the palm trees rustled in the breeze as the last of the clouds were blown away, a starry night sky unveiled with a crescent moon rising in the distance. Jaden stood silently watching, waiting. He had walked since morning from Corsec to be here. It was a place of little significance, but one where he could feel at peace. There was no one else near for miles in each direction, the shore of white sand extending as far as his eyes could see with no civilisation upon it. It was what made this place perfect for his purpose. She would find him wherever he was, but he wanted to be sure he could speak with her alone.

  He waited with his back turned to the forest, hoping to sense her arrival through the ground, but she was one he was blind to. If not for her making her presence known by draining a little of the colour from his surroundings, he would not have known she had arrived.

  ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he said without turning.

  Raquel moved from his left to his right, circling him as she remained at five yards away.

  ‘For everything I said,’ he continued. ‘I was confused. I didn’t know.’

  Raquel came to stand upon the edge of the white sand, looking out over the water as he did.

  ‘I knew you would find me here,’ said Jaden.

  ‘How?’ asked Raquel, her curiosity seeming genuine.

  Jaden turned to her. It was the first time she had asked him a question that she didn’t already know the answer to.

  ‘Because I am what you have been looking for.’

  Jaden paused and waited for her to make eye contact with him before he continued. ‘I thought it was by accident that I kept meeting you. We were both going north. But you were going north because I was.’

  Raquel seemed unsure and waited for him to go on.

  ‘You wish to understand why the energy is rising from the earth. It rises because of me. I don’t know why or how it finds me, but it does. It is drawn to me somehow. You kept it away. When I was with you for those weeks, the dreams didn’t seem so bad and I didn’t feel the sickness anymore. It caused it all. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what to do. I need your help.’

  Raquel stepped closer to him, searching his eyes. He stared back into them, doing his best not to become lost within the deep blue. Raquel then took a step back and nodded.

  He was right.

  ‘It is a curse as much as a cure,’ said Raquel softly.

  ‘You have it too,’ said Jaden sympathetically, now feeling he shared a bond with her, as she had suddenly become withdrawn, no longer the woman of undying strength he had known her to be. ‘But you are different. You can command it.’

  ‘It has taken years to learn.’

  ‘But now you can use more than even the Daijuar. Why don’t you stop the wars?’

  Raquel shook her head. ‘There are greater threats than war.’

  ‘What threats?’ asked Jaden. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someday ... maybe,’ she said.

  ‘But not yet,’ finished Jaden, receiving a nod. ‘What can I do now?’

  ‘Find the others.’

  ‘The others?’ asked Jaden.

  ‘We are not alone,’ said Raquel.

  ‘What do I do when I find them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘This is new to you,’ Jaden concluded.

  ‘One day you will understand.’

  ‘But where do I start?’

  ‘Who is the one in your dream?’ asked Raquel.

  ‘The boy?’

  Raquel nodded.

  ‘He is,’ Jaden searched for the right words, ‘a part of me,’ he said. ‘Something I need but I wish didn’t exist.’

  ‘He exists,’ said Raquel.

  ‘What?’ asked Jaden.

  Raquel closed her eyes, keeping them shut for the coming minutes. Jaden waited patiently, thinking of what she could have meant. She had said there were others like them, others that were connected to the essence somehow. He had never heard of them before, or that it could be used by anyone except the Daijuar. How many others like him were there?

  Raquel opened her eyes.

  ‘He lives in Tiquan,’ she said.

  ‘He is just a dream,’ said Jaden, as if only to reassure himself.

  ‘He will teach you how you can help,’ Raquel explained.

  ‘How?’

  Wind blew in from the north, across the ocean with a chill that made Jaden shudder.

  ‘Find him,’ said Raquel, and she turned and walked back the way she had come, leaving Jaden alone on the beach, staring north and letting his thoughts wander.

  There was something not right in the wind that had come. There was no voice on it this time, but there was something else, something that made his knees become weak.

  The black-haired boy was real. The one that froze the very blood in his veins and overpowered him with sheer will existed in the real world, not just the dream. He was somewhere beyond, over the sea ahead. Jaden had thought to question how much he could trust Raquel then, but she was right. He could sense something where she had indicated, a dull throbbing that he had known always to be there but never thought about. As he had been in the dream, the black-haired boy was connected to him in some way. He was not Jaden’s inner child as he had thought, but another betrayed youth, fighting to survive in this war-ravaged world. He was another who had become a victim of the power.

  Knowing that there was nothing else that he could do, Jaden decided he would soon go to him, to find him and help him with his pain. He would be lying if he had said he was not afraid of what was to come. If the boy was real, then all else in the dream might have been, too. What if the fear paralysed him? What if he could not face the boy without wanting to fight him? He knew it would be the end of his life, and all those around him at the time. But he knew he had no choice. There was no other life for him anymore. He had to find the boy, had to help him. He would not be able to live a normal life until the threat was met and neutralised.

  He needed more training before he attempted such a task. He had to ask Raquel again to help him before he was to find the black-haired boy. But first, he would have to find her. She would do everything she could to evade him. Now that he had told her the reason why she had followed him, there was nothing more for her to gain. But she still had one weakness.

  Without another second to lose, Jaden jumped backward and sprinted into the palms, calling up as much power from the ground as he could. She could run and hide as much as she liked, but she would not be able to ignore him forever.