“Can you feel it?” Mother asked. “Can you feel the heartbeat?”
Ion nodded, mesmerized by the thumping in his palms—a thumping Ion had once felt in his metal jaw.
“I’ve heard many rumors about this staff,” said Mother. “That its exterior was forged eons ago by hardening the blood of a dead god; that liquid blood lies within, pumping as though it still has a heart.”
“Whose blood?” Ion asked.
“The god who the staff is named after—Omnus,” she said. “An ancient god, but long dead and long forgotten.”
“The Omnus Staff,” Ion whispered. As Ion looked into the eyes of the griffon, a strange feeling washed over Ion’s jaw—a feeling he’d never experienced before—a feeling of complete and utter warmth.
“My...my jaw,” Ion said, running one hand along the metal. When his fingers reached his chin, they ran over an indentation in the metal he’d never felt before, and his heart gave a horrible jolt.
“What’s...on...my chin?” he asked, careful not to panic, even though he really, really wanted to.
Mother finally looked up from the staff, and when her eyes fell upon his chin, they went wide as those baseballs Outerworld humans used to play with.
“Why are your eyes doing that?” he asked breathlessly.
She swallowed. “I want you to stay calm, Ion, but I think you should follow me.”
Ion trailed after his mother, suddenly feeling sick. She showed him a mirrored shield at the foot of a statue Ion didn’t recognize. He peered in, and through the dusty reflection, saw the three sharpened eyes arranged in a triangle upon the metal of his chin. The metal had sunken in like Ion had gotten it engraved.
“Why three eyes?” he asked, cautious to touch the markings. “How three eyes?”
“I don’t know,” Mother shrugged.
Ion dropped the staff, and just like that, the warmth turned to cold, and the engravings rose, until the eyes were no more and the strip of metal was returned to normal.
“The staff,” Ion gasped. “It...it triggered the engravings.”
He stared incredulously at Mother, and she stared back. He bent down, and slowly picked up the Omnus Staff. The warmth flooded his jaw again, and when he returned to his reflection, the triangle of eyes stared back at him.
“I’ve seen those eyes before,” said Mother, her hand slapped over her mouth. “Your father...he was dealing with darker things than I even imagined. Much darker things.”
“Mother,” Ion said, “I need you to explain. You’re sort of freaking me out right now...”
“The triangle of eyes is a mark of the gods,” she said. “A Connection Seal—different depending upon which line of gods you’ve come from. Othum, Illindria, Vinya—they all have one. But Connection Seals only reveal themselves when the one bearing the Seal touches another god who shares the same bloodline.”
“But the staff is a remnant of Omnus!” Ion said, both indignant and terrified. “And I didn’t come from him, so—”
“Of course you didn’t,” said Mother. “But that piece of metal on your jaw did. Ion, whoever used Omnus’s blood to make that staff also made your jaw.”
Ion gazed dreadfully upon the staff in his hands, feeling the pump of Omnus’s heartbeat. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.
“Your jaw isn’t just a piece of metal,” Mother went on. “It’s alive. Alive with the blood of Omnus.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A BLOOD GOD
Having a metal jaw that was alive was decidedly the creepiest thing Ion had experienced that week.
All the weird stuff about his jaw now started to make sense. The metal grew hot when Ion was angry because it, too, was angry. It grew cold when he was sad, because it, too, was sad. Warm when he was happy. Tingly when he was excited. It had even throbbed like the beat of a heart once. The jaw felt because it was alive. And the fact that it had a brother in the Omnus staff made things even stranger—and not to mention complicated.
But why me? Ion wondered. Why did he have to be the one to bear the Connection Seal of Omnus? Ion needed to talk to Father, and in order to do that he’d need to forget his fears, squash his reservations, and finish the mission he’d started.
Ion needed a key—a treasured key—from the chambers of Othum himself. Not only would Ion be stealing his father, he’d be stealing from the King of Illyria. And if he didn’t want to get caught, which he definitely didn’t, he’d need a perfect way in and a perfect way out.
“We’ll need a slot of time where he’s not going to be in his tower,” Mother had said
“After the CVE’s,” Ion had replied. “He’s directing the ceremony later that night—he’ll be in the coliseum preparing for it.”
For the remaining bitter months of winter, Ion and his mother stayed up for hours every night in the Hall of Forgotten Heroes planning a heist just as daring as the story of Orthys Smith the Heathen, who stole the Scepter of the First Light from the coffers of Illyria. Ion had memorized everything: from the map of Othum’s chambers, to the intricate details of the key.
Spring arrived with the sighting of a single pink flower blossoming in the Jovian Fields a day before the fourth Tree Lighting Ceremony, where the silvers and whites of the trees were shifted into shimmering golds. Strangely enough, the golden leaves didn’t glow like the leaves that had come before them. Instead, with a closer look, each leaf appeared to be made of gold.
But the shifting of the leaves and the warming of the weather meant something quite apart from the end of winter. It meant the Class Verification Exams were near...and so was the heist.
It was the day before the CVEs when Ion realized he’d forgotten about the worst problem of all.
His sister.
Ion sat up on his towel on the red sands of Conch Cove—a bay in the southernmost part of the island—and took in the view. The Emerald Peaks loomed in the distance, caging in the waters of the cove. The feeble waves that swept the red shore only feet away glimmered like diamonds under the blazing sunlight. And all around strode Eldanarians—basking in the sun and swimming in the bay.
Ion dug his hands through the sand, mesmerized by its warmth and deep crimson hue.
Theo, who sat at Ion’s right, let out an annoyed “ugh” and tucked his feet into the sand. “The sun always burns my foot fingers,” he said.
“Foot fingers?” Ion asked. “You mean, toes?”
“No, I mean foot fingers,” Theo returned. “What are toes?”
“Dwarves,” Oceanus grumbled, sitting on a blue towel to Ion’s left.
“I can’t remember the last time I was here,” said Theo. “Othum was nice to let us relax down here before the CVEs.”
“The elf doesn’t look like she agrees with you, Theo,” said Oceanus, nodding over at Lillian who was sitting in the shade of a few palm trees further inland.
“The elf?” Ion asked. “Do you like being called the Caller?”
Oceanus gave Ion quite the stink eye. “I say the elf, because it establishes a distance between us,” she said. “We don’t even need to know her real name, because she won’t come anywhere near us for it to be used.”
“Lillian will come around,” said Theo. “She likes to act all mysterious and dark and stuff, but she’s really not.” Theo leaned over and whispered, “She sleeps with a doll. Can you imagine? A doll!” Theo then stood and brushed the sand from his tunic. “Well, I’m going to go cool off!”
He flashed his childish grin, and dashed for the waters. As he surfaced beyond the breaking shore and waved, Oceanus got up from her towel, arranged it so it was right beside Ion’s, and then sat back down.
“We need to talk,” she said, the very words making Ion uneasy.
“About?”
“I saw you sneak out last night.”
Ion’s heart dropped. He fought to keep his eyes small, so he wouldn’t appear all bush-baby-like. “W-what’re you talking about?”
“There’s a creaky floorboard at the top of the Dorms’ staircase,
” said Oceanus, “and for the past few days you’ve stepped on it every night at around 9:50 p.m.”
“Well, aren’t you on top of things.”
“I’m your big sister,” said Oceanus. “It’s my job to know what you’re up to—to keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe from what?”
He couldn’t quite explain it, but there was just something about the way Oceanus was talking to him in her know-it-all fashion that made him feel hot with anger.
“Safe from yourself, of course,” she said with her nose high. “I’m not sure where exactly you went last night, since you dropped off the face of the earth before I could follow you out into the courtyard, but wherever it is and whatever you’re doing there, it’s probably in your best interest to stop.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Oceanus,” he said, feeling warmer and warmer, his jaw prickling. “I’m fully capable of taking care of myself, just like I did for all those months you left me to rot as a slave.”
Oceanus’s jaw dropped. Ion didn’t show it, but he was just as surprised he’d said that as she was.
“How dare you!” said Oceanus, standing. “I never left you to rot, Ion! I was always there watching you, making sure you stayed alive! But I was ordered to keep my distance.”
“That’s just it, Oceanus!” said Ion. “You only do what the gods order you to do! You’re like their pet.”
“I am no one’s pet!” she cried. “I do as the gods say because it’s the purpose of a Guardian. Though you wouldn’t know anything about that, since Ion only does as Ion wants!”
Ion shot up from his towel. “Are you calling me selfish?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Theo and Lillian appeared at the scene; one dripping wet, the other totally dry—but both very concerned.
“Yes,” said Oceanus. “I am undoubtedly calling you selfish! All this stuff you’re doing: sneaking around at night, getting detentions, it’s distracting you from your studies. You’re going to fail your exam and Father’s never going to be freed!”
“First of all, it was only one detention and that was months ago,” said Ion. “Two, Father isn’t going to be freed anyway. Othum is a liar and if you weren’t so stupidly in love with him and those stupid gods, you’d see that, too!”
Oceanus looked ready to attack. “You are such an oinker!”
“Oh, yeah? Well…well, I think…I think you’re a car!”
Oceanus gasped as though she knew what that meant.
Theo tugged on the bottom of Ion’s tunic and hesitantly asked, “W-what’s a car?”
“A stupid human invention,” Ion said, staring hard at his sister.
“Consider yourself lucky, brother,” Oceanus growled. “Lucky that I have enough control over my powers to not strike you down right now like you did Spike.”
And with that, Oceanus turned on her heel and headed for the Protean boardwalk, trudging through the sands with fists at her side. Ion stood there with his lips drawn tight and his jaw constricted. Lillian approached, her elven eyes dissecting him from head to toe.
“Your anger taints the air like pollution,” she said, low and shrewd. “Might I suggest containing it for the exams tomorrow?”
Ion hated everything about Lillian right now. Her stupid bald head. Her stupid pink skin. Her tunic was stupid, too, even though Ion was practically wearing the same one.
“No one asked you, elf,” Ion growled, and Lillian’s face stiffened. “You haven’t had a word to say to me since we’ve met, yet now you suddenly want to give me advice? How about some advice for you: stay out of my business!”
Lillian swallowed. “You use words irresponsibly,” she said, so calm Ion couldn’t help but feel stupid. “I’ll look for your apology in the future.”
Lillian headed for the streets of Protea, and as Theo woefully followed close behind, Ion was left to stew in his own guilt.
There was much to be said about anger, Ion had found. It was an emotion that had triggered his first bolt of lightning, won his first god duel, and scarred his own teammate. And now anger had violently pushed both Lillian and his sister away.
“I am not saying sorry to them,” he said, plopping down on the sands in the Hall of Forgotten Heroes, crossing his arms. “I refuse! I mean, they were the ones who attacked me. It was like an all-out brawl! There were fists and everything!”
Mother, who was hovering a few feet away, gave Ion a look that said either, “And you’re sure you’re not exaggerating?” or “Stop being stupid.”
To which Ion sighed, “All right, fine. There wasn’t an all-out brawl, or fists, or any other type of attack. Well, there was...but it was verbal, and I think it mostly came from me.” He chewed on his lip in thought. “I just felt so angry.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with feeling angry,” Mother assured him with a smile. “We all have the right to feel it, especially when your sister happens to be Oceanus.”
She winked, and Ion paused, unsure if he had heard her correctly.
“So you’re”—this couldn’t be—“you’re blaming Oceanus? You’ve never done that.”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure what happened today,” said Mother, “but we both know how Oceanus is. She’s just…annoying.”
Ion got up from the sand and stared hard at his mother. “Annoying? When Oceanus forced us to become vegetarians for a whole month because of an article she read about possible skin-irritating bacteria in meat and fish, you thought that was cute. But now, without even hearing her side of the story, you’ve suddenly decided she’s annoying?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I’m simply trying to end this conversation so we can start the important one.”
“But I have other issues going on!”
“And they are miniscule compared to our issues!” she boomed, her voice so loud and her eyes so big Ion took a frightened step back. Then her expression softened and she smiled. “Ion, you must understand. I’ve been living down here for months now, concocting a plan brilliant enough to free your father from the service of the gods. And now, when I—we—are so close to doing just that, these tiny problems start popping up on your side.”
Ion took a deep breath, trying to erase the fear. “I know it must be annoying to hear me complain,” he said. “So...I’m sorry.”
Mother floated closer. “See, apologizing isn’t that hard. Now, let’s go over the plan, shall we?”
Ion nodded.
“After the CVEs, where are you going?”
“To my room.”
“To do what?”
“Wait to make sure Othum is en route to the coliseum.”
“Good. Then what are you going to do?”
“Sneak into Othum’s chamber and steal the key.”
“And you’ll come here right after?”
Ion nodded. “Yes, Mother.”
She smiled, and despite feeling heavy about what he’d be doing tomorrow, Ion smiled, too.
“Now, go to your room and get some rest,” said Mother. “I need you wide awake for tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ion said with a nod, making his way toward the spiral, stone staircase.
“And Ion!” she sang.
He turned to her.
Mother straightened her back, and looked at him with narrowing eyes. “What is Othum’s greatest possession?”
And Ion answered just as he had been taught: “The heart of Onyxia.”
Before long, Ion was treading through the halls of the fortress, slipping down the corridors, quieter than a two-toed forest mouse. He climbed the spiral staircase to the Dorms without a breath and carefully avoided the creaky floorboard at the top.
He sighed. But too soon.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea?” asked a voice too low and intelligent to belong to anyone but an elf.
Ion’s chest grew five times too tight. He turned and found Lillian sitting across the room in a red leather chair, green-lighted candles flickering beside her.
> “L-Lillian,” said Ion, trying to not act as though he’d just gotten back from planning a heist with his ghostly mother.
“Apparently you are unaware of the particular powers a Guardian like myself can come to possess,” she said, crossing her legs.
Ion gripped his stomach, which was now badly cramping. “I...I’m not.”
“I first learned how to hear someone’s thoughts”—Ion felt sick—“when I was eight. It’s gotten better these past two years, but I’ve never quite been able to hear a god’s thoughts. That is, except for yours.”
Ion hesitated. “How much do you know?”
“Enough to question the intelligence of your mother’s plans,” Lillian replied. “And enough to know that this will not end well for you. You don’t honestly think—”
“My thoughts don’t matter,” Ion said. “I have to do this. For my father.”
“No you don’t, Ionikus.” Lillian leaned forward in the chair and in a deadly whisper, said, “What your mother asks of you has more consequences than you know.”
“If I get caught,” Ion growled. “And if you’re as smart as you seem—”
“You have nothing to worry about,” said Lillian. “I only wish to persuade you from this path. Because it’s a dark one, Ionikus. Darker than you yet realize.”
“It’s too late for this,” Ion grumbled. “I...I can’t—”
“Be the Iron-Jawed Boy anymore, I know,” said Lillian, and Ion’s eyes welled with tears he fought to hold back. “Do not confuse me with your sister, Ionikus Reaves. I respect the Illyrians just like any other elf, but I don’t follow them blindly, and I never will. I understand why you don’t trust Othum, but freeing your father by yourself will cause more problems than you can handle.” She stood. “I’ve caught the memories that spill from your mind. I’ve seen how the Illyrians have hurt you, how your father has hurt you. All that pain can be reversed, Ionikus. Just not this way.”
“I’m sorry, Lillian. But I have to do this.”