Guardian: Darkness Rising (27 page)

“
That was the sound of your
precious barrier shattering into a thousand pieces,” the Master
said, before bursting out in loud laughter. “You have lost,
Guardians!”

Fear instantly clutched Luke’s heart as he
turned to face his aunt. “Dad is out there,” he said to her. “He’s
all alone – he’s probably in pain right now – we have to go save
him.”

Samira had a worried expression on her face,
which shifted to the side for a short moment; Ince and Akilah had
engaged a fight with their sibling. They’d had enough.

“
The only thing
we can do to save James is fix this,” Samira said. “We’ve got to
get back to the Castle of Light and perform the Ritual. It’s our
best, no, our
only
chance.”

“
Just go!” Ince shouted, as he
stopped one of the Master’s attacks with great effort; apparently,
he’d heard Samira talking.

“
We’ve got this!” another voice
shouted; it was Aoife. The three spirits who’d gone to strengthen
the barrier had returned to support their siblings. The barrier had
shattered now anyway, so there was nothing left for them to
protect.

Luke wondered whether the five of them would
be strong enough to fend off the Master, but guessed he’d just have
to trust them.

*

While he nine Guardians and Mari left the Dark
Castle and rushed to the other side of the realm, the Spirits tried
to reason with their brother.

“
Asura, stop this madness!”
Aharnish commanded his brother; in the heat of the battle, the
Spirit of Night and Day had blown a hole in the roof of the throne
room, and now the Spirits were following their brother into the
night sky.

“
This quarrel,
this
war
, has
gone on for long enough. It’s about time we put an end to
this.”

“
Put an end to what, brother?” the
Master replied mockingly. “To your misery, or to mine?

“
You might have taken my staff
from me, but you haven’t taken the power that runs through my
veins. I am still just as strong, if not stronger than you
are.”

“
This is not a competition,
Asura,” Aine said loudly. “This isn’t about who’s stronger. And you
know it.”

“
Hasn’t it
always been?” the Master said on a rather violent tone. “If I
remember correctly, the five of you were always keen to showing off
your power and authority to anyone dumb enough to listen to your
preposterous stories. The stories you made up just to tell everyone
how
great
you
are.” The tone of the Master’s voice clearly let shine through how
much he truly
despised
his siblings – he hated them in the deepest grounds of his
heart.

“
Show off. That’s all you lot ever
did.”

He paused for a moment before
continuing, perhaps hoping to get a counterargument from his
siblings. “I’m getting tired of this conversation, it feels a
little one-sided. Are we doing this or not?”

Without his magic, the Master had to control
his magic with his hands. It wasn’t much of a problem, but his
staff had always given him advantages his hands didn’t give him.
But, with his hands, the Master always tended to get a bit more
creative when it came to magic.

There was this particular trick the Master had
always used; he was curious to find out whether or not he’d still
be able to pull it off.

The Master raised his arm; a
string of his signature fog surrounded his arm, thickening as it
crept closer the Master’s hand. The black string eventually crept
over the Master’s hand and through his fingers, launching itself
spiralling into the night sky, where it reshaped itself into a dark
dragon.

The shadow dragon followed the
Master’s commands, attacking the Spirits of Light both physically
and by spewing its dark fire at them (proving that the latter was
more effective).

The Spirits of Light responded respectively;
combining their powers together, they made a dragon of their own,
in the exact same way the Master had made his; made of light, and
spewing green fire. The light dragon challenged the dark dragon,
allowing the conversation between both parties to continue while
the dragons were occupied.

“
Do you truly feel like we abused
you, Asura?” Akilah asked, genuinely concerned about her younger
brother, who seemed rather annoyed with her concern as well as her
question.

“
Yes, Akilah,”
he snarled, “I do. I always did. What o you think made me like
this?” His eyes narrowed. “Do you really think I was
born
evil? No. I
was
sculpted
into
an evil shell after my creation.

By the five of you.”

The anger in the Master’s voice
was beyond any measure. Never had Akilah heard any man, woman, or
any other creature speak in such a hateful way. And it broke her
heart.

“
This
monster
you see,
Akilah,” the Master continued, “the monster in front of you, is the
result of your own actions. If the five of you
truly
never wanted any of this to
happen, then you should’ve thought of that before leaving me in the
dark for all those years.” He laughed. “
Literally
in the dark.” He called
back his dragon, commanding it to attack the Spirits again, but
they were quick to dodge, using their own dragon as a
shield.

The Master snorted in dismay. “Too afraid to
fight, are we?”

“
We’re not afraid to fight,
Asura,” Ince said, “we’re just too stunned by your reasons to
attack us.”

The Master took a deep breath.
“You didn’t listen,” he said. “I have been repeating this story to
you over and over for the past... what,
two
thousand years?

“
And yet, you’re still
surprised.”

The Spirits just looked at each other for a
moment. Ince couldn’t help but stare at Akilah; the expression in
her eyes was more than just sad. It was heartbroken.

Akilah knew. She’d always known.
Ever since Lunaria’s creation, the Spirits had been there. And ever
since the Spirits created their little brother Asura to take on the
toughest task they could’ve possibly given him, Akilah knew that
Asura would be in pain.

Akilah knew for years. Centuries. Millennia,
even. And still, she never did anything to lift the weight or help
her brother. And she was ashamed for never doing so.

Something inside of Akilah saw everything
Asura had gone through, everything that had happened to him until
what he’d become now, was directly her own fault, because she’d
been too afraid to, as the oldest of her siblings, put a stop to
something.

Perhaps she’d just been too afraid to actually
show her authority to the people it would’ve mattered most to: her
own siblings.

Akilah had only one hope left: the hope that
she’d be able to make it right. Right here, right now. The only
thing she knew for sure was that she’d have to be the one to do
it.

“
Asura,” Akilah said, rising up to
the Master’s level, above the dragon’s safety. “Please, give me a
chance to speak to you.”

The Master didn’t respond; he narrowed his
eyes at his sister. “Go on.”

“
Thank you,” Akilah said
thankfully. “Asura, listen. I’m sorry. I can’t even begin to tell
you how sorry I am.” She shook her head, not sure how to continue.
“We... we created you to fulfil a purpose we were simply too afraid
to. And it was wrong. But – we were happy to have you. We never
wanted to hurt you. Honestly, we underestimated how difficult your
task was and the effects it had on you.

“
We should’ve taken it on
ourselves. Controlling the dark and the negative, I mean. If we
would’ve shared the burden, no one would’ve been
harmed.”

Something changed in the Master’s posture,
although his position remained hostile. Still, he didn’t attack
Akilah or tell her to stop talking.

He just simply stared at her, as if he was
about to smile. And perhaps, deep inside his heart, he wanted to.
Maybe he did want things to go back to normal, to what everything
had once been like.

But it was too late.

“
No,” the Master said. “As much as
I appreciate your apologies, they’re meaningless now.

In fact, I believe this apology is
about two hundred millennia late.”

The Master raised his arm,
summoning his dragon behind him. “Kill her,” he said, all emotion
absent from his voice. “Kill them all.”

Memory

The Guardians were on their way to the Light
Castle. In order to save Lunaria, they had to the Ritual and
restore the light to the realms. If necessary, the Guardians could
deal with the Master after completing the Ritual.

To the adults, the Ritual was a
more or less familiar event, but the teenagers clearly needed some
preparation. Both mentally
and
physically.

Although they were in a hurry, the Guardians
stopped running after they’d left the Dark Castle; ironically, the
two castles were set fairly close together.

Perhaps they already knew
something was up. Something just simply didn’t feel right, and it
wasn’t just the darkness in the Land of Void.

“
Hey, Dad?” Mari said; she and her
father were walking behind the group. Mari wanted to talk to her
father in private. “Thank you for saving me earlier.”

“
That wasn’t just me, Mari,”
Antonio said, putting an arm around his daughter’s shoulder. “Luke
helped with that. He had the powder.”

“
Yes, but you were the one keeping
me in one place,” Mari said. “Thanks to you, Luke was able to
sprinkle it on me. Otherwise, I still would’ve been running all
over the place, not stopping until you were all dead.” She laughed
at how morbid that sounded. “I’m glad none of that happened,
though.”

Antonio pulled his daughter closer, teasingly
ruffling his daughter’s hair. “As if we’d ever allow it to,” he
said.

Mari smiled at her father. “I’m sorry for
leaving, Dad,” she said. “I never should’ve listened to that voice
in my head – I believe it was the Master all along.”

The corner of Antonio’s mouth jerked. “Well, I
guess that that’s my fault somewhere, too,” he said, suddenly
lowering the volume of his voice. “When you were little, I kind
of... broke a strict rule the Spirits had imposed on us before we
left Lunaria.”

Mari gave her father a confused look. “What do
you mean, Dad?” she asked.

“
Well...” Antonio said, chuckling
nervously. “My friends and I were chosen to protect Lunaria because
we’d read a book. And as soon as we’d saved Lunaria, Akilah warned
us to never read our touch the book again.” He paused to look at
his daughter. “I broke that rule long before your friends
did.”

“
You... read that book to me,”
Mari guessed; Antonio nodded.

“
That’s exactly what I did. And...
I’m thinking that maybe that’s why the Master found
you.”

“
Don’t sweat it, Dad,” Mari
assured her father. “I don’t think something small and innocent
like that matters by now.” She nervously moved her hands about as
she spoke. Her father seemed to disagree with her statement,
though.

“
It might not matter to the
others,” he explained, “but it does to me.” He looked at the sky
for a moment; the moon was peeking through the thick layers of
clouds, shining a faint light on the Land of Void. “It feels as if
I shoved you way from your mother and me.” He let out a faint
chuckle. “I was young, and dumb enough to be convinced that the
book wouldn’t have that much of an impact on our lives anymore. But
I was wrong.”

Antonio let out a sigh of defeat
as Mari looked at him; she smiled. “We’ve all made mistakes, Dad,”
she said. “And this is our chance to make them right.” She stared
into the distance as she continued to speak. “When we get back
home, I’d like to live with you and Mum. Maybe go to college... if
I can manage leading a normal life again.”

Antonio held his daughter close as they caught
up with the group. “Of course you can,” he said. “We’d be more than
glad to have you back, Mari.

“
However, there is one
condition.”

Mari gave her father a confused look; Antonio
looked back, a mischievous twinkle shining in his dark green
eyes.

“
When we get back, you’ll tell me
all about the adventures you had out there – and the reason why we
couldn’t find you,” Antonio said. Mari chuckled.

“
Alright, then,” she said, “but
after that, we leave the past behind, okay?

“
I think it’s about time we
stopped looking back and started looking forward. I’ve been looking
back since the day I left.”

“
Then what stopped you from going
in the direction you were looking at?” Antonio asked.

“
Time doesn’t go backwards,
Dad.”