Page 65 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)

The End of the Ocean

HREE WEEKS HAD passed with nothing to show for it but the mystery of the woods. The first three weeks, that’s all there was, the illusion peeling off the forests like black fear, releasing the war-torn version of the world to them for eternity.

Two weeks after that, powers began to dissolve, both Veilin and Venennin.

Dae remained with his arms crossed, observing the horizon as Iris came up beside him, slipping her arm through his.

“They’re saying it’s the end of Veilin and Venennin,” Iris said. “Cyrus found a corpse in the woods last night. They are saying it used to be a forest beast. Only sign of them we’ve seen. The Insednians have lost their silver eyes.”

“I tried to reinforce a weapon this morning,” Dae said, and then glanced down at his hand. “Nothing.”

“The end of The Decline,” Iris said.

“The end of the world,” Dae whispered.

“Or the beginning of it. Some version of it ended a long time ago. We’ve been trapped in this place,” Iris murmured, leaning against his shoulder. “Trapped in good and evil, a play of light and darkness. Maybe that’s what the forest represented from the start.”

“Seeing the truth of it all in broad daylight, I miss the illusion,” Dae whispered, and they both settled into silence. “But our powers didn’t fade immediately,” he said after a time. “Where are they?”

They both considered the question, neither offering an answer.

“I don’t know,” said Iris. “Maybe freedom to them means something different than this place. Where Loda was always freedom to you. The council is going to need you soon. Without Clea and the others, someone needs to rebuild this place.”

Dae looked down at her, his face troubled. “You’re so calm.”

She looked back out at the horizon.

“Look at it,” she whispered to the quiet of the woods. “It’s all calm. Balanced. Do you hear it? Silence. Rest.”

“Rest,” Dae repeated, and the word seemed to linger over the world.

???

It took Iris and the scout team commissioned by the king several weeks to find Salanes.

They were in wonder of the vacancy of the woods, not a single beast daring their path.

The ancient city was beautiful in its mystery.

Iris explored every inch of it and found evidence of the battle and the beast they’d slain.

She found marks from the fight and Ryson’s weapon resting over the coffin in ceremony, a sign that they had won.

Iris walked through the ruins, scouring every inch of this mysterious new world, and was relieved to find no signs of Ryson or Clea.

“Iris,” someone called.

She turned from the coffin and walked up to see several gathered around the discarded ashes of a campfire. Iris smiled softly, adjusting her gear as she looked down at the ashes, remembering Clea’s stories about campfires.

She sighed, looking off toward the woods. “I guess that’s it,” she said, looking over the ruins.

“That’s it?” one of the scouts said.

“That’s it,” Iris repeated. “They will be found when they want to be found, but I think they deserve their peace. Though we might as well take a look around since we made it all the way here.”

The teams split up and explored the ancient and overgrown city of Salanes.

The expedition lasted several days, capturing drawings, notes, and observations about the culture of Salanes, uncovering and collecting valuable books, and even discovering their royal catacombs.

A smaller group perused through the inner catacombs, deciphering the graves and the histories inscribed on the walls in great detail.

It was several hours before they arrived at Prince Eras’s tomb.

“The hero of Salanes,” one of the scouts said, drawing the attention of several others in the room.

Iris chuckled to herself. “Open it,” she said.

“Open it?” one of the scouts said, horrified.

Iris offered a hand, gesturing for a crowbar and promptly receiving one.

“Iris, this is highly irregular. I don’t think the king—”

“Dae will let me do what I want on this venture, trust me,” she responded, sinking the crowbar into the top of the grave and prying it open. “But this is nothing, trust me. Just watch.”

She heaved the grave open, and it scraped against the stone, dust spilling into the air. She held her breath as she stepped back and waved her hand through the air with a cough.

When the dust gestured, she gestured to the tomb. “See? Empty. The heroes all became Venennin. No bodies were ever actually returned to their cities.”

The scouts looked into the tomb and then back at her, back and forth hesitantly.

“What?” she asked, and then approached. She stopped dead over the tomb, looking into the tomb at the mummified corpse inside.

She checked the coffin, confirming the details of the person who remained inside. They all watched her in silence as she traced a finger over the coffin.

“This says the Prince of Salanes’s body was returned to his city just when Vanida’s was returned to hers.

Both dead,” she whispered. “Vanida gave her life for the cause, and Prince Eras gave,” she stopped.

“No, this isn’t right.” After a few moments, she backed away and eased down on a bench in the corner.

“Iris?” one of the scouts asked.

She stared at the ground thoughtfully.

“What is it?”

She took a breath, leaning back as she crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling.

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, but didn’t know how to speak the words. More obscure lines of the legend spoke of how Prince Eras, in his final moments, had made some kind of exchange, reaching beyond cien and ansra.

“How did he actually get out of The Eating Ocean?” she whispered.

“You said that he got out by going through it,” one of the scouts answered, like one of the voices in her head. “Yeah, but now I’m realizing I don’t actually know what that means. What could possibly be on the other side of cien?”

The scouts all considered each other, one of them glancing into the coffin. “My guess would be death,” they said somewhat humorously. A few others laughed, but Iris hung on the word, taking it seriously.

“I guess, what better thing to call on than what cien was running from since the start. A healer who couldn’t heal might very well call on death instead to finish the job.

” Iris eased back up to her feet, walking over to the coffin and resting her hands on the edge of it as she looked inside.

One of the scouts crept up beside her, torch in hand, and the light flickered over the interior. Something in the mummy's eyes glinted.

Iris leaned over, reaching into its eye sockets and removing small pieces of mirror carved in the shape of eyes.

She inspected them thoughtfully before looking back at the writing on the lid of the coffin.

“Death is a silent mirror, reflecting the lights of life,” she said, finger moving slowly back and forth across the tiny mirror.

“What do you think it means?” she breathed to herself. She looked at all of them. No one offered answers. She paced quietly and pointed out one small scout standing behind the rest.

“Did any of you ever think it’s odd how the Insednian curse turns its victim’s eyes silver?

Odd thing for a curse to do,” she said. “If curses have to be carefully designed, why waste energy on a detail like that when a curse that gives you access to another’s will is cumbersome enough?

” she asked, and they all looked at each other.

“What are you suggesting?” someone chirped.

Iris wasn’t sure. She retreated back to the bench again and sat down, her mind racing so quickly she almost felt like she would fall over.

“I suppose, what anyone could suggest,” she whispered, “that the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Quieter, she added, “and what better way to be in our world than to borrow one, especially if someone on our side opens the door.”

She rubbed her face tiredly and groaned. “Clea, if I ever see you again, you will be getting an earful about your taste in men.”

???

Clea looked out at Loda from a distance with its open gates, and knew at last this world could perhaps be free of symbols and so could she. She saw the flags of every city perched along the walls.

She turned back to see a familiar face standing at the tree line. He offered a hand, an invitation to go into the forest forever, to live a life and one day die in order to give it back. That was the nature of life after all, something borrowed and somehow still something that existed forever.

She remembered taking his hand on the wall of Virday before they’d descended into the woods.

It was a game of trust then, but now that game was over.

There were no symbols, only people, and the forest’s darkness had no domain.

It was a new world, free again, and one they could both dissolve into together.

She approached and slid her hand into his, warm as it embraced hers and pulled her close. She looked into a pair of silver eyes.

He didn’t speak.

Neither did she.

They both knew what it all meant.

Free of the symbols they’d been trapped in, free of the temptation of their vices, they were also free of their illusions.

No longer locked in the lights of life, at last, they could live it.

From the beginning, it had been a game of trust.

They’d played it well and won.

“You still have your eyes, but I’ve lost my power to heal. How is that fair?” she said, grazing his cheek, a playful smile on her lips.

He grinned, pulling her close. “You’ll never lose your power to heal,” he said, “but I suppose some mysteries still remain.”

She picked through his hair thoughtfully. “Yes,” she whispered. “You never told me how you got out of the Ocean and rescued the others after your first battle with Prince. Tenida just said that the healer closed his eyes and communed with forces even beyond the Ocean.”

“I made an exchange,” he said. “Something had wounded Prince in the first place, set all of this in motion. It’s natural, don’t you think, to guess something was still looking for him? Something that might also need access to the human plane, might need a host in order to finish its work.”

She combed her hands through his hair thoughtfully, “You think that’s what helped you?

Odd to think that creatures like that exist beyond us.

Like gods, squabbling over eternity. It’s terrible and comical that Prince wanted to squeeze himself into such a small form and live such a short life as we do,” she whispered, looking into his eyes.

She moved away from him, light on her feet as she looked out at the city.

“It’s not so strange,” Ryson said from behind her.

“Death is such an eternal thing. Even if such a creature stumbled into such a predicament as this, I think, he too, might get lost in all of its peculiarity. He might get so entranced in playing the role, of having a mind, body, heart, and soul, he might be unable to part with it by choice.”

She leaned up against a tree and then turned back into the woods with a smile on her face.

“That’s true. It really is rather special, isn’t it?

” She trotted back over to him. “Are you implying you’re a god?

” she asked with dramatic sweeps of her arms toward the sky.

“Confidently striding into life, and one day deciding, ‘Oh? Yes! Maybe I’ll stay here.’”

“Not a god,” he laughed.

“Otherworldly being!” She threw her arms again as she danced into the woods. “So special!” she called and then laughed to herself. “By cien, the breadth of the male ego.”

“You always ask for the truth and somehow are determined to never believe it,” he called back to her, following her through the woods.

“You always ask for the truth and somehow are determined to never believe it!” She repeated him in sing-song mockery.

???

Ryson felt her presence through the woods, watching her lead as the sunlight cascaded off her hair.

She glanced back at him and grinned, and he felt the joy between them, felt the lightness of a heart he still had.

This was a grand experiment with a force he’d always loved from a distance, and she was life.

He wouldn’t know how to continue on without the thread of her tying him to this world.

And it was his nature to wait for life. He would never have to pursue it like he had pursued Prince through eons of time.

He could never catch life, but in all her forms and power, she would leave and come back to him again and again.

Each time, she would forget and remember him again, as life was, recognizing him again only in the end, but this one time was different.

He’d grown close to this expression of her, this reflection of her, a girl who had been born and grown up around an illness that had always kept him close to her.

She had not feared him, but had patiently waited alongside him, grown up alongside him, reminded him of who he was when he’d gotten so lost in the toil of it all, forgetting who he was and why he’d been invited here in the first place.

Shell. His reminder had always been in the name, and until she’d said it again, he’d been unable to truly embrace what it had meant from the start. He was lifeless, but not at all in a disparaging sense. No. He was meant to hold. He was meant to cradle life.

She wasn’t afraid of him. She received and released him with all of the power of the world, and she did have that power. He embodied one force, she’d come to embody the other. Both, in perfect balance.

He reached forward and took her hand, feeling its warmth. This time, they’d have several years, and when he lost her, he’d wait for her to come back because she always would in this eternal dance. The illusion was only the play, but beneath it all, it never changed.

She would always return, but never belong to him. They’d yearn for each other, perhaps forever, united and separated, again and again, and that was the beauty of love, just like the waves of an ocean.