Chapter-IX

Two days had passed and Karsyn had still not come out of her room. Shalom walked around like a ghost and Trystan spent all his time in the training rooms. Bren knew he blamed himself. How could he not? Jenny was on his watch and he thinks he should have protected her. In a way, everyone was blaming themselves for her absence. Karsyn wishes she didn't let her go in the first place, Shalom is the same, Kyan has this hero complex and now he won't come out of his lab to do anything. Bren could feel everyone falling apart at the seams. She didn't know what to do.

Walking down the house's countless hallways, Bren reminisced the old days where Karsyn and Shalom would be huddled up together and Trystan and Kyan would goof around while her, Cadence and Adrian discuss the newest innovation of the Earth realms.

Adrian.

His name still brought shivers to her spine. No one knew that every night she cried herself to sleep with a photo of him clutched to her chest. He was her first love. The only one who knew her inside out. The edges and the curves. He was everything to her and he was gone. Just like Jenny. Jenny had adored Adrian. She was too small of course, but she loved grabbing onto his curly hair and yank at it until he pried her hands out. He was so good with kids. Their immortality came at the price of their fertility. Immortality is a  gift. Stoechìans had long lives, but they could die. Immortals, on the other hand, could only die when their Crystal energies were diminished using powdered lava-rock daggers welded in Ice fire. They were incredibly rare to find and also very difficult to make. The material was illegal and highly flammable to even risk transport.

Bren remembered how in the beginning, when she had still not accepted that he was truly gone, she would kneel at his empty grave and scream expletives at him. 

Scoffing, she shook her head at that thought. Everyone thought him dead, but she knew; felt it in the deepest of her bones that he was alive. Just not alive in Stoechìa.

Sighing some more, she rubbed her sleep-deprived eyes and walked to the basement where the training rooms were situated. She ducked into the cavernous room which was completely at odds with its build which was underground, another one of many engineering and magical Marvels of the house.

Trystan was in the middle of the sparring mat, beating the hell out of a rubber dummy. He back-flipped and landed in a crouch. She was so focused on his backflip that she'd missed the knives that were thrown directly at her head. She quickly dodged them with a mere flick of her hand. "I never thought you would be so easily distracted with party tricks Brenneth." He drawled in a bored voice, at the same time un-strapping his dagger sheaths from his chest.

"You haven't eaten a meal in days and barely slept Trystan. Unless you want me to kick your ass and then shove your foot up the formerly mentioned ass then you will accompany me to Karsyn's rooms and drag her out with Shalom's help." She retorted in a bored voice.

He grunted a humourless laugh at her in answer.

"Have you informed Cadence about Jenny?"

She nodded in affirmance.

"Is he coming home?"

"He's en route."

"The girl?"

"She lost her aunt in a Tem attack."

"In Rhodesïa?"

"Yes, your father is hiding something and this girl is the key to what it is."

"Do you need me to go personally greet them?"

"I would appreciate it."

"Consider it done."

"Now, let's get some food in you, Shalom's and Karsyn's stomachs, yes?"

Trystan nodded in assent and twitched his lips in a semblance of a smile.

"Remember, there is always hope."

"And so is despair." He continued in a subdued manner.

Then they walked out together, not knowing of the storm brewing in their near future.

...

Trystan banged on Shalom and Karsyn's bedroom chambers.

The door opened to reveal a rumpled Shalom and a pale Karsyn.

"Change and sit your asses down in the breakfast room." He growled, barging into the room.

Karsyn nodded and ran inside the bathing room leaving behind a grateful Shalom.

"Your tough love is a godsend for the first time since you were born."

"Listen Shal, I know we all are hurting and that we are falling apart. We need to pull ourselves together and be there for each other. Go and drag Kyan put him out of his misery and ask him to join us in the breakfast room, I'll make sure Karsyn gets there. We have a business and a new guest to attend to. "

Lifting his chin in consensus, he ran down the hallway towards Kyan's lab.

Taking a deep breath in, he walked through the door to face the mother of his late niece.

...

Twyll looked out the porthole in her cabin, noticing the bleak sky and dark clouds. Distance rumbles of thunder muffled by the huffing and puffing of the steam engines of the ship.

She stood and walked put the room in search of Cadence. He had been avoiding her since his outburst and she had had enough of it.

Walking into the library/training room, she was surprised to see him sitting in an armchair reading instead of burning energy sparring or exercising.

"Did you know that love is just a bunch of hormones released to make us procreate?"

She stilled, not knowing how to answer that. 

"Have you ever fallen in love Twyll?"

"No. Not really. Why?"

"I was just wondering. I have been thinking of past relationships and how it could've gone better."

"Who was it? The one who made you remember," she asked.

"She was everything you would want in a girl. Beautiful, kind, caring. I fancied myself in love with her."

"What happened?" She urged.

"She wanted to get married and have kids. I wanted to spend a few more years before doing that. I mean, I was only 17. One night we fought and she stormed out of the house. A few weeks after that Trystan burst into my room, dragging behind him my crying lover. He told me in a deathly calm voice that he found her in an abortion clinic going into surgery to kill her child. A child that wasn't mine. The night we had fought she had gone and gotten drunk. She had tried luring Trystan to bed as a ploy to make me jealous, but Trystan, that noble douche would never touch another man's girl. So in a drunken haze, she slept with some random fellow at the tavern and became pregnant. She didn't even have the conscience to tell me and tried to kill it off. I was furious with her and left her with a bag of coins."

Twyll laughed bitterly.

"My lover was caught by me in bed with my two best friends. One was sitting on his face while the other on his...lap." She muttered in barely repressed disgust.

"I guess we've both been unlucky in love." He mused.

"Hmmm."

"What if we kissed?"

She looked intrigued.

"Like an experiment to see if we are attracted to each other or not?"

"Yes."

"Ok." She replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

She slowly leaned into him as he inched forward. Their lips brushed. Once, twice.

It feels nice.

Twyll thought.

There was a certain warmth in her, but no fire. She felt like she was kissing her friend whom she had known forever.

"I feel absolutely nothing." Cadence declared.

"Me neither." She agreed.

He sighed.

"It would have been so much easier if you were the One."

"Yeah, way less complicated."

Laughing, they walked back to their respective rooms, the brewing storm going unnoticed with the storms in their heads.