The Soul Prophecy, page 22
‘No, have mercy!’ he begs, the bully turned coward in the blink of an eye.
‘Tssk, you’re not even worth wasting my energy on,’ I say, spitting on him.
Witnessing my bold stand, the other slaves take courage at my defiance and as one rise up to fight for their freedom. The guards within the courtyard are quickly overwhelmed and I’m given a clear path into the palace. Armed with both whip and stick, I dash up the steps, through a pair of huge, metal-studded wooden doors and into an empty entrance hall. I race along a corridor that’s lit by oil lamps, following the sound of my sister’s screams, until I come out into a vast chamber.
Here, under the flickering light of more oil lamps, a black-cloaked congregation is in the middle of a monotonous chant – ‘Ra-Ka! Ra-Ka! Ra-Ka!’ – while they bow in unison before a towering statue of Nergal, the gruesome lion-headed Sumerian god of plague and war. At the statue’s base stands Saragon, the Incarnate leader, tall and proud in his blood-stained white robes, his golden headband gleaming in the lamplight. Aya lies before him on a wide marble altar, her limbs pinned by four gold-masked acolytes. She struggles, but futilely, as Saragon pours a steaming liquid down her throat. Then he begins to utter a strange incantation: ‘Rura, rkumaa, raar ard ruhrd …’
Never before have I witnessed such a ritual, not in this life nor in our previous ones, but Saragon’s warped words fill me with the utmost dread. As he raises a gold dagger aloft in both hands, I share my sister’s overwhelming panic; feel her terror and the pain of the scalding potion in her stomach; sense even her gradual paralysis as the potion somehow seeps into my own limbs as well as hers.
Fighting against the numbing sensation, I charge into the chamber intent on rescuing her, but in my haste I run straight into the guard standing sentry at the doorway, a long spear tipped with a burnished copper spike in his grasp. As he turns to confront me, I strike his head hard with my stick. He collapses in a heap and, discarding my stick and whip, I grab his spear before it clatters to the marble floor. Then, striding boldly forward, I launch the weapon with all my strength at Saragon. It flies true through the air, whistling over the heads of the black-cloaked congregation.
The Lugal glances up, a surprised scowl on his bearded face as the spear shoots towards him. But at the last second he deftly evades its deadly tip and catches the wooden shaft in mid-air. I stare, aghast.
His cold mocking laughter echoes round the now-silent chamber. Then he snaps the spear in half across his knee. ‘Guards, seize her!’
I try to run but a muscled sentry grabs me from behind.
Saragon raises the glinting dagger over Aya once more and looks at me. ‘Well,’ he gloats, ‘now you can watch as I tear out your twin’s heart and destroy her soul for eternity!’
‘F-for eternity?’ I exclaim, meeting my sister’s drugged and despairing gaze.
‘Yes! The Light of Humanity will be extinguished soul by soul.’ A scythe-like smile cuts across Saragon’s lips. ‘Bring the girl closer so she can witness my dark power first hand.’
But the guard doesn’t obey the command. Instead he pulls me back towards the corridor.
‘I said, BRING HER TO ME!’ Saragon thunders.
Still the guard retreats, forcibly taking me with him. I manage to glance over my shoulder at my captor. His eyes sparkle like stars. ‘Asani?’ I gasp, recognizing his soul.
‘Bashaa to you in this life,’ my Soul Protector replies as the black-cloaked congregation turns on us both. With us in danger of being surrounded and our escape route cut off, Bashaa thrusts his spear into a large clay jar by the wall, cracking it open. Oil spills out across the marble floor, making it slick and treacherous. But that’s only half his plan. He kicks over a burning lamp, the flame igniting the oil and turning the floor into an inferno. The blaze pushes back the Incarnate congregation, but also separates me from my sister.
‘NO!’ I cry as Bashaa drags me away. ‘What about Aya?’
‘I am your Soul Protector, first and foremost,’ he replies, holding me tightly as I frantically try to break free. ‘I can’t save you both.’
Through the flames I lock eyes with my twin, our connection eternal and undying … or so I thought. With a final invocation of ‘RA-KA!’, Saragon buries the gold dagger in my sister’s chest. She screams and I scream, our soul-shattering shrieks resounding through the chamber like a cyclone. Aya’s body and soul are rent from each other and I feel an agonizing wrench deep within me, as if my own heart is being torn from my chest too. Unimaginable pain rips through me. I reach out in desperation to my sister.
She calls out my soul name: ‘TISHALA!’ The starlit gleam in her eyes blazes briefly, before fading all too fast. Then, like a blade of ice, Saragon’s spell severs our connected souls. It cleaves through the core of my very being, my very Light, and the world around me darkens –
40
‘Genna! Speak to me! Are you OK?’
Opening my eyes, I discover Caleb kneeling beside me on the floor of the Sun Room, his mane of white hair slightly dishevelled and his cane discarded to one side as if abandoned in a hurry. I’m lying sprawled at the foot of the marble pedestal, its crystal capstone emitting a muted glow but no longer burning with its previous intensity. Despite the warming presence of the Light within the glass pyramid, I feel chilled to the bone, my heart hollowed out, as if my soul has somehow shrunk.
‘Tanas … killed … my sister,’ I mutter, my chest so tight I struggle to say the words. ‘Destroyed … her soul …’
With a sorrowful sigh, Caleb bows his head. ‘Yes, he did.’
I sit up, tears blurring my vision. ‘Why did her death hurt so much?’ I ask, clasping my still-aching heart. ‘It felt like I was dying too.’
‘You were, in a way,’ Caleb replies. ‘You see, Aya wasn’t just your sister in that life, or the lives before that. She was your Soul Twin.’
I blink away my tears. ‘My Soul Twin?’
Caleb nods and helps me to my feet. ‘When you were first born as Tishala, a carrier of the Light, you had an identical twin – Lakeisha.’
As he says this, I remember her as clearly as if she was standing right before me. Her oval, dark-skinned face, fresh and smooth like a pebble from the river. Her short black hair, braided and adorned with coloured beads. Her sapphire-blue eyes bright, beaming and endearingly innocent. Her smile wide and ever joyful, her laugh like the trickle of a stream. My heart warms at my vibrant memory of her, of our lives together and entwined. Not just as Lakeisha … but as the fair-skinned Aya … and all of a sudden I realize she was also the girl with long, flowing hair and white shimmering robes who I’d seen during my intense Glimmer in the stone circle with Phoenix near Andover. The memories start coming thick and fast … The two of us playing by a stream together and trying to catch a frog … collecting honey in the Amazonian jungle and getting stung for our efforts … hunting a gazelle across the open savannah, then being chased by a hungry lion … hiding in a snowy Himalayan cave as Soul Hunters passed close by … But now I know these memories are all ancient, all from before her death at Tanas’s hand.
‘You were formed from the same spark of Light,’ Caleb explains, running a finger along the edge of the pedestal and causing the soft glow within the crystal to coalesce into a single tiny particle. It hovers in the centre of the capstone, bright as a star at night. ‘In essence, you shared each other’s soul.’
With another touch of his finger, the spark divides in two. ‘What she felt, you felt. What you experienced, she experienced.’
As the two sparks orbit one another, I begin to understand my deep connection to my twin – the shared Light that bound us together like gravity.
‘In breaking this unique and powerful soul bond, Tanas caused excruciating pain to both you and your sister,’ says Caleb with a grim expression. Then he looks at me, the slightest of smiles turning up the corners of his wrinkled mouth. ‘However, like splitting the atom, he also released an immense burst of energy. This means you, Genna, carry more Light than the other First Ascendants. Your sister may have been killed by Tanas, her soul destroyed for eternity, but at her death she passed on some of her Light to you.’
I give Caleb a questioning look. ‘Do you mean I’m different to the others?’
Caleb nods. ‘Yes. You shine brighter.’
As I let this sink in, I think about what Empote told me: But one Soul shines brighter and bolder than the rest. My heart begins to pound a little harder and I force myself to take a steadying breath before saying, ‘Empote thinks I’m the one foretold in the Soul Prophecy.’
‘I know he does,’ Caleb replies, his expression impassive.
‘And so … what do you think?’ I ask hesitantly, scared of what his answer might be.
Once more he peers into my eyes as if searching for something. A struggle plays out across his aged face, then he says, ‘I can’t tell.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t tell?’ I say, confused by his response. ‘Are you saying that you won’t tell me, or that you don’t know? There’s a difference.’
Caleb drops his gaze to the two sparks circling one another within the capstone and falls silent.
‘You’re a Soul Seer!’ I exclaim in frustration. ‘Surely you of all people should know!’
‘I’ve been proved wrong before,’ he admits ruefully.
I try to meet his eye. ‘How so?’
But the Soul Seer continues to stare fixedly at the capstone, his jaw tense, his brow furrowed. ‘It doesn’t matter!’ he replies through clenched teeth. ‘What’s done is done. I’m not even sure I believe in the Prophecy any more!’
‘OK,’ I reply gently, taken aback by his uncharacteristic anger. ‘Still, Soul Prophecy or not, Tanas has to be destroyed. Surely it’s our only hope if the Light of Humanity is to be saved.’
‘No. It isn’t.’ Caleb shakes his head firmly. ‘We can hide and thereby protect the Light.’
‘But for how much longer?’ I argue, thinking of how our numbers have been whittled down over the centuries.
‘For as long as we have to!’ he replies sharply. ‘Whatever happens, I will not risk your soul or your Light ever again – or the souls of any of the remaining First Ascendants!’
With that, Caleb picks up his cane and walks determinedly out of the pyramid.
As his footsteps echo away, I stand alone with my thoughts, a storm of emotions brewing in me. Added to my rage at Tanas for killing my Soul Twin Lakeisha and extinguishing her Light there’s bewilderment as to where her Protector was in her time of need. There’s still the raw grief over the murder of my present-life parents and at the same time concern for the unknown fate of my Soul Mother and Father. There’s the shock too of Caleb’s confession that he’s made a mistake interpreting the Soul Prophecy in the past … and a frustration boiling over into fury at our apparent powerlessness in the face of the relentless Incarnates.
Caught up in these chaotic thoughts, I clench my fists and want to let out a scream so loud that it’ll shatter the glass panes in the pyramid.
Gradually, though, the turmoil subsides. At least I now understand why Caleb is so cautious, so over-protective of his charges. Haven is his means of keeping the surviving First Ascendants and their souls safe.
It’s also his way of avoiding the final and inevitable battle between the Darkness and the Light.
But now that I can recall my Soul Twin and how she died, I will no longer allow Tanas and his Hunters to pick us off, one by one, until the Light is ultimately extinguished. Soul Prophecy or not, I am determined to make a stand. To stop Tanas, once and for all, and end his reign of terror.
No longer will I run. No longer will I hide. No longer will I be the hunted!
41
My resolve hardened, I leave the Sun Room to look for Phoenix. He’s the one person who understands me best and will stand by my side, no matter how great the danger. I just need to convince him of my plan.
Crossing the plaza, I enter the glass atrium and discover the Protectors’ quarters are abuzz with activity. Clara, Tasha’s Protector, is addressing a group of four Warriors, including the Scandinavian twins I’d seen in Goggins’ martial arts class the day I arrived. Today they look like a couple of ranch hands, kitted out in matching denim jeans, checked shirts and rawhide cowboy hats perched atop their tangles of straw-blond hair. I briefly wonder if these two Warriors have the same connection I had with my Soul Twin, or they just happen to be born together in this life.
‘Goggins wants a round-the-clock patrol of the perimeter,’ Clara is telling the group. ‘Report any unusual activity, however insignificant.’
As the four Warriors march off to begin their sentry duty, I approach Clara, a tall, willowy woman with a bob of black hair streaked grey. Her cheekbones are well-defined, her starlit eyes wide and cat-like, and her skin porcelain smooth, lending her the poise and looks of a former model. But when she turns towards me, I see for the first time the full extent of the vicious scar the FSB Hunter inflicted on her, a jagged red line that runs from her right eye to the tip of her pointed chin.
‘You must be Genna,’ she says with a lopsided grin. ‘The cause of all this excitement.’
I smile awkwardly, embarrassed by her dig at me. ‘I’m sorry –’
‘I’m sure you are,’ she says curtly, cutting me off. ‘But nothing we do or say can change the past.’
Feeling my cheeks flush hot, I bow my head in shame.
‘However,’ Clara continues, ‘everything we do now changes the future. So whatever the fallout from your little expedition, I want you to know I think Phoenix is fortunate to have you as his First Ascendant. Our strength lies in our loyalty to one another.’
I glance up, surprised. ‘Thanks,’ I say, reassured that I did the right thing by my Protector and that someone else thinks so too. ‘Do you know where Phoenix is?’ I ask.
‘Training ground,’ she replies, pointing down the atrium’s main corridor. ‘At least that’s where I saw him last.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, and hurry away. I pass the lecture hall where Goggins is briefing another group of Protectors and Warriors. From the volume of his voice, it’s evident he’s still in a foul mood. I duck under the door’s small window, not wishing to become the target of his wrath a second time. At the end of the corridor I see Tarek hunkered down in his shielded computer room. Through the mesh-lined window, I spot him analysing the feed from several surveillance cameras positioned around Haven, the abandoned mining town and the surrounding mountain range. From a quick glance there doesn’t appear to be any sign of Tanas or her Hunters and I allow myself a little hope that Empote has been successful and has led the Incarnates on a false trail away from Haven.
Then I bump into the red-haired Lena carrying an assault rifle that looks three times too big for her. ‘Wow, that’s some weapon!’ I remark.
Lena grins like a mother with a newborn baby. ‘An FN Scar 17S,’ she says proudly, patting the barrel. ‘A high-end adaptive automatic rifle, weighing only three point one nine kilograms. Shoots over six hundred rounds per minute, with an effective firing range of up to nine hundred metres!’
I nod and try to look suitably impressed. ‘You certainly know a lot about guns,’ I say.
‘I was a sniper in the US Special Forces,’ she explains. ‘In a former life, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ I reply with a good-humoured smirk.
‘Well, I’d best strip and clean her,’ says Lena, opening the door to the firing range. ‘We might need her firepower sooner than we think.’
Spread out on a long table in the range are several other high-calibre weapons, varying from pistols to rifles to what looks like a grenade launcher. Reassured by the sheer amount of firepower Lena clearly considers necessary to defend Haven, yet unsettled by it too, I wish her good luck and head outside to the training ground.
At first glance Phoenix isn’t anywhere to be seen and I wonder if he might be in the Glimmer Dome. Then I spot him by the aircraft hangar with Jude. They’re talking intently, almost nose to nose, their eyes locked. Then to my surprise they embrace. As I watch them wrapped in each other’s arms, my stomach plunges like a lead weight and my throat feels tight and constricted. Phoenix has been evasive about his past history with Jude … now I know why. She must’ve been the reason he didn’t get in contact with me when he first returned to the States. Feeling as if I’ve been punched in the gut, I turn and head back towards the main building.
However, as I’m opening the door to the rear entrance, I hear Phoenix shout, ‘Genna!’
I hesitate, halfway across the threshold, wondering if I should pretend I haven’t heard him. But his footsteps rapidly approach. ‘Genna!’ he calls again.
‘Oh … hi,’ I say weakly as he runs up to me. I notice Jude slink off into the hangar and disappear.
‘Were you looking for me?’ Phoenix asks with an over-bright smile.
‘Hm, yes, I was –’ I reply, turning away so he doesn’t catch the wounded look on my face – ‘but it doesn’t matter now.’
He reaches out and gently rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah … fine,’ I say, trying hard to suppress my hurt feelings. I tell myself I’ve no reason to be jealous. Phoenix has always maintained that he’s my Protector, first and foremost. But I feel that our closeness, the link between our souls, is something special … or at least I hoped it was.
‘Are you still upset about what Goggins said?’ he asks. ‘Because you don’t –’
‘No, it isn’t that,’ I say, and, deciding to press on with the reason I came looking for him in the first place, I start to explain. ‘I’ve just had a Glimmer in the Sun Room and learned about my twin sister, Lakeisha. How Tanas ritually k-killed –’ my voice hitches as my grief and anger rise once more – ‘how Tanas killed her. I felt our souls being ripped apart, her Light extinguished! The pain was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before –’
