Arc One: Awakening

Chapter 41: A Vow to Fate

Frayed thumbnail worried between his teeth, Oscar continued his moseyed strides. He reached the opposite wall of his room and swivelled on his heels again, chewing as though a splinter had taken root in his skin. His mother always reproached him for biting at the tiny fragments when they got stuck, instead smothering the irritated area in a paste and bandaging it up until the mixture drew it out.

It was no longer a splinter that he tried to coax out but the all-consuming dread that closed in around him. Each pop of anxiety set a spark to his nerves, lighting them like an incendiary and leaving him to watch the flame chase the cord to the powder.

He was stuck. He avoided the notion of being trapped, that sounded far too caged, too permanent, but his efforts stalled. The excursion to Bloodtide River proved pointless and while Demetrius and Lysander seemed undeterred, decoding more tomes and journals for a scrap of information, Oscar suspected they were looking in the wrong place. What was happening to the gateways now had never happened on Lucarian, at least not according to the history books. Demon magic and Fate intervention flourished in abundant supply hundreds of years ago. Nobody considered the possibility of that power waning, and so a solution to such a problem never arose.

His eyes itched with the unmistakable herald of tears, but he denied them the chance to fall, not when there was still work to be done. "There has to be something we're not seeing," he muttered. "There must be."

Esther and Alek rested at the forefront of his contemplations, their enthusiastic smiles spurring him to find the means back to the coastal air and Efros flowers of home.

Professor Spark will know how to sort this, he told himself. But how long would he be waiting? What if the professor couldn't reactivate the Lucarian gateways without Fate magic? They relied on a dual mechanism to power them, and if no substitute existed, what then?

He withdrew his thumbnail from his mouth and wiped the spit on his top. Thinking like that only drove him to torment, and he needed his wits about him to act, even if that action was merely transmitting a message to The Core. The demon stronghold gateway connected to the laboratory, and while closed off, it was a start. He had no clue if a solution might be offered or if he would receive instruction on how to proceed with his mission, but without Professor Spark's input, the prospect of returning remained uncertain.

Snatching the satchel dangling from the ornate chair, he stuffed his notebook, pencil, and a bottle of water inside. Sturdy hands guided the clasps of his cloak into their fixtures once the weighty fabric draped neatly over his shoulders. Before any hesitation planted doubt in his mind, he abandoned the room.

Along the private corridor, dusk began to swallow the meagre daylight afforded to Lucarian and the last feeble rays retreated into the windows. Oscar pursued the receding wedges to the grand staircase, taking the steep steps two at a time and all but slamming into the distracted figure strolling by the obscured bend.

"Apologies, Lord Alaric," the mage stammered as he stumbled to give the man some space. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"No harm done. I was not particularly aware of my surroundings either," Alaric replied, tapping on the open pages of the ledger balanced on his forearm. "You haven't seen Lysander, have you, by any chance?"

"I think he went to see Lord Bertram, and he said something about a Phoenix guard meeting this evening."

Alaric inspected the timepiece on his wrist. "Ah, he'll be in the meeting."

With a hasty bow to the first lord of the clan, Oscar headed for the decorated entryway. He constrained the impulse to hurry, the door a mere breath away as Alaric's voice snatched him from freedom.