Amaranthine: The Angellius Demesne

Chapter 5

Atop Angellius Sight, Lius stares up at the four suspended halos, watching the dawn of a new day quietly rise and delicately shimmer against them. His straight grey hair lay uncombed and angled in all directions as the tips bounce wearily past his shoulders. The creases in his slightly aged face are more noticeable this early morning, revealing a bit of sleeplessness. With wearing only the bottom half of a maroon tunic, he lets his mind drift.

Roen takes in his surroundings and permits his thoughts to take form of one sole image, his wife. He envisions her standing intimately close behind him. Her round full lips pressed softly against his ear, kissing him. He feels the warmth of his wife's breath lower to his neck, her soothing hands pressed firmly against his wide bulged chest. In this moment, he can feel her quieting violet aura flow around him, connecting to his own energy as if they were one.

"I miss you, Nura," Lius exhales, in a yearning whisper. "So much."

He feels her lips return to his ear. "Hurry home to me."

"I will, my love," Lius breathes. "I swear it."

The lips of his longing wife press passionately behind his ear, and her hands constrict around his chest. Strands of her long wavy black hair gently slap his face. He aches to return to his patient wife, to his young keen energetic son whom he has named after his closest friend Nil, and to the familiar home he has created for them in the Orihine demesne.

Soon though, his thoughts, feelings, and needs are interrupted as he hears the footsteps of his pupils approach. He does not turn to them, but instead, gazes back up at the four halos above him and his mind returns him to reality.

Liisor is the first to speak. "Guide Lius, you wanted to speak with us?"

Their Guide nods greatly concerned. "This is the third sunrise since the funeral march, and only now do they finally return. I am highly alarmed."

"I have had similar distress," Kale confesses, his sea blue eyes are shallow from anxiety. His normally combed cropped hair is spiked and frizzy. His thick hands slightly twitch with a sense of tension and his palms are profuse with sweat.

"We all have," Jhene adds as she, Prince Quintence, Princess Florsza, and Dilith emerge from the entrance.

As they walk over to Guide Lius and Prince Kale, their worrisome appearance becomes more evident. Their maroon Ascended robes sway heavily through the stressing winds. Even their breathing, each of them, is of a stressful pant and everything about them right now exemplifies strain.

"Dwelling ever so slightly within this dispassionate nonchalant breeze, which surrounds us, there is a sense of horridness... of tragedy," Guide Lius tells. His tone is cutting and drenched with caution. "Can you feel it?"

Lius's pupils nod, as they stand closer to him.

They all reach out with their existence. Their energy fill the damp troubling breeze and follow well inside of it, eventually touching the approaching many. They soon feel an unwanted catastrophe, a shroud of wrongdoings, and a tremendous sense of calamity.

"What has happened?" Dilith asks, his voice trembling.

"Something terrible, I sense," Prince Quintence ensures his friend. "Something gravely terrible."

Everyone firmly agrees, each of them swallowing hard as the air around them thickens.

Princess Florsza walks over and stands in front of her Guide, forcing him to meet her intensely eyes and match her seriousness. "What shall we do?"

"I do not sense Rune Roen's energy among them," Guide Lius replies in a tone that is just as serious. "Something tells me that our answers toward this terrible happening we all feel, begins with finding out where our Rune is."