The Swords of Memory: Second Chances

Chapter 33

Zara felt a puff of air fill her ear and a chill run down her neck. She knew exactly what the sensation was and silently thanked her sister for the effort. She felt the air, but she didn't feel a tug back to her bed in her room. She knew she wouldn't be able to go back for a while. She had learned a lot about Aaron's past identity as Quilon, particularly about his power. She had experienced a memory of a man who looked amazingly like Aaron but was actually his good twin Greggory. Aaron was the product of a substance called black smoke. The black smoke was the corrupted body of a cloud person that had been overwhelmed with dark energy. It had become filled with hate and vengeance. The black smoke was able to take on solid form when it touched a human. If that human had a power, the resulting human, the evil twin, would have an anti-power specifically designed to counter the original. Greggory's power had been to find and strengthen connections, especially in regards to energy. To counter, his evil twin, Aaron, had a power designed to weaken and potentially destroy connections.

This had seemed meaningless to Zara at first. The implications were evident enough now though. It let Arron permanently break someone's connection to their power or temporarily weaken it enough to cause them pain and stop them from using it. Then he had found another way to use it. He was even able to maintain it a such great distance. He was weakening her connection to her own world. Without the connection, she couldn't wake up and go home. It forced her to eventually return to him, to beg him to stop using his power on her. She had hoped distance would diminish the effect, and it did, but not enough. When she wanted to leave the portal game, she would have to find him again. But until then, she was free. Unless of course he decided to permanently sever her connection to her world, which she wasn't sure if he could do or not.

"Zara what's wrong?" Eli asked. "You look like you are lost in thought. You'll hurt yourself if you aren't more careful." Zara reached to both her hips and felt the twin swords of despair hanging there. They had no sheath but fit well in her belt loops. The very bottom of the blade had no edge and wouldn't cut through.

"Nothing's wrong. I was just thinking."

"You don't have to fear Aaron anymore, Zara." Hayden said. "You escaped from him and we won't let him have you back. Once we find the powers there will be nothing to stop us from taking back the village. We will put Daniel back in power and Aaron will hang for his crimes against the crown."

"And you will be able to see all the flowers I will grow in the village." Daphne added. "Hayden told me about the farms there. They will thrive under my influence."

"Thank you guys. But even if we bring back the powers, that's exactly what Aaron wants. His power is strongest against others with powers. We could be just playing into his hands."

"Nonsense. Bringing the powers back just means bringing back their possibility. Everyone will get a chest with a star figurine in it and will be able to choose when they use it. Some of us will just wait until Aaron is dead to use our stars. Plus, we are going to have an army of bubble and lava people to back us. Halcyon and Grant are rallying their people to rescue you, now that you are free it will only be that much easier to take back the village."

They continued to walk and came to sand. A huge expanse of water stretched in front of them after a brief stretch of beach. They continued towards the water and stopped just at its edge. "Where do we go now?" Eli asked.

"You're the one who said the powers were in the ocean. Here's the ocean. That's was all that I was qualified to do." Hayden said.

"What else was in the memory Eli?" Zara prompted. She had rarely grasped the full meanings of the memories on the first try and had to go over them multiple times in her head before she derived all the information she could from them.