Free Destiny by Pedro Urvi

case what are we waiting for?” said Hartz with his usual optimism, and went to the portal. He stopped for a moment and winked at Kayti.
    “Wait, we’ll cross together,” she said. She took his hand, and together they walked into the portal, to disappear into its liquid silver surface.
    Komir was about to cross when Haradin stopped him.
    “There’s something I must tell you before you leave, Komir.”
    “You might have mentioned it before.”
    “It’s for our ears only.”
    “Go ahead, although anything you have to tell me you can say in front of Hartz.”
    “I’m not worried about your big friend. I trust the goodness of his heart and loyalty to you completely.”
    “Well then…?”
    “It’s her I’m worried about. You mustn’t trust her, Komir. She’s a Knight of the Custodian Brotherhood and she’s after her own ends. To be exact, those of the Master Knight of the Brotherhood.”
    “I’ve known that for a long time. I know she’s after something, and that’s the reason she’s tagging along. There’s something she doesn’t want me to know and I’ve had my doubts about her for a long time. If it wasn’t for Hartz… I would already have stopped her getting in the way…”
    “Keep your eyes open, because your friend’s certainly aren’t. He won’t recognize betrayal when it comes.”
    “I appreciate the warning, but it wasn’t necessary,” Komir said, looking at the pommel of his sword.
    “The warning wasn’t the only thing I wanted to talk about. Do you remember a medallion, one that your parents kept hidden? A round gem, black as night, with more than a hundred and fifty facets, the size of a large plum, set in a ring of pure gold and with a long chain, also gold.”
    “Do you mean the Dark Medallion, the one my mother had?”
    “I believe so, yes…”
    “The medallion which led us here and opened the sealed doors?”
    “That’s the one. Do you know where it is?”
    “I left it with Lindaro, he should still have it. Why are you so interested, Haradin?” Komir asked, intrigued. “More so, what do you know of it?”
    “That medallion… is very special … it must return to your hands.”
    A sudden anger surged within Komir.
    “Enough riddles. What do you know about the Dark Medallion? Why do you want it?”
    The Mage raised his arms.
    “It’s not that I want it, Komir. It’s just that it must be with you. It belongs to you, in a way. It’s a very rare Ilenian artifact of power… As your parents kept it you assumed it belonged to your mother, when that really wasn’t the case at all.”
    “It wasn’t? Then who did it belong to? And how come you know of the existence of this medallion?”
    “Komir… I know of its existence because I found it…”
    Komir looked at him with anger in his eyes.
    “Let me explain… In one of my expeditions in search of the Ilenian Book of the Sun —one of the two greatest volumes of knowledge of the Lost Civilization— accidentally or by pure luck, depending on how you choose to look at it, I found the medallion in some ruins in the midst of the Nocean deserts. It’s a very, very special medallion, for a reason I don’t fully understand.”
    “What reason is that?”
    “The reason is that the Dark Medallion led me to you that fateful night when I found you as a baby.”
    “How? Why? Explain yourself!” said Komir with increasing distress.
    “Please, Komir, calm yourself… I’ll explain everything. One morning I was studying the Book of the Sun, which is a grimoire of great value and critical importance whose whereabouts I only discovered after many years of fruitless search. After many failures it finally came into my hands, a book of enormous importance because it tells part of the secrets of the Ilenians. That morning something highly unusual happened: the Dark Medallion suddenly awoke. I still remember as if it was yesterday. It began to give out golden flashes at intervals as if it had a life of its own. At first I thought