Free Between Darkness and Light Trilogy by Brianna Hawthorne Page B

him name William before his voice fades
in the distance. Aurora leads us down many corridors, to some
remote segment of the citadel. The room she takes us into is odd,
there are three very comfortable looking chairs facing each other
in the middle of what looks like a warding circle. There are no
other objects in the room, which appears to be… padded? It doesn’t
look like padding, it looks like very plain white walls, but the
acoustics are all wrong, fuzzy, almost dead. Celeste explains.
    “This is what you might call a risky
communications room. It contains nothing that can be used as a
weapon of opportunity, nor anything that can assist in locating us.
I nod, but don’t really understand. Aurora’s voice cuts through my
thoughts.
    “Are you armed, Shi'ahn?”
    “What? No!” She sighs in unsurprised
disappointment and steps out of the room for a moment. When she
returns she holds out a dagger. “You should get used to carrying at
least one blade – they may seem archaic, but they do not rely on
anything but their own physical presence to be effective. You never
know what will or will not work out in the vastness of the cosmos,
but as long as the three physical dimensions are in force, a blade
is a blade.” I move to strap it to my belt, but she stops me.
    “There would be little purpose in using this
room if you blatantly display a weapon – hide it beneath your
skirts.” She looks over to Celeste, “We should disguise ourselves.”
Suddenly their appearances alter! Aurora's hair turns black and she
must invoke something similar to my battle braids spell, for it
twists itself into braids that lie tightly against her scalp. Her
facial structure looses its exotic form and becomes plain. She
shrinks as well, becoming only as tall as I am. I look to Celeste
and see similar changes, although she now has rather mousy light
brown hair. Neither of them looks special at all. Aurora turns to
me, “You should be fine, as no one knows of you yet. We, however,
are well known, and as such are at a distinct disadvantage if
something should go wrong during our attempt.” I want to ask her
how they did that, but she gestures for us to sit.
    I was right, the chairs are very
comfortable. I look up and Aurora holds a beautiful violet crystal
for us to see, then holds out her other hand below it.
    “Each of you take my hand and gaze into the
crystal. Share my vision of Novanus, concentrate on it, try to make
it come to life.” She catches my eye then. “Normally this is much
easier and requires only the crystal holder to envision the person
in their mind to be effective, but I have tried that already to no
avail. Something or someone very powerful is blocking access to
him, and we must find a way to break through that barrier. Now open
your mind to mine and concentrate.”
    Her vision of Novanus is quite different
from mine! Where I see him as an overbearing exaggerated annoyance,
she sees a man wracked with the pain of recent loss. She remembers
the boy she knew with an infectious smile that she could not
resist. He is a man now, the most powerful sorcerer who walks among
the currently awakened family, highly advanced in all the
disciplines of this place, and more. He has walked among this
family for a very long time… He and Aurora have seen many
generations come and go; and yet they are ageless. He is a fierce
man, he does nothing half-heartedly… including love. He is
shattered by the death of his only son; they had been extremely
close for a very long time. Aurora sees… her brother. I have a
difficult time accepting her vision of him, so diametrically
opposed to my own, but then, I don’t really know him, and she does.
Her brother; she loves him deeply, much like I love William. If it
was William who was missing… I would tear the world apart to find
him. I must accept her vision as true.
    I concentrate on her understanding of
Novanus, willing his image to come to life in my mind, but
something is missing. His…