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‘Please.’
Koreau’s tone, laced with sincere urgency, softened Killen, and he obliged.
Lifting his chin, the Kíríga sent a silent command.
In seconds, the jewel on his temple transmuted into its full size, the orb within illuminating.
It shone so bright that the trio before him raised their hands to shield their eyes.
Killen stood still for a long moment as Koreau approached and reached out a hand. ‘May I?’
The Kíríga nodded, lowering his head.
The Känon ran his fingers over his brow, touching around the hawkstone, muttering under his breath. The gemstone flashed in warning, and with a laugh, he pulled back.
‘Hello, old friend, it’s been a long time. Still have your talons,’ the older man spoke to it.
He glanced down at Killen with a wry smile. ‘It is happy with you. Hawkstones and lodestones can sometimes get so unhappy that they can regress completely into one’s skoltr and never be seen again. The hawkstone brilliance also indicates how much íkan power it has contained. The larger and more powerful your stone, the more íkan you carry within you. That’s why it’s a status symbol - lesser lodestones or none at all mean one only carries trace amounts of potency.’
Sana’a spoke up. ‘You speak to it like it is its own entity.’
‘That’s because it is,’ Koreau murmured, still keeping his eyes on it. ‘The gems, which imitate the eye to the soul, have a mind of their own. They’ve been known to appear on a xkénos’ forehead if the recipient’s enlightenment and power are deemed worthy. Or if they come into a celestial connection with a lodestone so potent, it can awaken their own. As is the íkan kätu we toy with without any idea of just how much power both elements have. They’re connected too, different manifestations of the same thing. No one knows just how mighty they are.’
Killen nodded. ‘I’ve seen visions of the hawkstone levelling cities and breaking apart planets in the past.’
Koreau agreed. ‘Tis true; it can annihilate entire universes if it drew enough íkan into it. Should its bearer know to pull in the íkan tendrils threaded throughout all aspects of Katáne, they’d be powerful beyond measure. For íkan is found in every home, marketplace, rock, stone and hearth. It’s vast, like a network under the surface, with trillions of offshoots. However, some tendrils are being transplanted elsewhere with kízakan, infused with darkness. The íkantations to make such a thing happen can only be wielded by a few.’
As he spoke, he turned his eyes to Kultur. ‘Isn’t that right, my friend?’
After a beat, Kultur curled his lip and lifted a hand. ‘I must go to bed. Conversations like these about endless conspiracies and hoaxes conversation tire me.’
He swivelled and exited with an abrupt stride, and the group was left staring after him.
Koreau shrugged, but his eyes were a narrowed, focused beam on the departing man. ‘Must have been something I said. Where was I? Ah naam, the arokí sponsored by Kalila, have been working on a vicious íkan kätu. Tis the thing we need to stop - not just the armies of Kassian for they are the first attack wing of this hidden uprising. We must face the darkness, the nýkhta lance and the horror they plan to unleash. And we must do it with the three axillae koyas of Khiron.’
‘What about Kalila?’ Sana’a asked.
‘She’s just a puppet,’ Koreau said. ‘One filled with miasma, but she’s just a means to an end.’
Killen started. ‘Who’s pulling her strings?’
‘The kízakan itself,’ Koreau stated. ‘It lives, breathes, has a mind of its own and wants to take over Katáne. I know this because it is just history repeating itself. The three threads of íkan always fight for dominance, as they have done over the centuries. But for the first time since Khiron, perhaps, kíza is winning. You, Killen Sable, are our hope to fight it. Which is why the S’ki? council reached out to the hawkstone, all the way in Devansi and coaxed you home.’
Sana’a raised a brow in disbelief. ‘You spoke to Killen in Devansi?’
Koreau nodded. ‘We did. We were desperate. Tempest Light marginalised, robbed and bullied our people and our neighbouring planets, dashing their hopes for a safe, quiet existence. He squatted in Kós for years, ineffective, irrelevant, past his time. He only listened to the kírorerô, the omens of potent power and prophecy as told to him by the witchers and curse placers. He hamstrung our future by blocking the efforts of Katánians’ younger, more energetic generation. He wielded vanity, control and cruelty, which, along with fear, kept him on the throne. Obsessed with dominance and marauding, he and the ruling elders lurched us backward. Ignorant that his actions were fuelling the darkness, he remained prideful. Distracted by his fixation with the hawkstone, he missed all signs of our coming rebellion. This is why the Tempest Light’s attempts to locate the great lodestone intensified; he needed it to fend off any rebels and cement his power. We had to find you, update you on his plans and explore how we could get you home and ready to rule in his place.’
‘You spoke words so ancient and in voices so mysterious that intuited of a hereafter beyond even my hawkstone’s understanding. But I understood enough to know I was being summoned. So I came,’ Killen murmured.
He said it with such reticence that Sana’a’s eyes narrowed. ‘With great reluctance, it seems. We all bear burdens we care not to.’
Her lover gave her a humourless smile. ‘True, I did not ask for the hawkstone. I did not ask for this quest.’
He turned to the older man. ‘It was shoved at me, Koreau. As a teen, when the SHärd Eye was causing me extreme agony, I fought my mother, angry at her for passing it on. Even at twenty, I raged against its coaxing to return. Years later, though, I resigned myself. What else could I do? To forcibly remove the hawkstone without the proper íkan master guiding me would have been to choose death. Embracing the hawkstone and the hereafter shows me means also accepting the battles that are to come, the senseless killing and -’
Killen was unable to finish. Instead, he let out a string of curses, striding through the hallway and out through the flowing curtains on the rim of the terrace.
He stalked to the edge of the floating platform, looking down at Kos, so far below, hidden in part behind slow-moving clouds.
