“Excuse me?”
“Your mother. I would prefer to sit somewhere else. The woman might try to poison my wine.” Pressing his long white waterfall whiskers to his robe to keep them out of the way, he gingerly sipped his tea. He looked up, watching me with clouded-over eyes some might take to mean he was blind. Ylang had perfect vision, but I’d learned we didn’t see things the same way.
“What are you talking about?” I had only just arrived and already felt he had the upper hand in the conversation.
“Your wedding. I can’t be seated next to your mother.”
I held up a hand. “Who said anything about you coming to our wedding?”
Ylang shot me a stern look over his cup. “I am your Master.”
I widened my stance and crossed my arms.
He tilted his head in concession. “Alright, well I was your Master for most of your life, and your dealings are still of importance to the Order of Luxis.”
I blinked. This had to be a joke.
“The Order isn’t invited,” I overenunciated the words, then used my fingers to tick off the major points as to why. “You’ve tried to kill Emma, when that failed you successfully kidnapped and brainwashed her before sending her to assassinate me. You lied to me my whole life so you could manipulate me as your weapon, ripped my soul out of my body and held it captive, and now you are telling me you wish to come to my wedding to a relationship you’ve forbidden?”
Ylang grimaced. “No family is perfect. We certainly have had some messy dealings, but who is more invested in your future than I? Afterall, we survived hell together.” He gestured to a large painting on the wall. Dark colors of the landscape were only broken up by the red fires blazing and the numerous nude contorted bodies of men littering the landscape. Demonic creatures tortured and feasted upon the bodies. The crude, violent tone of it reminded me directly of our time in the Stygian. Even looking at it caused my stomach to clench, as if I were bracing myself against the possibility of the floor opening and swallowing me back into that place.
I pushed those feelings away, grounding me to where I stood. “I came because I need information about the Reckoning.”
“Isn’t that question better directed at your biological parents and the Order of Veritas?” His tone was dry. “They were the ones insistent the Propheros must go through the Reckoning. How did they put it? The Propheros must know the darkness in order to defeat it?” He grumbled something about bunk prophecy under his breath. “Wethought such a thing would bring about the end.” Using his long staff, he maneuvered into his stone chair with a harrumph, and rearranged his robes.
He didn’t mention that he had been wrong, Emma had gone through it and saved us all. Pointing it out wouldn’t get me any closer to what I needed.
“The Luxis has performed the Reckoning before,” I said.
It was a ritual I’d only seen performed once, to a traitor of my Order. My Masters called upon ancient dark spirits who came screaming through the air, pure unadulterated evil. They ran through the man over and over, infecting him with their darkness. The ritual continued until the traitor was driven to insanity and forever lost to the light. An irrational bloodthirsty beast, the man foamed at the mouth and lunged at anyone who was remotely near. I had witnessed all manner of evil but having to watch a man being stripped of his humanity hit me on a visceral level I’d yet to forget. Then my Masters took him away. A few moments later, a gunshot resounded through the Temple walls. They’d put him down like a rabid dog.
I had done everything in my power to protect Emma from that fate, but in the Stygian she’d had a vision she had to go through with the ritual.
Letting go and trusting her was one of the hardest things I'd ever been through, intimately knowing the likely outcome. I reminded myself she was safe, rational, if not a little more powerful than before.
“Yes, we cast the dark ones to the Stygian,” Ylang mused, seeming to lose himself in thought.
“What did that man do?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer. I had always wondered, but never been allowed to ask such questions.
Master Ylang’s cloudy eyes fixed on me as if debating telling me. “He attempted to interfere with the training of one of your brothers.” From the set line of his mouth, I could tell he would divulge nothing more. It did not affect my request, so I let it go.
“I want the book,” I said. “Complete with translations.”
“It is forbidden.” Ylang shook his head.
“Then you will not come to the wedding.” He’d given me the perfect ammo the moment I stepped in the room.
Ylang looked as though I'd thrown a bucket of ice water on him. “Have you stooped to bribery?”
“Yes.” I heard the hint of pride in my own voice.
He stroked his waterfall whiskers. “Perhaps I could send Master Violetta to divulge certain pieces with you.”
“No, I don’t trust you or her to not bend the truth to your will. Allow me to borrow the book for a short duration and I will return it to you safely. After all, what damage could Emma or I do to you? I think you know us well enough by now to know we are not interested in interfering with the Order of Luxis. We simply seek unbiased information. I will protect it with my life and safely return it.”
Ylang paused so long, I thought he wouldn’t answer me.
“I agree to your terms. In exchange for an invitation to the festivities, a plus one, and a separate table from your mother.”
