The Ballad Continues…
CHAPTER 3
It wasn’t long before they came for him.
The robed ones, in wraps of silk and satin, of the fabric between stars. They pressed their forefingers to their lips, a communal shh, shh, we know who you are, but do you know, too?
The boy was scared.
Terrified.
His sister had left only moments ago. Wait for me. Don’t open the door. And he hadn’t, but the window was wide, an eyeglass of wonder, and he was a world drawn to the sun.
He should wait for Smoke. She wouldn’t be long. Just a short trip to gather water, to pile berries into a bucket till its weight eclipsed hers. But the strangers’ robes were tapestries of secrets, quilts of woven pain, and he found a mirror inside himself, one that flared with the light they thieved.
These shadows had something he wanted. Needed. Something lost to the sands of time, to the dunes of progress. Buried beneath a hundred cities stacked atop each other from the surface of this planet to its molten, rotten core.
Answers.
They could give him answers. Purpose. They didn’t look at him with hate and fear, like the children did. They didn’t watch him with suspicion, like the parents. They simply eyed him with a heart-deep understanding. We see you, know you. It’s time to come home.
Cage swallowed and backed away from the window. They were kind when he wished they were cruel. But kindness…kindness…
Kindness was the worst type of lure.
His sister appeared, a wraith on the wind. “Ignore them,” she hissed around a forked tongue. “Ignore them, and start dinner.” Smoke glared at the strangers, eyes heavy with death, eyes like cursed treasure, twin seeds of demise. She was perpetually ready to burn down the world and dance in the ashes of her enemies’ corpses, using their blood as shampoo and their tears as conditioner.
Cage, on the other hand, took a more delicate approach.
Delicate, but just as ferocious.
He was nice.
Same as the strangers.
A kindness louder than crime.
Cage did not start dinner. He inched closer to the door, pressed his ear to the oak. “Do you need help?” he whispered.
“No, but you do,” their leader said. Through the window, Cage could see her hooded form. She wore a crown of crescent moons and extended a hand: no skin, only bone. “Come with us, and we will teach you everything.” Sunlight skittered over her fingers. “There are monsters in the dark, child. Monsters only you can slay.”
Smoke opened the window and chucked a pot at the leader’s head. The metal bounced off her skull with a chime like a broken bell. “Go. Now. I will not tell you twice.”
The leader chuckled, a rasp of stale air. “You cannot hurt me, daughter of death, for I am already gone.” She lowered her hood. The pewter crown fell to the ground. Cage bit his tongue. She was a skeleton, blanched as washed-up shells. Pearl-white and knife-sharp. Blue fire danced in her eye sockets, and her jaw opened in a mockery of a smile. “We know where you came from, and we know where you’re going. If you do not defeat the Fallen Seven, the world will end in flames.”
Smoke snarled. She slammed the window shut loud enough to rattle the cottage. “This world is not our problem,” she hissed through the glass. “Find another savior. My brother is not yours to take.”
The leader shuffled sideways, eyes bright as dying stars. Her gaze met his sister’s with an ancient apology. “This world leads to all worlds. If it falls, the universe falls. There is no other savior. And we do not only need your brother. We need you as well, together.” She tilted her head, a crack of bone. “There is a magic that lies within you, older than time. It is invisible. Invincible. We can teach you how to unlock it.”
She paused, then let her next words fall like an avalanche: “Only you two hold the power of Chrome.”
Love the creepy creepsters at the window, the call to action tainted by the messengers!
Ohhhhhh!!! Phenomenal chapter, amazing Halo!!!! I am loving this story! ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥