Ephemeral

Prelude: Thorasien (Part Two)

Everything happened in slow motion as his gifting kicked in, rusty as it was.
He'd willed himself beside her just as the arrow left Za'bryel's fingertips, and while the fatal shot had not succeeded, the arrow planted itself in Esther's thigh. Esther cried out and Terrence caught her in his arms as he appeared beside her.
He carried her for several feet, wishing he could will them somewhere else together, wishing he could transport someone other than himself, for he would surely send her and leave himself behind. He could not, so he would not leave. He would not leave her and his child to fend for themselves.
He knew well enough to know running would only give them seconds before the inevitable.
Still, he wasn't leaving Esther. With an arrow to the leg, she was going to need immediate care. It wasn't until he'd laid her on their dirt driveway that he realized the arrow had been dipped.
He needed them to save her –the only antidote hung from the masked figure's neck.
He had to get the arrow out of her leg. He braced himself for the pain he was about to cause her, and tore the arrow from her thigh. Esther's scream echoed off the mountain they stood upon, and though he hated it, he was nearly thankful as she fainted in his arms.
Terrence waited for them to approach –he wouldn't doubt if they'd taken their sweet time doing so. "How you have grown, Son of the Lion," spoke the slithery voice from behind the mask, "Your father has died, and the people demand the return of their leader." Using both hands, he gave an angry tug at both the hood of his cloak and his mask. The serpents originating from his scalp hissed, poison spitting from their fangs, his pasty skin garish against the early morning sun. Terrence's eyes widened in shock, for the Avikaia he remembered was as human in likeness as himself –not the figment of children's nightmares that stood before him.
"Feast your eyes on the cost of going through the Door unbidden, boy. For none know it better than I. I will not have suffered by your father's wishes these years to let you walk now." Terrence realized how his three escorts were not entirely how he remembered them all those years ago. They were all white as paper and just as thin, like corpses, hollow vessels like the undead. It didn't surprise Terrence much –he knew whom they served, and his wrath guaranteed torment that surpassed the risk of the unknown. It appeared, however, that Avikaia had known more torment as his older brother's loyal servant than a traitor captured.
Terrence shook his head, "I have denounced my leadership to the people as well as my stewardship of the Key, Avikaia. Take this message back to the people –may they rot in the hell they have created."
He gestured at Esther, as if she were a kitten discovered in a dumpster.
  "She dies then."
Terrence looked at his wife, thought of their child (though not in a million years would he reveal she was expecting his child to these vermin), and realized he had little choice in the matter.
"Give her the vial first."
Avikaia's jaundice-like eyes flared at the demand, "Reclaim the Key, Son of the Lion, and she shall drink."
"You will kill her for seeing too much." Terrence declared, not forgetting who he addressed.
The knowing smile in reply was sickly and thin-lipped,
"Let us come to a compromise then, old friend." The snakes upon Avikaia's head danced in rhythmic thoughtfulness as Avikaia took a step toward Esther. Terrence went to protect his wife when the giant grasped him by the back of his neck, holding him fast.
Esther during this time had become so weakened by the poisoned arrow, the lioness that usually resided in her eyes had been tranquilized, and her mind had begun to slow like drunken stupor.
"We will make it so that she believes you dead and has no memory of you. She shall drink the vial and live, but you will leave her here and forget her as she has forgotten you. You will then return with us to Yvaeka and reclaim your place as Thorasien, the Son of the Lion. Do not bother attempting to erase our memories," Avikaia waved dried ravensfox at him, willing a flame to his fingertips to light it, citing an incantation as the smoke wove the air.
Terrence's head lowered in submission, "It shall be as you say. Show me the vial."
Avikaia's smile paired with a narrow gaze as he complied, using his palm to display the vial hanging from his neck.
"A cruel irony is it not? Your talents shall be the weapon to disarm you and this ill fated dream of escaping who you are."
Avikaia chuckled to himself, and gave a condescending bow to Terrence.
Next, with a theatrical flair of black folds and presumably from thin air, Avikaia produced the Key. The Key was the size of a hunting knife, carved from stone like refined granite; its bow shaped like a diamond while its blade was grooved like an angry violin on sheet music.
"I have been keeping it safe for you, nephew."
Terrence's eyes fell on the Key, the symbol for all he had forsaken as a boy, a boy who believed in a prophecy others had paid for with their lives.
His gaze came back to the yellowed pair appraising him, wrought with wordless indignation.
Disregarding Avikaia entirely, Terrence turned to his wife, his throat burning with regret as he saw the light fading in her eyes. The young woman previously ripe with the glow of love and contentment was being swept away in a current of his past's making, and he was not strong enough to hold her in his present. Yesterday called for its ransom to be paid, and he must pay or lose all that he had come to love today –all the while preserving his wife's, his child's, tomorrow without him.
"This world will remember me as I was to all of you," he whispered in declaration, his energy flowing to the minds of not only his wife, but his earthly family and all who knew him, "You will remember me as Terrence, the man who loved you with all of himself. You will forget what has happened today, and tonight the police will come knocking. There will be a car accident with a drunk driver. Terrence did not make it out alive." Then his voice dropped to nearly inaudible as he uttered to his unborn child, "Keep your mother safe, little one."
  Before Avikaia could object, Terrence tore the vial from his neck with the ethereal lightning of his reflexes.
Time slowed around Esther and himself, excluding the archer, the giant, and the errand boy.
He found it laughable the three who meant him harm thought themselves quick enough to contend with him –he was only slowed for love of his family.
They had no fathom rented for the ghost they had conjured up this day.
As he pulled the cork from his teeth, Terrence smelt the plum-like scent of the antidote, and he knew Avikaia spoke truth.
He poured the syrupy silver contents of the bottle into her mouth, and the color returned to her cheeks even before she swallowed. He looked at her leg, and the darkened hue of her veins began to clear around a wound swiftly turning into a scar. There would be no alleviating the scar from her mortal skin, so while her mind would forget this day, her body would remember.
Terrence could only pray that the scar might lead her back to him one day.
The energy had spoken, the magic of his words having already done their job, but before he released the energy and came to his feet, he whispered into his wife's ear for only her to hear,
"And I will return for you. Hold fast. I swear it on my love for you and declare it before the kings who came before me, I will return for you." With that, Terrence stood.
When Thorasien the Son of the Lion turned to take the Key from Avikaia, it glowed white hot and became a snake that slithered from his grasp, up his wrist and wrapped securely around his forearm. Thorasien was taken to his knees, the band paralyzing him as it branded his skin.
As in all traveling circuses, there is a lion in a cage.
He was neither the noble husband nor the esteemed leader –he was the prisoner.
The prisoner he would remain.