The Emerald Legend (Book 1)

Chapter Thirty: Everything

They sat on the same plush pillows next to the low wooden table and made small talk over tea. Amalia could feel the warm steam rise from the fragrant cup and sail against her cheeks. It caused her face to become a bit flushed as they talked.

"In time, with the proper training, you will be able to create barriers around you. Heal and control elemental properties, possibly even fly, if you are so determined."

"Flight? Is that not merely fantasy?" she asked earnestly.

Osirian looked back to her, drawing his eyes away from the steaming cup in front of him. "It's not fantasy, however—"

He set his cup down on the wooden table and held her gaze for a moment. "It's an extremely advanced, and not to mention dangerous, technique. If not properly controlled, one could easily go up too far and come crashing back down. Even I have difficulties with the technique, and I have spent a great deal studying it."

"You've done it before?" she asked, her voice peeked with curiosity.

He nodded. "Yes, but I have limited power on the plateau."

"Just on the plateau?" Amalia's asked in confusion.

He studied her perplexed expression. "Well, I suppose there is no time quite like the present moment," he said as he took another sip of tea from his clay cup and continued. "I was sealed on this mountain over seventeen years ago. Beneath the rising oak, there is a single crystal that has an enchantment etched into its center that stops the time within my body." He held his hand up to the candlelight next to them. "If you look closely you can see a teal light surrounding my body, this is from the crystal."

Amalia saw the aura around Osirian shine for just a moment as the light hit it in the right spot. She remembered when she had first arrived at the plateau and they had stopped to watch the Ina'gava flowers. Just for a moment she could see it then as well.

"I can see it," she said, a bit dazzled.

"The enchantment also forbids me from stepping outside the boundaries of the plateau and it limits my abilities. If I go too far from the crystal my entire body begins to shut down and I eventually die." Amalia listened to him intently, wondering how he could live with being alone for so many years.

"How did you get trapped?" she asked, wanting to know more. Osirian' eyes flashed with a painful emotion that sent a jolt through her chest.

"I was betrayed by someone who I once believed to be very close to me." He looked at her with a hollow expression. "When my strength increased, they became threatened and barred me on the plateau without my knowing. When I finally realized it, it was too late." Osirian looked down into the swirling brew. "My fate was sealed with an enchantment embedded into the teal crystal. It's wrapped with the roots of the great oak tree in the center of the plateau."

Amalia's expression fell and she found it hard to form the right words to empathize with him.

"I haven't aged in seventeen years," he continued with a breathless voice. "I wonder if I would be trapped in this place forever while the outside world goes on."

The tone of his voice made Amalia's chest sting with pain. She felt as though she could actually hear him hurting. "How can you be freed?" Her gaze shot up at him as she spoke; she wasn't going to just let this man continue on like this.

"It's dangerous. I'm not sure it can be done, but I have my theories," he said and ran his hand down the bottom half of his face.

"I'll do it. I'm not afraid," she said with such a powerful look in her eye. She understood that all this man wanted was to be free. "I will free you from this mountain." She meant what she said, and believed in it with her entire being.