The War Revealed - 3rd Novel in the Shadow Series

Chapter 5 .

Vai

Spencer and his father greeted us in the Starrise. We all filed in. Teal light surrounded Spencer's dad.

"Did you two plan this out?" El asked Hani. "Open the light without informing us?" Her voice had a subtle, dangerous tinge to it.

"No," Hani said. "We never discussed it with each other."

"I didn't know she opened the light in her family," Spencer said. "And I lost my mom to the Corruption. Of course I would protect my dad."

"What about Nathan?" my dad asked. "Did he open it in his family too?"

"I don't know," Hani said. "I didn't know Spencer had until just now."

"I don't know either," Spencer said.

"Should we call him and tell him to come here?" Minmin asked.

El exchanged a glance with my dad. El slowly nodded her head. "Call him," she said to Hani. "I guess if his family doesn't have it yet, we shouldn't leave them out."

Hani called Nathan. While we waited, I watched Waters Reaching with Minmin. She was ecstatic to have a friend who actually wanted to watch it. We sat at one of the tables with our chairs together and her okulus shaped in a screen in front of us. I didn't really find it scary like it was supposed to be, but part of me felt guilty over the way Other Vai had been so dismissive of it. It was silly to feel guilty over something I hadn't done, but he was a clone of the Original Vai just like I was so didn't mean that part of him was part of me?

I also found it fascinating the way her face and eyes would change whenever Bars came on screen. If she ever met him in real life, she might be one of those fans that faint.

The others talked about the Bundu-Jo broadcast that got cut off. We all hoped that more people knew about the Corruption and had a way to fight them. There was always the first way - the way the Shadow had won the war - the Aether field, but were the Corruption too incorporated into our populace and government that it would be impossible now?

Nathan, his parents, and his two younger brothers arrived.

"What is going on?" Nathan's dad addressed the other adults. "Nathan said you were attacked by aliens and that we were all in danger."

"So he hasn't opened your light," El stated.

"What is the light?" Nathan's dad asked.

"Was I supposed to?" Nathan asked. "I thought we were keeping that secret."

"Your family is the only one in the dark at the moment," El said. "We might as well enlighten them."

El told them all about the Corruption and the Awakened One and the light. Nathan and El opened the light in them.

Nathan's little brothers went around the Starrise tables waving their lights - white and gray - all around. They didn't know what their powers were yet, so they didn't damage anything.

"So that Bundu-Jo reporter was correct?" Nathan's mom asked. "The station hasn't said anymore, but others have picked up the report and it has been spreading rapidly. I honestly thought they were a crazy conspiracy faction and there wasn't anything to the reports."

"There is," my dad said.

"People need to be warned," Nathan's dad said. "We need to spread the light to everyone we can and they need to spread it and so forth."

"The Corruption will stop us," Lieutenant Tanpo said. "They've already undermined those reports. Only a small portion of the population believes them."