When I wake it's just as dark as before. That's how it is in the Underland, the torchlight is kept at the same quantity and brightness no matter the time. I take a deep breath and my echolocation lights up the room. Strangely, I'm not alone.
I almost panic but realize on my next breath that it's just Vikus. I quickly shut my eyes and hope he doesn't notice I'm awake. I'm curious as to why he's here.
I breath again, slower this time to replicate sleep, and see the hardness of Vikus' face. Deep shadows etch lines of stress and anger that make him look more like Solovet than himself. Again I wonder what I could have done to make him want to keep me away.
"Why?" I ask into the darkness.
The red outline that is Vikus shifts his arms, startled.
"Why what?" He says. I stay silent, he knows what I mean. After a few seconds he answers. "Because I knew what would happen if you returned. I knew the Warrior wasn't dead inside you. If you came back then I knew our peace would be over. That you would bring bloodshed. And I thought that if you were gone long enough then Luxa might be able to keep living. I thought she would be healed." At those last words, Vikus turns and leaves.
Suddenly it all makes sense. The bitterness and anger toward me, the desire to send me home. It was all for the sake of his home. And his granddaughter.
And now I know that, in a way, this new prophecy is my fault. If I hadn't returned then the Warrior would not have been resurrected and the Underland wouldn't have needed saving. Or at least that's how Vikus sees it. But what if a prophecy had still been given? Without the Warrior to save them what would have happened to Regalia? Would there still have been danger? Would they have died without me here?
"I'm sorry." I whisper to the dark. I can sense that Vikus is still here, leaning on the wall outside my door, out of sight but not out of my sixth sense. I guess he forgot about my echolocation. "But it's not my fault."
I'm pretty sure it's still early so I close my eyes and go back to sleep. This time I'm not so lucky with the dreams.
I'm in the jungle on my way to find the starshade. But strangely most of the company is missing. Luxa walks in front of me with a warrior at her side. I've never seen this guy before but he looks about my age from the back, with shaggy jet-black hair. Aurora and a white bat circle overhead.
I trip over my shoelaces and bend down to retie them. Before I even touch the laces I feel a vine encircle my throat, blocking off my airway. I try and scream for help but I can't make a sound.
When I wake I'm choking on air. It feels like only a few moments have passed but I know it's been longer. Voices drift in from the main room.
I stumble out of bed and try to brush the wrinkles out of my clothes. Now I definitely need to bathe and change. In the main room I find Nerissa standing by herself with her thin arms crossed. I wonder who she was talking to.
"Vikus just left for the Council." Nerissa says, somehow reading my mind without even looking at my expression. "Luxa is in the arena for training. You may join her if you wish."
Luxa's location was the next question on my mind. Nerissa's way ahead of me.
"Thanks." I say, and hurry through the halls toward the armory, I'll need a weapon if I'm going to participate in training. Forget about changing clothes and breakfast. I haven't held a sword in months, and strangely I can't wait to get my hands on one.
Miravet isn't in the armory, and for that matter neither is anyone else. I draw a couple of blades until I find one that feels right. Although nothing could ever compare to Sandwich's sword that I broke last time I was here. I still have the scars on my palms from the shattered pieces of the blade. I buckle the sword around my waist and hurry to the castle wall to hitch a ride. A dusky gray bat agrees to take me to the arena as soon as he knows who I am. I guess fame is one benefit of almost dying countless times.
The arena floor has been repaired since the last time I was here. The gaping holes have been filled in with hard packed dirt. Small patches of moss are regrowing over the barren spots. And as usual, half a dozen kids wheel around the arena on their bats. They perform flips and twists then drop off their fliers and execute a series of more flips and twists before they are caught again.
Me and the flier circle down to the floor where another dozen kids around my age are fighting with swords under the close watch of one of my favorite Underlanders..
"Mareth!" I call. As soon as the flier lands I say a quick thank you and hurry toward him.
"Gregor!" Mareth greets me with a quick hug, lopsided due to his one leg. "Luxa told me you had returned but I did not think to see you in training so soon." The smile on his face says Luxa didn't tell him everything. He doesn't know about the prophecy. If he did his smile would be more grim than excited.
"Yeah." I respond. "I haven't held a sword in a while and there's not much else to do down here. Not without--" I stop before I say Ares' name. A look of sadness comes across Mareth's face. But he doesn't mention it. He has seen more than one person lose a bat and knows that I don't want to talk about it. It will only make the pain worse.
"Well get out there!" Mareth says playfully. "If you're so out of practice then you'll need every minute you can get." I look at the two different training groups and hurry toward the sword fighters on the ground, I don't have a flier to train with and Luxa is with the ground troops anyway.
I join in and Mareth calls for them to divide into pairs. With me we make an even twelve swordsman. Luxa is put with another boy her age while I'm assigned to kid with long, dark hair. His eyes are purple like all the Underlanders, but with strange flecks of green that give him an animal-ish look.
Mareth tells everyone to begin. I lift my sword and examine the kid. He's about my age but a couple of inches taller, skinny but not frail. I can see muscles lining his limbs that ripple as he wiggles his sword in front of me.
"Oh, and Gregor!" Mareth calls, approaching us. "You have mastered echolocation correct?"
"Well I wouldn't say mastered--" I begin, but he continues.
"I'd like you to go blindfolded. Just for practice, and to make it more of a challenge." Mareth pulls out a strip of dark cloth and ties it around my eyes. Not even a sliver of light shines through. Great.
I take a deep breath and feel my surroundings come into focus. There's my opponent in front of me, grinning like he thinks this will be easy.
"Are you ready, Overlander?" He asks. I hear the overconfidence in his voice. I think it's time I surprised him. I nod and raise my sword.
I deflect the first blow clumsily. Without my rager sense I'm nothing more than a kid with a few sword lessons under his belt. But the clang and scrape of blade on blade jarrs me. My vision fractures and suddenly I'm looking at all the weak spots in the kid's defense. My targets--vital organs and exposed skin--focus while everything else blurs. I deflect the next attack with ease as my echolocation combines with my rager. I resist the impulse to aim for the targets. This isn't a life and death fight. But my rager tells me otherwise.
I struggle to get a hold on myself. I can't let the rager control me. If I did then the boy would end up dead. He is not my enemy. I think. Just my opponent.
I counter a third strike before I find the nerve to attack, sending my sword point toward the boy's left shoulder. He whips his sword around and redirects my blade toward the ground. I'm off balance but that doesn't stop me. The cold outline of the boy's blade plunges toward my neck, preparing to rest on my collar bone and deliver the winning touch. But I won't let that happen.
As I'm already off balance it isn't that hard to dive forward. I twist my body as I fall so I'm facing the kid, and dash his sword sideways, leaving his chest exposed. But I'm in no position to attack. My sword arm reaches back to help break my fall.
Impossibly as I land, I roll backward,pushing my hands beneath me when I'm upside down and launching myself into the second half of a handspring. I land on my feet and our blades cross again.
As I parry and attack I realize how great a fighter this kid must be. I'm a rager. A born killer, a born fighter, and this boy is actually providing a challenge for me. Then again, I am blindfolded and not completely immersed in the rager sense. If I were then the boy would be dead by now. But I have to hold myself back, find a way to win without hurting him.
My breathing quickens and the boy's shape becomes clearer. His red outline is glowing with heat. His breathing matches my own. My mind whirs as we exchange blow after blow, attack possibilities and strategies run through my head. I didn't know this was part of being a rager. When I fought before it was just against rats. Most of them were stupid and easy to defeat. I hadn't needed strategy or a plan. I just attacked and they died, end of story. But this kind of fighting requires me to think as well as act. And my thoughts are moving faster than my heart.
I sense an opening. A shift in position and motion that sets up a string of advances that will allow me to beat the kid. I lunge forward, inciting an attack from him. Parrying his blow I flick my blade upward, sending his sword point lancing away. But I can't touch him yet, he's too fast. I leap sideways, as if trying to escape him and he takes the bait. He lunges after me, targeting my weak left side that I have purposefully exposed to him. As his sword tip whistles toward my shoulder I twist sideways. The boy's sword moves past me until I'm right next to him, already lifting the edge of my blade to rest it on his collarbone. My rager urges me to take advantage of his exposed neck but I push it away. This isn't real combat, just practice.
I pull the blindfold off my eyes and blink in the torchlight. The fractured vision dissipates and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I see that the other fighting pairs have stopped to watch us. Mareth is nodding in approval. He almost seems surprised.
I lift my blade off the kid's shoulder and turn to shake the his hand, be a fair sport and all, but instead I'm greeted by the cold press of metal against my throat. I freeze, don't even pull away from the blade as the edge bites into my skin.
The boy's face is inches from mine. I can see anger there, his pride hurt after being beaten. "You shouldn't let down your guard." He lectures, his gaze holding mine.
My rager takes over and somehow, less than a second later his sword is on the ground. Mine is held against his throat. "And you should learn to control your temper." I say in a steely tone. Then I pull my sword away and extend my hand as I was about to do before. "Good fight."
The anger is already fading from his eyes and he shakes my hand. "Good fight."
"I'm Gregor." I prompt, hoping we can get on friendly terms.
"Kel."
"Nice to meet you." I turn back to Mareth and raise an eyebrow. He gives me a look like 'we'll talk about it later'.
Out loud he says, "Let's rotate partners now. Fight until I call time. Count every touch you make on your opponent. The one with the most touches when I say to stop can decide our last activity. Trust or blood balls." I shudder at the memory of standing in front of the cannons while blood balls were fired at me from three sides. If I win I'll definitely go with trust, whatever that is. Mareth pairs us off and I find myself facing Queen Luxa.
I must look apprehensive because she smiles. "I order you not to go easy on me, Gregor." I laugh and tie the blindfold over my eyes. She knows me too well. But I can't help but hold myself back and Kel has fifteen touches when Mareth calls time. I only have nine and Luxa two.
"I think I'll go with the blood balls." Kel says. He smiles devilishly at me. "I've never seen someone hit the total before." I grimace and join the rest of the group as we set up the canons. Three kids take places cranking the levers that will fire the balls.
Luxa goes first and surprisingly hits eleven out of fifteen. The blood-colored liquid stains her clothes as she comes to stand next to me, taking my hand.
"New record." She grins.
Two boys and a girl score seven. Kel hits ten, almost matching Luxa. The rest only get five or less. Next thing I know I'm the only one left. Mareth instructs me to tie the blindfold over my eyes again. I do and march out to the stained mossy ground. I raise my sword and try to focus my rager sense. My infrared vision fractures easily this time and I see the cold encasements of the balls as they sit in the canons.
Mareth signals for the kids to start firing. I twist and slash at the flying projectiles. Liquid splashes across my face and arms. I end by impaling the fifteenth blood ball with my blade, the casing hanging from my sword, still dripping cold red liquid.
No surprise there. I hit the total before and was confident I could do it again. Even without my sight.
Just then, before I even have a chance to remove my blindfold, a bat flies out of the exit tunnel and zips into the arena. I barely have time to register that it's not carrying an Overlander before it slams into me, knocking me into the air. I sail twenty feet with the flier's claws gripping my shirt before it slams me into the ground. My breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh. My head cracks against the stone and I'm still seeing stars when it speaks.
"You brought them here!" The bat hisses in my face, cold fangs inches from my nose. I force my hand to release my sword before my rager can make me kill the bat. "Daman is dead and you brought them! Why? Why did you do this?!" She--her voice sounds female--sounds more angry than any bat I've ever heard speak. Even when Ares had me pinned and clawed holes in my jacket, he didn't sound this angry.
This bat sounds on on the edge of hysteria. She says Daman--maybe her bond--is dead. She blames me for it. And she has me pinned and weaponless.
"I don't know--" I begin, but she cuts me off with a screech.
"Liar! You're with them! You killed Daman!" Now she definitely is hysteric. I try and shove her away but I'm helpless. She's going to kill me and I know it.
But then, just as suddenly as she came, she's gone, pulled off of me by invisible hands. I spring upward and snatch my sword out of the dirt. Mareth has tackled the bat and is yelling to the kids on fliers to get a doctor. At first I think it's so the bat can be put to sleep. But then I sense the hot glow of blood.
The bat's left wing has a long tear that stretches across half the membrane. I can't believe she flew on it. Then I realize she didn't. I tear off my blindfold to see the same blood on the tip of my sword, mingling with the fake liquid from the blood balls. I must have cut her when she tackled me. I move closer to try and help Mareth hold her down but she starts screeching at increasingly higher pitches, struggling harder to free herself.
Luxa pushes past me. "Stay." She commands and helps Mareth hold the bat still, pressing her hands to part of the wound. Kel and another boy rush past me to help. I feel useless and responsible. I know just as certainly as I know my name that the cut wasn't an accident. My rager made me lift my sword. I didn't have enough control to stop myself. It's  my fault.
I want to run and hide, to jump on Ares and fly away to his cave like the last time I hit the total. But Ares is gone. And I can't run away from this. I hold back nausea as I clean my blade on the moss then sheath it and removed the belt, leaning it against one of the canons and moving a few paces away. It's better I don't hold a sword.
Vikus was right. I shouldn't have come back. The Warrior shouldn't have returned. Because in doing so I'd only brought bloodshed.