Chapter 6


Falcon knelt on the dusty ground in the overgrown depths of a forested park. A roaring flame crackled behind him, rapidly consuming the stolen cuts of meat placed on the altar. All the trees in the immediate area bore deep scratches in their bark, Klovanian runes having been etched in by a sharp blade. 

The Immortal Eye of Ithrahaim lay on the ground before Falcon, its jet-black pupil staring up at him. He bowed before it with lips moving in silent prayer, tears dripping from his face. 

After several minutes of earnest supplication, the man lifted his head. "Oh Immortal Eye of Ithrahaim, I have sacrificed to you, but yet you haven't imparted your power unto me!" 

A hissing sound emanated from the petrified eyeball. "You are not yet worthy enough.

Falcon glared. "Not worthy?" he echoed, "I've done all I've been told! I've dedicated two entire years of my life to train for this very moment! How am I not worthy?" 

"You have not proven yourself to be so." 

"I'm still waiting for elaboration on that. I've worn myself out in physical training, studying the texts, more studying, and more studying. I've trekked miles without end to fulfill my pilgrimages to the shrines. And I've slain countless rebels in your name. So how am I not worthy?" 

"Your resoluteness remains yet to be tested, Brant Nayan. I shall give you a trial, an assessment of your loyalty to me, here and now.

"What is it? Say the word, and I'll obey." 

"Until those rebellions are quenched, all efforts to return the Divine Flock to this world will be hampered. To that end, you must sacrifice the girl Hannah to me.

Falcon choked. "What? Why?" 

"She is a light among them, an elixir to cast out their darkness and depression. Without her, their hope may easily be crushed.

Falcon's brow wrinkled. "But...she's so innocent! She doesn't deserve that! Can't I sacrifice Princess Chariya? She's the leader of their band of troublemakers, after all." 

"Chariya would be tasty." the voice spoke, making a slurping sound, "But her death would make far less impact. Another leader could be swiftly erected in her stead, renewing our troubles.

With a growl, Falcon spat on the eye. "You've betrayed me!" 

The voice hissed at him. "How so, you sacrilegious, ungrateful punk?

"As I said, I've dedicated the past two years of my life to your service, in hopes of obtaining your power! I underwent the painful enhancements! I studied many days from sunrise to sundown! And now, I've offered the exact sacrifice you yourself have prescribed in the texts, and yet, you refuse me!" 

"It truly is a pity that all your exertion has been in vain, for your disrespect undermines it all.

Falcon inhaled deeply, snatching up the eyeball as he rose to his feet. "Since I can't have your power, nobody will!" 

With that, he hurled the artifactual eye into the flame, staring intently into the dancing tongues of fire as they consumed the hissing relic. 

"You fiend!" the voice screamed, "Release me this instant, and I will grant you the power you seek!

"I already gave you a chance to keep your promise. You, a god, have failed me, and for that, I destroy your artifact. Falcon, god of vision and perception, I hereby confine you to the underworld for eternity!" 

The burning relic hollered for assistance, but received none. With a furious gaze, the man watched it melt into a pasty white substance, with streaks of black and green oozing across. 

At the snap of a twig, the enraged man jumped to attention. He sped off into the woods, narrowly avoiding the park ranger who had come to investigate the conflagration. 

******************** 

Hannah sat and ate an apple while silently witnessing Chariya reprimanding her soldiers yet again for allowing Falcon's escape. Baird continually struggled to quiet her down, as Abigail was feeling unwell, and was trying to sleep upstairs. 

Then she noticed something in her peripheral vision. Somebody was sitting on the porch steps, their back to the front window. From here, Hannah could only see a shoulder, but that had been enough to pique her curiosity. She set her apple down on the mantle and headed for the door. Baird cast a quick glance her way, but remained otherwise occupied. 

Hannah opened the door gently and stepped outside, immediately meeting Falcon's blue-eyed gaze. She smiled, but he only stared back with a pensive expression. Finally, he turned his eyes away entirely and stared into the distance. 

"Hey, you 'kay?" Hannah asked softly as she sat beside him on the steps. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." 

Hannah squinted playfully. "You're lyin'." 

Falcon glanced at the girl briefly. "I am. What's it to you?" 

"Well, I asked ya a straightforward question, so I was kinda hopin' for a straightforward answer. How long've ya been here?" 

"Five minutes, maybe." 

Hannah sighed. "Falcon—" 

"Don't call me that." he said sharply. 

"But...that's all I know to call ya. You wouldn't tell me your real name." 

The man hung his head. "Brant, Hannah, Brant. Now, can you go?" 

Hannah giggled. "I can go, but that don't mean I will, Brant." 

Brant inhaled. "Would you mind telling me why you're clinging to me like a burrowing flea?" 

"You're sad, and I don't like to see it. I wanna see people happy." 

"I'm not sad, I'm...perplexed." 

"About what?" Hannah's eyes narrowed for a second, "Wait a minute, where'd the artifact go? Did ya..." she gasped, "Did ya lose it?" 

Falcon shook his head. "No, I destroyed it." 

"Why would ya do that? I thought—" 

"Me too. I thought a god could keep his word. Apparently not." 

"Excuse my constant ignorance, but what're ya talkin' about?" 

"I performed the sacrifices and rituals prescribed to prepare my body as a vessel to receive Falcon's spirit. But yet...he rejected me." Brant's brow furrowed. "He said I wasn't worthy enough." 

Hannah stuck her bottom lip out slightly. "That's...rude of him." 

"More than rude, but yes. So I destroyed the artifact, and now he can't manifest himself in the physical realm." 

"Maybe that's for the best." Hannah suggested thoughtfully. 

"How is me wasting two years of my life, striving for something I would never achieve, for the best?" Brant exclaimed. 

"Well, think about it. If Falcon was so fickle about possessin' your body or whatever like he promised, then what 'bout if you did achieve what you wanted? Then you'd have an unfaithful, promise-breakin' god inhabiting you?" 

"Maybe." Brant fell silent and fixed his gaze on the horizon. "I have too much to think through now." 

Hannah nodded. "Well, I reckon I should leave ya to it?" When he nodded, she rose to her feet and smiled. "Okay, then, just know that if ya ever need a listenin' ear, you've got two." 

Brant glanced up at Hannah, the very corners of his mouth slightly elevated. "Thank you." 

With that, Hannah turned and reentered the house, leaving Brant outside to continue his solitary reflection. 

******************** 

"Alright guys, thanks for the lift!" Aaron called to the soldiers as he disembarked the armored car, a playful smirk planted on his lips. 

Wendy rolled her eyes as she grabbed Aaron's sack of equipment out of the trunk and hurled it at him. He effortlessly caught it and met her eyes, the grin still remaining. She turned away from him and began removing the other bags. 

Eventually, each traveller had their bag of belongings strapped to their body, besides Ace. While Keira fussed with her strap, Aaron glanced at the city around them. 

The first thing he noticed was that Danlash's streets and architecture were unlike any other nation's. Every intersection contained a roundabout, no traffic lights anywhere in view. Due to that fact, traffic flowed smoothly, with few stops or slowdowns. Flowers and shrubbery of many vivid hues adorned the centers of the traffic control devices. 

Aaron turned his eyes away from the roundabouts and studied the buildings lining the streets. Besides the greater concentration of brick buildings than in other cities, one thing in particular stood out. Danlashian windows were built much taller and with greater intricacy of framing than anywhere else. In some cases, one window served two stories, the beautifully-stained wooden flooring proving a pleasant reveal through the glass. 

Wendy tapped Aaron's shoulder. "You ready to get moving?" 

Aaron slowly peeled his eyes off the architecture. "Yeah...yeah, I'm ready." he muttered, meeting her gaze. "Danlash is beautiful." 

Wendy inhaled sharply as the corners of her lips lifted. "You think so?" 

"I do. Have you been here before?" 

"Well, of course. This is our capitol, Lundirk." 

Aaron nodded. "I see. And who exactly do we have to talk to to get this...aid we're looking for? Who governs this country?" 

"That'd be the Council of Gentlemen." 

Aaron raised an eyebrow and snorted. "You're kidding, right?" 

"No, I'm not. It's been Danlash's governing body for the past thousand bloody years! How haven't you heard of it?" 

"I dunno." Aaron replied with a shrug, "So is it like a senate, essentially?" 

"A bit, yes. It's the same early form of democratic government Antapeño embraced long ago. We got it from them, back when Danlash had any presence on the seas." 

"I've always found that ironic." Keira said, "Danlash is surrounded by water, and yet you guys don't even have a navy? Nor any maritime trade?" 

Wendy sighed. "Well, that's Alconte's doing. You realize Unterstat was constructed for the sole purpose of putting a thorn in Danlash's side and weakening her sea travel, right?" 

Keira shook her head. "I didn't. But that's messed up." 

"Yep. And then those bloody bastards villainize us however they can, whether it be news, entertainment, you name it." 

Aaron shook his head. "That's really messed up." 

A moment of silence lingered over the five travelers. Then Wendy perked up and said, "Well, we should go find today's paper. It's likely to say something about the Gentlemen's Assembly." 

Aaron chuckled. "So, you couldn't join the council then, Wendy?" 

"I could if I wanted to, why?" 

"Well, it's not the Council of Ladies and Gentlemen." 

Wendy rolled her eyes. "They named it at a time when no woman would even want to join the council, though there really was never any restriction." 

Aaron nodded, but said nothing more in reply. 

Wendy waved at a biker as he was about to speed by. With a swift jerk of his arm, he tossed a bundled piece of paper into her hands, and she smiled victoriously. Aaron glanced over to see what she had, and also grinned as he saw it was a newspaper. 

"Let's see..." Wendy mumbled as she ran her finger along the cluttered page, "Oh, there we go. Tonight, at 6 o'clock." 

Ace coughed and glanced at his watch. "Not even three hours from now." 

"Yeah, two hours and 45 minutes, to be exact." Aaron clarified. 

Wendy bit her lip and squinted. "It'll be a sticky wicket, but we have to make it. Next meeting's gonna be a whole month from now." 

"No." Sila said. 

Aaron chuckled. "Well said there, Sila." 

Keira turned to Wendy. "So, what do we have to do?" 

"Well, a two-hour public ball precedes the private part of their meeting, where they go behind closed doors and discuss things, which can go on into the next few days as well. During the ball, if you have an issue you'd like them to discuss with the others, you have to go dance with one of the council members and talk to him or her about it." 

Aaron nodded. "Okay." 

"So clearly, we're gonna have to change our uniforms into something both formal and danceable. There's no bloody way I'm wearing this." she said, pointing at her maroon suit of armor. 

After choking on his saliva, Aaron said, "Yeah, we could all use a style upgrade." 

Ace's brow furrowed as four pairs of eyes settled on his informal attire. "No way. There's no way you're getting me in a tuxedo." 

******************** 

Two hours later, the five emerged from a luxurious apparel store, all spiffed up and ready to head to the ball. Aaron wore a classic navy blue suit and black tie. Wendy and Keira wore gorgeous full-length dresses colored green and blue respectively, and also had their hair done up beautifully. Ace and even Sila wore black tuxedos. 

Aaron could hardly take his eyes off Wendy. She looked so stunning, and so perfect. Her golden locks glistened in the sunlight, the contrast between tight braids and free-flowing hair inexplicably addicting. 

Wendy finally noticed his unwavering stare and narrowed her eyes at him, though the expression carried none of its usual malice. "What?" 

Aaron tightened his lips and felt his body warm at her gaze. You're gonna trip, if you don't look where you're going one of these days, he told himself, though he couldn't peel his eyes off Wendy's now. "You look absolutely ravishing." 

Wendy blinked slowly and gave Aaron the smallest hint of a smile. "Thanks. You're quite fit yourself." 

"I know." Aaron held eye contact for a second longer before finally shifting his attention to the path of his footsteps. 

Myriads of girls had momentarily caught Aaron's attention before, but somehow, Wendy captivated him on multiple levels, and enduringly, at that. Not only physically, or even just emotionally, but she was mentally engaging as well. And despite all the negativity she exuded toward him, and the stony-faced front she constantly put up, the long hours she often spent with him in his workshop, either witnessing or assisting in his never-ending projects, seemed to point to a connection between them that she either couldn't or wouldn't admit. He grinned at the memory of her reluctant gratitude as he would present her with another technological enhancement to her armor suit or a newly sharpened set of her arrows that had mysteriously disappeared a day prior. 

Aaron was finally pulled out of his thoughts when Wendy stopped at the door of a stately wooden building, timelessly breathtaking in appearance despite its obvious age. With a sigh, he followed the blonde through the swinging double doors.

******************** 

A/N: Well, that was an interesting chapter, wasn't it? When I originally was writing the Iron Hallway, I wasn't originally thinking it would have a sequel, and I certainly wasn't thinking said sequel would have a scene where a man has a conversation with a talking eyeball. 😂 

If you liked, it, don't forget to vote and comment. Thanks! 

So, any thoughts on Brant's situation? 

And is anybody else fangirling/fanboying over Aaron and Wendy? 

Well, now for the random question. Let's see what I can conjure up this time: Don't look down, but what color shirt are you wearing right now? 😆 

(I've already failed, because my arms are extended to type, so I can't not see. Red here.) 

And with that, I shall take my leave until tomorrow morning. Again, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and have an awesome day's work/night's sleep/other. Bye for now! 

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top