"I need order in this room!" Raysmith calls over the masses. They are not receptive. "No one will begin speaking until this room is quiet!" She shouts and her stone at her head glows brightly. She crosses her arms and stands her ground, refusing to speak another word until the others in the room settle down and show her the respect she clearly demands.

It takes a long few minutes of us just standing here, her with her head held high, mine a little more down and wishing to be anywhere but on this stage, and Tonyedda somewhere between the two of us. The roar in the room slowly settles to a murmur until finally after a while of probably all being tired of standing around, nowhere near enough seats for the magnitude of people gathered here, the room goes quiet.

"Thank you." Raysmith nods her head and takes a deep breath. "As many of you are aware, the traitor has returned." The room sways with emotion that you can feel and almost even see floating over every one. "He brings us news of the most sensitive nature and we will all need to adjust our thinking to this reality as it is."

"We don't want to hear from you!" The man from earlier wiggles his way through the crowd to get back in the front. "You all are fine with lying to us," He says and I don't show on my face how true his statement actually is. "We want to hear it from her." He points one long finger in my direction. "Unless one of our own tells us we don't want to hear it."

The crowd murmurs in agreement and I go still in my spot on stage as Rasymith slowly turns towards me. "By all means," She extends her hand to me. "Let her tell you then."

I swallow hard as the room stills again, so many expectant eyes on me.

"I don't really know where to begin." I say first, voice sounding stuck in the back of my throat.

"Why is the traitor here?" Someone shouts.

"Yeah, why would we let him back in to our building after what he's done?"

I take a step forward and focus on a spot at the back of the room. "He's returned because he was one of the few people who could shed the light on who our real enemies are." I say, side glancing to Tonyedda and Raysmith to be sure they aren't going to freak out over me calling the Gods enemies. When neither of them turns red or looks pissed I slowly ease into it. "Let me ask you all a question," I start. "Who would want to see this realm and our mission here fail?" When no one can really answer, I take a deep breath and barrel into the truth. There isn't any avoiding it, and though the commotion builds, I just continue to speak over the top of them all, needing to get all of the insanity out and face the music that is the absolute chaos that ensues afterwards.

"The gods?"

"I want to leave!"

"We can't go against the god's wishes!"

"This is a suicide mission!"

"I know," I shout. "I know it sounds bad, and trust me, I know it's not ideal, but we've got to stick together through this."

"Stick together?" The man up front, my new personal number one enemy. "We don't even know if the person standing next to us is a true Custode or if they were randomly selected."

"Or worse," A woman chimes in. "They could be a mindless zombie working for the gods to lure us into a dark corner and murder us!"

"We all need to just pack it up and go home."

"This is my home." I snap. "I can't speak for the rest of you, obviously, but this is what I'm choosing to stand up and fight for. I won't back down just because it's harder now. I won't let an entire realm of humans, vampire, werewolves, demons, faes, angels, and witches all die just because I'm scared." I shout over the yelling. "I'm afraid, just like the rest of you are, but without us, then what happens here? Many of you have been lucky enough to be here for years, you've been out on missions and seen these people we are here to protect, and you'd still turn your back on them all?"

"We are going to die if we don't!" Someone shouts back.

"Maybe," I nod. "Maybe we will, but we definitely will if everyone decides to run home with their tales tucked between their legs. We are Custodes. We protect this realm. We stand with this realm, and we are one or we are nothing. That is even truer today than the first day Serge said it. If we fall apart now, the gods win. They keep their power and we let our creators and this whole realm down. The only chance we stand is by coming together and taking on this threat. Without the person standing next to you, we are already doomed to fail."

"And what is the plan then?" A woman with black hair and angry eyes demands. "What are we supposed to do? The damage has been done. The supernaturals are all on the brink of chaos and there aren't enough of us already, plus the ones who will leave now. How are we supposed to keep the realm from going to shit, because I want to help, I do, but I don't want to go down with a sinking ship either."

"We will find a solution by working together." Raysmith says. "No one person can decide this anymore. It's too big and too important to try. We have to all work tirelessly to come to an agreement on the best way to proceed from here."

"That's my point," The black haired woman replies. "We don't have a clue and we are too short on time for most of us to hang around to see if this can be turned back around or not. It's just too much to ask."

"I know it is a lot." I tell her. "I know how daunting it all sounds, and the honest truth is that yeah, maybe it is a suicide mission. Maybe it is all doomed and we have no chance of bucking back against the gods. But what I know is that I could never live with myself if I left now. I'd constantly wonder for the rest of my life if maybe if I had had the courage to stand with you all and fight with all I had, if we could have made it. I'd hate myself for abandoning my people to die. I couldn't live that way." I shake my head. "I couldn't go back home and start my life over like none of this ever happened. The moment that Oliver showed me my necklace and I saw that stone light up, I felt the shift in me. I wasn't the person that I was before. I was this new girl with a purpose and this is it. I'm here for this. I will die for this if that's what it comes to."

"You can't expect us all to be as ready to lay down our lives as you are."

"No, I don't." I say. "I hope that some will think like me, but I know that many of you are going to leave us. I can only hope and pray that you will decide to stay. I believe that together we can do this. I truly do. I'm asking that all of you, before you make a decision, just try to see it. Try to believe in us the way that I do. The way that I know Raysmith and Tonyedda and all of our other leaders do. Believe in a future for us all, the realm and the person beside you."

The room continues to shout and sway, unhinged emotions bouncing from every wall and person. I stand back though because I've said all I can say. I've done the best I can do to sway this room, and whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Nothing else I can do on my own is going to convince anyone and I can only worry about the people who matter the most.

I stand back as Raysmith speaks to the people, trying to ease them with little success. Every good stance is met with a bad one. All the good questions have great answers while the bad ones have no answers at all. I can see why it would be hard for some people to get behind this now. It's dangerous. It's almost downright insane. But I, unlike so many others, don't have a home to return to. This is it for me, so my decision was easy. Everyone else, not so much.

Raysmith releases the people back to their rooms and I rush off of the stage to find my friends. They wait just outside the doors, their faces tight and expressions guarded.

"Wow." Yael is the first to speak.

"You can say that again." I nod.

"So Oliver was under some kind of freaky god mind control the whole time?" Brynn asks.

"Supposedly." Raven rolls his eyes and I elbow him in the side that isn't injured.

"Yes, and I do believe him about that." I add. "But I'm more concerned with how you all feel about the other stuff. Where is your heads at?"

"You know I'm with you." Raven says and I nod.

"I think it's terrifying." Brynn shakes her head. "I mean, the god want us all dead. What can we do to stop them? They're gods."

"I know it's bad but-."

"I didn't say I was giving up though," She cuts back in. "I'm not going anywhere, at least not yet."

"I'm with you." Max pats my shoulder.

I turn to Noah and Yael and they both look pale and nervous.

"If you all are staying so am I." Noah tells me with little conviction.

Yael swallows hard as he nods. "I'd follow you anywhere, remember?"

I give him a quick hug and turn to Opall who nods and then to Bob.

"I don't know, Mali." He bites his lip. "I'm not sure I can..." he trails off and I take his hand.

"Look, Bob," I tell him. "You don't have to make any decisions right this very second, ok? You can take your time to think about it and I promise, no matter how badly I want you to stay, we won't think less of you if that isn't your choice. You're our friend, so don't even be worrying about that, ok?"

He looks a little more relaxed now that the pressure is off. "Ok." He nods. "I will."

"Malikah," Raysmith and Tonyedda pull me aside. "We need you back in the councilor's chambers."

"What for?" I ask and they only exchange a glance and start walking.

I frown at my friends and turn to follow them as Raven falls in step with me. "What are you doing?" I ask and he shakes his head at me.

"I'm not leaving you alone with that guy again." He tells me. "You might believe him but I don't trust a word that comes out of his mouth."

"You said yourself you sensed the regret and remorse in him after he pushed me, Raven." I remind him but his face remains hard.

"You can feel bad about something but then do it again." He says bluntly and I know there is no use arguing over it with him.

We walk back into the large room, Oliver still shackled to the table where there a two men holding tablets in front of him and scanning through photos. "That's one." He nods to the picture of a girl on the left and the man marks her off.

"What are you doing?" I ask and he turns towards me.

"Identifying the wrongly chosen that I can." He replied before turning back.

"How did it go?" One of the men asks Raysmith and she groans as she walks across the room and plops down into a chair.

"Terribly." She says. "We're going to lose more than half at least."

"Half?" I repeat. "Surely not-."

"I know you're optimistic, but it won't be good." She says. "Even with a speech like yours the fight to preserve one's self is going to win out for most of them." She puts a hand to her forehead. "I don't know what we are going to do."

I wrack my brain trying to think. With half of our fighting force, there is no way we can hold off the supernaturals here. Which leaves only one thing to do.

"We have to talk to the supernaturals." I say, putting my hands on my hips. "We have to let them all know what's going on."

"We can't just tell them!" A man shouts. "Most of them don't even know that we exist."

"Oh well, they need to know now." I shake my head. "It's the only choice we have. We can't hold them off if they go to war, but maybe we can talk them into a peace treaty-."

"-They will never come to peace! They are enemies. They will only fight harder."

"Not if them fighting means that they all die!" I say. "That's the only play we have. We've got to make friends with all of the leaders and make them see that without all working together, not just mundi, but everyone in this realm, then we are done for. We have to make them see reason. It's our only hope."

"She's right." Another man agrees. "It's crazy but it's what will have to work."

"Malikah," Raysmith stands up and walks over to me. "We need to talk." The tone of her voice instantly puts me on edge. "In your speech up there, you said that Oliver was the one to give you your necklace...is that true?"

I look from her to him and his eyes are wide on mine, his mouth open. "Mali, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I demand. "Yes, he sold me the necklace, what does that matter?"

"Malikah," Tonyedda says gently. "That isn't how it works."

"Wait." I hold up my hands looking between them all and my chest aches as my eyes well with tears. "No. You can't mean..."

"I'm sorry, Malikah, I wasn't going to tell them about you, I swear."

I'm not a real Custode.

I'm one of the falsely chosen.

"Your friend, Tawny," Oliver says. "She was the one meant for the stone."

Of course she was. She was the brilliant one. She's the one who brought peace and love to the Ring. Not me. I was never meant to be this person. I'm not even supposed to be here.

"I don't care." I snap, crossing my arms and it's true. "Screw it. I don't care if I was meant to be here or handpicked by the gods, I'm here now and I want to fight. I want this."

"Mali, that's not how it works around here." Tonyedda looks down.

"You can't stay." Raysmith shakes her head sadly.

"That's bullshit!" Raven snaps. "She's got more heart for this cause than all those people in that auditorium together and you'd send her away? That's wrong and you know it!"

"I know." Raysmith says. "but I don't make the rules, I-."

She freezes as a tear rolls down my cheek. "I don't need a fancy necklace to tell me what to do." I say. "I want this. I am here to fight with you all, destined or not." I say but none of them are looking at my face.

The tear drops from my chin and lands on the stone of my necklace, filling the room with a blast of colors. I cover my eyes like the others and gasp as it disopates and I look down at the necklace hanging around my neck.

It's no longer blue.

Or at least, not just blue.

It's blue, red, yellow, and pink.

Four brightly shining colors beaming from the large stone.

"Looks like the gods changed their minds about her." Raven says smugly and I can't help but smile.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily." I say. "This is my fight too, and we are going to win."

End of Book one