Chapter 28: Around The Worlds

Within her large home, Vivienne's body finally relaxed. She fell into a dreamless coma-like sleep while her younger brother woke from the vibrations of power he could sense were coming from her Transformation. Noting the time, he quickly rose from his sleeping position on the floor and swiftly crossed the floor, his shadow lengthening as the sun steadily rose over the treetops.

He flinched when he heard Vivienne slightly sniff. She usually got up a few minutes after the sun rose. He took a look at her giant wings, with white and black feathers, just like the one in Vee's dream, and he huffed his annoyance as he dragged her into her bed. Pulling the slate blue comforter up to her chest, he pressed a kiss to her cheek before stealthily creeping out of her room and into his, with the voice of the Prophet to guide him.

Across town, a light flickered on in a room on the ground floor of the large cozy home of the Luxors'. Caspian turned a faint shade of green as Aella and Aether, the twin elder Spirits of naturally gaseous elements and flight, spoke in his mind, introducing him to this new life. They told him that his dead Grandmother Esme was a powerful faerie under Aella and Aether whose wings were brutally cut off by Abaddon. She had used the Spirits' favor to find a new family in the human world with his grandfather, who was a wealthy yet clueless mortal. She only passed away after his grandfather did, by taking her own life and making it look like a peaceful death.

Caspian sat, more like fell, onto his bed as he tried not to remember jumping off the ledge of Smythe's cliff. Still, the memories made their way into his mind and he could almost feel the wind rushing past him and a scream tearing from his vocal cords as he realized what he'd done. He tried not to remember how it was his acceptance of his death, not his fear, that resulted in a tug deep in his gut.

He tried most of all not to remember how his eyes were screwed shut but he noticed that he wasn't falling when he saw the air around him was holding him right above the rocks where he was about to be impaled. He used his energy to float his way back up the cliff in shaky, scary bursts of power. He squinted his eyes shut and fisted his hands as he tried not to remember the last pieces of his journey, where he struggled to walk home after expending so much energy and began to hear the Spirits' voices in his mind, telling him about the creature world.

As he watched the sun rise over the other houses in his neighborhood, the Spirits finally stopped talking to him. He could still feel them there, watching with him, through him, but they were respectful enough to let him have a moment of peace where he wondered if he was crazy, or if all this was true and who he could trust anymore.

In the castle of the Fallen Dark, deep in the heart of the Dark Kingdom, Prince Alexander lay down on a long, cushioned seat in a neat and tidy room that was sparsely decorated yet spoke clearly that it was his room. Alexander took a few deep breaths and his glamour disappeared, almost like his appearance was being washed off. When his wings were back to their sleek black appearance and his eyes back to their electric blue-green color, he double checked the doors were locked and put more subtle defensive magic around his quarters.

Sighing a breath of relief, he closed his eyes gently and reached out with his mind to find two people who are sheltered with a lot of complicated magic. The Chosen One's parents. He had a new plan after observing a piece of her life, after realizing that she had one mortal flaw: Loyalty. He found them almost immediately, with a large grin on his face despite the days of work ahead of him in order to break through their defenses, made by the Spirits themselves. His Dark aura shone brighter as he began, displaying his true form.

Just outside the Spirits' castle, Fallen Dark soldiers, led by General Coronus, looted the evacuated outer castle, and gathered themselves in preparation for the long march to come. The Spirits, invisible, watched as each one of the soldiers did not suspect that the Spirits were too easily beaten. They protected the creatures who weren't fast enough, but otherwise only concealed the important parts of the castle before disappearing, making them think that they have won.

Myiasis took particular interest as the spy that they had willingly let into the castle gave General Coronus the information about the last Prophet. The Spirits were not worried, though they were not able to tell lies, they had told the spy the truth about where the Prophet was hidden. They were not worried because they had faith that their Chiaroscuro would find the Prophet in time to hear the prophecy of where her teammates are hidden around the worlds.

As General Coronus heard out his spy, his expression grew slightly grim. He called on his soldiers and announced to them all that they were going to march back to the Fallen Dark Kingdom in order to ask permission from the King to use the portal to get to the human world faster. They marched on, without looking back at the creatures and Spirits, who had started rebuilding their home.

In the Kingdom of Light, in one of the still-lit rooms, Prince Leonidas snaps his eyes open from his short slumber and turns his gaze around his room, scanning the elegantly designed quarters for the prince and making sure that he is alone. Leonidas gasps as he remembers why he woke up in the first place; he sensed Vivienne's magic finally break through the barriers of her mortal body. Shirtless, he quickly rose and ran to the throne room, where he called his advisors and men who weren't afflicted by the disease to court with King Lucius II.

Murmurs went out as they all agreed they felt something very powerful release its magic, and they knew it was the Chosen One, he who would be their savior. Soon, he sent every single of their Light gerákis to search for Vivienne, and they would have found her within a few weeks, days even, except the creature-falcons were told to look for a male, and though they all felt Vee's breakthrough, she was properly hidden with not only the Spirits' magic, but also Prince Alexander's and her own.

Around the two worlds, different teenage kids woke up shocked and mostly unprepared for the voices in their minds. A girl from Portugal, a little younger than Varun, realized that the voice of the Oracle in her mind was telling the truth, and she wasn't going crazy. A boy the same age as Caspian from Florida began hearing the voices of Stereós and Gaea, twin elder Spirits of solid elements and earth, after they coaxed him to dive into a dangerous pit of mud and quicksand and he survived by tapping into his power which he never knew he had.

Another girl from New York heard the voices of Imber and Hali, twin elder Spirits of liquid elements and rain and the sea, after trapping herself in a sea cave and making it out safely after tapping into powers she had never noticed before either. Another girl from France began to hear the voices of Pyrrhus and Hestia, twin elder Spirits of energy and the flame, after jumping into a bonfire and tapping into powers she'd also never had before in order to get out safely.

Twin faeries, one a Light boy and the other a Dark girl, realize that they have hidden true natures, in the form of Sleepers, the first in many years, after tapping into their powers while running from Fallen Dark soldiers who want to separate them. They find a safe place across the border in the human world in Ireland, where the ancestral home of a woman named Quinn Anastasia Davidson who doesn't realize she is of angel descent.