We found the home quieter than I would have liked it to be. My mum was seated at the dining room table with her head in her hands deep in thought. Gary sat beside her, trying to comfort her to the best of his abilities. I could still remember the way I left. I was running out of time so I hadn't exactly allowed mum to stop me from leaving the house. Gary was the first to react to our arrival. "Mum, he's back. With yet another girl," he said making the last part sound completely disappointed. Mum couldn't help but laugh at his behaviour.
"You'll grow up soon too, Gary," she said before turning her attention back to us, more of me in the form of a much needed bear hug. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yes, I am," I said.
"What brings you here Ciara?" she asked.
"I am here to help with an enchanted ring that should help keep our operations discrete," she said.
"Oh yeah, here you go," Gary said handing her the ring. She froze as realisation dawned on her.
"How are you moving?" she asked, but what scared me even more was that she turned to me for an explanation.
"I am holding the ring, aren't I?" Gary said out loud to distract her.
She ignored him and took the ring before taking a seat at the dinner table to study it. "I could be of help. The former artras don't help often, but I think I can make an exception."
"By the way, why don't the former artras help?" Ciara asked.
"If you haven't noticed, we are way too old to be fighting a war. We have lives to live, that's why the artras always switch generation when it becomes apparent that they may not be able to finish the task. They instead raise a barrier that locks dark magic away from Armensia to keep the Dark mages away, then proceed to train the next generation. Not that we have done our part," she explained taking a seat next to Ciara and inspecting the ring with her.
Gary and I left the two of them to work on the ring and sat by the stairs where we talked on our own. "Congratulations on using domain magic," he said.
"So you were watching."
"Claire and I are always watching. Sometimes we wish we could help, but since we are younger than you and we have to master our magic before we can be allowed to go to battle, we are stuck watching everything," he said.
"I have something to tell you," I told him.
"What is it?"
"Ciara and I made vows of secrecy with one another, so she is entitled to know everything I know without revealing it to anyone or else she loses her powers. I am also entitled to answer any questions she asks in the occasion that we are alone. What I am trying to say is that if she asks about you, I will have to tell her everything, but there will be nothing she can do about it," I said to him.
"Your life only continues to become more complicated, doesn't it?" Gary said. he took a while to think before he answered me, "It's okay, but I promise you this. I do not plan on sitting around for much longer. As soon as Claire and I can use our magic properly or at least to hold our own in a fight, we shall do our best to join you in battle, but until then don't do anything irrational. We are going through severe training to be honest. But I am glad we are making quick progress. Shouldn't be too long…."
"Gary, don't go pushing yourself too hard," I said solemnly.
"On the contrary, we have to. We don't have a choice, we have to all this the hard way. The longer we stay away from the others, the longer we prolong the fight. Without us, you guys cannot cast Ultimate Purification. That is the only way we can beat Travas, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes, but how are we supposed to pull off that spell if there have been numerous generations who have failed to pull it off," I asked him.
"I don't know yet, but I know our generation is different. One of the reasons the artras couldn't be united before was…" he was cut off.
"We are done," Ciara said out loud, "you guys looked like you were in a deep conversation."
"It was nothing serious. I just want to learn how to ride Kevin's bike, but he still insists I am too young for that," Gary said. Coming up with a lie that fast was not something I would have called an easy feat, but Gary had just made it look so easy. I guess he had probably been preparing it while we were talking.
Ciara handed me the ruby ring, "I don't know what kind of magic was used to enchant it, but it should be affected by time spells now."
"Thank you. This will keep Sonia out of trouble," I said before Ciara vanished before my eyes.
"Teleportation is cool," Gary swooned even though I knew Ciara was only trying to get away from me and my endless surprises.
"Makes me sick to the stomach," I replied adding a hint of disgust to my voice.
We took our previous positions before I froze time with me seated beside Sonia on the couch and Gary having got the ring from her. I snapped my fingers and time went back to normal. "My dad gave me that ring, be careful," Sonia said immediately. The television continued playing the movie I had almost forgotten we were watching.
"I will," Gary replied whilst holding up the ring so that he could look at the jewel through the light.
"Enjoying the movie?" I asked.
"Yes, I am enjoying it very much. Although do you think all of that is possible. Can someone really be that smart?" she asked.
"It's a movie. You can never know. The writer decided the way it should flow, so it remains that this was got from the mind of someone. Fiction as I would call it. The debate of whether it is true or not is not something I want to get into again. I already had that one with Kendall, Isaac and Jacob," I said.
I was slowly starting to feel tired and soon found myself yawning. Gary returned the ring and ran off to his room. "You want to go to sleep already?" she asked.
"Yes, I was planning to rest for a while before you came over," I said.
"Oh sorry about that, I will let you rest then," she said before getting up in a hurry.
"That's sudden. Don't you think your parents are back yet?" I asked.
"Doesn't matter, once again I am sorry for the trouble," she said.
"Why the sudden change of mood? I don't remember ever caring if you were a bother," I said trying to recall any time she has ever taken my thoughts into consideration.
"Perhaps that was a bad approach on my part. I just need you to trust me like everyone else among our friends and I seem to be having no progress," she said before hurriedly walking to the door. I still had more questions, but decided against asking them. She seemed to be in a hurry to leave the house. I let her get out. My parents did nothing to stop her and she promptly bid them farewell before she left.
"Congratulations, Kevin, you scared her away with a sci-fi movie," dad said out loud from the dinner table when she was gone.
"Very funny," I chuckled before more exhaustion set in. The effects of the domain spell seemed to be setting in faster. I was getting increasingly exhausted, "I just need to rest," I said before rushing upstairs. Mum did not utter another word for reasons I hoped I would hear some other time. Right now, my priority was getting some rest. I got to my room and locked the door behind me.
Showering and brushing were two inevitable activities that I painfully had to go through in my weakened state. When I was finally done, I allowed myself to fall into my bed. Sleep wasn't going to be hard to find today. The day had been eventful and just like Ciara had said it, I wanted to be rid of the day and get some rest. The all too familiar feeling of magic came to me as though a breeze had just swept by. I was sure I knew what had happened, I didn't have to like it, but I knew what it was. Soon enough someone was seated beside me in my bed. "I thought you were tired."
"Is that another way of saying that you don't want me here?" Ciara asked.
"No, not at all, I can always spare a moment to talk to you," I said.
"I let it all slide when we were downstairs because I knew you might not answer me then, but now I wonder if I should just carry out the investigation so I can dodge the conditions of our agreement," she said.
"What is it you want to know?" I asked turning to face her. She still wore her neutral expression that she used when she was working as an alpha in front of all of us. She wasn't in the mood to show weakness right now or that's what I gathered from this behaviour.
"Your brother," my heart picking up the pace at the mention of my brother, "how was he able to move?" she asked. I knew there was no way I was going to dodge this question today, but ever since we made a vow of no secrecy between us, it was only a matter of time before she found out about him.
"He is an artra like us," I simply said and watched her cover her face. She was losing composure. 'That was fast.'
"Do I want to know the rest of the story? I feel like an alpha that has no more control over her own people anymore," she said.
"That is because of the way you are looking at this situation," I said.
"How else am I supposed to look at it, huh?" she snapped at me.
"My brother, he's still a kid, and unlike the rest of us, he is partly the Homage. He has to get done with his training before he can join us," I said earning her silence for a while as she thought through what I had just told her.
"Can I join you?" she asked quietly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I want to help you. I am your alpha and I am tired of watching while you handle so much on your own," she said.
"I don't understand…"
"When you stop time tomorrow, I want to meet with Mr Bergstrom. I want to train with you," she said.
"Where is this coming from?" I asked raising my voice in suspicion.
"Kevin, we are your friends. We are artras just like you. We have every right to all this," she was starting to raise her voice as she spoke.
"You are offering something quite tempting indeed, but I am afraid I must decline. You can join me for my lunch session with Mr Bergstrom, but that is all you can do. You cannot interfere with the Homages and their training or tell the others about any of this," I said.
"You just said Homages," she said.
She was eventually going to find out about it, so now was a good a time as any, "Remember the two silver thrones, the fact that there seems to be extra equipment in the Artarak. None of it is extra, there are two Homages this time. I don't know how, but that is how it is."
"And who might this extra artra be?" she asked.
"I think her name is Claire, Claire Winters," I said and watched her eyes go wide. She stayed frozen for a while before she stood up.
"Good night, Kevin," she said and with that she teleported. Conflict wasn't something that paired artras could handle, but the more I told Ciara what I knew, the more it became inevitable for it to happen.