Chapter 26: Chapter 26

IRIS

My own strength was still unpredictable. In an attempt to control myself, I accidentally hurled the three men around me through the air.

Devas reacted as he always did. He shielded the others and just rolled his eyes in annoyance when I stammered an apology. As if I were a naughty child who kept doing something forbidden.

I was now able to develop my powers and tried out everything Devas showed me. Not only could I control the dark powers, I could control all of them.

Any power I saw or touched soon obeyed me. But it was more than mere control. I did more than just understand them.

I melted into them. Like a black hole that swallows stars, my red aura absorbed their powers.

Strange energies twitched in my blood before they subdued, transformed, overlaid by my glowing red light. Their blue flashes, golden shields, silver threads… all turned to ash in my flame and were reborn as something else.

Something that had never happened before. It got easier with every day.

After a week of daily practice, the process was almost instinctive. Jade stopped by every day that week.

It was easy for her to open a portal and come to us. She often brought warriors with special powers to practice with me.

Whether water or earth or any other element, I mastered them very quickly. Even wood elves or elf powers were very easy for me to learn.

She also came with Noah, Mana, and Keijou, and they taught me their powers. Inna and Aidan also came by and were very proud of me for the effort I made.

I was tired but tried my best every day, knowing I still had a lot to learn. Devas pushed me to my limit every day.

Avery was worried about me, but he knew I wanted it that way. Everyone was a great support for me, and that only increased my motivation.

Devas and I began with a tense connection. But slowly, very imperceptibly, it turned into something resembling friendship.

I began to understand him. His manner was neither artificial nor shallow.

He was just old. So infinitely old that his features no longer followed the rhythms of mortals, but the tides of eternity.

As my memories returned, so did my knowledge of our kind, at least those that were known. Good beings. Evil creatures.

All of us were apparently immortal, but not for eternity. We could live hundreds of years, some even thousands.

Unaffected by time or disease. But our long life was not an unbreakable gift; it could be taken from us.

A bullet from a human gun? An annoying sting, nothing more. But the dagger from an immortal? It would erase us forever.

Our bodies evolved, grew, reached the peak of perfection, and then they stopped. No more aging. No more changes.

But that only applied as long as we never left Antaris. If we left our world behind, we also gave up our immortality.

This also applied to the evil creatures. And I realized why Bael seemed to be the same age as Devas, even though he had raised him.

I was lucky not to die in the human world. Actually, everything should have turned out differently.

As we sat at dinner, I turned to Devas. “You called me Prodigy when we got here,” I said.

Bael and Avery both looked up at Devas, who was eating, and ignored me as if he didn’t hear me.

“Devas!” I said angrily.

He looked up from his plate and put down his cutlery.

“You were talented as a child. Very talented… You were interested in all powers and it was very easy for you to use them. You just needed a push to do it again. Prodigy!” Devas said.

A deep exhale could be heard from him, as if a weight was on his chest. “Your father used to call you ‘Prodigy’,” he added.

A brief silence.

Then Devas lifted his gaze, and in his eyes was a whole world of memories, vivid, as if my father himself was standing between us.

“The day we discovered your gift…” He hesitated, as if he was searching for the right words. “He saw it straight away. Something in you that even I couldn’t grasp. And… He was so proud… Prodigy,” he added.

A hint of a smile touched his lips as he pronounced the word. Prodigy.

Not mockingly, not patronizingly, but with a respect that penetrated me like warm light. Suddenly, I understood.

It was not a nickname. It was a legacy.

He called me that because my father had once done it. And in that moment, under the weight of that simple truth, I felt closer to my father than I had ever felt before.

Through someone else’s voice, through a word that reached across the years like a bridge.

“You have one more thing to do and it’s going to be very dangerous,” he added.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my brows furrowed.

“You have to find your amicus,” Devas answered and continued to eat.

“It’s going to be very difficult. No one knows where they’re keeping the amicus,” Avery said.

I froze at Devas’ words. “My amicus...” I repeated.

He looked up from his plate, one eyebrow raised as he pointed his fork at me. “Yes, your amicus, Iris... that thing that spoke through you when Bael helped you remember. That was some creepy ass shit,” Devas answered me.

It was my amicus who spoke to me... all this time.

“The voice in my head... is that of my amicus?” I asked.

“Yes, my love, only you can communicate with your amicus like that... so you talked to him?” Avery asked me, stroking my hand.

“I’ve been talking to him in my dreams for years... but I didn’t know who he was,” I said to them.

Devas sighed deeply, that drawn-out, slightly annoyed breath I knew all too well by now. Of course I didn’t know anything.

And how could I? I’d never attended the rigorous teaching academies of Antaris.

I’d never pored over the duties of an Amicus in ancient libraries. While others had been prepared for this particular function since childhood, I had simply... stumbled into it.

“Well... Idiot. That’s the way your amicus can communicate with you when you’re apart,” Devas explained.

“He didn’t happen to tell you where he was imprisoned?” Bael asked.

I shook my head without taking my eyes off Devas, who laughed at me for my lack of knowledge.

“No... the only thing I saw in my dream was a place with red flowers. And I heard terrible animal noises. A cave guarded by terrible animals,” I answered.

“~Infernus insula~,” Devas and Bael said at the same time.

Their faces were serious. Even Devas’ face, which had just been amused, became frighteningly serious.

“Fuck no! The island of Hell… well, this was the only place from which no intruder ever came back. It was said that the worst and most horrible breeds of Hell lived there. And the prisoners were taken there personally by the princes.

The creatures only listened to the royal family of darkness,” said Devas as he got up from the table.

He was pacing around the room, thinking out loud. We watched him and listened to his chatter.

“We can do it, we just need a plan,” Bael said.

“What do you mean? Weren’t you listening? The amicus is on the island of Hell! You can’t just walk in there,” Devas exclaimed angrily to Bael.

“Well, we can get to the island with the help of Jade… and Bael is a trickster. We could look for my amicus unnoticed.

And when we find him, we’ll go back through the portal again,” I suggested.

Devas stopped walking and looked at me.

“That’s a good idea, Devas,” Bael encouraged.

Devas looked from me to Bael, as if to tell him he was just as stupid as I was.

“We take the strongest warriors and go in to save the amicus. In and out unnoticed,” Avery said.

With a drawn-out sigh, Devas turned to Avery, his fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose as if trying to nip a burgeoning headache in the bud.

“Are you even listening to yourself?” he muttered between clenched teeth.

“It’s the fucking island of Hell. And you think you can just walk in and out without being noticed,” Devas yelled out.

“Oh, Devas is scared of some beasts,” Bael sneered.

“I’m not scared,” Devas snapped back at Bael.

“So let’s go?” Bael asked him, still mocking.

Devas looked from him to me and then to Avery. He appeared to be thinking.

“This will take preparation. Someone has to make a plan, choose people, prepare everything,” Devas replied.

“I think you’ll be the best for the job,” Avery said as he patted his shoulder.

Devas looked at me and ran his hand through his hair, annoyed.

“We will all die… so no!” he said as he dropped onto the chair.

“Not when we’re prepared,” Bael replied.

Devas was shaking his head as a sign of dismay. Why didn’t he want to do this?

Why was he so against it? What the hell was on this island?