Ethereal

~Charlotte~

Surprise registered on my face as Tennin pulled away.

"You used my name" I said softly.

Marcie snorted from where she was

"He did a bit more then just use your name." She remarked. I ignored her.

"Are you alright?" He asked, keeping his eyes locked with mine. His face was creased in worry and he kept a tight hold of my hands.

"Yeah, I-" We heard a soft applauding from further away. The prince materialized from the shadows.

"Well done Koreask." He said "Your clumsy, but brave. And as for you my little seer, well done as well. Hmm harnessing the power of a glow bug... interesting" He turned back to me and then seemed to noticed Tennin for the first time "Oh!" he laughed "What a charming turn of events. A soldier, and the Koreask.... Or considering your past, the former Koreask and the Koreask."

"What?" Marcie and I said together

"Oh, he hasn't told you?" Dominiv chuckled darkly.

"That's enough Dominiv" Tennin said darkly

"Oh we don't like that do we?"

"I said enough."

"Well, it's of no matter to me. Though, I rather like seeing your squirm." He turned back to me. "We aren't done yet Koreask. Oh no, not yet. Come along now." Guards melted out from the remaining mists, one of them grabbed Marcie and the other two were coming towards Tennin and I.

"Stop!" I shouted. The Guards starred at me, unsure of what to do next.

"Don't just stand there, get her!"

"Don't you dare." I hissed at them. They stopped looking back at their prince.

"I am the Koreask. I am the prophecy. You have no idea what I am capable of."

 I was bluffing. I was no more capable of taking these three, then decca. In fact, the little glow bug might have a better chance. But, how could they know that? They believed with every fiber of their being that I was the person that was going to save them from the darkness. They had to believe I knew something, knew what I was doing.

"Don't move." I commanded. I knew we had approximately three minutes before the prince overrode this command.

I pulled Tennin down the pile of rocks and grabbed Marcie. Then the three of us were running back the way we had come.

"That was a clever trick Koreask." We all looked up to see Ashan was running along side us, as though he had been there the whole time.

"Ashan!" Marcie cried.

"Hello love." he said with a smile.

"Where have you been?" Tennin asked.

"Me?" he laughed "I've been with you guys the whole time. You really think I'd just abandon you?" He was looking at Marcie when he said this. I wondered if she noticed.

"I was working on a way to get all of you out of there, but then this one" he gestured to me "Came up with that little show."

"How did you escape them?" Marcie asked

"Never mind that now, we have to get out of here. Then we'll have time to talk."

We all agreed and kept running. I had been beat up pretty badly in my fight with that thing. And my leg hadn't healed all the way yet. I just hoped I wouldn't fall again.

"Go after them you idiots!" We head the prince cry.

We pushed ourselves to go faster, and soon we were out of the tunnel.

"Where to now?" I asked breathlessly

Ashan shrugged

"I'm all out of Ideas, how about you Tennin?"

"Well, there is one place we can go. Gralad."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Gralad, was perhaps the most breathtaking place I had ever seen. Even in the dark the place glittered. We had turned corners and gone down impossibly small alleyways. I wondered how Ashan and Tennin knew where we were going because, even though I tried to keep track of the turns we made, I was lost within three minutes.

Ten minutes of running took to a thick grove of bent and broken trees-- the first trees I had seen since Nowhere land. Tennin took the lead then, confidently walking through the forest.

"Careful," he said "this forest was meant to keep people out."

We made it through the trees unharmed and what we saw was beyond our wildest imagination. It was huge. Surrounded by walls on all sides, it was obviously some sort of fortress. But the most striking feature was what is was made out of. White stone. Stone that let out a glow no amount of Darkness could kill.

"It's beautiful" I whispered.

"Welcome to Gralad, the old Palace of  Sub-Terra.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"What did he mean?" I asked Tennin, once we had gotten inside. Marcie and Ashan had gone off to explore. I had been invited along, but I didn't relish the thought of being a third wheel.

"When he said you were the former Koreask?" Tennin sighed and looked at me, pain showing in his eyes.

"There was a time," he said pacing the room, "just after the city began to decline, that Sub-Terra's economy dropped drastically. For the first time in thousands of years people were experiencing true poverty. Wedges were drawn between classes and the city was thrown into chaos. Then began the frantic search for the Koreask. For you. But people were so desperate they would do anything to make money, so when the government put out a thousand hix reward for the first person to find the Koreask, people went mad."

He stopped thinking a moment.

"People began to make their kids Koreasks, in anyway they could. Changing their hair, putting lenses in their eyes." He shuddered. "My mother was one of those people. I was to be her Koreask. Most people were found out. A misstep in the hair change, a faulty lens. But my mother was smarter then that. She enlisted a mage, an old friend of the family. He magicked my hair blond and put unbreakable lenses in my eyes."

"That must of hurt." I remarked "The lenses I mean."

Tennin turned to me,

"You have no idea" he said, and then it was my turn to shutter. "When he was through with me I," he laughed "Well I could have been your brother. My mother took me to the palace and they let me in. I looked so real, and they needed someone. I was only four then. Anyway I spent the majority of my youth as the Koreask, the hope of the nation. But it couldn't last. The mage had stayed with me, alongside my mother. The two pretended they were married and that he was my father." A look of disgust crossed Tennin's face

"Well,  he got so comfortable in the palace, he became sloppy and one day my lenses broke."

"That explains the red line on your eyelids" I said, more to myself than to him.

"You noticed?" He seemed surprised

"I'm observant." I said simply "It also explains why you always let Ashan take the lead. You don't trust your eyes do you?"

"It was my fault we were captured." he said a pained expression on his face. "These damned eyes always fail me.

I laughed lightly

"Tennin that was inevitable. Bisides," I said smiling "I quite like your eyes"

He looked away from me and continued

"Anyway, my eyes were bleeding but no one knew what it was. They rushed me to the medicine woman. She was able to save my eys but our game was up. The city was furious, the order mandated my death but I was only ten. I was lucky for the General, General Exic was his name, had taken a liking to me and he protected me saying that he would take me as his responsibility and teach me to be a soldier for the order."

"And your mother?"  I asked softly

Tennin sighed and stopped pacing, and sat with his head in his hands

"He couldn't do anything for them. It was a miracle the order let him keep me. They were carted off to Calix and executed."

"I'm so sorry." I whispered

"No, don't be" he said suddenly standing up. "She was a traitor to the city."

"She was also your mother." I said crossing to him. I rested a hand lightly on his arm. "It's okay to grieve for her."

He looked at me then, and I saw a Tennin I had never seen. I saw the child that was left alone in the care of a strange man. The child who had lost his mother and then had to grow up hearing everyone say that she deserved what she got.

"I am so sorry." I said again. and then I wrapped my arms around him. He tensed and then relaxed, and we just stayed like that.

The child, and the lost girl.