This is your fault.
This is your fault.
This is your fault.
This is your fault.
This is your fault.
The words came at him thick and fast, familiar voices, voices of his friends from the West, voices of his staff, voices of women, children, men, all blaming him for what had happened here.
“No,” Rionan said, stepping back from the Well. The darkness still reached for him, trying to wrap itself around him, to pull him closer. “It’s not. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
The darkness gripped his wrist, straining to pull him closer to the Well.
Come home.
“No,” he fought. “Not yet. If I do – if he takes over the land. I need to find a way to stop this.”
Come. Home.
He pulled back against the darkness, but it was too strong.
COME. HOME.
COME. HOME.
COME. HOME.
COME. HOME.
It was no use. Rionan tumbled into the Well, his power erupting out of him in a wash of blinding colour, as his eyes snapped open.
Rionan awoke with a start, his body covered in sweat. The wooden bedposts had splintered and fractured. The flowers, which had been on a bedside cabinet, were withered like they had died long ago. The curtains, which had been pulled across the windows, now drooped, shredded, and only half hung.
The room was a disarray of broken furniture, torn fabric, and chaos.
He sat up, his breathing heavy. He skimmed his tongue over his teeth and felt the sharp points of his elongated canines. He lifted his hands up to his face to see the familiar, silvery hue of his Xanthian skin.
Rionan looked to the flowers now dead and scattered on the table next to him, reaching towards them with his finger and willing them to life. Slowly, the brown leaves turned green. The stems lifted until they were once again upright. The petals of the flowers refilled with colour as they lifted, as if reaching for the sunlight, filling the room with scent.
He hadn’t gone back to Xanthia. The dream was not real. Ulreah and Thallax – they might still be ok.
His power rumbled inside him like a storm, as if making a point that the dream may not have been real now, but he needed to return to Xanthia. He was not meant for the human realm. Certainly not for this length of time. Because the West of Xanthia could not exist without a Lord.
“I know. I know.” He sighed, rubbing his face with his hands as he sat up. Rionan reached for the telephone next to him to buzz for housekeeping, only to find that it had been smashed into pieces.
Rionan searched the sheets for his own mobile phone, which had, somehow, not been broken by the force of his power. There was a lightning shaped crack in the screen, but it functioned. The time read 13:23pm.
He’d been asleep for half the day.
“Fuck,” he whispered, getting to his feet and searching for some clothes. Finding the least ruined items he could, heshifted into his human form and made his way to the hotel reception.
Rionan sat on a bench near West Beach. He had been to the hotel reception, where he had spoken with three members of staff. Usinghis power to encourage discretion, he asked that housekeeping see to his room. Another member of staff gifted him new clothing, “On behalf of The Rinniel, to apologise for your poor night’s sleep. We expect better, for our suite guests.”
He was assured that his room would be fit for use by the evening and that they would personally oversee that this was taken care of.
“Thank you.” Rionan had smiled.
