“Yes.” His mother nodded, tears pooling in her eyes. “Yes, I’ll do that.”
She stood and walked off, softly shutting the door behind her.
“How is she alive?”
“A gift.” Cassius answered. “From my father.”
“Sariel?”
Cassius nodded. “You said you wanted to know what Dark Ones really were and how it happened, so I’m going to take you back to the beginning.”
“The beginning of the Dark Ones.”
His eyes flashed. “To the first one ever created.” He sighed as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Me.”
Cassius
THE PAST WAS A painful reminder of my uncertain future, and exposing her to that, unsettled me completely, but if she wanted the truth.
I could not.
Would not, keep it from her.
“Watch,” I whispered, lying down with her near the fire, as her body relaxed against mine, I waited for her to fall into a deep sleep and prayed that she wouldn’t hate herself for what she was.
Because Dark Ones… were not the heroes.
But the villains.
I kissed her forehead and began my story as I walked into her dream, grasping her hand tightly. “Look, look at the ones who watch.”
Two hundred men stood on the edge of the mountain, each of them well over seven feet tall, their faces were perfectly shaped as if the person who had created them had special knowledge of just how far away eyes should be from the nose, and the nose from the lips.
To stare at them was to experience the fullest of contentment.
To be in their presence was absolute adoration.
A battle brewed in front of them, yet they were immobile.
“They were called the ones who do not sleep.” I pointed at the line of men as their gold armor glistened against the sun, a sword and shield was placed in each hand. They continued to stand, their hair tangled in the wind, a mixture of reds and black tendrils escaped out of their gold helmets.
One of the two hundred flinched as a man was decapitated.
He lowered his head for a fraction of a second, while one of the men next to him grunted.
And still, they stood.
“Why aren’t they helping?” Stephanie asked. “Humans are dying! Getting slaughtered by one another. Why don’t they intervene?”
“Because it’s not their job,” I answered. “Their job is to watch, their job is to never close their eyes. For when you close your eyes, even for a brief moment, you lose sight of what’s in front of you, and at times, you can lose sight of what’s inside.”
“That makes no sense.” Stephanie pointed back down at the humans. “Blood’s everywhere, it would take two of the men o
n the mountain to stop this.”
“One,” I corrected her. “It would only take one.”
The scene changed and suddenly the village in front of them was getting swallowed up in flames.