Chapter 18 Diamonds of Painful Love

We ride to the city of Tustridge, the capital of the country, as fast as we can past the wild nature, swept in the whirlwind of the autumn that comes as a moody queen, painting everything red and purple, then ripping off all the colors, wreaking havoc…

It is not far to go, and now Sada feels a bit stronger in the face of the upcoming invasion, but the spaceship is still of little use if she won’t be able to figure out what she thinks I can do to help. I have no idea what she’s up to, frankly.

Kallitris is here. He does not need to be physically present to be all around me, and in my mind. His embrace is vehement and painfully pleasant. I do not even know how I find myself out of the body and on his ship.

“I have something for you” He says. “Here, these are diamonds from my homeland.”

Kallitris pulls out a massive necklace with big sparkling stones. He holds it in the palm of his hand, covered with intricate pattern, darker than the skin. I always wonder if that’s a tattoo, or was he born that way?

“Very nice!” I manage to say.

He puts it on my neck and kisses me on my lips. The intensity of his feelings is immeasurable. I know he loves me as much as I love him. Maybe even more.

“Someday we will travel to my planet. It is lovely.” He smiles, his eyes constantly changing color.

His planet is every stage of carbon, with unrealistic yellow skies, benzene fumes for air and methane lakes for water. But yes, there are mountains of pure, high grade diamonds.

Suddenly we are in the room inside my mind, right in front of the wall that separates us from the Faith Star. This time I make an effort to remember everything that happens next. The fact that I have the same Star as Ari does not surprise me for a second. Apparently I knew this all along. But kept forgetting.

Kallitris touches the transparent wall, and it disappears. Then he walks into the room, and takes the Star. This is not how it is supposed to be. We’re supposed to do it together. I must remember. I can’t forget anymore. His actions seem wrong, but he is so glorious, holding the sparkling bright star with its piercing sharp ends.

He grabs me with one swift motion, and we fly through the darkness with the star shining above us the whole time. The fantastic sight opens up in front of us – I can see a galaxy – gigantic, spinning, with immense “sleeves” spreading as far as my eyes can see, abundant with numberless stars and planets, all pulsating with life.

But the best is yet to come. We move right across the fields of stars to an amazing view: there is a noisy, violent, colossal stream of dense energy coming right from the middle of the galaxy. The energy ‘screams” with all possible frequencies, deafening, blinding and fierce. It looks scary, even deathly, but my lover is not afraid at all.

Next moment the Faith Star shines ever brighter, glowing almost indescribable blue, covering us both in a shield of blue light. Then Kallitris flaps his wings, and flies right to the constantly flowing column of energy. He puts his hand into it. I see the energy flowing into him, and he begins to look ever stronger and bigger.

“This will make me all-powerful” He says with a victorious look on his face. “Sorry I had to resort to extreme measures to make Leot regret he dumped me all those eons ago.”

“Demi! Please wake up!”

I open my eyes to find Henessada and Iris over me. It feels like I’m on the bed with some silky sheets.

“I had a bad dream.” I say, my throat parched.

“You’re lucky to wake up at all. You fell off Sarji at full gallop, and you were out for two days. We are at king’s palace.” Iris runs his hand across my forehead, and starts crying.

“They’ve hit the shores this morning. They will be here by nightfall tomorrow. Kimaaris has managed to gather less than ten thousand warriors. It’s nothing in comparison with the troops marching towards us. We’re done for.” Sada purses her lips and sits on my bed with a sigh.

“I’m sorry to hear that, guys. I don’t know how I can help…” I get up ever so slowly, but get dizzy and nauseous anyway.

Coughing, I grab my chest and there is something big and bulky on it. It falls on my hand with a thump. Big, transparent shiny stones on a heavy, but artful necklace catch the moonlight from the open window. I look at it and scream in terror and disbelief.

“It was not a dream. I was there, in the room with the Faith Star. Kallitris took it, and… and…”

Sada’s face looks doubtful, even disturbed, but then her eyes grow wide, she stretches her hand to touch my head, and starts talking very quickly, as if to herself, re-telling everything I just said, and reading my mind at the same time.

Iris takes the necklace, and examines it.

“That’s odd. How can it be, that you had a dream, but the necklace is real?” He asks me.

His long hair falls on his face, casting shadows, making his traits ever more precious and unique to me.

“I don’t know.”

‘Quiet. I lost the connection with Eva. This is what she said before we got interrupted. You do have an unknown substance in your tissues. She ran the test on it up and down, and she has no idea what it is. We believe it is the chemical compound he uses to take down the wall, surrounding the Faith Star.”

It gets windy outside, and the gust of wind makes the curtains on the window fly in. We fall silent, as if afraid that Kallitris is going to jump into the room. There is no one. Iris shakes off the uneasy feeling and closes the window.

“How can a physical compound take down an imaginary wall?” Baron Leo shrugs in disbelief.
“The same way an imaginary power can help you take down any and every physical obstacle between you and your dream.” Henessada frowns, and keeps on trying to get back with Eva.

“Like what kind of power?” Leo is almost sarcastic.

“Faith. It is not physical and yet it can affect both physical and imaginary boundaries to help a person achieve just about anything.”

I haven’t seen king Kimaaris in a couple of years, ever since we had a three way trade negotiations with him and Midlandori. He wanted more of my product, copper, and as cheap as possible. I sold him one of the mines instead. Go get your own.

We sit in a huge hall at the table, full of generals. It’s been a while, everyone is tired and no one knows what to do. The pressure is getting to us all. We simply don’t have enough soldiers to defend the capital. If Tustridge falls, the rest of the country will follow. This is what Sada was afraid of all along.

The king looks old, although he is not even fifty yet. He is wearing a long red velvet jacket, black pants, and an expression of frustration on his face. Henessada walks there and back, telling everything she knows over and over again, pointing to the maps, explaining worrisome details about the extensive amounts of foreign troops, their horses and types of weapons they’ve got.

Some generals look doubtful, using denial as means of defending themselves against something too scary to fathom. The king does not want to believe her either, but by now he has no choice – his own spies came back from Sanatona shores, telling of huge ships, and thousands of warriors unloading and moving inland.

‘What if we make a preemptive strike?” One general starts, dressed in a black jacket with red ribbons on his sleeves.

“Excuse me for a second, Your Majesty.” Says Sada, and walks away from the table, as if listening to something only she can hear.

She looks puzzled, then beckons me, and whispers in my ear.

“Eva just told me, that there is a quasar in the middle of her home galaxy, Andromeda. It is essentially a black hole that choked on too much stuff. So it spits back tremendous amounts of energy in a huge column of light…”

“Are you trying to tell me that… That I was there?!”