In the Garden of Council

Chapter 14 - Lucien

Welcome, new readers and subscribers! If you’re just catching up, I’ve posted the links to the first thirteen chapters below.

Chapter 1 - The Silver Feather
Chapter 2 - Lucien’s Visit
Chapter 3 - Callie
Chapter 4 - Oscar
Chapter 5 - Shades of Crimson and White
Chapter 6 - Dreamweaver Training Begins
Chapter 7 - The Mark of Callie
Chapter 8 - Dreams for Sale.
Chapter 9 - Dragons and Dreams
Chapter 10 - What the Warriors Knew
Chapter 11 - Haunting Callie
Chapter 12 - Oscar: Patron of the Arts
Chapter 13 - Daisies, Dreams, and Dragon Spells

Lucien

“Does she know yet it’s her own voice she keeps hearing?” Sundari asked.

“No, and she won’t. It will take her some time to realize she had the answers all along.” Lucien crossed his arms. “I’m here. What is so urgent it couldn’t wait?”

She took his hand in hers, turned it palm side up, and began tracing his lifelines. “A great shift is taking place. One that isn’t supposed to be. What happened with the girl?”

Lucien narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean? ‘What happened with the girl?’ I was training her when you called me here. It was she who heard you first. To me, it was muffled, and I had to strain to hear you.” He looked up from her long, slender fingers tracing his palm and met her eyes. “Did the dragons not return with my message?” . There were no muffled snorts of the dragons that usually reverberated off the tile, though they were in the courtyard. Sundari liked bold, bright colors and her favorites were blue and yellow, so she’d decorated their environment with delicately painted mosaics beneath their feet and on the walls with a break in the middle of a round blue pool big enough for one of the dragons to bathe in. Her own blue flowing dress with wide sleeves giving her ease of movement, her bare feet had made little sound as she walked toward him from the trellis gate of the labrynthine garden. It was unusually quiet. “What’s going on, Sundari? What’s changed?”

“You are one of the ancient ones, Lucien. You should know what is coming, what is at stake. The balance has shifted, and we must steady the worlds.” Her blue eyes caught and held his silver eyes. “Or rather, she must steady them.”

Lucien retrieved his hand and took a step back. He tipped his head toward her and whispered, “There’s something very wrong, isn’t there?” Sundari nodded.

Voices filtered into his consciousness, and he felt, rather than saw, the Council gather around them.

“There is an anomaly, Lucien. A shift we cannot place and cannot determine. But we fear someone has entered our world who should not be here,” said Markus.

Lucien bowed. “Markus,” he said, as he caught the man’s eye. “Even the next in line for the throne cannot come here, yet. She’s not ready.”

“Does she know it’s a throne, she’s been born and brought into?”

“Not yet. I’ve had to introduce some things more slowly than others. Right now, all she can think about is her mother.” Lucien dropped his head. “And her sister.”

“Callie. Her bent for destruction is growing.”

“What is it?” Sundari asked.

“Her path grows dark. The shadows have followed her into the waking world, and Lucien, there is a thread of cosmic connection between her and Oscar. The two together could be catastrophic,” said Markus as he entered the room, his hood shading his face, but Lucien could see long fingers steepled against his lips as he considered his next words. Lucien cast a thankful glance toward Sundari as she spoke first.

“Which is exactly what he wants,” Sundari said, taking a deep breath, and sliding a look first toward Markus, then Lucien. “A young Duncan has been bent on destroying the Alexander women since Brigid was immolated. He has Callie in his sights, but not in the way we first thought. Sundari gave Lucien’s hand a tight, surreptitious squeeze and turned toward their interlocutor, “Markus,” she said. “Do you have anything to add?”

Lucien raised his eyebrows at her brazenness and moved aside to allow Markus into his and Sundari’s space in the hall.

“Markus,” Sundari said, and gave Lucien’s hand a tight, surreptitious squeeze. She

“Sundari. Lucien,” Markus joined them at Sundari’s side, “Lucien, he’s found a way in,” finished Sundari, the long sleeves of her dress robes shimmering as her fingers trembled.

“Into what? The dreamscape? But that’s—”

“Impossible? We thought so, too. Oscar thinks it’s his technology. But, the dark power leads …”

“He’s the dark power, and he’s leading Callie toward him?” Lucien’s voice rose, his ancient calm leaving him.

“We cannot say. The path is hers yet to choose,” the Council answered as one. Lucien’s shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head.

Is it too late? he thought. Were they too late to right any of the wrongs?

“We all have our demons.” Sundari laid her hand on Lucien’s arm, but he shook her off.

“Callie is not a demon. It’s only that we forced her into a position she was never meant to have. We were so caught up in ‘the way it’s always been’, we didn’t heed the signs of danger.”

“And now you want to throw her younger sister to the wolves?”

“The light power is within her. I can see it. I have seen it. Both in my dreams and hers. She is stronger than anyone gives her credit for.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sundari said in a tone that wavered between dread and hope.

Lucien grasped her hands in his. “Trust me. I will not make the same mistake twice.”

The meeting adjourned, and the Council left Lucian alone. He could still feel a presence in the Dùsgadh and reviewed all he’d learned from them. Something felt off.

He couldn’t place what had changed, but he saw the shift Sundari had spoken of. He’d been traveling between the dreamworlds and into Penelope’s world and had not rested his body or his mind in nights or days. He could go for weeks without sleep, for time in the Dusgadh was different from time on Earth, weeks, months, and years, mere days in his world; it had been months for him, and he needed to recharge.

“I must be seeing things,” he said to himself, as he reached out to touch the velvet sky. Constellations drooped like a Dali painting. Orion’s belt shone brightly in the night sky. It always helped to have a focal point and Orion had always served him well. He focused on the middle star and saw Penelope’s world through a rift in the fabric of space and time.

His stomach dropped, and he fell to his knees. A shadow stepped from behind the rift and from the shadow another being. A human. Like Penelope. But more childlike in steps and mannerisms. As the figure grew closer Lucien’s eyes widened.

Dear god. Could it be? The same raven-colored hair. The same eyes, a deep Cerulean.

“Duncan?”

A chill swept through Lucien, and he was plunged into darkness.

©Lisa Rogers. This story has been written from my head by my hand for more years than I care to count. Completed December 2024. All Rights Reserved.

I have gone back-and-forth ad nauseum about whether or not to serialize this book and have decided to rip off the Band-Aid(tm) or plaster, if you prefer.

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