The realization hit me with the force of a battering ram to the chest. I nearly lost my balance. Pyrr stayed silent, waiting for me to speak up and draw the conclusion. One quick glance at my team, and I knew they, too, understood the horrifying truth.
Pyrr and I were both in pain over the same person.
“Your son. My father,” I managed.
“Yes,” he replied firmly.
“Sherus is a Hermessi child,” Lumi breathed.
Amelia pinched the delicate bridge of her nose. “And no wonder no one knew, because fae are the easiest to confuse with Hermessi children, since they share so many of their traits. Wow…”
“Is… Is that why you’re here? To save my father by stopping me?” I blurted, overcome by a whirlwind of rage and despair. My blood ran cold, as the bigger picture formed in the back of my head.
Pyrr nodded, and I wanted nothing more than to douse him in cold water and stomp him out for this. How dare he? I had gone through all kinds of hell to save my father, my mother, our kingdom, our friends, and every other innocent creature out there. I’d spent most of last night coping with the possibility of losing my father in the process… I was tormented and eaten alive by guilt, and here he was… the almighty Pyrr, tossing everything and everyone to the side, just so he could save his son.
My father.
“Say what you will, Taeral, but I will do whatever I can to protect my son,” Pyrr said.
What a complicated mess this was. What awfulness.
What a ridiculous standstill, as Pyrr and the other Fire Star elementals were ready to do everything in their power to stop us from saving billions, just so my father could live. It painted me in the worst of lights—ready to basically cause the death of my own blood to complete this mission and stop the ritual that would claim many more lives than just my father’s.
Eira
It made sense. Well, to me, anyway.
I’d felt something coming from Sherus when I’d seen him in the fae sanctuary. Nuriya had assumed it likely had something to do with his power and fae heritage. It certainly involved heritage, but not related to the fae, directly.
Taeral had told me about his grandfather, the king that Sherus had been forced to remove. I understood now that Sherus’s fae father wasn’t his biological father. I wondered how Pyrr had pulled that off. Had he possessed the fae to impregnate Sherus’s mother, maybe? It seemed reasonable to assume that. What did that imply for Sherus’s right to the throne, though? I figured that, for the time being, that was literally the last thing anyone might think about, given the circumstances.
“No one knows about it?” Taeral asked, staring at Pyrr. His shock was understandable. I should’ve realized this sooner, but my own Hermessi child capabilities were still not fully clear to me. I’d sensed Inalia before, but I’d blamed it on our frequent close proximity while growing up. I’d thought it was because we were so carefully attuned, aware of and protecting one another. Then again, I’d felt my skin tingle sometimes, when Hermessi were nearby. I hadn’t paid enough attention to Sherus, clearly.
“I made sure of it,” Pyrr replied. “It was for Sherus’s own safety.”
“How well did that work out for you?” The Widow Maker scoffed.
“Brendel knows more about us than we think,” Pyrr said. “I did everything I could for Sherus to grow up feeling like a full fae. He had no idea. Maybe he does now, in spirit form. I’m not sure. But he never thought to push his abilities, to discover his true limits. I shadowed him whenever I could, making sure he’d never get the idea that he was different in any way.”
Amelia raised a hand. “I’m sorry, just curious here. Weren’t you dormant after the Blackout? How did you conceive Sherus? The fae king can’t be four to five million years old.”
“He isn’t. Little known fact, I’m afraid, but I wasn’t the Fire Star’s first Hermessi,” Pyrr explained. This meant that he was like Ramin and a few others, created after Death’s ritual-stopping pulse. His predecessor must’ve been a follower of Brendel, then, destroyed for his involvement in the previous ritual attempt. “I kept that to myself. I understood what the world was like, and I kept my head down. I did my best to protect this planet.”
“Then why are you trying to destroy it now?” Taeral asked. “Are you truly willing to let us all burn, just so my father can live? I know it’s a difficult and heart-wrenching thing to do, sacrificing your own son for the good of the many, if it comes down to that, but come on.”
“Brendel will destroy us both,” Pyrr said. “If I don’t do what she wants, she will have no qualms about ending me, then my son. And if you were thinking you might be able to ascend in his place as a Fire Hermessi, should that come to pass and given your Hermessi bloodline… you’d be wrong.”
“How so?” Lumi replied. “Taeral is the grandson of a Hermessi, practically. Doesn’t the same power flow through him? Albeit dormant, perhaps?”
That was a good question. We all knew that Taeral was an exquisite and powerful fire fae. His hybrid nature had made him special, but none of us had considered the involvement of Hermessi heritage in anything about him.
“If Brendel kills Sherus before he ascends, Taeral will never be able to take his place. The activation of a Hermessi thread is done one generation at a time. First, I’d have to die. Second, Sherus would have to ascend. Only after he became the next Hermessi would all the power be transmitted into Taeral, who would then become a Hermessi child himself, and only then would he, in turn, be able to replace his father as the fire of this planet,” Pyrr elaborated.
“So Taeral would have to be sort of activated by Sherus ascending in your place,” Lumi concluded, nodding slowly.
“And even then, it’s doubtful that it would work.” Taeral sighed. “I’ve been marked as a future Reaper. I’d need to die first, and I don’t think that includes dying as a Hermessi.”
“It doesn’t. You’d need your soul in its original form,” the Widow Maker confirmed. “Hermessi don’t have souls like yours or mine or any other living creatures. They’re entities, remember?”
Taeral stepped forward, shaking his head. “Pyrr, if you and my father die, the whole planet freezes over. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Brendel, it’s that she’s twisted and evil, but also limited. Brendel cannot afford to lose any planets.”
I gasped, remembering previous discussions about this. Taeral was right. After all, Brendel and the other Hermessi hadn’t rushed to destroy Brann until they learned about Inalia. They could no longer kill Ramin because Harper had helped him strip Ledar of his Hermessi child powers. My father was still at risk—even more so after he and Inalia had helped us back on Cerix, but, if I were to lose my Hermessi bloodline like Ledar, Brendel would stop trying to kill him, too. Inalia wouldn’t be destroyed, either, since she didn’t have an heir.
As threatening as Brendel might’ve sounded, she couldn’t afford to lose any of the planets under her control. She didn’t have Death’s power to create new Hermessi for the worlds that had lost theirs. She couldn’t bring forth a new Ramin to replace Inalia or a new Pyrr, here, for example. Without a Hermessi child to replace their parent, a planet was doomed to extinction far worse than what the ritual would cause.
“What are you trying to say?” Pyrr asked, but I could hear the doubt in his voice, as the air seemed to thicken with crackling pressure.
“Brendel lied to you,” Taeral replied. “She doesn’t want to lose the planets altogether. The ritual is meant to… cleanse them of all life forms. But a planet dying without a Hermessi is much worse, and you know that she can’t fix that. Once it’s done, it’s done. However, we are trying to stop the ritual altogether. If we stop it, and… I don’t know, worst-case scenario, you and my father still die, at least the people of this world will still have a shot. We can evacuate them, and they can start anew, never forgetting where they came from!”
“But my planet would be gone,” Pyrr insisted.
“And you’ll be too dead to care,” Raphael retorted. “You won’t be able to do anything about this rock!”
“You can still do something about your people,” Taeral insisted. “All the fae of the Fire Star, they’re your people! You’re the dominant element here, and that will never change. If you let Brendel take that away from you, then it’s all pointless. Your existence, even my father’s… it’ll all be for nothing.”
Taeral’s words seemed to finally get to Pyrr. The storm clouds above began to soften, swirling outward, ever so slowly, ready to give us a glimpse of the sky and the sun beyond. The winds softened, and the grass curling around our boots loosened, as if telling us that we were no longer in a hostile environment.
I had to admit, I did not see this coming. By all accounts, I was justified in getting ready for yet another session of fighting and running for my life. It felt nice not to be hounded, for once, though I knew it probably wouldn’t last. Brendel was never far behind where we were concerned.
“I am not the only one who is trying to stop you,” Pyrr said after a long moment of silence. “I may have control over the other Fire Star elements, but I cannot do anything against the others.”
That was an interesting aspect, I thought. Pyrr was Fire, and the reigning elemental of this planet. The other three conformed to his commands and desires. It made me wonder if the dominant elements of Akvo, Zephyr, and the Emerald had a similar hierarchy—the Water Hermessi ruling the others on Akvo, the Air Hermessi superior to Fire, Water, and Earth on Zephyr, and the Earth Hermessi dominating on the Emerald. It made sense that they would.
But the second part of his statement made my skin crawl. We wouldn’t be alone for much longer. Riza moved closer and put a hand on Taeral’s shoulder. “I think this is Pyrr’s way of telling us we should leave soon,” she said.
“Even so, we won’t be out of danger. Look at how Eirexis is glowing. Zetos is sure to be close by,” Raphael replied.
“The winged Perfect speaks the truth.” Pyrr sighed. “I can step aside if I decide it’s for the best, but… it’s too late, already.”
As he said that, dozens of sonic booms thundered across the sky, echoing for hundreds of miles. I froze, looking up at flashes of light that flickered beyond the thinning cloud blanket. Soon enough, fireballs in different colors pierced through, like falling meteors.
There were so many of them, burning green, blue, orange, and white. They came down at great speed, leaving holes in the clouds through which the sun extended its rays.
“They’re coming,” Pyrr added, glancing up.
None of us had asked the most important question. It dawned on me as I watched the fireballs hurling toward the ground, soon to crash around us. We moved in closer to Taeral, each of us likely trying to figure the best way out of here.
“How did you find us?” I asked Pyrr. “Surely, you realized that there were GASP decoys made out to look like us, but what brought you all the way here?”
