“Exactly,” Carrick agrees.
“Then you’re going to have to fool Micah in some way, because the minute he knows your real reason for being there, he’s going to either protect the Blood Stone through vicious means, or, worst-case scenario, he’s going to kill Charmeine to spite Lucien.”
“That’s our dilemma,” I pipe in, and all heads turn my way. “We’re going to have to take it by force, but we need to go in subtly.”
“Maybe it would help if we knew more about the realm,” Myles suggests, giving his full attention to Lucien. “Think you can describe the details to us?”
“I can grab the easel and a large pad of paper for you to draw it out for us,” Rainey suggests helpfully.
Lucien straightens in his chair. “No need to draw it. I can show you in a different way.”
I know demi-gods are powerful and that they are holders of great magic, but Carrick doesn’t use his often, so it’s a shock when Lucien does a short wave of his hand before him and what looks like a 3D holographic image appears before him. It’s a mountainous region bordered by an ocean the lightest blue I’d ever seen.
Lucien pushes his hand forward, and the image floats to the middle of the table so we can all see it. He begins to talk and as he does, it rotates slowly so those on both sides of the table can get a good view. As I watch it, I realize it’s actually a large island.
“This is the realm that Micah and Charmeine created not long after the meteor came to earth,” he says in a low voice, and I can tell by his tone that he hates telling this story. He memorialized it once and it endured through time, but I suppose telling a group of people, some who are strangers, can’t be easy. “They didn’t name it as they couldn’t agree on anything that did justice to its beauty. They modeled it after the area of the Earth realm where they were living at the time called Thera, which is now known as Santorini in Greece. They did invite others to come live with them, giving no prejudice to whether they were fae, daemon, or human. They created their realm to resemble Earth as closely as possible, and they lived there harmoniously for thousands of years. Their magics were powered by two meteor-stone objects they were in possession of—a black jeweled rock that was set in a gold necklace and a rough-cut chalice made from a large piece of the stone.”
“It’s beautiful,” Rainey breathes out as she watches the island rotate, and I’m sure no one at the table disagrees.
In a flat voice, Lucien succinctly describes his visit to the realm and how he and Charmeine fell in love with each other. He doesn’t go into the details, but skips straight to Micah’s rage and how the realm was destroyed.
With a wave of his hand, the beautiful island changes. The ocean dries up to nothing but black sand. The flora and fauna wither away and the mountains break apart into craggy, jutting pieces. The skies darken but on the distant horizon of where the ocean waters had once been, a river of lava meanders closer to the shore. It hisses and steams as it cuts a swath through the black sand where it runs up to the base of the center mountain and starts to flow upward. The mountain cracks, pulls apart, and the lava disappears inside it. Ice forms at the tops of the rocky mountain peaks, and you can hear the wind whistling shrilly across the deadened land.
I can’t stop myself from imagining how cold that desolate realm is now, despite the river of lava that flows to it.
“Micah destroyed the beautiful realm he and Charmeine created, killing every inhabitant except Charmeine. He gave her one chance to forsake me and when she didn’t, he trapped her in the black jewel and sealed her in it by dipping it in the lava—known as the Crimson River—that had been pulled forth from the Underworld. The jewel turned blood red, and he affixed it to the chalice. It was no longer two objects but one, and was simply known as the Blood Stone. Some legends called the chalice itself the Holy Grail, but, to me, it is the object where Charmeine is held prisoner. I was cast out of the realm not long after.”
Because Rainey, Myles, and Titus are new to this story, Carrick filled in some details that Lucien left out, mainly that Micah had transformed into a twisted monster after drinking his bitter tears from the chalice. “But we can talk about how to deal with him physically in a bit. For now, we need to know how to slip into his realm unseen.”
For this, Lucien pushed up from his chair and moved to the opposite end of the table from Carrick. He pulled the image of the blackened realm with him, then stopped it from rotating so we were looking at the mountains from the perspective of the dried-up ocean floor with the lava river flowing up the slope of the middle mountain before disappearing inside. It was extremely weird to see the flow go against the laws of gravity.
Lucian enlarged the hologram-like image, then zoomed in to an area at the base of one of the mountains. It had large boulders the size of minivans scattered about. Pointing at a dark crevice, Lucien said, “This is the cave where Micah lives. Inside is a stone table and a chair carved from rock and on the table is the Blood Stone. Or at least, that’s what it looked like when I was last there.”
“So, we have to go into the cave?” Maddox asks, scratching at his chin. “That’s going to be tricky, so at this point, I’d like you to tell me there’s a back entrance.”
Lucien shakes his head. “Only the one you see, and the cave is small. Barely room but for the table and chair.”
“We have to draw him out,” Myles posits, and then smiles sheepishly. “And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.”
Lucien nods. “Some type of distraction he’ll have to check out.”
“What would draw him out?” Rainey asks.
Lucien shrugs. “He doesn’t want anything but Charmeine.”
The table is silent as we consider his distinct lack of desires.
It’s Rainey who breaks the quiet. “Make him think Charmeine is outside of the cave.”
I turn in my chair her way. “What do you mean?”
“You have magic at your disposal. I’m sure you can create a magical mirage, or transform your likeness into that of Charmeine’s.”
“Absolutely not,” Carrick says. “Finley isn’t going to be in his direct line of sight.”
“Then let Maddox transform himself,” Rainey suggests.
“I’m not going to dress up like a girl,” he whines dramatically, but we know he’s kidding. He’ll do anything it takes, and he’s all about the mischief.
“It could work,” Lucien murmurs as he steps back from the floating image of the black island. He puts one arm across his stomach, propping up the opposite elbow so he can rest his chin in his palm. Pointing at the beach area, he says, “We could enter the veil here.”
“Those boulders are enough to give us good cover,” Carrick says.
“If we’re lucky, Maddox can distract Micah enough for us to slip in and out of the cave quickly,” Lucien adds. “I’m the one who will grab the chalice, though.”
“And what do the rest of us do?” I ask.
As it turns out, the plan ends up being a lot more complicated than a distraction while we slip in and out. We spend the better part of two hours planning for every possible contingency or surprise. At one point, we scrap the dressing up Maddox as Charmeine plan and discuss going in with full magical force. Stun Micah to incapacitation, then take the chalice.