Chapter 52
Wataru Alone
A single column of light rose into the night sky.
Even the moon seemed surprised, its light becoming focused as if it were squinting in disbelief. Below, the clouds stopped in their rolling path for a moment. Only the Blood Star maintained its cold composure, glittering red where it hung in the vault of the sky.
A pure circle of light lay upon the ground before Wataru. Just one step and he would be inside. Wayfinder Lau had opened the way for him.
The Wayfinder stood off to the side, leaning upon his staff, watching over Wataru. “Well, will you go?”
Wataru nodded. He turned to look at his friends, Meena and Kee Keema. They wore the same expression: something close to, but not quite, a farewell.
“You’re going alone, aren’t you,” Meena asked, but it wasn’t really a question.
Wataru found himself smiling. “Yeah. This time I can’t take you with me, no matter how much you kick and scream.”
“Was I always that difficult?”
“You were just trying to keep me honest, I think.”
“You kept me honest too,” Kee Keema said in all seriousness. “And somehow, I think you were always right, Meena.”
“Me too.” Wataru looked at their faces again and the realization hit. They were not heading out on a new adventure. This was farewell. From here on, I go alone. No matter what lies in store for me, I’m leaving them behind.
He wanted to reach out, hold their hands, thank them. But he stopped himself short. Not yet. I have to finish what I came here to do before thanking them, before saying my goodbyes.
There was only one thing left to say.
“I’m going.”
Meena suddenly launched herself into his arms. She was shaking. “Be careful, Wataru. Please.”
“I will.”
Wataru hugged her tightly, feeling her warm, slender body in his arms. Kee Keema stepped over and embraced the two of them in a great big bear hug. “Sorry we can’t help you anymore.”
“No, you can,” Wataru said, reaching up to give Kee Keema a friendly punch on the shoulder. “We’re all still fighting for Vision—even if we have to do it in different ways now. We’re still helping each other.”
Meena’s eyes, wet with tears, opened wide. “Wataru—wait, what are you going to ask the Goddess?”
Wataru smiled, cutting her off. “It’s a secret.”
Wataru stepped back from his friends’ embrace. “Kee Keema!”
“Y-yeah!”
“Still think I’m good luck?”
“You bet!”
Wataru’s smile broadened. “Then let me wish good luck to you. May you win all your battles.”
Kee Keema clasped his hands together tightly. “Leave it to me! I’m going to fight those demonkin for every inch of this land, mark my words!”
Wrapped in cold and solitude, Lady Zophie stood apart from Wataru and the others. But when Wataru turned his eyes toward her, she said, “Forgive me.” Her fingers were intertwined, her head hung low. “It was I who told Lord Mitsuru the whereabouts of the Gem of Darkness. It was I who told him he could reach the gem if the seal upon the Mirror of Eternal Shadow were broken. And the result—was this.”
Her voice was choked with a tide of painful remorse welling up from inside her. The more she said, the more her words pressed upon her with greater and greater weight. “I never imagined this might come to pass. I merely—I sought to ease Lord Mitsuru’s sorrow. He seemed so sad, trapped inside the Crystal Palace—so lonely. It grieved me to see him so.”
Slowly, Wayfinder Lau spoke. “Mitsuru deceived you. He used you for his own ends.”
Zophie shook her head furiously. “I do not think that was the way of it. But—but the end result is the same. I did not perceive Lord Mitsuru’s thoughts. In my cleverness, I believed I knew his heart, yet I knew nothing.”
He didn’t think to offer her comfort, or to console her, yet for some reason, Wataru found himself saying, “You look very much like Mitsuru’s aunt in the real world.”
Maybe Wayfinder Lau would understand what he was talking about. Wataru turned his eyes to the old seer’s drawn face. He nodded knowingly. Vision is a reflection of the Traveler’s heart.
“When I meet Mitsuru, I will tell him how he’s hurt you. I don’t know everything that happened between you, but I can see your pain for myself. I will tell him of your loss. He should know.”
Zophie buried her face in her hands.
Wataru reached out to touch Meena and Kee Keema’s hands one last time, then he smiled. Without a word, he stepped into the circle of light.
So bright.
The column of light went up higher, farther than he could possibly imagine. At first, he could see nothing. Then, while he counted off the rapid beating of his heart, the light coalesced before his eyes into a stairway leading up into the sky.
He began to walk. First one step, then another. Soon he was running, until his breathing became hard, and not once did he look back.
It was the same as it had been with Mitsuru. Wataru rose up the column of light, without hesitating, as fast as he could. He left the clouds below. He caught up to the moon and with the Blood Star. He continued upward, dwindling into the distance.
And then he disappeared.
“He’s gone.” Meena’s whispered words were lifted away on the wind. “I guess that’s goodbye.”
“No, it’s not.” Kee Keema shook his head. “You forget what he said. We’ve all got our own roles to play now. Sure, we may be apart, but this isn’t goodbye.”
Meena had thought so too, but suddenly her certainty fled. “That’s a lie! We can say whatever we want, but that doesn’t make it true. We’ll never see Wataru again. We’ll never even know what’s happened to him!”
Wayfinder Lau took a step toward Meena. “My dear kitkin. Do you truly believe this?”
The circle of light had begun to dim. Slowly, starting at the edges, it melted into the night.
“If Wataru reaches the Tower of Destiny and makes his wish of the Goddess, and should she grant it, you will surely know. I believe that was his promise to you.”
“Promise?”
Does that mean Wataru’s really going to…?
Meena and Kee Keema watched as the column of light faded into the sky, leaving only a faint trace of an aura before it was gone completely.
“Now, children of Vision, go. Your trials await you.”
The two looked back at Wayfinder Lau, but he was already gone. He left the way he had come, suddenly, with the soft sound of wings in the night.