Chapter Nine

I was woken the next day by Clarissa, who peered down at me with her pretty gold-ringed blue eyes.

"Wha-?" I asked, groggy. A glance toward the windows showed it was still dark out, and it also showed Angelica standing there, the various metal objects on her person gleaming in the moonlight.

"I am sorry for the early wake-up, my king. But the connection to Solana is strongest at dawn, at the Second of Triumph, when the sun crests the horizon and all the world rejoices." Clarissa said in near reverence.

"I do wish we had been informed." Angelica said rather crossly. "I would have liked my lord to get some more sleep before undertaking this endeavor."

"Endeavor? Is this going to be challenging?" I asked, surprised. I'd sort of expected to waltz right inside the Temple of Solana and have a priestess wave her hand and make me into a super powerful shaper. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

"It will not be effortless." Clarissa allowed. "What are you are about to attempt is called the Shaper's Road. It is an internal struggle, to find the light within yourself and draw it out for the first time. But do not worry, the Great Mother will guide you, as she has guided all of her followers. To walk in the Light is difficult, but to find the Light is harder. She will aid you, though."

"Right. Let me, uh, let me get changed, then." I said, and Angelica and Clarissa nodded, leaving me alone. I let out a breath. Shaper's Road, harnessing the Light inside me... this was all sounding like a lot. Not for the first time, I contemplated fleeing. Running for the hills and praying nothing bad ever found me, but I tried to strengthen my resolve. This wasn't my world, but according to every single person I'd met, this world needed me. Wonderful.

I dressed quickly, and put on the light armored jerkin that Angelica had bought for me yesterday. I contemplated grabbing Evor, but then remembered Angelica saying once that the Temple of Solana didn't allow weapons, so I didn't bother. I laced up my boots and then went out into the hallway, where my brown-haired Vengar and the redheaded priestess were waiting for me.

"Come. We must hurry. Vengar, I assume I cannot dissuade you from joining?" Clarissa asked, and Angelica snorted. Clarissa sighed, but she nodded, and made her way down the stairs. Angelica and I followed, and it was odd seeing Angelica not strapped to the teeth with weapons. Today she wore just her sword, but I doubted she was any less deadly. I'd seen her move for the first time at practice, and she had some kind of inhuman grace. I didn't ever want to tangle with a Vengar. No way in hell.

Samara and Theresa met us downstairs, along with a blonde woman who looked to be in her fifties, but when I blinked, she looked like she was twenty. Another blink and she was thirty. Then she was my age. I tried to avoid looking at her, as it was giving me a headache. Then she threw herself down at my feet like Clarissa, Samara, and Theresa had all done when I first met them. Fortunately, the lower floor of the inn was just about deserted at this time, before the sun even started to rise.

"Our Savior and Lord, the Bringer of Light. Welcome to Griffsburg. We, the Priestesses of Solana, are overjoyed to receive you. I am Mother Elizia, the High Priestess of Griffsburg." the kneeling blonde woman said reverently. She wore golden robes, unlike the silver robes Clarissa and Samara wore, and the gray robes that Theresa, the aspirant, wore. Elizia's eyes were dark, which made the vivid ring of gold around them very shocking. Her ring of gold was brighter than any of the ones I'd seen so far, by a lot.

"Uh, hi. I'm Will Thompson. Nice to meet you." I said awkwardly. Elizia lifted her palms, and began to murmur.

"Hail King William, child of the Sun, Bringer of Light, and Walker of the Shaper's Road. Here, in the Before, hear my request. Here, we have one who wishes to Walk the Road." she murmured, and her palms began to glow gold. There was no response, but she opened her eyes and rose to her feet.

"What was that?" I asked her, and Elizia looked at me in plain astonishment.

"He is new to our world. He knows nothing of his place here, or his power." Clarissa explained.

"I see. We will ensure he receives the education he requires before he leaves." Elizia said to Clarissa, then she looked back at me. "That was a request to Solana. I have requested that the Great Mother make space for you on the Shaper's Road. When the dawn comes, we will see if my prayer was answered."

"What if it wasn't?" I asked nervously.

"Then you are not who you say you are." Elizia said bluntly, and then she turned in a whirl of gold and stalked for the doors. Samara and Theresa followed instantly, and Clarissa looked at me. I started walking forwards, flanked by Angelica and Clarissa.

___

The Temple of Solana was a large building made of white marble, with a big dome and sprawling hallways. The inside was spacious, and consisted of long white marble hallways that went every direction, like a maze to find your way anywhere. Elizia led Clarissa, Angelica, and myself through to a giant courtyard, but Samara and Theresa peeled off to go somewhere else. The courtyard was a big circle, and I realized that we were beneath the dome, and the inside of the dome had a large circle in it, and a web of mirrors that seemed to face every which way with no reasoning behind it. In the center of the circular courtyard was a pool of water, about mid-thigh deep. At the center of the pool was a small altar with a golden sun-shaped crystal resting on it.

"You will strip to your underclothes and kneel in the pool." Elizia said, and I blinked at her in confusion.

"What?" I asked.

"You will strip to your underclothes and kneel in the pool." Elizia repeated, and I frowned, but I did as I was told. Angelica stepped forwards at once to help, and she unbuckled the armored jerkin I had on, and held the rest of my clothes as I stripped down to the underwear I had on. I missed my boxers from home, as these cotton Avonan boxers weren't the best. I got down in the pool and knelt like I'd been told, and then I waited.

Ten minutes passed, and then another group of people came in. A young strawberry blonde girl about my age in a gray dress came in, followed by two older priestesses in silver robes with golden stripes on their sleeves, which I imagined denoted a higher rank. The priestess on the left, a severe looking brown haired woman, had four golden stripes, while the priestess on the right, a smiling dark-skinned woman, had six. I watched in shock as the strawberry blonde girl stripped off her gray dress, revealing two very large heavy breasts and some thick luscious hips. She wore some demure cotton underwear and a demure bra, but it could not hide how curvy she was. She knelt down in the cool water, and I tried to avoid staring at her very prominent long, thick nipples poking at her bra.

A boy a few years older than me came in a different door, and he stripped quickly out of his normal looking clothes, coming down and kneeling in the water so the three of us made a triangle around the altar with the sun crystal on it. Nobody escorted him in, but no one said a word to him either. Not a single word was being spoken in this entire room, I realized. Nobody was discussing anything, and it was a total silence except for the small splashing of the water, and then Elizia began to speak.

"You three who wish to walk the Shaper's Road. I name you Walkers, and invite the Great Mother to guide you on your way as you walk this perilous path." Elizia said, lifting her hands. "I name these three. I name them Antonin, a boy from this village who seeks to prove his connection to your Light. I name them Cherie, an aspirant from mine own Temple. I name them William, your own son, the Lightbringer, the King of the Dawn."

Gasps rang out from the room, and the two other people in the pool, Antonin and Cherie, stared at me in utter shock. The two priestesses who had escorted Cherie in dropped to their knees and bent their heads, while I stared at the sun crystal and studiously tried to ignore everyone else.

"As the Light of the Dawn strikes the world, as the Second of Triumph comes upon us, as the great shadows of the Moon are batted away, I ask you take these three into your fold, and show them the Shaper's Road, and bless their path down it." Elizia exclaimed, and then there was a brilliant light from up above, and I realized the purpose of the mirrors. The first light of the dawn was refracted over and over into a supernova, and light shone down on the pool of water like a halo.

The sun crystal began to shine, and my eyes widened as the water began to glow gold. Antonin and Cherie looked excited, and they quickly leaned their faces forwards into the water. I looked over my shoulder and my eyes found Angelica's reassuring blue eyes. She nodded, and I turned back around, took a breath, and lowered my face to the water.

___

I sat up in a pool of water, gasping for air. I looked around in confusion, wondering where the hell I was. It was ridiculously bright wherever I was, and I shielded my eyes with my hand. I stood up in the water, to discover it was about ankle deep. I heard splashing behind me, and turned around quickly to see Antonin and Cherie, who were both soaking wet, just like I was. Cherie's long thick nipples were incredibly pronounced, and I tried to avoid ogling her wet body.

"Are you really the Dawn King?" Antonin asked in amazement, while Cherie threw herself to her knees and knelt, face going in the water, her hands touching the bottom of the pool.

"So I've been told. Cherie, please, stand up." I told the strawberry blonde girl, and she obeyed me instantly.

"You're from another world then? The ballads, they all say you're from another world." Antonin asked me eagerly.

"Yeah, I'm from another world. I've barely spent any time in this world, I don't really know anything about what's going on, I just got told to come here by Solana, so I did." I shrugged, but Cherie's mouth fell open.

"You have spoken to her? The Great Mother?" Cherie gasped.

"Uh... yeah. Yeah, in this spooky dream forest called Avandor." I said, wishing everyone would stop making a big deal about the weird things that happened to me. But it wasn't to be, as Cherie's mouth fell open even wider, though I hadn't realized that was possible.

"You've seen Avandor? I thought that was just a myth." Cherie breathed in reverence. I nodded slowly.

"Uh, yeah. Twice. Wasn't a whole lot of fun either time, I'll be honest." I said, and looked around. "Shouldn't we be trying to figure out what's going on here?"

Cherie flushed lightly. "Yes, I suppose we should."

The world around us seemed to be entirely the shallow pool, and it kept going until it got swallowed up by the ethereal golden mist that ringed us.

"Do we have to find the way out? Like an invisible maze?" Antonin suggested, and Cherie let out an indignant sniff.

"The Great Mother would not have us wandering through a maze. This is the Shaper's Road. It's meant to be an internal challenge, where we have to confront our darkness and move past it so we can walk in the Light." Cherie rattled off something she had clearly memorized. I spun in a circle, trying to see if anything looked different about the mist, and then I looked up, and to my amazement, when I looked up it was like... it was like laying down on your stomach and looking up, so the whole world seemed to be above you instead of in front of you. Rather like that.

"Uh... there's the road." I said, pointing, and Cherie and Antonin both looked up. I noticed Antonin checking out Cherie while she peered up at the road, and I shook my head wryly.

"How do we get to it?" Cherie mused out loud, and me and Antonin both shrugged.

"Dunno. It's in the bloody sky, after all. We're not exactly shapers. Well, not yet anyway." Antonin corrected himself.

I looked up at the sky, and just a weird instinct came over me, so I kind of... jumped. I felt extremely ill as I was yanked sideways but I landed on my feet on the road. Huh. Weird gravity in a dreamworld, I guess. Cherie jumped right after me, and she landed beside me, those big tits of hers jiggling about in just her wet bra. Antonin landed beside us a moment later, and we all looked down the Shaper's Road. It was a seemingly endless road paved with golden stones, sparkling with sunlight, and generally being way too bright to look at for long.

"Let's go, then." Cherie said eagerly, and she hurried down the road, and Antonin and I followed. For too long, all we did was walk. We were all barefoot, and walking on the golden stones was no more pleasant than it'd be walking on a real stone road for a long while. And then, without warning, Cherie vanished. I darted forwards to see what had happened, when suddenly all I could see was golden mist. I shouted out to the other two, but I couldn't hear any response. The mist swirled around me, and then it cleared and I was no longer on the yellow brick road.

"We're not in Kansas anymore." I muttered to myself, looking around the strange room I found myself in. It was extremely fancy, with a four poster bed but the posts went all the way up to the ceiling. The bed was perfectly made, the whole room was in perfect order. Heavy velvet curtains hung on the windows, and everything just seemed so ornate and rich. The door opened, and I spun to see Angelica standing there, wearing pure white armor with a golden sun crest on her breastplate. She had a golden hilted sword at her hip, and she had a golden shield on her back.

"Master." Angelica bowed deeply. "Apologies for the intrusion, but there is a woman here to see you."

"A woman? Who? And Angelica, for the millionth time, you can just call me Will." I said.

"I know, Master. And as for the woman, it's Lady Rosalie." Angelica answered.

"Oh. Why didn't you just let her up? I don't know if you needed to come up here and be all official about it." I said with a sigh, but I followed Angelica as she led me to Rosalie. Angelica led me through what seemed to be a very elegant castle, and down into... oh, God. A throne room. Two thrones were set up against the wall, one aligned with the doors on the other end of the long hall, and one just off to the left. A familiar face sat in the off-center throne, and I gasped to see Amalie there, wearing a purple dress and a golden crown.

"Amalie!" I exclaimed, and she looked at me in alarm.

"Is something the matter?" she asked, perturbed.

"Uh.. no. No, nothing's the matter. Just excited to see you." I said, blinking. Amalie's full lips curved into a smile, and she winked at me.

"I'm excited to see you too, my love." Amalie murmured, and I looked at the big, mighty throne centered on the doors.

"Please tell me that's not my throne." I said, looking to Angelica, but it was Amalie who answered.

"Of course it's your throne! You're the Emperor. Why would the Emperor of the Dawn, Slayer of the Dusk, Bringer of Light not have a throne?" Amalie asked, seeming extremely and genuinely puzzled. I looked around, and I started to see golden mist seeping into the hall slowly.

"No. No, this isn't real. I don't... I don't- I don't want to rule the world! I'm only doing any of this because you said you needed help. I'm not in this to rule." I shook my head profusely, and the whole hall filled rapidly with golden mist, and once again I couldn't see, and the mist swirled all around me and then...

"Congratulations." a quiet voice said, and I turned. Walking out of the mist was a woman. A woman who looked remarkably familiar. Long, blonde waves, green eyes, an enormous bosom that no woman could equal, and an hourglass figure of equal awe. She wore much fancier clothes than when I had last seen her, but she was unmistakable.

"Mom?" I croaked, and the woman, my mother, smiled.

"Yes, my love. It's me. Your mother." she said, but I had frozen.

"Wait. So.. you're Solana? Actually? Why were you pretending to be a human? Why was I in that other world? Is there an Andrea Thompson at all? Are you- was she-?" I spat out question after question, my heart racing.

"Calm down." my mother said soothingly. "To answer your question... yes. I was pretending to be a human. I am not Andrea Thompson. I am, and have always been, Solana. And you were on Earth because you had to be. A tanden come to this land with the sacred duty of saving it."

"W-what about Jessica? You had another child! Why am I the Dawn King? Is- wait, Jessica's not the Dusk Queen, is she?" I asked suddenly, having seen far too many shows and movies about there being a good sibling and an evil sibling **** to do battle.

"Don't be ridiculous. I am the goddess of the Light, my daughter would not be the herald of Darkness. And she is not in your spot simply because she was not a male. I thought, wrongly, that the only child I was destined to have was you. My Lightbringer. Jessica was... unexpected. She has no connection to the Everlight, unlike you. You, my love, are radiating with it." Solana said fondly.

"So is Jessica alone back on Earth right now? Did we both abandon her?" I demanded.

"You don't remember?" my mother frowned. "Are your memories of Earth intact?"

"Mostly. It's just the way I got here that got sort of fuzzy. I don't remember anything about the day I came here." I admitted.

"When you came over here... your body on Earth, it... it had died." Solana confessed, and my eyes widened.

"What?" I asked, stunned.

"I did not plan on sending you here so early on. I wanted to wait until you were older, I had grown incredibly attached to you, and your sister. And the Dusk Queen was not in this world yet, so I thought I had more time with you. But apparently, fate has its' own agenda. The day I resolved to wait until your twentieth birthday, not your eighteenth like I'd planned when you were first born, you were killed. A man with a gun, the human police told me, but it was not the bullet that killed you, it was destiny. A greater power forcing my hand. I had to send you here now, or lose you forever. So I made the difficult choice to send you across, though without you on Earth, it was a much easier choice. And Jessica... I did not know what to do with her, or what her place in this world would be, so I wiped her memories of me and you, and placed her with a family who now believe she was born to them, just like she does." Solana explained sadly.

"You erased my sister?" I demanded, furious. Jessica, my big sister... her memories wiped and dropped in a new family? Just because she wasn't magic? Furious tears welled in my eyes, and to my amazement, hot fire burst from my palms. Golden blazes of fire that shot directly towards Solana. My eyes widened, but she waved a hand and they vanished.

"Bring her back!" I shouted, and for a moment, the woman in front of me was unrecognizable to me. She wasn't my mother, she was a monster who did evil and called it good.

"A war is coming to this world that will rock it to its' core. People far more powerful than your sister will die. Thousands of them. Bringing her would have only resulted in her ****, and like you said, I did not want her to feel grief or abandonment." Solana said, and she seemed almost... confused at my reaction. A chilling reminder that she was not human.

"So when it's me, you want to hold on to me for as long as possible, but Jessica you erase with a wave of your hand?" I asked, utterly stunned at how thoughtless this goddess could be.

"Would you rather her die in the war?" Solana challenged, and I shook my head.

"Of course not! But you're a goddess, can't you protect her?" I demanded, and Solana miserably shook her head.

"I cannot protect a single person from what's coming. If I could, you would not exist. There would be no Lightbringer, no King of the Dawn. You are here only because it is impossible for me to stop the coming darkness." Solana said.

"So you're useless? This giant war is coming, and the goddess on our side can't do shit?" I verified.

"I can help in some ways, but the deeds of the dark are beyond my ability to stop. Light cannot burn away darkness. Darkness succumbs to light, it does not run from it." Solana said quietly.

"What does that even mean? Is there a dark god? Like you're the light goddess?" I asked.

"Yes. The goddess Lunare. She is my opposite.. and my sister. I hate her, and she hates me, but we cannot harm each other, or each other's followers." Solana said bitterly. "That is why I have you, because Lunare engineered her weapon. Her Dusk Queen. Her herald of darkness, and the only way she can harm the Light."

"So you only had kids to use them as weapons? Jess didn't have any power, so you just sent her away? Does that sound about right?" I asked her, stung.

"There is an entire world of people here that would have died if I did not have you. Even with you, they might all die anyways. I do not regret my choices, nor do I care if you think them heartless. But I created you, William, to be my hand. My hand to help this world off its' knees, and my fist to crush the darkness beneath it." Solana said evenly, but I could hear fury beneath it. "Do not deign to call me a monster, when I have dedicated my entire life to stopping Lunare. Goddesses are not eternal, and I will not live forever. I have made sacrifices, and I have made hard choices. I am not pure, but neither is light. Light warms and brings sight, but it also burns, and it blinds. I am both. I am not going to coddle this world. I cannot. We must be ready to fight this war, or there will be nothing left but shadows and dust."

"You'll have to find someone else to be your Dawn King, because I'm not doing it." I said fiercely.

"You do not have a choice. You are the hero of the prophecy now, like it or not. Just ask your friend Raina. If you shirk your destiny now, the world will be swallowed by darkness." Solana said, eyes narrowing.

"You killed my sister!" I roared, and my vision turned gold.

"She is unharmed, and she's happy!" Solana snapped.

"She's only happy because she doesn't know what you took from her!" I shot back.

"She was in tears on the floor of your room, sobbing like all the life had fled from her body." Solana said quietly. "Your **** destroyed her, and I would not let my daughter live with that grief. I could not."

"But I'm not dead!" I exclaimed.

"You are. Will Thompson died the day you came here. She cannot come to this world without connection to the Everlight, it could kill her, and if she cannot follow, then I chose to make her stay as pleasant as I could." Solana sighed. "I can be vicious, but I am not cruel. Of course I wanted to bring her here, but not only was her ability to come over uncertain, but she would not have much hope of surviving the war she was arriving in."

I stared at Solana for a long time, and then I lowered my head. My own sister had no idea who I was now. And it was my mother's fault.

"Will you serve and defend the Light?" my mother asked me. I looked up at her, and my eyes met hers for a long time.

"Yes. But not for you. And when the war is over, I want to go back. I want to see my sister again." I said fiercely.

"You have no body in that world." Solana reminded me.

"I didn't have one here." I pointed out, and she shook her head.

"Yes, you did. It was shaped out of the Everlight itself. And you cannot shape on Earth, so it is impossible for me to create you one there." Solana said.

"So I'm stuck here." I said, devastated.

"Indeed you are." Solana nodded, and I sighed. This had been an emotionally draining conversation, and I simply didn't have room for any more heartache.

"Then fine. I'll fight your fucking war." I growled, not feeling particularly charitably towards my mother.

"Good. We will need you." Solana said. "Already, your presence is necessary. In the mines of Elond, an ancient evil has been unearthed."

"Elond? What? An army from Illian is marching for Ciren! The Knights of the Dawn need to go help them, and I said I'd help them!" I protested.

"The evil that has been awakened in Elond is far more important than a skirmish between kingdoms. You need to understand that there are more powers at work than the thrones of man. The very world itself is caught between the Light and the Dark. Stopping an evil like Evarys is more important."

"Evarys? What's that?" I asked.

"If you ask any of your companions, they will tell you it is a ghost story meant to frighten children. But no, Evarys is real. And those damned tunneling dwarves just dug into his prison. A prison I put him in eons ago. And now you must do the same. Seal the prison back up, or Evarys will wreak havoc and join the forces of the Dark." Solana ordered.

"Right. Sure. Where in Elond?" I sighed.

"The High Halls of the Dwarves is where you should start. They will be able to explain it to you." Solana said, and I nodded.

"Fine. I'll go fight Evarys in the High Halls of the Dwarves. What then?" I asked.

"I'll keep you up to date with my knowledge as I find it. I am not omniscient, I know only what my followers share with me. If there is something you need to know, I will find you in Avandor." Solana said, and she waved a hand.

---

I sat back up from the water, gasping. I was back in the circular courtyard, surrounded by priestesses. Angelica's hands grabbed me by the arms, and I turned to look at her, surprised. Her eyes widened when she saw me, and I looked back at her in confusion.

"What?" I asked.

"Your eyes. They've turned gold." she said.

"Oh, I got the gold ring in my eyes?" I asked, and looked down at my reflection in the water. But no, I didn't have a golden ring around my irises, my irises had turned bright, swirling gold. Ugh. Why couldn't I just be normal for once?