Freebie: Avalon - The Fallen King: Chapter 3

Chapter Three -

Silence so deep, fell over the stadium again. The hushed whispers died down, as did the occasional shouted question. Everyone just sat there and stared with expressions of absolute disbelief on their faces. Theo couldn’t believe it either. Why would the First King’s familiar come to him and mark him as his heir?

His blood suddenly turned to ice. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open a little. If Jeks was here, marking an heir, then that meant…

It can’t be, he told himself. Not him. He’s too strong. Too powerful.

But the First King was still nowhere to be found. Theo searched as best he could, hoping to find some sign of the man but he came up with nothing. It made his fear heighten to uncomfortable levels.

“It appears…uhh…” The announcer tried to break the oppressive silence but his words failed him. He stopped talking and left his train of thought unfinished.

The silence suddenly broke like a weakened dam crumbling to nothing. It started as whispers again and then quickly devolved into shouts and cries. To Theo, it was all just white noise. A hissing static that ran together and became incomprehensible gibberish. He couldn’t stop looking at the phoenix. Faintly, he heard his name being called but that was just more static. Part of that white noise. It was only when the voices were practically right next to him did they finally break through.

“Theo!” That was his father. “Look at me.”

Theo blinked rapidly. It caused the tears welling up in his eyes to fall. Still in a daze, he numbly turned and saw his parents, Warrick and Xerya Vance. They stared at him with deep concern in their eyes but their glances kept darting between each other too. Theo didn’t like how they did that. To him, it looked as if they were trying to communicate something. Something he wasn’t meant to know.

“Are you okay?” his mom asked. She reached out and gently shook him. The shock of everything happening wore off a little.

“I’m…,” he started to say. His mouth felt so dry. Why did it feel so damn dry? He looked at her again. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” Warrick told him, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Because we need to go. Now.”

A flutter of wings distracted Theo for a moment and then Artemis was perched on his shoulder again. Her head darted around, taking in everything, and finally landed on Jeks. Something, some hidden knowledge, seemed to pass between them but that couldn’t be. Right? That had to have been his imagination.

“Everyone, please,” the announcer said. “It appears the official has called the match due to outside interference. At this time, the school administrators would like everyone to please exit the stadium in an orderly and calm fashion.”

“Come on,” Warrick said. He started to pull Theo back down the walkway. Jeks followed after them and Warrick glanced up at the familiar with irritation. “You need to be a hell of a lot more inconspicuous if you’re going to follow us Jeks.”

The phoenix actually nodded, understanding exactly what that meant. He started to shrink down until he was only a little bigger than Artemis. Xerya threw out an arm and Jeks flew over to it, perching on it as if it were a tree branch. As the three of them started to leave, the crowds grew more and more animated. Teachers, coaches, and other staff were trying to maintain some kind of order but they were failing miserably. People, everyone from parents to students to teachers to randoms, kept hurling questions at them as they pushed and scrambled their way to an exit.

“What happened?”

“Why did the First King’s familiar mark you as an heir?”

“Were you some kind of royal this whole time?”

And then, of course, the worst one yet.

“Does this mean the First King is dead?”

Theo wasn’t sure who asked it but the minute it hit his ears, he whirled. His eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw tightly, almost painfully. His hands balled into fists and he was about three seconds away from punching the first person he could get his hands on, whether they were the one that asked the question or not.

“You can’t do that,” Xerya warned him while at the same time, trying to keep rushing him out of the stadium.

“Don’t worry. I will hunt down and kill the treasonous fool!” Arti declared.

At some point in the furious confusion of everything going on, Therresa managed to get over to them. Warrick and Xerya saw her and folded her into their group. There was a lot of jostling and shoving but then Therresa was holding his hand, offering what comfort she could.

“Are you okay?” she asked but he had no idea what to say to her.

“I…I don’t even know,” he said in a whisper. Then he looked at his parents. “Do you two know what’s going on? Why is Jeks here?”

“We don’t know anything for sure right now, honey,” his mother said, forgetting that Warrick called the familiar by name not three minutes ago.

That did it for Theo. He stopped cold, his entire body going rigid. They weren’t telling him something and that something was big. Huge. Enormous. Whatever other words there were to describe a ridiculously big thing. Therresa went dead silent next to him and even Artemis quieted down and stopped whispering death threats to anyone that got close to them.

“Are you kidding?” Theo asked, his voice stony. He had never once, in his whole life, ever talked to his mother like that. Clearly, she didn’t like it either because her eyes went hard.

“Now is not the time,” she whispered.

Warrick tried to grab hold of his son’s arm and forcefully drag him out into the parking lot but Theo stood firm.

“I think it is,” he replied. “You think you can just rush me along and not answer any of my questions. And then, on top of that, try to tell me that this isn’t Jeks. I have idolized the First King since I was old enough to know about him. Of course I know what his familiar looks like. And oh yeah, by the way, every other person in the stadium recognized him too and Dad even called him by name!”

Warrick and Xerya exchanged a look. She gave her husband a small nod of confirmation.

“We will tell you everything but you are not safe here. Not anymore,” Warrick said.

“Is someone trying to come after Theo?” Therresa asked.

Her eyebrows furrowed together and a look of deep concern came over her eyes. He gently squeezed the hand he still held.

“No, no,” Theo tried to say. “It’s going to be fine, right, Dad? Mom?”

They nodded and tried to look as reassuring as possible.

“But we do really need to go,” Warrick told them. Theo couldn’t help but notice the way his father scanned the crowd every few seconds. It was clear he was looking for hidden threats.

Theo thought about stubbornly fighting against them some more but the craziness all around made him rethink that. He finally relented and they got moving again. Eventually, they fought their way through the pandemonium of the stadium, through all the people, and finally into the parking lot to their family car. There was yet another huge crowd of people milling around outside. Everyone was trying to catch a glimpse of the supposed heir and the famous Jeks. Once Theo was spotted, it was like vultures coming to feast on a bloated carcass. They descended on the group as one large mob but the silver pendant of his father’s totem suddenly blazed to life.

“Shield your eyes,” he shouted.

There was a burst of white light that lit up the area. It was getting dark, not full night but pretty close, when Warrick’s non-lethal spell went off. It forced everyone to cover their eyes and gave the four of them a much easier time navigating past the mass of people.

They got to their car and everyone piled in. Warrick’s hands flew over the controls and it rumbled to life. The dash lit up with the same white light coming from his pendant and then a steering wheel suddenly materialized. The car lifted into the air as the magical current powering it made it hover.

“Can we discuss things now that we’re in the car?” Theo asked. Some of the anger started leaving him and he felt a little more at ease. The press of people coming at him and asking questions had been uncomfortable to say the least.

“How about we wait until after Therresa is at home?” Xerya asked. “It’s best for you if we-”

“No.” Theo cut her off. “I’ll just tell her everything anyway as soon as I get the chance. You both know I will. Tell me the truth about all…” He gestured at Jeks. “This.”

Outside, the scenery went by in a dark blur. Every so often, they would pass another car but for the most part, they were alone on the roads. Which was good, all things considered. Weyd Academy had been built within the city of Old Columbus, a good-sized metropolitan area that was about a hundred or so miles from the Rim. It was one of the oldest known cities still in existence and some of its buildings even dated back to the time before the Resurgence. Theo lived with his parents in a residential neighborhood twenty minutes from the school. With the roads mostly clear of traffic, the trip home would be a short one.

“I suppose we can’t hold this off anymore,” Warrick started to say. “And with what happened tonight, I don’t think we can get away with trying to shield you from the truth either.”

“What does that mean?” Theo asked, clearly frustrated. “What have you been shielding me from?”

Both of them glanced, almost subconsciously, at Jeks.

“Then it is true?” Theo asked. He looked at the familiar.

Jeks turned toward him with those luminous, yellow-red eyes. Theo could almost feel it reaching something deep inside him. Something he hadn’t even realized was there. Its flames, although bright, didn’t burn or actually touch anything. A familiar and its power could not be interacted with unless it was by the person it was bonded to or the familiar allowed it. There was something else that Theo knew about them. Something that flitted up to the forefront of his mind as he stared at the phoenix. They could be passed down but only to a direct, blood descendent.

Someone like a biological child.