The Ocean Diamond (Dawnbringer, Books 3 - Part 1) Read online

  Yet when she looked into her friends’ bright, magical eyes, the flutter of anxiety melted away. It was almost a cure all on its own.

  EIGHT

  Dawn and Damon heaved Elijah along the rocky roads of Chios. Occasionally, one of them would slip and lose their balance under the pebbles, but the other two always caught them before they all fell. As heartwarming as Dawn found her deepening bond with the boys, she was ready to fling Elijah off her shoulder and kick her legs back in a hammock somewhere.

  It really was a shame, because she would have loved to stop and smell the roses, both literally and figuratively. There were strange, tulip-like flowers sprouting out all around them as the rocks crunched beneath their feet. They almost looked as if they were made of origami paper, dipped in some sort of ink to accentuate the intricate lines along their petals.

  They passed a cafe, where beautiful people rested in front of the shore to enjoy the moonlit water dance along the horizon. Dawn squinted her eyes. There was some sort of snack everyone was eating. It looked a bit like ice cream, but it had coral red flakes in the white cream.

  “What are they eating?” Dawn asked, her stomach right rumbling on cue.

  “They call it spoon sweet, I think,” Damon replied, his eyes glimmered as he licked his lips. “It’s like jelly, basically, but here, they use different ingredients than they do back home. In Chios, the popular one is rose petals. They put it on top of Greek yogurt or vanilla ice cream.”

  “My gods,” Dawn whispered. “That sounds so pleasant and refreshing.”

  Elijah let out a morbid cough, his head hanging between the hungry pair. Dawn turned to look at Elijah. He looked the way he did when Fisher took his magic from him—colorless, dull, lifeless.

  “How much more do we have to go until we find the healer?” Dawn asked. “Or why can’t we just portal our way there?”

  “No, no,” Damon said as he peered up the road. “These guys are… let’s say old-fashioned.”

  “So old-fashioned they don’t use magic to make a simple portal?” Dawn grumbled. I mean, really, what was it with all these magic divas running around? You would think they had some sort of standard by then that everyone could agree on. But no, the world of magic had only gotten more and more eccentric the more Dawn got to know it.

  “Yes, they are that old fashioned, Dawn. They only use ancient magic. It goes even further back than Wiccan magic. So please don’t embarrass me in front of them!”

  Dawn lifted an eyebrow. Was Damon a fan of these guys? Were they some sort of rock stars of the magic world? She imagined seeing Dua Lipa waiting for them, in velvet robes to perform a spell to save Elijah. Suddenly, a wave of empathy crashed over her. What would it be like to just go to Dua Lipa’s house for guidance!

  Elijah’s rattling breathing interrupted Dawn’s daydreaming. She turned to him and sighed. Poor Elijah. It seemed like he was always getting the short end of the stick and there she was, wondering what color Dua Lipa’s robes would be if she were a witch.

  “Okay, first, let’s save Elijah, because he doesn’t look too good,” Dawn said. She perked back up to look at the cafe, in particular a barista scooping frozen Greek yogurt into a prim waffle cone. Her mouth watered watching him dollop the spoon sweet on top of the yogurt. “Then we'll go get some yogurt.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Elijah mumbled, followed by another terrible, lifeless cough.

  Just up the bend, Dawn saw a small hut made of sticks and brush along the treeline. A tunnel of smoke rose from the chimney, but it didn’t smell like burning. In fact, it had a sweet, rosy sort of smell. Dawn’s stomach rumbled again. Oh brother, she thought to herself as she rubbed her belly.

  “This is the place,” Damon said. “I can feel it.”

  They walked toward the door, the sweet smell at full force the closer they got. Damon cleared his throat. He knocked on the door and straightened out his posture as he waited for the healer’s response.

  A beautiful young woman peeked her head out in the crack between the flimsy, wooden door and its frame. Dawn couldn’t stop staring at her glowing skin and rosy cheeks. Dark coils framed her oval face, falling gracefully past her neck and shoulders. By the look of it, Damon was just as starstruck as Dawn was.

  Damon opened his mouth to speak, but instead of the low, smooth voice Dawn was expecting, all she heard was a bizarre, abrupt jumble of syllables, punctuated by “uhs” and nervous coughing fits.

  Elijah frowned, his brows pulling together in a look of concern, or better yet, secondhand embarrassment, that seemed to eclipse his dwindling health. What is he doing? Elijah mouthed to Dawn.

  Dawn shrugged. She turned to the young woman, who looked just as, if not more confused as Dawn and Elijah.

  Before Damon could finish his awkward, presumptively unintelligible dialogue, the young woman interrupted him. “I speak English, it’s fine.”

  “Oh,” Damon said, blushing. “Sorry about that.”

  “Ancient Greek is a difficult language to read, much less speak. Please, come in.”

  Dawn kept her smirk to herself. Damon was always such a snob about languages and all that intellectual stuff, it felt good to see him fall on his face sometimes. Just sometimes, Dawn thought as they passed through the doorway.

  Inside, the home was cozy and tastefully decorated. It wasn’t exactly what Dawn was expecting from a hut made of sticks and brush. The floor was covered in a vibrant rug that stretched across the length of the floor. The walls were adorned with large swaths of fabric and metallic, glittering strings.

  “Our friend is ill,” Damon continued. “He is in need of your aid.”

  “Hydra,” the woman whispered.

  “Y-yes, how did you know?” Dawn asked.

  Damon hit Dawn on the wrist, as if she were talking out of turn. The woman turned around, exposing a free-floating eye that seemed to have a mind of its own.

  “I see all.” As soon as she said that, both eyes landed right on Dawn. The young woman’s mouth hung open, her jaw trembling in disbelief, but quickly curling into a broad smile. “Sisters!”

  Two more young women, equally as beautiful as the one who answered the door, received Elijah into their arms. They guided him to a narrow mattress of quilts and pillows. They fumbled around on the floor, reaching for jars of balms and oils. They whispered over Elijah’s body.

  “Sisters, the savior is here! She has come early!” she shrieked.

  The two sisters stood up from the floor, revealing Elijah glistening in aromatic oils and creams from the impromptu massage. They joined their sister, crowding in front of Dawn, chanting in Ancient Greek.

  Dawn wasn’t sure which sister to look at, much less how to respond. She wondered if this was how celebrities felt when they went to perform in a foreign country. Although she couldn’t think of any celebrity that had ever been referred to as ‘the savior.’ That was definitely weird. When she got back home, she was going to have to make a list of possible names for people to call her. She liked the sound of the daughter of light, or even your lightliness, but ‘savior’ seemed a bit too heavy handed.

  Dawn turned to Damon, who crossed his arms.

  “What are they saying?” Dawn asked.

  “They’re celebrating the return of Eos. I assume this is a hymn from their temple,” Damon replied.

  “You are correct, child,” the young woman replied to Damon. “We, the Moirai, have been waiting for your glorious return.”

  “Moirai?” Dawn asked.

  Damon scoffed. “Remember the Hercules movie? These are the three fates, they’re the ladies that represent time.” Damon let out a long, exhausted sigh. “And I’m a really big fan.”

  Dawn nodded. She felt guilty being the center of the fates’ attention when really it was Damon who deserved it. She hardly knew anything about them, except from the movie. Hey, wait a second, the old ladies with the stringy hair and the warts! She returned her gaze to the three women, confused.

  “But you’re no
t old,” Dawn said.

  She could hear Damon cringe at her ignorance. The young woman smiled, the warm light from the fire flickered in her eyes. She took Dawn by the hands and led her to a spinning wheel next to Elijah.

  Dawn looked down at Elijah before she sat. “Wait, is he better already?”

  One of the sisters turned her head, watching Elijah’s chest rise and fall at a more regular rate.

  “Oh yes, he shall be fine in a matter of minutes. Anything for you, my queen of light. You are lucky to have arrived so quickly, for if you had waited a hair longer,” the woman said as she ran two pinched fingers along a lock of Dawn’s hair, giving her the shivers. “His life would have been tragically cut short.”

  Dawn nodded in silence, frightened by the young woman’s words. Was that supposed to be a threat or a warning? Whatever the case, she must have been safe if they thought she was Eos herself. Hopefully Eos won’t have a problem having her identity stolen from time to time. She was carrying out her mission, after all.

  “Fear not, child, we mean you nor your friends no harm. Please, sit,” one of the sisters said. She took Dawn’s hands and led her to the spinning wheel, where the other two seemed to be threading it about the cogs and thongs of the machine.

  Weird, Dawn thought. Could they read minds like the pixies? Or was that just a coincidence?

  “Nothing is a coincidence, dear,” the sister said as she pulled the thread tight across the metal and stretched it across the room to reach her sister’s grasp. “Our form of communication is much more spiritual than the way pixies read minds. We feel your thoughts, but we do not hear them word for word.”

  “For example, I know you fear for your friend's life, even though you put on a cheery demeanor,” said the first sister.

  “That’s because of what happened to him before, isn’t it?” Another sister asked. “When they took his magic away?”

  Dawn's face turned white as a sheet. Only a small group of people knew what happened to Elijah, and certainly the three women in a hut off the coast of Turkey. She felt invaded having someone pick at her past, throwing it out in the open for conversation. “Why do you know that?”

  “We’re the Moirai!” said the sister. When she didn’t see Dawn’s face change, she sighed. “We embody time, like your friend said. Look, I’m Atropos.”

  “She holds the memories of all the past,” the other sister chimed in. “And when you die, she’s the one that will cut your string.” She flossed the golden thread in the spaces between her fingers.

  “She’s Clotho,” the final sister said. “She sits here,” the sister motioned to a stool next to the spinning wheel. “Where she spins the threads of life as they move.”

  “The present,” Dawn responded.

  “Very good,” the final sister responded.

  “So that means you’re…”

  “Lachesis, yes. I measure the thread and tell Atropos where she must cut. The past is nothing without the future to guide her.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Atropos grumbled.

  A bead of sweat formed at Dawn’s temple as she saw the glint in the metal shears hanging on a hook above the spinning wheel. That was definitely something she remembered from the movie. She was bundled up under a blanket with her mother, holding onto her as the shears cut the thread and moaning ghosts gliding past the old crones. She grabbed onto her necklace, seeking a dose of comfort in front of the fates that decided life and death.

  “Your time is not now, child,” Atropos said, already looking at Dawn.

  “Although a great battle awaits,” Lachesis whispered. A white, opaque film suddenly covered her eyes. Lachesis looked up, her eyes harshly fixed on the ceiling, but Dawn suspected there was something beyond the sticks and brush that Lachesis saw. “The moon shall pass over the sun once more, and the daughter of light must rise to defeat the Dark One, who has emerged from the Shadowlands to which he is still bound.”

  “Hades,” Dawn whispered.

  “Correct,” Clothos chimed in, “But you know as well as we do, child, that Hades walks among us. And every day, every waking moment, he gets closer to tasting the purity of life.” She knelt down, taking Dawn’s hands into hers. “If you should fail your duel against the King of the Underworld, Atropos must cut the threads of every living being in the waking universe.”

  Dawn was getting dizzy turning every which way to follow their mystic dialogue. It certainly wasn’t easy to wrap her head around the fact that she was talking to the three fates, but it just hit her that the fate of the entire world rested on her shoulders.

  “How am I supposed to do it?” Dawn said, terrified as the fear of failure percolated throughout her chest and into her extremities. “I’m not even a witch, I’m just a halfling.”

  Atropos knelt beside her. She lifted her hand and grazed the side of Dawn’s face with her fingers. “Because Eos has chosen you. To fight the same battle she had long ago. The Dark One craves the power of life and eternity and will stop at nothing to find defeat the one that holds it.”

  “But who is that supposed to be?” Dawn yelled.

  “Chronos, Dawn,” Damon said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Are you serious?” Dawn said. It seemed like the more she unraveled about the mission, the more tedious and terrifying it became. “Isn’t that the guy that ate his own children? And locked them away from the light?”

  “Oh no. No, no, no,” replied Clothos. “He is not exactly my favorite, either, but you are thinking of Cronos, C-R-O-N-O-S, Very different god!” Clotho lifted a finger and held it right in front of Dawn’s nose. “We mean Chronos, C-H-R-O-N-O-S, the master of time and keeper of the West Gate. “What a big difference one little letter makes!”

  “The h is silent,” Atropos chimed in.

  “He is also our father,” Lachesis cut in. “So I hope you do take care and make sure the Prince of Darkness does not kill, maim, or upset him.”

  Dawn nodded. This mission was getting stickier and stickier by the minute. What happened to ‘find the ocean diamond?’ That seemed like enough! But no, no, now she had to defeat Hades, and now she had to protect some god as old as time or even older, since you know, he created it! What if she failed? Would the fates cut her life short? Would they cut the thread of someone she loved to punish her? She supposed it wouldn’t matter anyway since her failure would mean the end of the world as they knew it.

  “Oh Lachesis, you’ve frightened her,” Atropos groaned. “Please, take my sister’s words with a grain of salt. Heed our words, and you shall do well.”

  Lachesis folded her arms. “I thought telling the future was my job.”

  “What do you know you would just go around scaring people if it were up to you! I mean, the daughter of light, the conduit of Eos, the Savior of the free world graces our home and what do you do?”

  Just then, Elijah rose from his sick bed, his color returned and his bright blue eyes vibrant and clear. He dusted himself off, realizing he had been massaged with various oils and was actually incredibly moisturized.

  “What did I miss?” Elijah asked the concerned members of the glowing hut.

  Clotho grabbed a couple bottles of potions and ointments. She led the three out the door while Atropos and Lachesis continued to bicker relentlessly.

  “Sorry about that,” Clotho said. “They never get along, but they love each other.” She handed the vials to Dawn. “Here, take these. You’ll need them for your mission. Oh, and—” Clotho disappeared inside, quickly reemerging with a glass container filled with a glowing oil. “I doubt you’ll come across another hydra—”

  “Don’t count on it!” Lachesis shouted from inside, before returning to her sisterly spat.

  “Well, anyway. Use this oil in case one of you gets hit with Hydra slime again.”

  “O-okay. What are these for?” Dawn asked, lifting the fistful of potions.

  Clotho opened her mouth, as if she were about to try and articulate what they were for...Or rather, w
hen they were for, but she couldn’t. Clotho took a breath. “When the present is the future, you’ll know.”

  Dawn frowned, perplexed at the philosophical declaration. Clotho closed the door, but quickly reopened it as she remembered something else.

  “Oh and—say hi to my dad for me.”

  She closed it shut. The three stood there, utterly lost by what had just happened. Dawn shoved the potions, oils, and ointments in her bag. In that moment, she wished it had just been Dua Lipa in some velvet robes and they had just done karaoke. But no, lucky for her, she had been warned by the three fates to not ruin this mission. And to say hi to their dad. The list goes on and on!

  Elijah and Damon looked at each other, obviously worried about Dawn’s mental state after that whirlwind of a fortune. Elijah cleared his throat. Dawn looked up, and beamed. She was happy to know that her friend was okay. She knew nothing terrible would happen, but she hated to see him anything less than ecstatic.

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I could go for a treat,” Elijah declared, his hands hammered to his hips.

  “Spoon sweets?” Damon asked. He turned to Dawn, shaking his hands next to his wide smile.

  Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. That was something she could do at this moment. Not defeat Hades, not battle his underworldly creatures, just eat a big bowl of delicious, cold yogurt.

  “Spoon sweets,” she responded.

  Dawn felt better once she had taken a bite of the cold, creamy goodness that was Greek yogurt from, well, Greece. The rosy syrup hardened on the roof of her mouth, almost immediately washing away the angst of having to duel in an apocalyptic battle where she had a fifty-fifty chance of winning.

  “So, where to next?” Elijah asked, smacking on his own yogurty dessert.

  “Elijah, please,” Dawn said, her cheeks full of pistachio flavored yogurt. “You’re going to give me a brain freeze.”

  “He’s right, Dawn. As much as I’d love to sit here taking in the view, we should stay focused,” Damon said.