WebNovels

Chapter 151 - He Flew Too High—and Now the Fall Wounds Him Even More

Under the pale moon on a frigid December night,

his world lingers in a hazy, elegaic blue.

Soothing should have been—the serene susurrus of the sea waves.

Freedom should have been—the feathery, salty breeze brushing his cheeks.

Thousands of invisible thorns—is what the frosty air pricks across his skin.

Agonizingly yearning—is what the waves swell across his heart for the lost lovesong.

The dead soul of his mourning shell—bleeds the world a shivering shade of morose blue.

Ishmael tilts his head back, a grey plume of smoke drifting from his lips.

Flames from the bonfire in front of him, ignited to ward off the frosty breeze, smolder against his skin.

Heat fails to reach the rest of him, the numbing jab of chill driving into his bones.

Ishmael clenches his jaw, scarlet-veined eyes brimming with burning tears.

His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard, smoke scorching his lungs with each breath.

He peers ahead, across the endless ocean lying in shaded blue, blurred by the bonfire's grey smoke and the thick, smothering fog.

And as his eyes close, all he can see is her gentle, ethereal features;

all he can breathe is the sweet, flowery scent that feathers her;

all he can hear is the serene melody of her honeyed voice;

and all he can feel is her otherworldly warmth—her abscence shuddering through him in soul-trembling grief.

He sits lonely and weary upon the bleak, yellow-green hill by the ocean, unable to warm his soul even by the blazing heat of the bonfire—the crackling, dancing flames casting a golden hue upon his pale skin in a vain attempt to soften him.

For his Neva is gone, carried away with the air of dreams his fingers can never seize.

His hair wavers as the frosty air grazes his hollowed cheeks, tousled strands falling down his nape.

Ishmael sniffs, wiping the damp beneath his nose with his thumb. A soft sigh escapes him as he leans against the back of his low chair, his shadowed gaze lost in the distant nowhere across the blue expanse.

And he wonders, searing through the memories in search of answers to justify the darkest hour of his life, unfolding before him.

He lost his mother during the birth of his brother—the words of his drunken father.

The day of the stillborn's birth—separated from his own by only minutes past midnight.

It wasn't long ago that Leviathan revealed to him his mother had survived—survived enough to leave her firstborn with her abusive husband and flee Miraeth with the child everyone believed stillborn.

Oh, how he longs for it to be a lie that she abandoned him, and longs even more that it is no lie that Serecca was dead,

leaving her beloved son Isaac—or rather, her beloved Rhett Lei—alive.

His brother is the paradigm of a thunderous violent of war, clawing away the lovesong that born from the rhythm of his heart—and the melody of his beloved.

He curses—and curses—the Creator for allowing the living tragedy separate him from her.

And he dies—and dies—at the thought that all He permitted made him a man abandoned by the woman who gave him life, veiling his light, shattering his home, and crushing his salvation.

A calloused hand rakes through his hair as a weary breath escapes his lips, heavy with the regrets of what could have been.

At just nine years old, he was left alone when Ibneiah died, their cottage perched at the far edge of the village, where the thick pine-draped hills began.

The villagers were strangers to him—a nameless boy with pale complexion and ruddy cheeks, all skin and bones, looking far younger than his years.

But Heaven finally smiled upon him in the forest, beneath the shade of a sycamore, where he stirred from a tranquil nap—startled, and struck with a heartbeat of love by the doe-eyed girl peering down at him.

A faint smile softens Ishmael's lips as the memory drifts through his mind.

As their eyes met, her cheeks ripened the color of the apples she offered him after—before she ran toward the old man, a basket hanging from his back, brimming with apples gathered from the forest.

After that day, life felt full for the first time.

Hope bloomed within him, and the warmth of home wrapped around him as Grandpa and Neva made him their family.

Ishmael and Neva dreamed the same dreams, breathing the same, serene air of hope and peace that Grandpa's faith sent forth against the mounting chaos in Miraeth.

But heaven's favor soon turned bitter over his joy, as Leviathan, knowing the prophecy, set in motion a fate where the child of her age was chosen to deliver the believers—doomed hundreds of children of that age to martyrdom,

wrenching her painfully from his side.

Grandpa hadn't even spared him a goodbye.

His world shrivelled when he awoke to the cottage, empty of their presence.

Weeks passed before Grandpa returned, promising she was safe, yet never telling him where she had gone. Restless, bleak, and colorless were his days—for with her absence away was his peace, his life, and the light that once burned in his eyes.

When Grandpa succumbed to illness and died, he—desperate for the meaning of his life, the beat of his heart, the color of his world—slipped aboard a merchant ship and sailed away from the wretched Island.

The world beyond was little different from Miraeth, save that Leviathan ruled not openly, but through dark, shadowed means, spreading his evil silently.

He called the streets home—under bridges, among parks, in fleeting shelters.

The few fabrics he had were all that stood between him and the storm and cold.

A scrap of food from a dumpster, a single canned good from charity, became his treasure, his blessing for days.

It was then he realized how much he had taken for granted in Miraeth—the comfort of home, the warmth of those who cared enough to reach for him.

It was at that time he met Jacob Lewis—

a boy his age, beaten down and harassed by older boys. Jacob's father took him under his wing, teaching him at home alongside his own son.

He forged his empire with bullets, with contracts—through the power of loyalty and the chains of dependence. To the public, he wore the mask of a businessman. Since people in Miraeth had no surnames, he claimed one for himself for the world would believe he belonged among them.

But beneath the glittering façade, he ruled one of the hemisphere's most sophisticated narcotics and trafficking empires.

All for her.

He survived because of her, driven by a reason to seek her, to recover the life and color she carried away.

All that he is, all that he has become, exists because of her.

At last, he discovered the oasis in the desert, only to be cast away by her as a stranger.

He sold all he had to reclaim her. When the heavens offered no mercy, he carved his own destiny and became his own redeemer.

Were it not for Inaya and Isaiah, the living proof of their love and the seraphic years they shared, he might have thought himself still lost in the desert, lashed by wind and chased by her mirage,

drawing his final, fading breaths.

Ishmael lifts his gaze from the smoldering embers of the bonfire,

unaware that the flames have long since died, as the scarlet sun begins to break through the veil of clouds and drifting fog.

A sudden hope rises in his chest, reminding him that the light of day is won only after the night's darkest hour has passed.

And so through his cold lips, he whispers a verse: "Wait for me, my love."

"Boss." A deep, groggy voice rasps.

Ishmael casts a glance over his shoulder, his shadowed eyes fixed on the three men's silhouettes emerging through the thick fog.

The shortest and stoutest of the three coughs, his thickly clad hand cutting through the fog—Huston.

Though his face might reveal little, Huston commands a feared, elite mercenary army, with thousands of soldiers under his control—and has even secured a direct contract with the monarch.

"Were you up all night alone, Boss?" Huston glances him over, then scans the horizon, where the sprout of hazy sunlight has tinged the ocean a pale, gentle blue.

Ishmael remains silent, bare hands resting on his thighs, eyes locked on the endless ocean that devours his vision.

"Give him your jacket," Huston says, nodding toward the tall, armed man with an anchor beard at his side.

Without hesitation, the man slides the black windproof jacket forward, dusting it off before bowing slightly, handing it to Ishmael with both hands as a gesture of respect.

Ishmael casts a half-hearted glance at him.

"Unnecessary," he murmurs, his voice rough and groggy.

The guard gives a single nod, straightens to his full height, and slowly slides his jacket back into place.

"The men are gathered, Boss," Huston reports. "When do we strike?"

Ishmael rises from the chair, hands buried into the pockets of his charcoal grey trousers, a thin pleated black woolen blanket draped over his sweater, unwavering in the biting cold.

"Tonight," he replies, and turns to the men.

The armed guard to Huston's left smirks, a hand grazing the rough stubble shading along his jaw. "In the end, Agent Czar belongs to me." His hooded eyes darken with a bloodthirsty temper.

Ishmael narrows his gaze, unflinching.

"Don't be impulsive!" Huston snaps at the man, then flashes a crooked grin at Ishmael. "He's young, reckless, and hot-blooded, Boss—cut him some slack. He has his own issues with the Agent."

"Have him calm himself, unless he wants his brains blown out," Ishmael mutters, tone raw and cutting.

Huston nods, both firm and reverent. "Indeed, Boss."

Ishmael inhales the crisp, salty air, tinged with the earthy warmth of the approaching dawn, and moves toward the cabin.

Behind him, Huston flicks a sharp, cautionary glance at the hot-blooded man, who clamps his mouth shut and falls into line behind his new executive.

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