I am sorry for the lack of updates! Despite the doubts I've reserved for this chapter, I've decided to post it anyway due to the fact that I probably won't be able to update in a while (tests, and quizzes. Arg.) Nothing much happens in this chapter, and I am very sorry for that (mind you this is my longest chapter, 2000 plus words, so read this only if you can afford the time, and the patience.) I do hope that everyone has a good week! (And no, Kartik is not in love Pippa.)

The colourful India before me shifts... the silver-blue mountains, pearl-coloured rivers, and syrupy jade trees suddenly sliding and bluring, losing their true shape, as Amar, screaming, struggles desperately to find me in the flurried movement. His fingers graze slightly at my shoulder, and I look up, eager to find my sweating hands in his. My touch grasps the thin air. Cursing, I force my idle legs up from the river, but Amar is a swirling, melting spectacle of flesh, and my eyes can no longer find him in the raging sea of teal and willow.

"Amar!" It seems that my scream swirls around me, into me. Colour blinds my eyes, until I fall away into incredibly wintry hues of ice and gray, tiny clouds riding the flow of my breath as I struggle to gather myself up with the support of both legs. The grass is white and brittle beneath my feet, the sky a silver pool. There is no one here but the distant presence of a man hooded in a most regal purple, his back to me, a hood concealing his head. I find that I am with no weapon, and I step back, my voice an icy threat in the air.

"Who are you, and where is my brother?"

"Oh," He says, his voice feigning very little interest. "So sorry to have kept your reunion short, but I thought a meeting with me would better interest you."

Anger mingles with the blood in my veins.

"Who are you?"

The man obliges my question with a slow, dramatic turn, and with delicate care, he yanks the point of his hood down, revealing his face. I nearly scream.

"You-"

"I am you, Kartik."

I do not know whether to object or simply stammer helplessly in awe. He possesses my forest of dark curls, my strong, hard nose, my unusually long lashes, and my well-rounded lips. I note that he is a a good three inches taller than me, making him almost gargantuan, and that there are circles that faintly mark the spaces around his gold-chestnut brown eyes. I notice that the mark of the Rakshanna is emblazoned crudely at his lapel.

"Do not fear me Kartik. We are almost one and the same," He speaks almost boredly, "Or shall I say, I am so much more than you are at present moment."

I maintain my stunned silence as he walks ever closer towards my direction, his face a mask of contemptous amusement as he surveys my slightly trembling legs, and sweating palms.

With a force I cannot even begin to comprehend, he strikes me hard and quick at the face. Blood spurts from within the walls of my mouth, and I wobble uneasily to my side, my hand at the side of my jaw instantly to calmly assess the pain. A sneer curls the sides of his full lips.

"Weak." A glare escapes the brown of my eyes, and the sneer on his face grows even broader.

"It is truly sad, Kartik. The depth at which you've fallen. And all because of a detestable, little girl…" My stomach roils suddenly with all the writhing fury of a thousand snakes, but I find I cannot speak, my lip shedding blood so profusely.

"Well, what is it? Were you going to defend her honour? Do spare me your avowal of love, brother...for it is just as inept and trivial as you are. But fear not that can be changed." He lowers himself to his knees in order to properly stare at me with suddenly hungry eyes.

"She is weak, Kartik. Not like us. She does not care for you as you think she does…" My other self gives a sudden, but rather deliberate look over his shoulder. Another figure appears there...a woman.

She is dressed in a gentle, quiescent white, with red tressess creating cascades of illuminating gold down her chest. Her hands are beautifully placid, set against her sides. But the eyes…

They are not peaceful, or tender, or soothing…they are sagacious, and headstrong.

It is none other than a nineteen-year-old Gemma Doyle, Queen to the realms, the Most High.

"Once she seals the magic, you are no more to her. The sorrow that binds you both will be forfeited And you are alone, abandoned by the one you foolishly trusted, and cast off, with no possibility of forgiveness, by those you so wrongfully betrayed." The Gemma Doyle behind him gives a wise smile, before dispersing like a golden scatter of pollen in the freezing wind.

"She wants to take the power from us, Kartik! Don't let her."

"Kartik!"

Someone is shaking me tersely by the shoulders. I open my eyes tiredly, half-expecting to see a mollifying Mr. Avery, ready with a glass of water, but I spot Amar, positively worried to death over my unmoving body.

"Brother!" I gasp in relief, the hot, spicy air of India deliciously filling my lungs. I am all questions after I describe to Amar what I saw—though certainly not what I've heard.

"I could sense them coming," Amar tells me gravely after my long, winded explanation, "They are fallen Rakshanna. They belong to the generation that have yet to witness the beauty and the power of the realms, such as you and I. Once dying, they are completely enraptured by the realms, and refuse to cross over. They are bidding their time in the Winterlands, waiting for the time when the power is finally at The Rakshanna's disposal. They know Kartik, and they will use their trickery to gain what they want…"

Little makes sense to me at the moment, and with a sad smile, I note Amar's standing up and moving to go.

"Think of what I have said little brother. I am very sorry to say that my time here is spent."

I am awakened from my dream by a small, flickering light hovering just above my eyes.

My right hand, cold and dripping with sweat, flies immediately over my half-opened gaze. Orange filters past my fingers as I struggle to steady myself up with an elbow.

"Wake up, novitiate," I blink, recognizing the curt voice immediately with a tight squeeze to my chest.

"Brother Fowlson, I am sorry,"

Throwing back my covers, I stand quickly, almost tripping on a loose floorboard in my haste. Fowlson, his bottom lip curling with satisfaction at my evident show of fear, gestures his candle-holder to the exit of the pub. I follow him with all the dull enthusiasm of a feline about to be rinsed, knee-deep in a tub of suddy water.

Amar is an indelible matter in my mind as me and a sneering Fowlson finally reach the back of Mr. Avery's pub. He gives his short nub of a candle a rather quick, and noncomittal blow, and the flickering flame goes out fast, turning into a faint whisp of smoke in the wintry air. I gulp.

"What is your progress with the Doyle girl?" Fowlson queries in a threat, and I nearly stammer my reply.

"It is…That is, Miss Doyle has yet to locate the temple, but has found a rather promising source of information-"

"What source?"

"A, a former member of the Order," I stutter fearfully against my will, surprised that I don't keel and fall over with all the diginity of a schoolgirl. Fowlson regards me momentarily through narrow slits of eyes…and then his scarred face breaks into a splitting smile, a slow, icy sneer that shakes hard at the core of my foundation.

"It seems that the pair of you are costing The Rakshanna a bit too much time," My mind scrambles wildly for an answer, something that can buy both Gemma and I some needed time, but my lips mouth soundlessly, and absolutely no words come out.

"There are no excuses that will save you now, novitiate," And with this, Fowlson quickly slips his strong, meaty fingers over my unsuspecting elbow, and grips hard. I almost curse out loud at the sudden, searing pain. The lout has the strength of all God. "A terrible pity. I suppose weakness and a heart do run in your family," The look Fowlson offers me with is positively murderous. It pushes all the air out of my lungs, and I can barely breath. "Your mission is officially terminated, novitiate. And since it seems that your girlfriend too is uncapable of performing simple tasks, we, The Rakshanna, will have to do it for her,"

"What do you mean?" I wheeze fiercely, a sudden, uncharacteristically strong anger ripping hard at my throat,

"In time, novitiate. For now, do take this as a token of my appreciation for all your hard work," And before I can shift to evade his oncoming blow, Fowlson's free hand connects solidly with my jaw, and I fall instantly to the ground, the world a garish shade of black.

A spray of brunette tresses lie, catching the gold of the setting sun across my chest.

Small hands like delicate, sweet-smelling flowers, gently caress the hard frames of my face…their pale, whimsical fingers twisting themselves deep into the riotous curls of my hair.

The intoxicating scent of meadowsweet floods my skin, and kisses, soft and tender, line the column of my bare neck.

I look up, and a pair of gorgeous plum-coloured eyes look back at me, a twisted adoration clouding the spaces between the long lashes.

"Do you pine for me?" She asks. Her voice is a lovely tinkling laughter against at my ears, and I do not know whether to nod in vehemence, or smother her exquisite, porcelain face in earnest kisses. She takes a coy finger to the bridge of my nose, and with a smile worthy of a thousand suns, strokes tenderly at my skin. "Do me a favor won't you? It is only a small thing…" I am ready to surrender my life to this great beauty.

"Tell Gemma-"

"Gemma?" My mouth moves at its own accord, and suddenly the radiance that surrounds both me and the girl is no longer magical, but dizzying.

"Yes, if you could- what's wrong?"

My eyes are caught, inevitably, at the rougish sight of her short, sharp teeth, but the girl smiles again...and the crooked fangs are gone.

"What is happening?" I ask her this boldly, and her pretty violet eyes are practically swimming with tears.

"Shush, no questions, you adore me remember?" A part of me is most eager to say yes, but a more significant part of me feels as if it's being pulled away, pulled through flaps of black…pulled back to a choir of sounds that consist of dripping candles, and angry superiors.

"Wake up, novitiate!" My brow wrinkles in stark confusion.

"No, please! You have to tell Gemma not to seal the-"

"Get up!"

"You pine for me, don't leave me!"

"Novitiate!"

My waking came in the form of a wild kick to the gut. I wince immediately at the considerable bit of agony, and with a feeble groan, roll over to my aching side, coughing instantly at the chill that seizes my throat like a hand.

"I almost thought you for dead. Quick, get up."

I do not know who is speaking, but I willingly obey the person's curt words, sitting up at once only to be seized roughly by the shoulders.

By the little light given by the flickering wall-torches, I can make out the face of a man just a few years my senior.

"Guess whose coming?"

I need not guess the answer to the question, and my throat leadens.

The man levels his eyes, a serpent jade colour, and locks them coldly with mine.

"You are still much use to us. She trusts you. And a little persuasion on your part may sway her to do our bidding," The man senses my slight reluctance, and his eyes give off a malicious glint in the darkness. "Unless of course you are unwilling to redeem yourself, Kartik, brother of Amar."

It occurs to me then, huddled quietly on the stone floor, that the question is not whether I am willing to redeem myself or not...it is to who, and the consequences that will happen should I decide to make the wrong choice.