6. Anticipation

Ivan came to some time later, and he knew he was alone. The pain in his limbs at first consumed all of his strength. He couldn't remember where he was, or what had happened to leave him flailed upon the ground, burns and bruises all over. Groaning, he opened his eyes, saw the faces of his friends above him, and immediately closed them again.

Everything came back to him, in a painful flood for which tears were his only outlet. But the tears would not come. "I'm ... I'm sorry!" he moaned, his eyes stinging.

He felt his friends' hands on him.

"You all right?" asked Garet.

"It looks like it," Mia said. "It seems he's more distressed than anything."

"I dunno," Garet said. "We hit him pretty hard."

"Hey!" Isaac said, and Ivan could her laughter in his voice. "We forgive you, all right?"

He opened his eyes. "I'm ... I'm sorry," he muttered. "I don't know what happened to me."

"It's all right," Isaac said. Ivan could see how Isaac's body sagged with exhaustion from the battle. He could vaguely remember striking him down with some foreign Psynergy, but Mia must have been able to heal him.

"You were taken in by a weird witch," Garet said.

Sighing, Ivan sat up, his violet eyes gazing b lankly up at the purple and silver of the Lighthouse which towered over them.

They all assumed Aria had used him, possessed him as a sort of pawn. That she had cared nothing for him, except as a tool for her own purposes. But Ivan knew differently. When their minds had intertwined, and he had breathed her sweet thoughts as if he needed no other nourishment, he had known. Those thoughts could never be faked.

He still didn't know what she had been--a ghost? An illusion? A guardian?--but from her thoughts he had pulled at least one certainty.

She had loved him.

As his friends began looking for clues so they could enter the Lighthouse, climb to the top, put a wrench in Felix's plans, save all of Weyard, Ivan glanced longingly the way they had come, to where the wind stirred the grass gently and whistled in the hollows of the stone. He imagined he could see her there, her beautiful form smiling sadly at him, but in the end he dismissed her as a mirage upon the wind.

The group was so exhausted from battle and distracted by the Lighthouse that they remained oblivious to the watchers who peered over a rocky ledge above them.

"Finally," Karst said delightfully, her mouth watering not with anticipation of food, but cold revenge. "They are here, and so are we. Finally, they will pay for what they did to Menardi, what they did to me!"

"I see it now," Agatio said from beside her. "I understand how Saturos and Menardi were defeated."

"They are strong when they are together," Karst continued. "And who would have guessed the little one possessed such power?"

Agatio's face purpled, and his eyes gleamed red with rage. "Why do we wait?" he snarled, his voice thick, almost unintelligible. "Let's destroy them now!"

Karst only glared at him. She supposed there was some truth to what Alex had said of them, after all. The members of the Fire Clan had long been revered, but for their strength, not their wisdom--even the best of them had proved horribly inadequate in solving the mysteries of the lighthouses. Agatio's passionate, if foolish, desire for instant revenge was only another example. She, however, would rise above this weakness. She would be cunning, far more than Alex expected of her. Though she burned to avenge her sister, she would prove herself more than just a brute.

"No, Agatio," she said. "We could kill them now, couldn't we? There are four of them, and together they are strong ... but right now they are weakened, exhausted. We could beat them--and grow exhausted ourselves! And when we climbed to the top, solving all of Jupiter's pesky trials, would we still have the power to force Felix to do what needs done? No ... There's a better way."

Agatio snickered. "Ah ... I understand. We'll follow them. Let them solve the puzzles for us!"

"And when they are exhausted from their climb, when they are least prepared ..."

"Ambush!"

Smirking, Karst gazed far up the tower's face, squinting her eyes against wind and distance. She fancied she could see the perfect spot--a narrow ledge near the top of the tower. It would be treacherous for for to cross, and in the wind she was sure the stone would be slippery.

She grinned at Agatio and pointed out the ledge. He grinned back at her, his smile so sharp it looked full of fangs. Still smiling, the Mars Adepts began their descent to Jupiter Lighthouse.

Felix, they knew, would be right behind them.