But Jaden raced past him with the endobraces ignited at the one with Alyssa.
‘Get away from her!’ he shouted, and he readied to throw his arms forward when they were both pinned back by Lendon’s strong arms.
‘No!’ he shouted at Jaden. ‘Don’t! She is not your love anymore. Let her go!’
‘Get off me!’ shouted Jaden, tears now running freely down his cheeks.
He stopped his struggle as he saw something he had never wished to see in Alyssa’s eyes. Fear. Fear of him. What was he doing? She was afraid of him. She thought he was going to harm her. He could never do that. He would never raise a hand against her. He wanted to assure her of this, that he would never hurt her, but as she clung to the young man next to her, he realised that he was about to do exactly that, forcing her to lose one she loved.
Jaden gave no more resistance to Lendon pulling him back. Lendon then pushed Jaden further away, readying to block him from making another attempt to get at Alyssa and the youth again. But Jaden would not even turn. He stumbled twice before gaining his balance, and then he raced to the side of the travelling band toward the trees.
‘Sentinel!’ called out Alkon as he made his way toward Jaden. ‘Where are you going?’
There was no reply as Jaden disappeared into the forest, the trees at the edge becoming alight with fire as he passed them, so that none would attempt to follow.
The Waikorian people hurried to put out the flames as they burned forty feet above the treetops, but their efforts were not necessary, as the flames died away on their own, revealing the trees to still be in perfect health, without burns on trunk or leaf.
‘Where is he going?’ asked Alkon as Lendon approached.
‘Who can say?’ asked Lendon with a shrug. ‘He will find his own way. There are more lives than his at stake here. We should return to the others now to decide our fate.’
Lendon walked on, leaving Alkon looking into the trees where Jaden had disappeared.
‘Until we meet again, young Sentinel,’ he said, and with a slight bow, he followed Lendon back to the leaders.
* * *
Jaden didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He felt he didn’t know anything anymore. Everything he had come to believe was being taken from him, again. It was the fall of Callibra repeated. Nothing was safe. Not him, not Alyssa, not the cities they would have lived in. Nothing.
Jaden continued to run deep into the forest, the endobraces ignited, allowing him to dodge through the trees automatically as his mind tried to escape elsewhere. It had all been pointless. Everything he had achieved was in vain. He should have stayed with Alyssa like he had wanted to. He shouldn’t have listened to Adonis or Blair. They had used him. They had made him leave Alyssa to deliver their message and they had let Alyssa fall. They had given him some training, but it had only been because his grandfather had wanted them to. The Daijuar, he thought, did not remain elusive because they needed to hide, they just didn’t care for anything but themselves. Those that were meant to protect the innocent were frauds, and now there was nowhere he could turn.
He closed his eyes in defeat, running blindly through the forest. His foot soon clipped a tree root at the edge of a stream with a waterfall crashing down into it on the right. He fell face first into the water with a great splash, and it began to glisten with what looked like thousands of tiny stars dancing on the surface as the endobraces released their energy into it. Jaden made no attempt to get up as the waterfall pushed him further downstream toward another steep descent. He could hear something inside him telling him to stand up and save himself, but it was soon overridden by a single repeating question.
Why?
There was nothing left. It had all come to an end. Soon his final breath of air would fail, and he would take in another of water, giving himself back to the earth.
But as the air pocketed under the water, nothing else entered his lungs. He was being lifted above the surface, as if the endobraces had a mind of their own and were saving his life. As he reached the bank, he coughed out some of the water he had allowed in and he opened his eyes to a woman sitting in front of him.
‘Raquel,’ he whispered.
She bowed her head to him and then looked to the stars above, where the rings shown brighter than usual. She was no longer paying him any attention. Ignoring him, as if she didn’t care why he had chosen to let himself drown, why he had been running or why he was crying. Jaden put his head down on the ground in front of her lap. He did not feel up to trying to understand her this night, or how she had come to be in the same place as him at all. The kiss he had seen Alyssa give her new love haunted him. He had not been ready for it. He had expected her to be happy to see him, not to look at him as if she had never met him in her entire life. It was too much. What had he done to deserve it?