The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Twenty Five: You Better Be Worth This

I welcome the sensation of being pushed through time and space, knowing I'm leaving Hell and Lucifer far behind me. Another small part is happy to know we have Raven with us. He didn't pander about with his decision the way that I did. He only listened to my story and then trusted me full heartedly and went with us. I suppose the snap decision is pretty easy though when you're Lucifer's son. After what I'd seen, I knew without a doubt I'd have left too.

The moment my body steadies I'm caught in the glare of Tonyedda's yellow eyes.

"We need to move." Opall whispers, pulling the whole group aside.

I look around us and for one tiny second I almost think that Tonyedda's talisman must have broken too because I don't recognize anything around me, but as we cross in the shadows beneath the awning of a large shiny marble building and my feet slide over shiny golden bricks on the ground, I know where we are.

Utopia.

The place I was born.

The place my parents were and my...brother.

I shake my head to block out the memories. I know I've been here before, but it isn't the place itself that I remember, but the people and I learned a long time ago, pretty much the first day in the Ring that holding onto memories from my life before was useless. And Tawny had been the one to help me make my own new memories. Even if those were just of us sitting in the Wallows drawing pictures into the soft mud with our fingers.

Thinking of Tawny only makes this harder.

It's my fault, all of it. If I'd not gone, we'd still both be together in The Ring, starving but alive. What if I'm already too late? All I know is that she was brought here, that doesn't mean there is anything left of her for me to find.

"Here should be fine." Opall whispers and we all form a huddle, or I should say, they form a huddle around me.

Tonyedda crosses her long slender arms over her chest and shakes he head from side to side as she looks down at me. "Now would be a good time to start talking," She says, her voice clearly frustrated. "We can't stay here for long."

I gulp, then take the biggest breath I have before giving the main piece of information.

"Oliver took me home to see my friends-." I start and then have to let all the air rush back out of me and Maxum cuts in.

"How the hell did Oliver take you?" He asks, and I am annoyed to have already been cut off but then I notice the puffiness underneath his eyes and I hold in my eye roll and comment about letting me speak.

"He found a talisman." I almost whisper, knowing this isn't going to go over well.

Tonyedda's stance grows more rigid. "He found it?" She clearly doesn't think it's even a remote possibility, and to be honest, I'm not so sure anymore either. "How did he learn to even use it? It takes training, there is no way he just figured it out."

"I-He, well he said that's what happened." I stutter. "He told me he found it and then watched you to learn how to use it and that he'd been visiting other realms for a while."

"And you believed him?" Quessa, one of the girls in my group I haven't really gotten a chance to get to know asks, tilting her head like I'm an idiot. Maybe I am. Probably I am.

Thankfully though Brynlynn comes to my defense. "She's just a Newb, Q, she hasn't even finished the second week of training. She had no way to know-."

"Any one should know that this was illegal, and now she wants us to participate in some crazed mission that we don't even know what it is other than that it's here?"