CHAMPIONS (The Lost Chronicles of Eden, #1) [Published]

19: OUT OF THE FLAMES AND INTO THE DEEP - THE PATH OF INNER BEASTS

19: OUT OF THE FLAMES AND INTO THE DEEP — THE PATH OF INNER BEASTS

 Solomon hated choices, but he had realized early on in his life that he had to make lots of them.

When he was a little boy, he had to choose between saving their mother and saving Solenn. He chose Solenn.

When he and Solenn were wandering in the dangerous Outbounds, lost, afraid, hungry and cold, he had to make a choice between being the good person their mother always taught them to be, and joining the band of thieves that promised to take them in and feed them. He chose to live.

When Samson finally found him and Solenn running away from angry villagers, he had to make a choice between living his own life, or becoming a soldier to protect people he didn’t know. He chose to be a soldier because Solenn had wanted it so bad.

When he became a Guardian, he had to make choice after choice, decision after decision. Most of them were sound and some were terrible, but in every situation, he always tried his best to study all possible angles, predict all possible outcomes, and make the best choice that would benefit everyone involved.

Solomon was the quiet to Solenn’s noise because where his other half relied on gut feeling, the other thrived on analyzing, studying, and breaking down every situation into a thousand different possibilities and outcomes. His mentor once asked him if confronting too many choices at the same time ever paralyzed him. He said no.

It was not having any choice that paralyzed him.

During the Anointing, he had been engulfed by fire. He closed his eyes and tried to feel the flames licking his skin, but he couldn’t feel anything. not the sting, not the heat, not the burning agony of being wrapped in furious flames. He walked through the flame, calm and steady as he had always been, until he found the most beautiful weapons he had seen in his life. Another mace and another hammer, like the ones he chose from the weaponry years ago, but this pair was exquisite. The hammer’s massive head was carved with dancing flames right down to the edge of its handle. There was a ruby stone where the head was lodged in the handle, breaking the flames into a thousand golden lights around the room. His double-edged mace was also bigger than the one he wielded before, and like its partner, it was also engulfed by fiery patterns.

The weapons were being guarded by a great lion. He approached it with caution — not fear, never fear — and tried to go around it to get to his weapons. The lion wouldn’t let him through.

Mace or hammer? a voice spoke in his head.

Why not both? Solomon asked.

Indeed, why not both? An image of his mother and his sister flashed through his mind. Pain, sharper than the edge of Solenn’s sword lanced through his chest.

Don’t, Solomon warned. Not them. Not that night. I couldn’t choose. I wasa child.I was afraid.They were hurting my mother right in front of my eyes, but Solenn… she was onfire.I wanted to help them both, butI didn’t know how. And then Magda said to run to Solenn. I obeyed. I ran to Solenn. Magda died that night. I don’t ever want to choose blindly anymore. I want…