Chapter 27
Roan ran upstairs to grab himself a beer and something to eat before heading back downstairs to look through the journal but as he enters the room he notices it's empty so he decides to sit down and relax for a bit before getting back to work. As he sips his beer and eats, he casually sifts through the journal, not really focusing on anything in particular until he finds a picture of Talon and Rayce.
When he sees the picture of the two of them he nearly chokes because they look exactly like Murphy and Bellamy. After he's done coughing, he focuses on the picture and the text that is beside it. When that tells him nothing useful, he goes back to the beginning hoping to have better luck. While he's intently searching the journal Murphy and Bellamy enter the kitchen. As they each grab a drink from the fridge, Roan looks up from the journal and gives them a quick nod and hopes Murphy doesn't notice the look on his face as he quickly tries to bury it back in the journal. Thankfully if he noticed he doesn't say anything. They begin talking amongst themselves about something and he takes the opportunity to focus his ability on seeing what isn't there and what he finds is unusual to say the least.
Every person has their own aura that is unique to them and only them but with Bellamy and Murphy there are two. One is theirs and the other although powerful is weak but at the same time not. It's almost as if its fading and even though it seems to be blending into their own to create a new one, he has a feeling that isn't a good thing. When he notices Murphy looking at him curiously he quickly looks away, grabs something from the cabinet and begins to leave the room but Murphy had sensed something that he wasn't about to let go.
"What did you see?" He asks Roan just before he can fully exit the kitchen.
"Noth...I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't using my abilities." Roan stutters.
"Bullshit. I know what you look like when you're concentrating and when you see something so what did you see?"
"Nothing. At least nothing you'd believe." Roan confesses and before Murphy can respond Bellamy speaks.
"You've found something or rather something's found you, hasn't it? Something that's been lost for centuries. What do you know?"
"I don't...have you two not been feeling yourselves lately?" Roan asks suddenly, changing the subject.
"Why?" Bellamy asks slightly confused.
"Roan just tell us what's going on. I know something has happened to you in the last few hours since my blow up, so what is it?" Murphy questions.
There's a short pause before Roan sighs and tells them about what he thought was a dream but actually wasn't. He knows how it sounds and if he hadn't been through it himself he'd think he was crazy. So when they both look at him skeptically, he shows them the journal.
"Like you said, something old found me. The name on the cover is my father's but this isn't his. He was named after someone else and this is theirs."
"How do you know for sure? I mean why now? Why didn't you get this sooner?" Murphy asks as Bellamy looks at the journal curiously.
"I'm guessing it has something to do with The Key's return. There's something else and I'm not sure how to...Maybe I should just show you instead." Roan says as he flips to the page with Talon and Rayce's picture for them to see.
They both stare at it not really sure what exactly they're seeing or how it's possible but before Murphy can ask Roan what the hell is going on Bellamy speaks.
"I've seen that room before. It's a room with high glass windows that allow the moonlight to shine through at night but only at night because its closed during the day."
"How did you...? Are you sure it was that room? I mean the room was destroyed when the temple burned and it was never replaced. At least that's what the guy who gave me this journal showed me." Roan says confused as Murphy looks at Bellamy like he may have some idea of what he's talking about.
"I saw it in a dream. At least I thought it was a dream but now I'm not so sure. I think that it might have been a memory of his." Bellamy says pointing at a picture of Rayce.
"Who were they and why do they look like us?" Murphy says looking at Roan expectantly.
Roan tells them everything he knows about Talon and Rayce as well as the spell that they cast in order to be bound together but before he even finishes, Murphy leaves. Roan and Bellamy look around wondering where he was going and just as Bellamy gets up to go figure out what happened, Murphy comes back into the kitchen holding his father's book.
"I remembered something that my father had told me once and had to check it out. It seems that he took me to the Temple of The Elders when I was little but the place was empty. The building was crumbling in places from disuse and when my dad opened the door it fell to the ground. I thought I saw a man standing in the center of the room but when I went to investigate, there was nothing there. My dad told me to stay hidden behind this statue and if I heard him yell run I was to run home and never look back. Once I was safely hidden, he left to see if he could find someone but the place was empty."
"Why did he take you to the temple? How did he even know it existed when only those in The Order know it was even there?" Roan asks.
"Mbege's mother told him about it. She said that everyone from Azgeda knew about The Temple and The Order and that they took in wayward or uncontrollable kids. He was apparently worried about my shadow magic and she suggested they might be about to help. She gave him a rough idea of where it was but where she was telling us to go was nowhere near where the place actually was."
"So how were you able to find it?"
"I led him there. I didn't understand it at the time but I think now that it may have been Talon's memories telling me the way to go. I just knew that we needed to go a certain way and dad followed me. Before I knew it we were staring up at the mostly intact ruins of a temple. It was like he wanted me to go there because there was something that I needed to see."
"And what did you see? There was someone there, wasn't there?" Bellamy asks sensing something happened while Murphy was alone.
"I thought it was a dream but I don't think it was. I think I walked in someone else's dream. Someone who'd been asleep for a long time and as strange and crazy as it sounds I think it was the statute that I was hiding behind. I think it was a person who had been spelled to sleep in stone. I never spoke about it after that but I guess on the way home I told my dad about it and he wrote it down in here. He used to always tell me to never forget or ignore my dreams because sometimes they're the only thing that's honest." Murphy explains.
"What did you see? Or better yet, what did the person in stone show you?" Roan says not at all thinking Murphy was crazy. Things were a bit strange but ever since Murphy and Mbege had come into his life, things had been strange so in a way this was par for the course.
"Who's in stone?" Lincoln says from the kitchen doorway as he begins to enter the room but stops when they all look at him weird.
"What? Did I miss something? I missed something, didn't I? Catch me up on what I've missed so I'm not completely lost for the rest of this conversation, even though I'm pretty sure I'll be lost anyways." Lincoln says with a sigh.
Once they fill him on everything and after a lot of questions, Lincoln was finally ready for the rest of the conversation but still confused about things. He knew he'd never fully understand what was going on but at least he wasn't in the dark. They sat in silence looking at Murphy, waiting for him to tell them what the stone man showed him. When it was obvious that it would take a while Bellamy gently cups the back of his neck with his hand, pulling Murphy towards him so their foreheads touched and said "whenever you're ready or if you don't feel like saying it we could always read what your father wrote."
Murphy lightly shakes his head, never really breaking contact with Bellamy's forehead and says "I didn't tell him everything. I didn't want to scare him more than what he already was. Just give me a minute."
Bellamy nods and begins to lightly play with the hair at Murphy's neck which he knows relaxes him. A few minutes later Murphy is ready to tell them about the stone man but is thankful that Bellamy never stops playing with his hair the whole time because he's not sure he could make it through the whole thing without the comfort of Bellamy's touch.