I ended up on the first platform, my eyes darting from one coloured stone to the next. Jayden was beside me and Weston some way behind me, so I looked to Jayden for direction and he smiled slightly, leading me toward the stone bridge on our right. There was some activity within the nearest house—I could hear the shuffling of feet and the quiet medley of men and women at discussion. Jayden pulled one of the mosquito nets aside and I passed through a hallway and into the connected room beyond, which immediately fell silent.
I had expected the members of the Klovoda to be sitting straight-backed at a round table, not relaxing as they were. The furniture inside the room was definitely expensive: plenty of hand-carved wood and antique fabrics; crystal decoration pieces and huge, ornate frames hugging some of the most exquisite artworks that I had ever set my eyes upon. The people, however, seemed normal. There was a woman around Weston’s age, with beautiful brown hair and serious brown eyes, her features cut from the ideal of a Grecian beauty. She smiled at me as I walked in, hardly surprised to see me, though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
There was another woman close by—seemingly older than the others in the room, though it was her eyes that gave her away as opposed to her appearance. She had distinctly Japanese features: her face as delicate as her body, her dark hair speckled with ash and pulled into a neat bun atop her head. She was dressed more casually than the first woman, though she held herself in such a way that the simple dress was made almost exquisite. The two men standing on either side of her were close enough for me to suppose that she might be an Atmá and they her pair. One was also Japanese, with dark hair and heavy black eyes; the other, however… I halted in my steps for a moment, running my surprised eyes over the three of them. The second man wasn’t Asian: he had bright red hair and was one of the tallest men I had ever laid eyes upon. He was a giant. His blue eyes glittered down at me in amusement. I quickly turned away to observe the others.
There were two women standing together on the other side of the room, looking about as opposite in appearance as two women could possibly look. The one on the right had golden-blond hair and a slender, sporty look about her; energy sparked in her crystal blue eyes and despite the light tone of her skin, there was a flush about her, a kind of healthy glow that made me think she spent most of her time outdoors. The woman on the left was dark-skinned, dark-haired, and impossibly beautiful; her eyes shimmered in a knowing sort of way, her full lips lifted in a friendly smirk.
After I got past the initial shock of seeing two such polar-opposite women side-by-side, I realised that they had one thing, at least, in common. Both sported a pale white mark on their foreheads, directly in the center and an inch or so above the line of their brow. Another pair. I scanned around for the man standing closest to them in proximity, but it was hard to distinguish which of the three remaining men was closer. The three of them glanced from the pair to me, evidently intelligent enough to figure out what had momentarily captured my attention. One of them smirked, and I focussed on him. He was sandy-haired, with brilliant blue eyes and permanent laugh lines; his skin was a deep tan-colour, and he was built so solidly for a man his age that it drew on my admiration almost begrudgingly. It wasn’t that I found him attractive—he was easily a couple of decades older than me, but I was impressed with the youthful vitality that seemed to emanate from him. I had never seen a person look more capable, and I didn’t even know what I assumed him to be capable of. I smiled, and he grinned back, something like approval flashing in his eyes.
Yeah, he was the Atmá.
The other two men were both dark-skinned, though in a different way to the dark-skinned woman: where she had been a deep bronze, one of the men had an ashy-undertone to his skin, and the other, a yellow undertone. They both nodded solemnly to me from the couch backed up against one of the glass walls.
Since the people within had yet to utter a single word, I shuffled further into the room. It was strange, but I sensed no threat from them. They were nothing like Weston. I found myself gravitating toward the female pair, my eyes riveted to a piece of artwork behind them. They parted easily as I approached, turning on either side of me to inspect the image with me.
It depicted five men standing side by side, detailed with such unerring precision, it sent a feeling of dreaded familiarity skittering down my spine.
A forecasting.
“The five original Atmás,” a voice to my left spoke, a slight accent rolling her words. Brazilian, I thought. “This one…” she pointed to the first man, who was dressed in a delicate cloak of gold, no stitching to be seen, as though the cloak itself had been carved straight from its golden source. “He was the Materialist.”