Chapter 9: Sophie

"So how are we going to access Kenrics cache again?" Sophie asked, sitting down on one of Oralie's pink chairs.

Just minutes before, Sophie had hurriedly grabbed the cache and raced to Oralies towers to unlock it with her.

Oralie yawned and replied, "you'll see how. A few days ago I made the necessary trips to get what we needed and now all we have to do is put it all together."

Sophie sighed in relief. "Great."

Sophie smiled then realized the much more important question. "Wait, Oralie, are we going to open all the secrets right now?"

"No. As I'm sure you already know, these secrets could destroy our world as we know it. We can only open the secret that you need. Do you need only one? Oralie clarified.

"Yeah."

"Then we'll open that secret. Strangely... I can almost sense which one is the right one," Oralie murmured.

She raised her hand and slowly caressed the smoothe glass.

"It's the green one," Oralie finally said after a few seconds.

"The color of life," Sophie said.

Oralie sniffed, tears building in her eyes. "Of course." Slowly Oralie reached into her cloak and produced a small, silver box.

"What's that?" Sophie asked curiously. Oralie didn't answer. Instead, she licked the sensor as the top of the box unfurled and pulled out...

Hair?

Sophie gagged. "Is that seriously what I think it is?"

"Yes, it's a piece of Kenrics hair. Because he's... deceased, I can't get any other piece of DNA from him other than this. It's honestly not that different from wrapping hair around a seed, right?"

"Um, if you say so." Sophie cringed.

Even after years living with the Elves she still couldn't get used to the process of wrapping dead people's hair around seeds and letting it grow.

Even though it had happened to her.

"What?" Sophie asked self-consciously when she noticed Oralie staring at her.

Oralie blushed and looked down. "Nothing. Okay, let's get back to the process. For mine, we needed sweat, blood, and tears which was more complicated than Kenrics. All we need to do for him is to press his DNA to the crystal that we need than say the password. Easy."

"So then what's the password?" Sophie asked.

"That's for you to find out, Sophie," Oralie said mysteriously.

"Wait, what?" Sophie panicked. "How am I supposed to know the password?!"

"Search your memories," Oralie replied. Which was not helpful.

"Fine."

Sophie tried to remember times that she had spent with Kenric. Had he ever said something to her? She thought of him standing by while Sophie searched Fintan's mind, replayed the terrible scene, and...

Nothing.

Sophie then thought of stumbling upon his and Alden's conversation after she had leaped inside Everglens gates for the first time.

Nothing.

Kenric supporting her?

Nope.

Kenric saying something telepathically to her?

None.

Nada.

Zip.

NOTHING.

Sophie was getting exasperated. Seriously? When would Kenric have told her a "secret" code to unlock his cache? He didn't!

But... maybe Sophie needed to go back further.

It felt like Sophie's consciousness was zipping along her memory paths until she arrived at the memory she needed.

The first time she had met Kenric.

Sophie replayed the scene, laughing at the memory of her tasting her first bite of Gnomish food and dropping Bronte on his back. She had certainly come far from being the scared girl she used to be.

Now she was stronger. And more determined.

Sophie listened to Kenrics calm voice. "You're being absurd Bronte. I vote in favor-and you won't convince me otherwise."

Sophie couldn't imagine there would be anything important there. She was starting to think that she would never find the code she needed until Kenric spoke again.

"We should wait till the end of the year. Give Sophie some time to adjust."

Adjust.

Adjust.

Adjust.

The word echoed around Sophie's brain.

It was almost as if the word was a portkey-directing Sophie's mind to things she never thought of before.

When Kenric had said it, he didn't mean any secret intention but...

Kenric was a washer.

He could have done something to Sophie's mind so that she would know the password.

Sophie grimaced at the thought.

Kenric wouldn't do that.

Or would he?

He had definitely erased Oralie's memories. How far was he willing to go to keep things a secret?

Sophie felt a soft hand touch her arm and opened her eyes, staring into Oralie's.

"Oralie, I know the word."

...

Oralie drew her hand back and said in a brisk voice, "good. Now I'm going to press the hair to the cache and I want you to say the word at exactly the same time. Ready?"

"Yes."

"One, two, three!"

Oralie pressed the lock of hair to the cache with a pained expression and Sophie drew in a breath to say the word.

"Adjust!"

All was quiet until a silhouette emerged from the green ball and glided from Oralie's hand, to Sophie's face.

It gradually grew in size until it was taller than Sophie, then walked towards the center of the room and paused.

The silhouette was Kenric.

Suddenly another figure emerged from the ball and joined Kenric, also growing in size.

It was... Sophie.

Sophie jumped, surprised.

She hadn't expected to see someone else in the memory.

Especially not her.

Why did she not remember this?

Other figures came out of the cache. Alden, Oralie, and Bronte. Alden had his hand on memory Sophie's shoulders, and the councillors were all seated. Except for Kenric.

Kenric spoke, gesturing at the memory Sophie to look up at him. Memory Sophie was wearing the same human clothes Sophie had on when she first came to the Lost Cities.

"Sophie, I need to talk to you for a second."

Memory Sophie looked up at Kenric with a confused expression on her face, then looked at Alden for approval to go with Kenric. Alden nodded his head uncertainly as Kenric walked out of the hall, followed by Sophie.

"I know you just came to our world, but there is something urgent that I need to tell you. Don't worry, this information won't trouble you... for a while." Kenric smiled sadly and memory Sophie nodded.

Oralie grasped Sophie's hand tightly as Sophie looked up to see tears in her eyes.

Kenric straightened up.

"Our world is being destroyed as we speak. It has been fracturing for centuries now and my fellow councillors have been wanting to pretend that everything is okay. It's not. The ogres are close to rebelling, the citizens are in unrest, the gnomes... they... live in ignorance, and the trolls are hiding important knowledge from us. We... cannot live like this any longer. We need a change. Something... or someone who will bring us unity. Sophie, you are the change. I... hope that soon you will finally understand what I mean when I say that I will be here to guide you along the difficult path that you must take. And that... things are not always what they seem. Keep an open mind and I urge you to not focus on our world's past mistakes. That will only lead you to strife and hardship. Instead, you must focus on looking forward, and being the change that our world needs. I'm so sorry that you have to face this burden at your age but I know-we all know- that you will prevail in the end. You'll see."

Kenric reached up to memory Sophie's forehead and gently touched it with two fingers. Memory Sophie only had a second to show her surprise, then buckled down onto the floor in a heap.

The memory blinked out of focus a few times, then disappeared. Sophie looked at the cache just in time to see the green orb disintegrate into nothing.

Sophie reached up her hands to her cheeks and rubbed away the tears that were trickling like a stream down her face.

Oralie did the same and finally spoke, "That wasn't just a memory, Sophie. That was a message to you. I know Kenric. This seems like something he would do. But... I need you to take all that you heard today and shove it down deep. As much as I hate to say this, we really have not learned as much as I hoped we would but all the same, don't let this overwhelm you. We have more important things to do."

Sophie agreed with her.

One hundred percent.

As before, they really hadn't learned a lot and what they did learn was frustrating and laced with riddles and clues.

Sophie nodded and stood up. "What I don't get though is that when we learned about drakostomes and all that, it was good that we focused on the past and tried to correct it. Right? I mean the gnomes would be in slavery right now if we didn't help prevent it or if Dex wasn't looking through your files!"

Oralie took her time answering, choosing her words slowly and carefully. "Sophie... what the council has done...was wrong. We've made a lot of mistakes in the past but now we're working tirelessly to correct them. I can take credit for that. Kenric may be right, but he also recorded this for you before many, many things happened. I... really don't know what path we should take now."