He would give the Watcher credit: the woman didn’t bother to mince words when she didn’t have to. The room they were keeping him in really did count as a cell. The people who brought him food were no more responsive than they had been before and the door let no more light in. He thought it was a bit unfair, since even criminals back home were at least allowed a book and some recreation time between periods being locked up.

Instead, he was left with an almost completely dark room and his own thoughts. He had tried to connect with the jungle like he had when he’d been locked up in the mountain. But even though he was not directly in the jungle the overpowering sensation of the energies was not alleviated. It wasn’t quite as bad as the first time he’d attempted it, but it was still overwhelming to feel it pounding through him.

With all the time he had when he was left to his own devices, he was given the opportunity to make more than one attempt at it. Each one was met with failure, no matter how cautious he was about reaching out. Each time was met with the greedy pulse of life that had filled him right from his first attempt. Even the slightest sliver of awareness had him almost immediately backing up and shutting it down before it overtook his ability to handle it. The only real success he could claim was that it wasn’t giving him a pounding headache anymore.

When the door opened and the woman who had served as a guard for his talk with the Watcher walked in, he knew it was time. The wait had been longer this time, but it hadn’t been nearly as long as he feared it would be. Another few days, maybe? He wasn’t really sure. He only knew he’d been in here longer than he wanted to be. He had expected to have to wait, since it sounded as if they hadn’t found Apollo or Dante when he had been dragged before her.

“You know, I could really use a shower. Or a bath, a really long bath,” he told his escort, who only motioned for him to follow.

He followed as she led him through the same halls as she had the first time he’d been brought before the Watcher. This time, however, they didn’t stop at the lush courtyard, but took one of the paths that circled around the center pool. There was another set of stairs at the back that took them up into a large room. The high walls had tall openings cut into them, set at the northern and southern ends, allowing light, but not direct sunlight, into the room.

There were small tables with cushions spread out before them. At the back of the room was another small set of stairs. At the top was a large stone bench with a solid back to it, and a plush cushion on the seat. There were many of the tribal people in there, laid out comfortably on cushions as they ate, talked quietly, or simply rested. The Watcher sat on the large cushion on the raised bench, staring down the length of the room.

The conversations in the room petered out when Dean and his escort walked in. No one in the room bothered to hide their interest at the sight of him. It was then that he saw there was a collection of tribe members off to the side of the Watcher’s stone bench. They stood, silver tipped weapons in hand, over another table surrounded by cushions. He knew his face lit up as they approached, when he spotted the familiar faces sat there.

Silun immediately beamed when he saw Dean approaching, raising a hand to wave vigorously at him. Relief flooded Katarina’s face when she saw where Silun was waving. Mikael’s face was difficult to read, but Dean could see the conflict of emotions there. He was certainly relieved, frustrated, and from the glare he shot the Watcher, pissed. Dean smiled softly at him, shrugging a little because after all, what could they do?

“Decided we didn’t have to be locked up for everyone’s safety, huh?” Dean asked as they reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the bench.

“I did say that I wished to talk to everyone in your group before I proceeded,” she told him, seemingly unfazed by his attitude.

One glance at the table told him that she hadn’t spoken to everyone. If that were true, he would see Apollo and Dante there. Their absence told him they still hadn’t found the two men and Dean found that curious. No matter how skilled they might have been when left to their own devices, they were at a disadvantage. The people here knew the land as well as Apollo and Dante would know the lands around the Grove. How they were managing to keep under the radar and not get caught was interesting.

“Got our stories all checked out?” Dean asked, avoiding the subject of the missing two for the moment.

“More or less,” the Watcher replied, her gaze flicking to Katarina for a moment before returning to Dean.

Dean raised a brow in question at Katarina who shrugged. “I wasn’t telling her anything. I told her to eat shit.”

Beside her, Silun winced, but Dean laughed. Even Mikael looked amused for a moment as he continued to stare at Dean. It was exactly the sort of answer Dean would have expected Katarina give. It was probably right along the lines of what Dante would have said too, if they had caught him.

“Spirited bunch,” the Watcher noted, sounding almost amused.

“Some more than others,” Silun commented wryly from where he sat, still wincing but now it was aimed at the Watcher.

“Hey, I thought Children of the Moon are supposed to be spirited?” Dean asked, knowing he was being cheeky.

“We are,” the Watcher replied. “Though that doesn’t quite explain you, now does it? Unless of course, you are something more than human. Would you happen to know anything about that, Child of the Sun?”

Dean’s pulse quickened as several thoughts raced through his mind. The first was that either she had known all along or one of the others had told her when she questioned them. The pained expression on Silun’s face immediately told him that the latter was more likely. Dean felt he should have been annoyed, but he couldn’t blame the teenager. Silun wouldn’t have known just how important that information was or how dangerous it could have been. That, and from the look of him at that table, he was still somewhat lost in all the spiritual energy that was probably around them.

The next thought that hit him was that was twice this woman had used an ancient term that Dean only knew from the myths he had read about and learned. It was quite possible she knew more about those stories than he already knew and that she would be able to tell him more. And their journey here to learn about the crystals might not have been a total waste of time after all.

His excitement must have shown on his face, because the Watcher smiled. “I will take that as a yes, then.”

It was already out in the open, so Dean nodded. “You would be correct.”

“Interesting, since your kind is supposed to be gone from this world. Before we address that however, I must ask, why keep that from me?”

Dean shrugged. “Two reasons. First, like I said, you haven’t exactly done anything to make me want to trust you. I still don’t trust you, but you already know about me so there’s no point in trying to hide it anymore. Second, people knowing what I am tends to attract a lot of trouble. Hell, it attracted trouble to me before I even knew what I was. Nox wanted me so badly just because he sensed something was different about me, but he didn’t actually know what it was. Only good thing that came from dealing with him is that he’s the reason I was able to figure out properly what I am.”

She nodded at that. “Power draws power, sometimes before we’re ready to handle it. I imagine being the first of your kind to appear in generations does attract its fair share of trouble.”

“First?” Dean asked.

“Oh yes. Where one Child of the Sun appears, others are sure to follow. Both Children have had their own share of the lost, those of the Sun more so. More and more Children of the Sun were lost, ignorant of what they were or what they could do. Until there were no more to continue on the traditions of their predecessors. There are many more like you out in the world, Dean: humans who are unaware of the gift they possess. But now that one has awakened? I suspect a great deal more will begin to awaken. These sorts of things have a way of building on themselves.”

Dean stared in shock. “There…might be more?”

She nodded. “I can’t say for sure, but yes, I believe so. And you will be the only Child of the Sun with the knowledge to guide them.”

Dean sputtered, “Me? I don’t know hardly anything about what it means to be a druid! I’ve been dealing with this for months and I’ve barely learned anything.”

“If what you have said is true, then you have been through quite a bit in the past year, yes? I bet you have learned more than you believe you have.”

“What, that being a druid is going to bring me a whole heap of trouble?”

She chuckled. “Being the firstborn is always challenging. All the responsibility you have for those who will come after.”

“And I thought being an only child was scary,” Dean muttered, lightheaded at the thought that other druids might “awaken” in the world.

“I must admit to being a little curious, as I have never spoken with a Child of the Sun in all my years. How does our home feel to you?”

“Chaos,” Dean answered bluntly. “Total chaos. I don’t know what’s up with this place, but it’s so full of energy that I can’t talk to it. Everything here is so eager to grow and eat, it almost knocked me on my ass the first time I tried to connect with it. I’ve tried a couple of times while you had me locked up, but I can’t seem to get a hold on it.”

She nodded, looking unsurprised. “This place is filled with the energies of life, as you have figured out. Even the spirits here are those of chaos and growth. Those things that are difficult to control and wield.”

“Is it because it’s a jungle?” Dean asked.

“Oh, I’m sure many other places like this are full of life energy. Ours, however, is unique because of the strength of it.”

“But why here?”

She glanced around the room, taking a moment before replying. “We will come to that, just as we will come to the question I know you have over what the fallen one found when he came here.”

“So, you will answer my questions about the crystals?”

There was a twitch at the corner of one of her eyes. “Perhaps. Tell me, what do you know of the Destroyer? Or perhaps you have heard the version that speaks of it as a great darkness?”

“That it once almost destroyed the world and that it took the combined efforts of both Children in order to stop it.”

She nodded. “That is the tale most commonly told.”

Dean raised a brow. “But I’m guessing that it’s not the most accurate version of events?”

“That all depends on how you choose to see it.”

Dean frowned. “Now you’re just being cryptic.”

She laughed. “When you are dealing with old tales that go back further than most civilizations, being cryptic is just part of it.”

She had him there. “So what’s your version?”

“That long ago, all that existed, existed in pure harmony. There were three almighty beings who shaped the cosmos and all that lay within it. There were different names and titles for each. The first was the formless one, who made all things, without intention or purpose. You would know him as Creation, the force of life. The second was the static one, who shaped all things, gave them intention and purpose. You would know her as Order. The last was the destructive one, who destroyed all things, who broke them down and returned them to the cycle. You would know him as Entropy. And all three worked in harmony with one another, each doing what the other could not and bringing about the whole of all that we know.”

He could see where this was going, even as she explained. Nothing that would come from Creation would last very long. Without the form and function given by Order, nothing would survive long enough to do more than exist for moments at a time. The two of them together would form all the things that could or would ever be. The last, the being of destruction, would break them down, removing the weak, and looping the base materials back around to be reused by Creation. It had the synergy of perfect balance that he had seen in other creation myths in the past and it was familiar to him.

“But that harmony didn’t last, did it?” Dean asked, thinking of the version he knew, where a darkness tried to destroy everything.

She shook her head. “No, it did not. No one is quite sure why, though there are plenty who would offer up their own ideas. Whatever the reason, Entropy, the Destroyer went mad. Or whatever you would call it when beings beyond our reckoning extend beyond their given limits. Whatever the case, in his madness, he sought to devour the world, the entire cosmos as a whole. His hunger was without limit, and he deemed the entirety of all to be worth destroying.”

“Just curious, what are some of the theories of why that happened?” Dean asked.

“Some say that the Destroyer simply sought more power. Others say that he grew tired of cleaning up after the other two. Then there are those who say that Order and Creation did too much, and drove the Destroyer to the madness that made him wish to devour everything. It matters little, as in the end, it was his goal that was important.”

Which meant doing his job a little too well. Something had happened to throw everything out of balance and this force of entropy and destruction went overboard. Dean could see how a force that was meant to be a balancer through destruction could be referred to as the Darkness if looked at in a certain way.

She watched him for a moment before continuing. “In his madness, his power became corrupted. No longer did he balance the scales, but instead sought to tip them into his maw. Corruption spread, infecting the world like a disease. Nothing was safe from the corrosive effect of the Destroyer. After all, corrupted entropy is still entropy, but it is greedy and without restraint. It can also be a fount of great power for those willing to serve and the Destroyer found many a servant in others.”

“People like Nox? The ones who you call fallen?”

Her face was grim as she nodded. “The effects of the Destroyer are insidious and far-reaching. There are those, like this Nox, who fell willingly. Whether out of greed for power or simple zealotry to bring about the end, they choose their corruption. Far less despicable were those who were slowly corrupted, whether through excessive exposure to the corrupted energies of the Destroyer or through a weakness of character. They were servants all the same, but servants who were tricked rather than having chosen their path.”

From the look on Silun’s face, Dean could see the younger man was thinking about the shamans in the mountain as well. “Was there…any cure for it?”

“The corruption? The only cure that has ever been spoken of was death. That is far kinder than letting them continue in the wretched state that I’m sure they existed in.”

She paused, staring down at him for a moment before glancing at the table beside her. Silun avoided her gaze, while Mikael never bothered to look at her at all. He was looking at Dean with a look of sad understanding, having apparently come to the same train of thought that Dean was on. It should have relieved Dean that he had made the right choice by letting the shamans die, but it didn’t. While it seemed true that there had been no way to save them from their fate, he wished he had gotten there sooner and perhaps been able to at least save his friend before it had come to that.

“You have seen what I speak of, haven’t you?” she asked finally.

Dean took a deep breath and nodded. “A…friend of ours.”

He glanced at Mikael, wondering if he should tell the story or not. His instincts told him to tell this woman, but he had promised to stop excluding Mikael from his decisions. His mate hesitated a moment before nodding, giving a little shrug. Dean read into the shrug the same thing that he was thinking: what would it hurt to tell them?

So, he told her the story, starting with the tale of when Damian and Nox first came to the Grove. Of the war that had come out of it after Damian’s failed coup and Nox’s death at him and Mikael’s hands. Of the tube they had found on Lucille, and how it eventually led to the kidnapping of the shamans. He was careful to skirt around some details, especially when he reached the point of the story where they had invaded the mountain, seeking to free the shamans.

The Watcher barely spoke throughout the telling of the story, only nodding or asking a brief question for the sake of clarity. When he finished, she sat on her bench in silent thought. Dean felt exhausted after having told the whole story, feeling somewhat amazed that it hadn’t taken long to tell. It had been months of his life, sometimes filled with days of hell and pain, but it had barely taken him half an hour to tell all of it.

“That,” she began finally, looking up at him. “Is almost precisely what the old tales told of when they spoke of the corruption of the Destroyer gone mad. I cannot describe the anger and worry I feel to know that my failure to fulfill my duty led to all of that. I am sorry, Dean. Were it not for my failings, you would not have had to endure all of that. My weakness led to this.”

Dean’s surprise couldn’t have been any more obvious. He had been expecting information and hopefully a slow build of trust between himself and the Watcher. The idea that she might apologize to him for Nox had never entered his mind. The undiluted regret in her voice stopped the next words out of his mouth in their tracks.

In some way, he wanted to place all of the blame on this woman. He had known something was wrong with Nox early on in his dealings with the fallen shaman. It would be so easy to place the fault in the hands of this woman who had failed in the duty she had tried to uphold for most of her life.

It was too easy to blame her though and he knew that. He didn’t see it as any different to his failure to intercept and prevent Damian’s actions before they happened. Were it not for his own failings and those of others, perhaps Damian and Nox wouldn’t have been able to cause the damage they did. At the very least, if he had been quicker to gain an understanding, he might have been able to save the shamans from the hell they had been dragged into before it was too late.

He shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize to me or to any of us. We could blame each other or ourselves until the sun stopped burning, but it wouldn’t change what happened. What’s done is done, and now we have to try to clean up the mess that a couple of arrogant, power-hungry assholes have left behind for us.”

The woman who had served as his escort glanced at him, then at the Watcher. “I like him.”

Dean glanced at her in surprise. “You speak English, too?”

She smirked at him. “Of course, I am the Learner. Or at least, that’s what I would be in your tongue.”

Dean glared at the two women. “And how many others around here are able to clearly understand us?”

The Learner laughed. “Only a few and they only speak a little. One day, I will take my grandmother’s place as the Watcher. For now though, I am to learn and grow so that I am fit to take her position when the time comes.”

He glanced between the two women, trying to separate the years between them in his mind. If he replaced the silver of the Watcher’s hair with dark brown, reduced the lines on her face, and made her eyes darker, he could see it. It wasn’t a strong family resemblance, but now that he knew it was there, he could see it more clearly. It was close to the similarities between Mikael and his mother, but one had to know what to look for.

“Uh,” he began, remembering his first interaction with her. “Just so you know, that first day, I wasn’t trying to stare at you because I was interested or anything.”

That made both women laugh and Mikael shot him a curious look. Dean felt the heat rise on his face under the scrutiny of his mate and he shrugged weakly. Considering he hadn’t thought he would be able to explain himself to her that first day, he hadn’t thought it important to point out that fact. Now that he knew she spoke English as well as her grandmother, he didn’t want that little misunderstanding to hang in the air.

“Don’t worry yourself, Dean. I have been outside of this jungle in my lifetime, as all Learners before me have. I know the custom of covering the female chest, but it serves no purpose here, no practical one anyway. I laughed that day because you looked so startled by it, I could not help it. And it soon became apparent that you were well spoken for, by the handsome Child of the Moon who, incidentally, hasn’t stopped watching you since we entered,” the Learner said, with a flick of her hand toward Mikael.

It was Mikael’s turn to blush, though Dean knew it was more at being called handsome by this strange woman than for being caught staring at Dean. Other than failing to stand up to Samuel in the beginning, Mikael had never shrunk away from being openly affectionate with Dean, or protective. It amused Dean to think that Mikael was slated to be the future Alpha of his pack and that he was confident and assured, more than most people he had ever met. Yet, all it took was a pretty face calling him attractive and he turned bright red and averted his gaze.

Deciding to move the conversation along, Dean turned back to the Watcher. “I’m glad you all approve of my mate and aren’t going to string me up for being a Druid. But you are telling me all of this for a reason, what is it?”

The Watcher leveled her gaze with his, the lines on her forehead etching deeper. He hadn’t realized it when he’d asked the question, but he had just pushed their interaction to the next stage. If he was guessing correctly, she was considering whether or not he was worthy of the trust he suspected she wanted to give him. She had to weigh what she knew about them against her experience of outsiders in the past.

The Learner shifted anxiously beside him and began to speak to her grandmother in their language. The Watcher’s eyes never left Dean’s, but the frown on her face deepened. When the Learner finished speaking, the Watcher closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When her mismatched eyes opened once more to rest on Dean’s, he could see the wary acceptance behind them.

“My granddaughter speaks wisely, if not a little impatiently. She is correct in the fact that you have shown no signs of violence or trickery. What you concealed from me was warranted due to your own experience, but you chose to divulge it openly once I approached you on it civilly. You have shown a remarkable mixture of spirit and wisdom, something that one of your years does not normally have. My duty is to the safety of this world, not just to my people. She may indeed be correct in that I may have failed in that duty by allowing this Nox the trust I gave him, but I may also risk failing in that duty by not giving you the same trust.”

The Learner nodded once sharply and Dean glanced between them. “What does that mean?”

The Watcher stood up and motioned for him to approach. “It means you must come with me. There is something I must show you and much I still have to tell.”