Chapter Twenty-One
I plummet face first into the ground, released from the invisible binds that confined me.
I guess losing a hand somehow released Lexamon’s magic. Though, when I stand up and reorient myself, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by his lost limb in the slightest. Instead, he appears to be rather… eager .
“I’ve been cut by the thread from the needle that’s sewn you,” Lexamon delights, glaring at the stump of his arm now spitting black blood. “What a pleasure.”
Draven steps forward, emerging fully from the shadows, and as the moonlight sparkles against his sword, the darkness appears to ripple around him. Though it’s probably some illusion from the silhouetted, moonlit trees.
Draven’s low voice emerges through his frown, cutting through the air clear and sharp. “Can’t say the same.”
And then he moves.
But this time the Abdite all but disappears into thin air, not giving Draven the chance to strike again before reappearing across the trees.
Lexamon clicks his tongue repeatedly. “Ah, ah, ah. You’ve already taken one hand. I need my other.”
Draven’s voice rumbles from beside me. “Do you need it more than her?” He jerks his chin atDridus, who is still lost in a mad state of hysterical chanting.
“The strings of my heart are already burnt from my flame,” Lexamon says. “Pulling on them won’t work.”
Draven’s reply comes swift and dry. “Alright, then.” Within what feels like no more than a blink, Draven strides to Dridus, lifts his sword, and swipes the metal clear through her neck.
Much like Lexamon’s hand, Dridus’s head thumps against the ground, and her body collapses like nothing more than weighted cargo.
“Dri…dus…” Lexamon stumbles as if confused. “Dri…dri…” Faster than lightning, he appears in front of Draven and me, his eyes burning a molten color. “Thread or no thread, through the eye of the needle or not, I will tear you apart.”
Draven lets out a low laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”
Lexamon pulls off his ragged cloak, revealing…
Holy gods.
Gnarled veins wrap around his body like a living ribcage.
They twist and knot across his arms, over his shoulders, and around his scalp.
Beneath the black markings, brightening with Lexamon’s every inhalation, rests a fiery glow that looks like sparking charcoaled embers.
His black eyes are ringed with a matching molten blaze, and hovering in the center of his forehead, twirling across his brow bone and gliding down along his jaw, is a warped, inverted flame.
Lexamon briefly shuts his eyes, tips his head back, and exhales a breath. Afterwards, he drops his chin and tilts his head at Draven. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
The mark on his face glows, and the air plummets into a piercing cold. Voices begin to whisper all around us. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht.
What dialect is that? Better yet, what language are the voices even speaking in?
My eyes dart around the scene unfolding before me, fear beginning to sink deep into the pit of my stomach.
Lexamon’s skin brightens, going almost translucent, revealing a smoldering fire beneath.
He lifts his hand, and a burning sphere of black, inverted flames forms in his palm.
His mark begins to thrum, as if pulsing against his skin, and it dawns on me.
The mark was once his wielder’s mark. But since he’s accessed the forbidden magics, it is…tainted, almost. Corrupted. Just like him.
The warped sphere of black flames grows into a daunting circle threatening destruction. Lexamon smiles wickedly, exposing his rotted teeth, and then flings the twisted fire at us.
It all happens so quick…
One moment, a ball radiating strange, corrupted energy is flying at my head, and then the next moment, it is being swallowed into oblivion by a rippling wall of darkness.
I blink, entirely confused.
But Draven’s rough voice snaps me from my daze. “Go. Go . Find Kiran.” When I don’t move, his voice lashes at me like a spear. “Now .”
Finding myself, I shake myself out of my daze and sprint in the opposite direction.
Lexamon’s voice grows savage—twisted and strange. “You will not take away our key.”
The surrounding whispers grow louder, more hysteric, as Lexamon’s mark burns brighter with a silver glow that is…wrong. So wrong.
Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht.
Draven, seemingly unbothered, replies, “And who’s going to stop me? You?” He pouts at Lexamon, clicking his tongue after. “Not in this realm of hell.”
Lexamon hisses at him. “Stubborn thread. Allow me to fray you a little bit.”
Draven snorts at Lexamon, as if amused. “You’re welcome to try. But I promise you won’t harm me.”
I hear nothing more of their conversation as I emerge through the trees, refusing to turn around.
Not even when I hear powerful magics clashing. Not even when I hear an earth-shattering shriek. Not when birds disperse through the trees, nor when a wave of chill-inducing energy warps past me, making the hairs on my arms rise.
With my lungs burning like the waters of Illithious Lake and my calves screaming at me, I slow only when I glimpse ruby-red hair bathed underneath the moonlight, standing behind a towering wall of burning flames. Just nearing it makes my body prick into a sweat, and I stagger at the sight.
For Kiran to be capable of something like this…
Kiran whips his head behind him, finding me immediately.
It is the first time since meeting him that I’ve seen him without a trace of a smile or smirk. Instead, his sapphire eyes are lined with concentration and…rage.
“Are you injured?” he asks first.
I shake my head.
“And Draven?”
I gulp down air, trying to steady my needled breathing. “He’s…” Another gulp. “He’s fighting an Abdite.”
Just saying the words feels ludicrous. Like I suddenly inhabited a body—hell, a world —I do not belong in.
Kiran just nods—swift and firm. “He’ll be fine.”
How is he so confident? It is an Abdite . And his magic…it had been so cold and strange. Like it drained life from the very world around it. Just the wrongness of it was enough to freeze me with fear.
Gray appears suddenly, dropping what I realize is an illusion he cast to make himself disappear into his surroundings. “Lyra,” he breathes, immediately pulling me into his chest. “I was so worried.” He squeezes me, and for a brief second, I allow myself to be held.
Gray drops his arms and pulls back to scan my eyes.
I shake my head at him, still trying to process everything that just happened. “Abdites. There are Abdites in the valley. They—they…”
“We know,” he says with as gentle a voice as he can.
My eyes rove to Kiran, fire pouring from his palms and into the burning wall of mammoth-sized flames, the sight unlike anything I have ever seen. But then I realize….
I whip my gaze back to Gray. “Where are Griff and Meiji? I–I heard him scream.”
Gray’s eyes fall to the ground. “They’re on the other side of this wall.”
“What? Why ?”
Instead of Gray answering, it is Kiran’s voice echoing into the night air. “Because an Abdite took Meiji, and Griff went after him.”
“So why aren’t we going after them ?”
Gray rests a hand on my shoulder, shaking his head like he’s resigned to whatever it is he’s about to say.
“We can’t drop the wall, Lyra. Not until Draven returns.
To do so…it would be suicide for us all.
We counted twelve Abdites, and those were just the ones we saw.
Kiran’s wall is the only thing keeping us alive right now. ”
“So you’re just going to let them die ?!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Of course not,” Kiran shoots back, turning his chin over his shoulder. “But what good are we to them dead?”
“We can’t just do nothing,” I plead, my voice cracking.
“This isn’t nothing,” Kiran grits back, his voice uncharacteristically rough. He returns his attention to the wall of bright, roaring flames, and I look back at Gray, incredulous.
His gaze is soft as he watches me through sympathetic eyes. “He’s right, Lyra.”
A pitchy female voice carries on the wind through the flames, wrapping itself around our bodies. “Do you want him? Your healer? Then come get him, girl. I’ll even tell you where I keep him.”
Both Gray and Kiran jerk their gaze to me.
“Lyra,” Gray cautions. “Do not do anything rash.”
I blow out a breath, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. But I can’t just stand here doing nothing like some helpless fool.”
And then I sprint straight through the flames, ready to singe my skin with welts and burns. Yet the flames part for me, and as I cross through the burning threshold, I come out unscathed. Shock courses through me, but I do not let it delay me. I charge forward.
That voice fills the air once more, deepening with authority. “Let her pass,” she demands.
With a quick scan of my surroundings, I see Abdites returning to the shadows, bowing their heads and drawing back. Fear rattles through me, but I ignore the voice in my head telling me to turn around and go back behind the wall .
I won’t leave them.
I won’t just stand idly by and watch them die. Too many times had I cried— begged —for someone to come after me. Too many moments where a whip cracked against my skin, or a guard pinned me against a wall that left me begging for help from someone— anyone . And I know I’m not much, but…
I will not cower. I will not yield. I will not falter. Not today, at least.
“This way. This way.” The voice guides me, steering my path to wherever it is she wants me to go.
It leads me back to that large tree, different from all the rest.
Cloaked, the woman gasps when she spots me. “You came!” she exclaims with no small amount of shock.
As if she didn’t direct me the whole way here.
“Where are they?” I demand, not mincing words.
“Where is anyone, really? Here, there, in the wind. You must be more specific.”
“Lyra…” Meiji’s weak voice sounds from the right, and my eyes snap to where it came from.