Chapter 12
Elariya
“Soulful Nothingness”
Iopened my eyes slowly.
A sliver of light sliced through the darkness draped over me.
Real light. Golden, warm, living light that painted everything it touched with honey and amber.
Not the sickly gray of that cursed realm or the harsh white of magical barriers but honest sunlight.
It streamed down on me, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, I could breathe without tasting death on every inhale.
I shifted and realized I was pressed against something solid and warm.
A chest.
Wolfe’s chest.
Memory surged, fast and disorienting, and my breath caught as I registered what was covering me.
Wings.
Wolfe had wrapped himself around me like a shield and took us away from that terrifying place, and the Soulwraiths.
The moment I moved, his hold loosened. One wing slipped, heavy and limp, falling to the side with a soft thud against the sand.
Sand.
For one foolish moment, hope flickered.
I thought we were back in the Southern Isles.
But then I lifted my head and twin suns greeted me in the sky.
Two suns!
Not one but two. Both haloed by pale rings that turned slowly, like they were watching us.
My hope died, and my fascination barely had a chance to bloom.
I’d never read of anywhere that had two suns.
My journal made mention of two moons in the sky last month during the Phantom Moon, but this was on a whole other level of unreal.
I looked back at Wolfe, and panicked when I realized he wasn’t moving.
I forgot the numbness in my limbs and pushed myself up, panic slicing clean through the haze as I turned to look at him, really look.
His face—beautiful even like this, even marred—was ashen. Blood darkened the wound around his chest, and his lashes rested too still against his cheeks.
He looked like he would never wake again.
Blessed Mother, please don’t tell me he was dead.
Please. No.
I touched his cheek, watching for any sign of breath. There was nothing. No rise of his chest. No warmth of air against my fingers.
“Wolfe,” I whispered, the word breaking. “Wolfe. Please. Wake up.”
I shook his shoulder and pressed my palm to his chest, searching desperately for a heartbeat.
Nothing.
Across from me, Arielle, Bastian, Garrick, and Alaric lay sprawled on the sand. They were dazed, blinking through the aftermath, dragging air into their lungs like they’d been dragged from drowning.
“Guys!” I called, my voice raw. “He’s not breathing.”
Bastian was the first on his feet. The others followed, shaking off the portal’s shock as they stumbled toward us.
Bastian dropped to his knees beside me, his gaze sweeping over Wolfe with grim focus. Arielle was there a heartbeat later, her hands already moving, checking the wound, pressing to his chest, searching for a heartbeat.
Alaric and Garrick stood over us, tense and silent, watching and waiting.
“He’s barely breathing,” Arielle announced. “And his heartbeat is faint. He’s in a bad way. Even with my healing abilities, we’ll need herbs. A poultice. Something to pack the wound.”
I was glad Wolfe was breathing, but fear wrapped tightly around my chest as I gazed down at his still form.
“Can we help him?” Emotion clogged my throat.
“We’ll try everything. Summoning the portal wiped him out,” Bastian muttered. “He must have used his Deathwalker powers to get us out.”
Deathwalker powers.
His curse, like mine, that came from losing the ring.
“We wouldn’t have gotten out of there without him,” Arielle choked out.
“We have to find whatever we need to help him,” Alaric joined in.
“But where are we?” Garrick gazed ahead. “Where in the hells are we?”
I followed his gaze up to the suns hanging in the sky. Both of them ringed and wrong.
The others did the same, scanning the horizon, taking in the land around us. It was instinctive—necessary. We’d just been torn through a portal and dropped into the unknown.
But the unease that settled over their faces told me everything.
They didn’t recognize this place.
They truly didn’t know where we were.
“Guys,” I said, my voice tight, “you seriously have no idea where we are?”
In unison, they shook their heads.
Bastian rose, turning slowly as he took in more of our surroundings, his posture shifting into something alert and protective. I followed his line of sight.
We were surrounded by still water, a bluish-gray sea where the waves didn’t move, as if the ocean had been frozen mid-breath. There was no tide, no foam, no sound beyond a hush that felt unnatural.
Behind us, a thicket of trees crowded close, dark and dense, their branches tangled like they were trying to hide something.
Water lay in every direction.
Maybe we were on an island.
But sitting here beneath twin suns and that dead, unmoving sea, I couldn’t be certain of anything.
“I think we need to find shelter,” Bastian suggested. “Once we’ve got cover, we can start looking for herbs to make a poultice.”
“I agree,” Arielle said. Her gaze dropped to Wolfe, urgency tightening her expression.
“We’ll carry him,” Alaric assured her, then he and Garrick moved in on either side of Wolfe.
They slid their arms around him, securing his weight, and hoisted him up with careful strength.
The moment Wolfe rose, his wings—those immense shadows that had wrapped around me—faded. They just vanished as if they’d never existed, leaving no mark behind. Just the thin air and the sickening reminder of how weak he was.
“Come on,” Alaric muttered, adjusting his grip. Then he tipped his chin toward a narrow opening in the trees. “We head that way.”
We moved toward the trees slowly, carefully.
Arielle found her way back to my side and looked me over, her gaze searching my face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I managed, though my voice sounded weary. “Just… dazed. Shaken.”
My eyes drifted to Wolfe, to his limp body suspended between Alaric and Garrick as they carried him forward.
“But… Wolfe.” Worry tightened my throat.
Arielle squeezed my hand, grounding me. “I just need to work on healing him. This was the best we could do.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you saved him. You saved him.”
My magic.
I’d slowed time.
I could hardly wrap my head around it.
“I’m sorry we have no idea where we are. I feared this,” Arielle admitted, her expression pinched with guilt. “But given what we were up against, I don’t think we could have expected a better outcome.”
“I don’t think so, either.”
Arielle glanced around, nerves tightening her features. “I hope wherever we are, we’ll be safe for now.”
I looked into the trees again, into the hush that pressed in from all sides.
I wasn’t so sure how safe we were here.
As we moved deeper into the thicket, the silence grew unbearable. There were no birds. No insects. Hardly even the whisper of wind through the branches. It wasn’t just quiet; it was as if sound itself didn’t belong here. Like another dead realm.
The trees were twisted and pale, their shapes erroneous, their bark bleached like bone. The ground beneath my boots was soft, almost spongy, but cold enough to bite through the soles.
Above us, the twin suns threw light at strange angles, casting shadows that didn’t sit where they should. And the farther we went, the more that sense of isolation thickened.
A break in the trees revealed a cottage made of dark timber, blackened with age and something that might have been soot—or blood.
Twisted vines with thorns like claws had claimed most of the structure, their skeletal branches weaving through broken shutters and a chimney. The roof sagged under the weight of moss and decay, and windows stared out like hollow eyes.
Beyond the cottage stood a tall beacon structure, like a lighthouse.
This place looked less like a home and more like an outpost from the mortal coastlands. A place built to watch the sea, not to be lived in.
Bastian slowed, and we stopped behind him.
“We’re boxed in,” he said, his gaze sweeping the tree line and the flat horizon beyond. “This isn’t mainland.”
I turned, peering through the gaps in the thicket. Water glimmered in the distance. More of that bluish-gray sea still and unmoving. The weight of it settled in my stomach.
We were trapped.
“Let’s head to the house and see if anyone’s inside,” Alaric suggested.
Bastian nodded and kept the lead. We followed.
As we drew closer to the cottage, I glanced through the windows, and my chest tightened.
There was no movement. No warmth. No sign of life.
Bastian knocked anyway. The sound echoed too loudly, bouncing off wood and stone like the island wanted us to hear just how alone we were.
No answer came.
Arielle reached for the handle and tested it gently. It creaked under her palm, stiff with disuse. And then the door swung inward.
For a moment, we all just stood there, staring into the hollowed-out interior. Sunlight slanted through the windows, illuminating dust drifting lazily through the air. Cobwebs clung to the corners of the ceiling and walls, thick and undisturbed. The place smelled stale and forgotten.
It didn’t look recently abandoned.
It looked like it had been left to rot.
Unease prickled along my nerves, crawling up my spine, but when Bastian stepped over the threshold, I was reminded how limited our options truly were.
We followed him inside.
Into the staleness.
Into more silence.
My gaze swept the room, taking in overturned chairs, a table coated in grime, and a hearth that hadn’t been used in what felt like years.
“This is where we stay,” Bastian declared, his tone leaving no room for argument. “We’ll tend to Wolfe, then we’ll figure out how to get out of here.”
At least he sounded like he believed we could leave.
I was not so sure.