Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LYVIA
The magic required to create threads pulls at the fibers linking us to this realm.
Lyvia – The Abyss
My powers writhed beneath my skin in a panic, unsure how to help as the floor beneath me dropped and I surged beneath the inky liquid.
Thoughts and memories eddied out of my mind, and for a fleeting moment, I was lost in the familiar darkness between stars.
I had been here before, when Cyril had slit my throat.
The space between life and death, the space where I viewed Enya’s final moments…
Where I saw that scared young man on the ship…
The young man with the dark eyes… I grappled with the memory as an unholy force slammed me back into my being.
I opened my eyes to the five-year-old version of myself shrieking, her voice shrill and angry.
She reached for me, shoving with surprising force as she screamed, “I hate you, Aeriden!” She raked her tiny nails against my arm, little droplets of blood pooling on my stinging, olive skin, but I continued laughing at the broken doll…
My vision swam, and I was whipped away.
An older Lyvia mumbled something, avoiding eye contact as her hand clenched into a fist… Her tell. She was lying. Nine years old, and she’d played an unkind prank on the stable boy that landed the poor kid two slaps of a stick on his hands. Young Lyvia had said nothing…
The memory twisted and warped…
I watched as Lyvia’s sins, my sins, unfolded before my eyes in rapid succession.
But every pain I had caused someone else was inflicted on me as the immorality of the Abyss stretched.
Every physical blow, every dreadful feeling that resulted from my words or actions, hit my inner being.
Had I been able to weep or bleed, I would have.
Lyvia’s war cry reached my ears as her horse’s massive hooves crushed into my armored chest, the metal crunching through my bone in a suffocating pressure. Pain erupted. I choked on the blood surging up my throat, and panic rose as I failed to take the breath my body was desperate for…
The sharp blade bit through the back of my legs as Lyvia sliced her short sword against my calves. Saliva flooded my mouth at the unexpected nausea that accompanied the pain. Fury rose above the rising panic. My legs split apart, and my knees crashed to the blood-soaked, cobblestone road…
Pain lanced through my nose as Lyvia slammed her forehead into my face, straining against the bonds on her arms and legs. Tears rose to the corners of my eyes as blood poured down my throat and spewed from my nose. Broken…. She had broken my nose… Rage surged forward, and I lifted my hand…
My body screamed in agony. Every violent moment.
Every damning action. There was no reprieve.
Every sin, every wicked act I committed unraveled in my mind with no break, and I began to shatter beneath the magnitude of a life’s worth of depravity.
My consciousness reeled as a room spun into existence.
Elegant drapery and a painting of the gods on the wall of the old queen’s room…
No. Panic seized my chest at what I knew was about to unfold.
A young woman in a black slave’s robe, wearing a collar that didn’t quite sit right, approached me…
No. No. No. I couldn’t experience this again…
She spoke kindly, sadly to me as she knelt and cradled my head.
Tears pooled in Lyvia’s caramel eyes. My daughter, my Badger.
I mumbled words, and she began to sob as she pulled out a small vial.
Her thin hands slipped under my neck and lifted my head.
Pain tore through my body at the movement.
Her tears splattered on my face as she lifted the vial to my lips, and a sweet, floral elixir rolled over my tongue and down my throat.
Sleep beckoned me. Through fluttering eyelids, I watched her pull a thin fortissa chain from her pocket, before quickly wrapping it around my neck.
A numbing sleep warred with a wild hysteria as the chain constricted like a vice.
Darkness coaxed me toward peace as pain twisted in my lungs, and I gasped for air that wouldn’t come.
Instinct called the fight to my body, but the sweet serenity of sleep gripped me by the hand and led me away from the pain…
Over… It had to be almost over… My mind whirred in quiet desperation.
My knees buckled as tremors reverberated through the valley of blood and smoke.
I sprinted toward the clearing in Odessa, the metal weapon attached to my arm heavy and swinging as I pumped my legs.
The screams of soldiers were lost among the shrieks of the ashen flooding from the trees in the distance.
And standing before them… A lone, blood-soaked and weaponless Lyvia raised shaking arms as she faced the army of undead.
“Lyvia!” I called, just as she let out a wild scream and death ignited in her palms. My cry caught in my throat as daggers of shadows and mist ripped across the valley, spearing each ashen in the chest and obliterating their gaunt forms midstride.
My mouth parted as my legs slowed, shock spreading through me…
And darkness erupted from her. My heart lodged in my throat as she lost control.
Panic seized me, and the swirling death spun toward the ground before racing to where I stood, an agonizing sensation rippling over my body…
My consciousness ripped at my mind in an attempt to shield itself from what was to come, but the Abyss held strong, Tynan’s Hell a sickening design to atone for our sins.
I simply existed in the torment, enduring the never-ending pain of my sins… The Battle of Odessa. The fight in the Death Dunes. The taking of Aedrialis. My final moments with King Saros. My return to Kayj…
Until finally…
A bloodied Lyvia hurtled through the freshly fallen snow in the valley on Kayj, her face twisted in a mask of wrath and vengeance.
She slammed into my healing sternum, pain cutting through my chest. I fell backward as she shoved the tip of Cyril’s dagger into the soft space beneath my jaw.
I froze in shock as the flawless blade plunged into my neck, the pain momentarily absent, as if my body had yet to register its damage.
My white hair flitted in front of my face, my vision beginning to tunnel.
Her lips curled over her teeth as she snarled at me, and my stumped arm beat against her shoulder as agony overwhelmed my rage.
The sharp sting of the blade blazed like fire as she twisted it, blood filling my mouth and raining down my throat…
Darkness fell over my trembling soul. My consciousness slammed back into me, and thin, sharp hooks wrapped around my shoulders. I screamed into the inky water as those hooks ripped me upward, and icy air met my face.
The courier pulled me over the edge of the bone boat, and I curled around myself as his long claws released their grip. Tears fell from my face as uncontrollable tremors racked through my body. I moaned as I wept, rocking myself back and forth.
A soft wave of warmth drifted through my chest, and I took a shuddering breath.
Tiberius?
Silence answered me, but that warmth flared. Had he experienced what I had? Guilt pounced at the thought, but it seemed to rouse my powers. They flared to life, swarming my veins and curling back and forth as if examining me.
I flinched as the courier moved toward me, extending a sharp claw, and I shuffled away in a panic. My back hit the edge of the boat and my gut churned as the scent of rotting meat hit me. He moved his claw past me and pointed to the back of the boat.
Fog drifted closer to us, or perhaps we drifted closer to it, the floating gray cloud looming over the Abyss like a veil.
My weight shifted as the hull slid into whatever lay at the bottom of the sea in a whisper of sound, and we came to a stop.
I stared at the gray smoke, and the creature once again lifted a clawed hand.
Tremors racked through my body as I registered what it was trying to say… This was my stop.
I took a shaky step off the boat and into the fog, careful not to touch the tar-like water.
Where was I? Why was I here? Had I died?
Yes… I was dead. This was hell. I was in hell…
My feet squelched as I placed one foot in front of the other, wandering aimlessly through the fog until finally, a light hovered in the distance. I followed it, the hazy glow spreading.
A hollow sorrow fell over me as I gazed upon the land of the dead. A gray sky hung over the rocky, lifeless terrain, and clumps of ominous clouds hovered throughout the landscape. Thunder cracked from above, and a drizzling rain created a mucky mixture of dirt and sand below.
Gray forms moved in the distance with their heads down, arms wrapped around themselves as they wandered aimlessly. Elves, humans, and smaller forms I recognized from a memory long forgotten…
Their heads either hung in grief or they searched blindly, not seeing the other beings wandering around them. Men, women… The old and the young.
The dead.
A wave of nausea rose to my throat. Why did I feel nauseous if I was dead?
I stumbled up to an old man with a long, gray beard and reached for his gaunt arm.
“Where am I?” I asked, my voice coming out shaky and weak as I clasped my hand onto his shoulder.
The man jerked backward, his eyes wild as they tried to find me. He swatted at the air before tremors raced through him.
His nails scraped against his arms before they plunged into what remained of his hair, and he ripped it out at the roots. The scream that left his lips ricocheted off the surrounding obsidian rocks. The sound traveled up into the fog before bouncing back down in a torturous echo.
I backpedaled, my heart racing, as two monstrous winged rodents swarmed overhead, the man’s agonizing cry drawing them closer. Fog closed in on the man as he crashed to the ground, and the winged monstrosities swooped down from above.