Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
NERISSA
You’re certain the orb in Kayj is always under guard? Her Majesty spent hours in discussion with someone on the other end.
Nerissa – Vael Lacrima, Kayj
“FIRE!” I screamed, my blood racing as adrenaline coursed alongside it.
Kresida and Vulcan aimed from their position at the upper ridge of the decimated mountain, and my chest heaved breaths of smoky air as my heart struggled to pick up another beat. Rubelline arrow tips soared through the air as two forms stepped through the gate of the worlds.
Dying yellow light pulsed from deep below the stone walkway, surrounding the indestructible archway in a sickly glow despite the bright afternoon sunshine that flooded the shattered cave.
The carcass of the most recent abomination that crept through that archway lay smoking near what used to be the entrance of the cave.
The cave we had all stupidly entered three months ago and somehow opened the godsdamned gate to our world, inadvertently letting in two of the Embodied followed by a slew of wretched creatures that had since wreaked havoc across the land.
I forced myself to blink as the rubelline arrows speared through the shield the man had thrown up.
The woman moved faster than I could track, stepping out from behind the man and snatching the wooden shafts of the arrows out of the air, snarling as she turned to face the direction of our concealed archers.
Black wings snapped open, and she stretched her arms wide.
Gilded rivers of darkness lined her bare skin, snaking up her neck through her torn shirt.
Embers burned around her pupils as she formed her own shield of darkness.
The force of it sent a gust of wind rising from the ashy stone, forcing her ebony hair to the side, displaying a set of elven ears.
Lyvia.
“HOLD!”
My cry broke, and my heart stopped as the man side-stepped her, clasping his hand in hers. His face flashed my direction, and shock stole my breath.
Dead. He was dead.
Lord Astraeus’s expression hardened into a pirate mask. Two lines of fresh blood streamed from his nose and down his chin, brightened by the morning sun. Black liquid stained the two of them. Their clothes were tattered and torn, but they were devoid of new injuries.
Shadows writhed like never before beneath Lyvia’s skin, faster and more alive than I’d ever seen.
Black flames licked off the eight-pointed star on her palm.
Her sharp gaze snapped to mine, and the dark flames disappeared as her eyes softened.
A gentle wave of warmth pushed against my mental curtain, and I smothered my own emotion threatening to rise.
Lyvia.
I allowed a small break in the curtain, and she surged down our Bellator bond. Relief, friendship… and love rolled down that connection as she lowered her shield, and the embers died in her eyes.
She took a step forward and faltered, blood draining from her face. The pirate lord spun toward her as she staggered into his grasp. My arm flew to my face as golden light erupted from where they stood.
A whinnying cry filled the air as the sparkling light faded, replaced by a shadow of black. Tiberius stepped forward onto the stone walkway. Golden light sparkled off his dark wings as he flared them and pivoted to face his Bellator.
Aquila’s urgency flooded me as I cut the cast with him, and my body surged over the broken rock I’d crouched behind.
I stumbled down the wreckage that once formed the cavern.
Kresida and Vulcan followed from above, motioning to the other hidden warriors, and my eyes snagged on Bayne, who stood opposite me, mouth ajar and eyes wide in shock.
His green eyes sparked in recognition for a split second before his features twisted into a quiet horror.
Lyvia slumped in Astraeus’s arms, her wings gone, and whatever power she’d used to find him, to bring him back, drained her. She stirred as Tiberius nudged her, and I hurled my own sense of relief and urgency at them.
“We need to get out of—”
My warning was cut short by the high-pitched, bone-on-bone cry of the winged monstrosity echoing from the throat of the archway.
My hackles rose.
Vulcan screamed, “SKYDRAKE!”
Astraeus pivoted toward the archway, his shield snapping into place, but that wouldn’t be enough. Bayne’s brows narrowed as he tore his gaze from them, and he aimed for the gate.
I rallied the fire within me, the power blazing through my veins like lightning as it pushed against my palms.
“GET BACK!” I bellowed.
Astraeus hoisted Lyvia onto Tiberius’s back, ushering them away from the gate.
The otherworldly roar quaked from just beyond the arch, and the stone walkway began to shake. Had I not witnessed upward of twenty of these creatures cross through this gate, I would have waited for the stone to crumble. It never did.
The massive crimson face of the skydrake glowed just beyond the dark arch, and the tips of its two tongues slipped between razor-sharp teeth. The hot, molten wind of its breath snaked beyond the gate and into our world.
The walkway was clear. Fire stoked just beyond the arch, a twisting ball of it spiraling into a tight line as the skydrake opened his massive maw and blasted an inferno in our direction.
My shield collided with Bayne’s, reinforcing it, as the fire split like a wave hitting rock. The skydrake paused, cocking its head, before bellowing in a fury.
Just like they always did.
Bayne and I split, sprinting to opposite ends of the crater as the skydrake surged out of the archway, his long, scaled neck stretching into the bright morning sun and clamoring onto the stone walkway.
The power of the sun erupted from my palms. The sweet, burning sting of my flames released, sending a wave of euphoria over me as I directed the blazing white light at the creature’s membranous wings. Its spiked talons scratched against the stone as it pivoted toward me, wings alight in my flames.
The creature screeched in rage and pain, sending its own blast of fire at me. Yellow flames licked over my shield as Bayne’s power ignited from its other side. White fire engulfed the skydrake’s long neck, and now blood, not fire, poured from its mouth.
Its body writhed as it slid over the edge of the walkway and into the pit. White smoke rose from the ground, clogging the crater we stood in, and I met Bayne’s gaze before he shot it to the rocky landing where the mouth of the cave used to sit.
His lips fell apart, and he rubbed a hand at his chest as disbelief slackened the lines on his face.
His eyes narrowed in on her, and his features morphed into a hard determination I’d come to recognize after decades by his side…
as if the last piece of some long-forgotten puzzle had clicked into place.
It lasted but a moment before something akin to fear—to disgust, even—widened his eyes.
I followed his gaze to where Lyvia sat mounted on Tiberius, and I couldn’t help but stare in awe. Wild, gilded shadows danced beneath the skin on her arms and neck, stopping just below her chin.
She’d lived.
I’d mourned her. I thought her stupidity had doomed her. Doomed the Realm of Vael. Isla and Aeriden had been the only ones who insisted she’d come back. Insisted she’d live. But it had been three godsdamned months, and the only things coming out of that gate were creatures from hell.
Astraeus maintained a grip around her waist, one that six months ago would have earned the pirate lord a dagger to his throat. Lyvia was either too weak to care or had more than one reason to go after Lord Astraeus when Ganmira and Renova pulled him through the gate.
Her gaze landed on mine, and she offered me that stupid, too-trusting smile she had. I squashed the nonsensical urge to grin back and offered her a twitch of my lips. Her smile stretched into a grin, and she began to laugh.
For fuck’s sake.
“Took you long enough,” I called, my voice nearly lost in the frigid wind that whipped through the rocky crater.
Lyvia doubled over in laughter, her arms stretching around Tiberius’s broad, velvety neck and burying her face in his mane. Her back began to shake, and my brows narrowed. Was she laughing or crying?
I shook my head and glanced at Astraeus, but the pirate lord maintained a somber expression. His dark eyes were focused on the gate. Right. We had a lot to fill them in on.
Aquila’s trill finally reached us, and a wave of relief and joy flooded our bond as my ancient hawk landed near Bayne.
Take him back first, I told Aquila.
I can carry you both, my giant bird replied, a note of indignation in his ancient voice, and I shook my head.
I’ll stay and set up a patrol to watch the gate while I wait.
Aquila’s copper and gold feathers flashed brightly in the morning rays as he stretched and then pumped them quickly, sending gusts of smoke and ash billowing along the rocky edge.
Tiberius followed, their forms buckling against the wild wind that whipped off the swells of the sea surrounding the Island of Kayj. The Soleia power blazed in reaction to the frigid weather, and I stepped to the edge of the crater.
My gaze raked over the devastated land. Burned fields lined the hills where thick forests used to stand, all destroyed by the skydrakes and other horrors that had escaped through the archway in those first few days after the Vael Lacrima had been opened.
My eyes caught on the downed fences surrounding the old ashen camps where Dark King Daimos had housed tens of thousands of the creatures he’d created with the transformational power belonging to Lyvia.
And the Bonder had returned to save them all. She’d come back once more, the one capable of uniting the powers of the Bellators and creating their caeluma. Would she be the difference between saving the Realm of Vael and burning it?
“Commander!” Kresida called, waiting for orders for herself and Vulcan.
I turned, and my eyes pulled toward Tiberius in the distance as he flew Lyvia to the Onyx Tower.
My friend, I remembered. Our months together in the past year had solidified a title I bestowed upon very few in my two-hundred-year existence.
Friend. Bonder. Elf.
Bellator reborn.