Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
LYVIA
The ability to block the mental probe of the Palaega remains their only obvious power.
– A Written History of the Itherians, by Olienna. Crystal Castle.
Lyvia – The Arx, Votruvia
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I wrapped my fingers around the glass decanter held in the silver silk at the center of the black tree.
The web shuddered, whipping back and forth as I tugged the object free.
Stillness stretched through the small space as the web trembled back into place, and I held my breath as my gaze cut to Kellan.
His dark eyes held mine for a mere moment before spine-straightening clacking and hissing filled the air.
My pulse banged against my skin as I surged toward Kellan.
The pirate lord moved to the entrance of the tree, looking back and pausing as his attention darted above my head. He spun on his heel and leaped back into the tree. His curved blade drew a long arc through the air, embedding itself in the large, bulbous body of a massive spider.
Bile rose to my throat as he pulled his blade free, and a thick, yellow blood leaked from the center of the creature’s gray and black striped body.
Its red eyes shuddered as it let out a piercing cry.
A putrid smell filled the small space, and a gag crawled its way up my throat.
Kellan shook the blade free of the yellow sludge and turned to me with wide eyes.
I yelped as I jumped back, another spider crawling through the entrance in front of me.
Enya’s blade was an easy extension of my arm as I swung down in a long line, the edge of it clipping a thick, hairy leg.
It hissed as it jumped back, and I advanced, slashing with one hand as I maintained a firm grip on the glass container.
Kellan let out an angry growl from behind, and the scratching and hissing of advancing spiders melded together in a clamor of sounds that promised death.
I resisted the urge to turn around as I speared forward, embedding Enya’s blade in the center of two razor-sharp fangs clicking together in threat.
The creature sagged, and I shoved my boot into its side. The massive body slid through the gap in the branches and over the edge. My stomach pitched as I turned around to find three spiders closing in as Kellan took the legs off a fourth.
My powers bucked behind the presence of the rubelline power, their might leashed and unable to escape, but my body moved like a predator. My elven muscles lacked the fatigue normally brought on by such a fight, and I spun through the small space with lethal efficiency.
Kellan grunted as a spider landed on his back, its long legs wrapping around his torso. I surged forward, slicing through another as it jumped from a nearby branch, nausea climbing as the yellow sludge slapped across my face and chest.
A piercing click cut through the air at the same moment a pained moan escaped Kellan’s lips. A surge of adrenaline pulsed through my veins as I spun, shoving my blade into another spider and turning toward Kellan.
He grappled with the creature on his back, the spider’s eight long legs slicing through his cream tunic and leaving long lines of crimson in their wake. How…
Horror roiled in my gut as I spied the long, razor-thin claws protruding from the tips of the spider’s legs.
Rage thundered through me, and I screamed as an inexplicable force rose from deep within.
It fueled my elven strength and precision as I leaped over an oncoming spider, running the tip of Enya’s blade through its back, before slicing it through the legs of the creature attached to Kellan.
An eerie silence stretched as I knelt next to Kellan, blood pooling through his tattered shirt. I wrapped his thick arm over my shoulder, his bleeding bicep soaking the back of my neck, and he grunted as he got to his feet.
“You’re okay,” I breathed. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m fine, Bonscaíh,” he rasped, straightening as we hobbled from the center of the tree.
My gut sank as I looked over our shoulders at the black shadows emerging from the deep trunk of the tree.
“We have to move—”
A war cry erupted from the mists above, and my head snapped up in a panic. Isla? A massive boom echoed from the same direction.
“GO!” Kellan screamed and shoved me toward the single remaining bridge.
The clicking hiss of the approaching spiders grew in a threatening crescendo as they scurried over the black branches. I stumbled forward onto the bridge, looking back for just a moment. The blood drained from my face as my eyes landed on the approaching horde. Hundreds of spiders.
A rumbling crack blasted from above, and Kellan paused. His face shot up as massive chunks of rock rained down. Hisses turned to screams as boulders crashed into the black tree.
“RUN!” Kellan demanded, the command coming out desperate and harsh as he shoved his hand against my back.
I sheathed Enya’s blade and clenched the glass container as we stumbled across the last remaining bridge.
The edge of the crater loomed feet away as another boom echoed from above. I forced my gaze to the ledge as I sprinted forward, leaping the last foot just as a chunk of rock fell from the mists above and crashed into the bridge.
Kellan jumped as the vines dropped from below his feet, his eyes wide as he reached with both arms. A pained grunt escaped his lips as his hands slapped against the stone edge, and he held firm.
I gripped his arm with one hand and braced myself as he hauled himself up the stony side before plopping down.
The glass decanter shook in my other hand as we caught our breath and stared at the half-crushed tree in the center. The remaining spiders scurried around its branches in a frenzy.
“Fuck.” Kellan sighed, his head slumping against the stone. A chuckle rose up his throat. “Well done.”
My chest moved in rapid huffs as I looked at him. A wave of relief warred with hedging concern as I scanned him, an unyielding force swelling in my chest. A jagged gash cut across the side of his face, and his blood-soaked skin shown through the tatters of his shirt.
His face softened, and his lips tilted upward, stretching the scar in his lower lip as my gaze met his.
“There it is,” he murmured, something brightening the darkness of his eyes. “I see it in you.”
My brows pinched, and I opened my lips. He shook his head, stray strands of dark auburn hair floating along the sides of his face. He stood and reached a hand toward me, pulling me up with him. Our hands clasped between our chests.
“And maybe you’re not ready to acknowledge it,” he continued, his dark eyes hopping between my own as he caught his breath.
“Or maybe I’m wrong, and you don’t feel the same.
Maybe there was another reason you pulled on our air oath as Ganmira and Renova raked their nails across my body and rammed their spear through my chest.”
My breath hitched as the image of Kellan dying slammed into my mind. A wild sort of desperation surged forward as I remembered time itself stopping.
“Maybe you don’t know why you leaped through the arch. Maybe you regret it, but—”
“Kellan, I—”
“But I should be dead, Lyvia. I died. And you came for me. You found me in the Abyss. In Hell. And I knew long before that, I’d bleed for you, that I’d die for you.”
A warmth swarmed in my chest, and my mind’s eye replayed our quiet moment on top of the rocky cliff on Kayj after we’d saved the ashen.
“But why—” I began.
A deafening crack boomed from above. Kellan’s body slammed into mine as he pushed me against the stone and shoved us along the wall as a boulder crashed into the ledge.
He pressed his hands into the stone wall on either side of my face as debris and dust floated from where we had stood.
“Why?” he breathed, the word hanging on a note of desperation. “Because I fell in love with you when you were a mere voice from the heavens, and I’ve seen your eyes in every star since.”
Something powerful climbed from the depths of my soul as tears threatened to form.
“What—”
“I’ve been looking for you for ten years, Bonscaíh.” The darkness in his eyes burned like a storm. “If there is an ounce of goodness in me, Lyvia, it is because you put it there. You saved me… You saved my soul that day. And I’ve been searching for you ever since.”
My lips parted, and the thick scar on my neck tingled, a distant memory pricking my mind.
Honor warmed at my ankle, and my eyes slid to Kellan’s bleeding chest. I reached a hand forward, the tips of my fingers grazing his skin.
I slipped them over his chest, pulling the tattered, bloody fabric to the side and sliding them over the long, vertical scars on his pectoral muscles to the center of his chest where the Marisarma M was branded.
My head lightened as realization slammed into me, and I jerked my gaze up, meeting Kellan’s dark eyes. Dark eyes that I’d seen long before I’d met Kellan at the Rising camp in Odessa when he’d swaggered in with his crew.
I’m with you. You’re not alone.
My breath came out in a shallow gasp as my eyes skipped between his.
“I saw you,” I breathed, and my hand shook as it reached back, the tips of my fingers grazing the bulbous scar on my neck.
The taut skin tightened as I swallowed, and Kellan gripped my hand, steadying it.
Impossible…
“When my throat was slit…” I said, voice shaking. “When I nearly died before being taken to the Crystal Castle…I saw you on the Hydra. I saw pirates hurting you… I saw the brand… And…”
My stomach pitched at the memory, at the raw terror stretched across the young man’s face, and the inexplicable urge to help him. He was terrified. He was alone, and I’d tried to call to him… But I had this vision just over a year ago…
“H-how—” I stuttered, shaking my head. “You were younger—”
“I had just turned eighteen when they branded me a Marisarma Lord and named me Captain of the Hydra,” he breathed.
“When the four Marisarma Lords marked me with a slice of their blades. I heard you moments before they pressed the brand to my skin. I teetered on the edge of corruption. My life had become a never-ending loop of death and violence. I knew I’d take over as a Marisarma Lord, but in that moment, I was terrified.
It was a moment I’d never turn back from.
The life of a Marisarma Lord is one of hardened brutality, and I knew I’d never be the same.
That any softness in me, any love, would disappear as the iron seared against my skin. ”
He paused, his eyes searching mine. His throat bobbed before he opened his lips once more. His voice was raw. “But then I heard you… I felt something… Someone was out there… Someone was with me. It was you. And I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
My head shook, and my eyes pinched shut.
“But Cyril slit my throat over a year ago,” I muttered, my eyes snapping open. “How did I—”
Kellan’s head shook. “I don’t know, Bonscaíh,” he replied, straightening as he scanned the demolished edge beside us.
“Perhaps we don’t understand the laws of time, or perhaps you manipulated time somehow…
But Honor,” he murmured as he knelt, his hand sliding to the dagger in my boot, “the blade used to slit your throat…”
He straightened and held the dagger between us. The golden gem in the center pulsed, a comforting warmth emanating from it. “I lost this long before I was branded a Lord of Marisarma.”