Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
NERISSA
My love for you does not rise and fall like the tides. It is ever-growing, ever-reaching like the tree of our land.
– Hidden correspondence from Kresida to Carina. On Carina’s person at the time of her death.
Nerissa – North of Ayla, Lotrennia
Ganmira and Renova’s twisted laughter echoed through the woods. Their massive claws left giant divots in the damp ground as they took slow, deliberate steps around an elf and two wolf pups in the center.
My eyes landed on Lida. Her mouth was curled over her teeth in a snarl, and her chest heaved as her head swiveled between the two massive bears circling her.
Lida was as much a partner as Kresida, the two of us having spent years onboard the Evecta together before she’d been taken by Dark King Daimos.
A wave of protectiveness crashed against the rising force of comradery.
Two fuzzy faces peered out from beneath her wiry arms, the muscle just beginning to return to her emaciated form from her months as an ashen.
A short sword glinted against her back as she pivoted, but she held the pups in an iron grip, not daring to shift their little bodies.
My old crewmate locked her tawny eyes with mine, and I brought a finger to my lips.
Her eyes flicked briefly to where Kresida stalked through the trees opposite of where I stood.
I blinked once, forming an urgent connection with Aquila. His presence surged behind my eyes, and I hurled every sense of mine down our bond, urging him to our location. A nod of assurance rushed in response, followed by a familiar yet long-forgotten wave of calm confidence. I stopped breathing.
My shoulders sagged, and I soaked in the familiar emotion.
Bayne.
It had been almost sixteen months since he’d closed his Bellator bond off from the rest of us.
And for me, for someone who shared one with him since our birth, it had been like ripping the roots from a neighboring tree out beneath me.
They had grown deep together, their lines tunneling down, drinking from the same rain, feeding off the same soil.
And then, when he’d begun to feel Antares’s soulbinding thread, he’d run an axe through each one.
Bayne’s reassurance knocked at my gates, and I opened the connection to my brother and sent a fiery wave of urgency back. Hurry.
The two Embodied twisted through golden light, appearing in their goddess forms as they stalked Lida and the pups. Ganmira murmured something in a language I didn’t recognize, and Renova cocked her head, wiping the crimson line of blood from her snowy white chin.
“You have courage to stand against two gods, Elf.”
Lida snarled as she snapped her face to Ganmira, who lazily dragged her bare toes through the dirt.
“It did not end well for your companions at the gate. Drop the powers.”
Powers? My confusion dissipated as the sharp ache of failure stabbed me in the chest, and my mind flashed to Carina’s dull gaze against the Kayj sky. My mystic sobraen, my friend. A hard hatred rushed in its wake, and I gritted my teeth.
Ganmira raised a long finger, and a tendril of golden light ignited at the tip. Her lips spread into a sinister grin, and she stretched her arm forward. My eyes flicked to Kresida, now in position and ready to leap from the shadows for Lida.
The golden light spiraled through the air toward Lida and the pups, and I surged through the trees, slamming a shield in place between them. Breath sucked from my lungs as the force of Ganmira’s Transcindiel power slashed against my barrier, and I staggered forward.
Kresida lunged, her dark arm reaching for Lida as Ganmira’s wild blue eye landed on me.
The Embodied twisted to where I stood, and her mouth stretched wider than it should.
Her teeth sharpened into long, spear-like canines.
My blood stilled at the sight, and I used the fear I so despised to reinforce the shield still standing between my friends and the sacred pups of Lotrennia.
Movement flashed across the clearing, but I didn’t dare look.
Had there been true gods, I might have prayed for the safe retreat of my friends.
Ganmira held her long arms back, her fingers lengthening into knife-like claws.
She stretched her jaws open wide, and my hair stood on end as she bellowed an unholy cry, the sound akin to a thousand dying crows.
Her mouth stretched too wide, the void in the opening somehow darker than her ebony skin and vacant left eye.
I gained my footing, preparing for a fight, when sharp claws wrapped around my arms. My pulse faltered as Renova’s stark white, clammy hands squeezed. The stench of undigested wolf huffed into my neck as she appeared behind me.
Terror snuck up on me as quick as Renova, and a scream ripped from my throat as her teeth stabbed into my shoulder.
Pain erupted, my entire body reacting in panicked desperation as Renova pressed her snow-white lips to my skin.
Ganmira surged forward, and my consciousness ebbed, my shield falling back.
The Embodied pinned me between them, and Ganmira’s long teeth sank into the opposite arm.
I couldn’t move. My mind reeled, desperately seeking the cold, distant darkness that accompanied the numbness. I forced it to keep still, my arm and shoulder screaming in pain as I sent a desperate plea to Aquila and Bayne.
But I was dying, and they were doing more than killing me… They were pulling something from me… They were feeding off something…
They’d called the wolf pups powers. Was that what they were doing?
Feeding off their powers? Did the sacred wolves of Lotrennia have powers?
They’d been gone for so long. Their image of strength and kinship was always more symbolic of power than tangible might…
My thoughts ebbed and flowed, questions forming in crystal clarity before the answers fell into shrouded mist brought on by my own horror.
I willed my mind to focus, but it seemed to flicker, like a lone, desperate candle beneath a spitting, cloudy sky.
My knees hit the damp ground, the ache distant, barely noticeable compared to the life the Embodied sucked from me. My body reeled, my struggles fruitless as my blood pumped unwillingly into their mouths.
A crimson pool surrounded my legs as dimming light spiked through the red and golden trees.
The clearing was empty…
Lida and the pups escaped with Kresida… Good. That was good…
I blinked against the fuzzy clouds appearing at the edge of my vision, memories beginning to arrive in front of my sight in some strange mirage.
I’d been so close to death so many times.
My years as the War Slayer commander for my uncle, my days onboard the Evecta with my family. The ashen. Daimos. Saros.
I’d always feared it—death.
But the unwelcome feeling almost always gave way to the fiery rage that burned deep within me, the flames I’d been born with. The flames that had claimed my brother and me.
Clammy black and white arms reached around my shoulders, the Embodied’s cold forms enveloping mine on the ground now. A sickening groan escaped their lips as they satiated themselves, and a desperate flicker of heat ignited in my chest.
I am War Slayer Commander Nerissa Ravindra of Lotrennia. I am the flame of light and life, and I am not ready for death’s silent embrace.
I bared my teeth and pinched my eyes shut as I fanned the heat…
Burn.
Burn hotter.
Burn brighter.
I commanded myself over and over again until finally, I erupted in white flames.
Ganmira and Renova’s grip loosened, and I screamed as fire blazed from every inch of my body. A horrid cry ripped from the Embodieds’ lips as my flames sizzled against their unnatural skin. The two of them fell back as I transformed into a living pyre.
I stood in the center of the clearing, in a pool of my own boiling blood, my arms stretched out to either side. A blast of transformative, golden light crackled from Renova’s blood-soaked arm, her Transcindiel power reeling as it landed on my flames.
She was trying to transform my power.
Renova bared her pointed teeth at the failed attempt, and in a gust, I shoved my power to the ground, drawing a tight circle around myself, the white flames slowly stretching and pushing the Embodied to the edge of the clearing.
I caught my breath and forced my mind away from the blazing pain in my arms.
My hands shook as I tried to maintain the barrier between us, somehow much more effective than a regular shield. I sent a line of fire searing toward Ganmira, but a moment before I made contact, her body shifted into something silver. I blinked as the flames licked up her solid legs.
My gut sank as she smiled, the two of us realizing at the same moment what she discovered.
Renova transformed a moment later, her white body morphing into a sharp, silvery pewter, and they each took a step closer. Had they just transformed into… metal?
Renova held her silvery hand out to the yellow flames at the edge of my barrier, and I pushed harder, heating them to pure white.
Her strange, silver hands remained, and her smile widened.
Fuck.
I tightened my circle of flames, heating them to their limit. Metal couldn’t survive extreme heat. It melted. Hotter. I needed to burn brighter.
My chest heaved as I funneled every last ounce of energy into my power, heating to a blazing, invisible inferno. Tears formed in my eyes, and my breath began to hollow out. Their silvery hands turned orange as they inched closer.
A crumbling thought cut through my mind… This was the end. My power was draining. I couldn’t defeat them. I’d learned as much on Kayj. But at least Kresida and Lida got away with the pups.
I anchored myself to that thought as Ganmira and Renova closed in. Their iron forms melded from silver to red to a burning orange. My flames siphoned back to my body, and I poured every last ounce of power into the inferno licking off my skin, my final defense.
Hot, orange claws stretched out to me, and I wrapped my arms around myself as I fell to the ground in a ball of fire, preparing to die.
I waited for the slice of their singeing claws, for the stab of their teeth, but none came. Silence stretched before a deafening screech ripped through the air.
A sob escaped my lips as Aquila’s love poured down our connection.
I snapped my head up in time to see the outline of massive wings before white flames rained down from above. Two lines of fire ripped from Bayne’s arms, an ungodly amount of power streaming down from him.
Ganmira and Renova howled, their iron forms quickly blazing too bright, the tips of their claws beginning to soften. Aquila landed in front of me, his talons gouging into the mud.
Let go, Nerissa.
My flames eviscerated the tears pouring from my eyes as his ancient voice echoed in my mind. He was my conscience, my light in the storm, my anchor to everything good in life. He was something between friend, father, and comrade. He was part of me, and he’d found me.
I loosened the grip on my power. The Soleia flames winked out as I staggered to where my caeluma stood with wide, proud wings.
I reached bloodied hands for his coppery feathers, stealing a quick glance to where Bayne stood, and my mouth fell open.
The king of Lotrennia stood tall against the retreating Embodied, white flames spiraling from his hands with little effort. Power emanated from his body. Guilt hit me in the chest.
This is why he soulbound himself to the queen.
To amplify his power to this level, to easily chase away the Embodied who were after us. This was the reason for his sacrifice.
He paused as their glowing forms slipped into the shadows of the trees. Bayne turned toward me as he cut off the power, white flames dancing in his eyes as he gave a firm nod.
“We need to get the others,” I said through ragged breath. “They’ll be back.”
Bayne climbed up Aquila’s back, and our caeluma beat his strong wings, lifting us to the air.
The Embodied howled in rage in the distance, a massive blast of golden power detonating through the trees as we eclipsed the canopy.
Wind whipped tears from my eyes as Aquila raced over the forest. I risked a glance back, and my hand slapped over my mouth.
Bayne followed my gaze and swore, as hundreds of giant, winged pixies rose to the air, their faces twisted into hard snarls. A dark, sinister golden aura haloed their silvery wings as Ganmira and Renova’s rapidly formed army chased us back to Ayla.