Chapter 23 Vaylen
Vaylen
Consciousness flickers like a dying flame, wavering between darkness and dim awareness.
Pain radiates from my side—a throbbing, insistent reminder of Tahranis's blade sliding between my ribs and his triumph as he pushed me over the wall.
I should be dead. The fall alone should have shattered my body beyond repair.
Instead, I lie on something hard and unyielding.
Wooden boards creak around me. The air is thick with the scent of mildew and abandonment, suggesting a structure long forgotten.
Emberton has many such places—derelict houses in forgotten corners where even the King's guards rarely venture.
Our endless war has made many families extinct.
I'm sure that's where they've brought me.
I attempt to move, but my limbs feel impossibly heavy, like they're encased in iron. The slightest shift sends waves of agony rippling through my entire body. My breath catches, and I release a wet, ragged sound that barely resembles a groan.
The response is immediate, a rustling of movement around me, the scraping of talons against wooden floors. That sound... unmistakable and terrifying.
Click. Click. Click.
Panic coils like a serpent in my chest, each beat of my heart sending fresh pain through my wounded torso.
The Screechclaws. I'm surrounded by them.
Dark figures hover over me, their features hidden beneath heavy cloaks. The distinctive smell grows stronger, that feral musk of wet feathers and rot. The scent of blood and death. The scent of enemies I'm meant to destroy.
This is how I die, then. Not the quick death of a fall but captured and helpless, food for the very beasts that killed my mother.
Perhaps they'll tear me apart slowly, a vengeful ritual for all their kin I've slain.
Or maybe they have something worse planned—some twisted experiment imaginable only to their kind.
My breathing grows more labored, each inhale shallower than the last. I've lost too much blood. The cold has seeped into my bones, numbing my extremities. My thoughts drift, disconnected and sluggish.
Once more, I try to reach for Fragor, seeking that familiar, comforting presence that has been my constant companion for years, but nothing answers. I'd forgotten he's gone, and the silence in my mind is more devastating than the wound in my flesh.
A series of clicks and hisses passes between the cloaked figures, that guttural language I've heard on battlefields but never understood. Except now it sounds almost... deliberate. Purposeful.
One of the figures moves closer, the scraping of talons against wood growing louder. A hand emerges from voluminous sleeves. Not human but grotesque, leathery, with curved claws where fingernails should be. I tense, expecting pain, bracing for the ripping of flesh.
Instead, the hand hovers over my wound. Warmth radiates from the palm, pulsing in gentle waves. A golden glow emanates from beneath those claws, casting eerie shadows across the decaying walls.
I know this sensation, the unmistakable feeling of healing magic, the peculiar warmth as torn muscle fibers knitting back together, as blood vessels seal and broken skin rejoins. It's identical to what I've experienced countless times under the care of Sky Order medics.
Dune power manipulates trace minerals in my sinew, smoothing torn tissues over.
Bolt power stimulates my heart to beat stronger.
Next, the figure places her other gnarled hand on my side.
This touch brings a different sensation.
It's cool rather than warm. The blue-tinged glow of water elemental energy guides the blood flow in my veins with healing purpose.
Goddess! A Screechclaw with healing abilities? With all the elemental powers required to repair a broken body?
My mind rebels against what I'm witnessing. Screechclaws don't possess elemental powers, despite what I witness in the Matron. They're monsters driven by instinct and bloodlust. Everything the Sky Order has taught for generations, everything I've believed without question...
Unless we've been wrong. All of us. For centuries.
The pain begins to subside, though weakness still pervades my limbs. My breathing steadies. The immediate threat of death recedes, though I remain damaged, fragile.
The tallest figure remains while the others back away with movements that seem almost reverential. Even in my weakened state, I sense the authority radiating from this being. The air itself feels charged with her presence.
Taloned hands reach up to lower the hood. In the golden healing light, I see her face clearly.
The Matron.
This close, she's more terrifying than I could have imagined.
Her face resembles a human's, but stretched and distorted, like a reflection in warped glass.
Midnight feathers streaked with blood red sprout in patterns across her skin.
Her eyes cast an orange hue in the gloom, fixing on me with chilling intensity.
"You... weak still." The words emerge halting and rough, as if human speech strains her throat. "Must... sleep."
I stare in disbelief. She's speaking to me! No. I must be delirious! Screechclaws don't speak. I've never heard a single intelligible word from them. This can't be happening.
"Why?" I manage to ask, my voice barely above a whisper. "Why… save me?"
Her head tilts at an unnatural angle, those burning eyes studying me with unsettling focus.
"Later. Long journey... ahead," she replies, her talons flexing in the dim light. "Rest, Omneira."
Is she calling me Omneira?
No. That title doesn't belong to me. I must have misheard, or—in her primitive control of our language—she has misspoken. That has to be it.
I try to object, to correct this potentially fatal misunderstanding, but the Matron's hideous hand presses against my forehead before I can form the words.
"Sleep now," she commands, her voice like rocks scraping against metal.
Darkness rises like floodwater, swallowing my shock and confusion. The weight of her palm against my skin feels impossibly heavy, dragging me down into unconsciousness.
Omneira. She called me Omneira.
The enormity of that mistake follows me into oblivion as her power pulls me under.