Chapter 14 Beneath The Keep #4
King Agadorn’s smile widened. “Very good. Your Squire is perceptive, Lark. Yes, the ritual requires a half-magical soul. One foot in each world, you might say. The perfect bridge.”
“You need me,” Venrick said flatly.
“I need a half-elf,” the King corrected. “You would have been convenient, but not essential. There are others.”
Lark’s mind raced. They needed to secure those pages and escape, but the King showed no sign of concern at their presence. Whatever protection he had, whether he was a mage in secret, or possibly had bonded with a dragon the rest of them didn’t know about, he was confident in it.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why risk everything? The Void Drinker doesn’t serve anyone. It consumes everything in its path.”
For the first time, a raw emotion flashed across the King’s face, like a fervent intensity that bordered on madness.
“Because we cannot continue as we are,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
“This endless cycle of kingdoms rising and falling, dragons and their riders having loyalties to their own kingdoms, the gods playing their games from beyond the veil. The Flashover offers a chance to rewrite the very rules of existence.”
“At what cost?” Venrick asked.
“Change always demands sacrifice.” The King stepped away from the reading stand, moving toward a corner of the library where shadows were gathering thicker than elsewhere.
“The Void Drinker will consume some, yes. But those who serve it faithfully will be elevated. A new race, with powers beyond anything seen in Sataran before.”
“The rimeshade aren’t a new race,” Nix hissed. “They’re corrupted fae, twisted by the Void Drinker’s influence.”
“And yet they endure when their original forms would have perished centuries ago,” the King countered. “They draw power directly from the source, unfiltered by Hyalites or Yogos. They are the future.”
As he spoke, the shadows behind him deepened, taking on substance and form. Lark felt the temperature in the room plummet, her breath clouding before her face.
“Now,” King Agadorn said, stepping back as the darkness coalesced, “I believe introductions are in order.”
The shadows split and parted like a curtain, revealing a figure that seemed to be made of liquid darkness.
It was humanoid in shape, but constantly shifting, its edges never quite solid.
Where eyes should have been, there were only swirling vortices of deeper black, flecked with the same silver starlight they had seen in the rimeshade’s corruption.
The Void Drinker had arrived.
“You’ve brought me a gift, faithful servant,” it said, its voice as jagged as a saw’s cutting edge. “A dragonrider with a fae bond. How... delicious.”
King Agadorn bowed slightly. “And a half-elf, my Lord. Just as promised.”
The Entity’s attention shifted to Venrick, those starlit voids focusing on him with terrible intensity. “Yes. I feel the dual nature in your blood. The perfect vessel for what is to come.”
Lark felt White Eye’s rage pulse through their bond, giving her strength. She raised Nightfang, channeling power through the brismil blade until it glowed with azure light.
“You won’t have him,” she declared, her voice steady despite the fear clawing at her throat. “You won’t have any of us.”
The Void Drinker’s form rippled with what might have been amusement. “Brave little rider. Do you think your borrowed power can stand against me? I who existed before dragons first took flight in Sataran? I who taught the Night Court the meaning of true magic?”
It extended a tendril of darkness toward them, and Lark felt an immediate draining sensation, her essence being pulled toward the Entity. Nix cried out, her flame dimming as if someone were smothering it.
“Lark!” Venrick shouted, drawing his sword and slashing at the tendril.
The blade passed through harmlessly, but the action broke the Entity’s concentration enough for Lark to recover.
She lunged forward, Nightfang aimed not at the Void Drinker but at the reading stand.
The brismil blade sliced through the air, catching the edge of the ancient text and sending the loose metal pages scattering across the floor.
King Agadorn shouted in alarm, diving for the pages. “Stop them!”
The library door burst open behind them, and four royal guards poured in, their weapons drawn. But they hesitated at the sight of the Void Drinker, their training insufficient preparation for facing such a creature.
Venrick reacted instantly, spinning to engage the guards. His blade flashed, not aiming to kill but to disable, striking with the precision Tel Roan had taught him years ago.
Lark faced the greater threat. The Void Drinker surged toward her, tendrils of darkness lashing out like whips. She ducked and rolled, feeling the cold rush of its passage above her head. Each near miss left frost in its wake, riming the bookshelves with ice.
“The pages!” Nix urged. “We need them!”
Lark nodded, gathering her magic. Drawing on both White Eye’s power and Nix’s fae bond, she created a shield of blue-black energy around herself. The effort was tremendous, far harder than it had been in the Northern Sanctuary where the magic had been guided by existing runes.
Protected for the moment, she scrambled toward the scattered metal pages, snatching them up one by one as the Void Drinker crashed against her shield.
“You cannot escape,” the Entity hissed, its form expanding to surround her. “You are already mine.”
Across the room, Venrick had managed to disable two of the guards, but the remaining two had him cornered, their training overcoming their fear. King Agadorn was moving toward them, his hands weaving a pattern in the air that left trails of silver-black energy.
“Venrick!” Lark called, gathering the last of the pages. “We need to go! Now!”
He kicked one guard back, creating enough space to break free from the corner. As he ran toward Lark, the King completed his inhuman spell. A bolt of corrupted energy shot from his fingers, striking Venrick squarely in the back.
Venrick stumbled, his face contorting in pain. But he kept moving, reaching Lark’s side as her shield began to flicker and fail under the Void Drinker’s assault.
“The ritual,” she gasped, pressing the metal pages into his hands. “Take them. Get them to Hardin.”
“Not without you,” he growled, his breathing labored.
The Void Drinker’s attacks intensified, each impact draining more of Lark’s strength. She couldn’t maintain the shield much longer, and once it fell, they would both be at the Entity’s mercy.
“There’s no time to argue,” she said, making her decision. “Nix, with me!”
The fire fae understood instantly. She spiraled from Lark’s pendant, her flame expanding until it filled the space between them and their enemies. In that moment of distraction, Lark shoved Venrick toward a small side door half-hidden behind a bookshelf.
“Use the maps to get to the maintenance tunnels,” she said quickly. “Follow them up. Hardin will find you.”
“Lark—”
“I’ll hold them off.” She met his eyes, letting him see her determination. “The pages are what matter. Without them, we can’t stop what’s coming.”
For a heartbeat, he hesitated. Then, understanding the necessity of their mission, he nodded once. “I’ll come back for you.”
“I know you will.”
As Nix’s flames began to falter, Venrick slipped through the side door. Lark turned back to face the Void Drinker and the King, her shield collapsing completely as the last of her energy was exhausted.
“Brave, but foolish,” King Agadorn said, stepping forward as the guards regrouped behind him. “Your half-elf won’t escape the Keep. The ritual pages will be recovered.”
“Perhaps,” Lark replied, raising Nightfang once more though her arms felt like lead. “But you’ve lost the element of surprise. The world will know what’s coming.”
The Void Drinker’s form contracted, becoming more defined and solid, almost human, though still wreathed in darkness.
“It hardly matters,” it said, its voice smoother now, almost melodious.
“The Flashover approaches. With or without the ritual, the barriers will thin. I will feed, and I will grow stronger.”
It extended a hand, an actual hand now, with fingers of shadow tipped with silver claws. “And you, dragonrider with the fae bond, will help me prepare.”
Lark felt a pressure in her mind, a cold invasion that sought to overwhelm her will. She fought against it, calling on her bonds with White Eye and Nix for strength.
“Never,” she gritted out.
“We shall see,” the Entity replied, its starlit eyes fixed on hers.
The pressure increased until Lark could no longer resist. Darkness claimed her vision, and she felt herself falling into an endless void.
Her last conscious thought was of Venrick.