Chapter 9
Petra
Belin Cal Myrin. The Invisible King. My Cal .
His eyes were intent on me, one hand tangled in the horse’s mane, the other extended as he craned his body downward. The horse’s steps slowed only slightly before my hand was in Cal’s and he heaved me up onto the animal. And then we disappeared into the cloying smoke.
“You’re here?” I called over the sound of hoofbeats. “You died?”
“I don’t know,” he shouted over his shoulder. “I followed you into the Darkness Beyond.”
“You did what ?” I shrieked. Anger filled me at the fact that he would do something so stupid, so idiotic. “Why would you do that? How could you do something so foolish?”
“Always been a fool for you, have I not?” he called back, the sight of his dimple disarming me as I stared at his profile. “Do you have a plan? ”
Shock quickly melted into terror once again. “My plan was to try to get back to the Darkness Beyond through the Gates, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anymore. Do you have a plan?”
“Unfortunately, my plan ended at getting you on this horse.”
Were the Occulti behind us? I couldn’t hear anything save for the wind rushing past us and the blood pounding through my head.
I couldn’t see anything amid the choking black smoke.
I clung to Cal, squeezing my eyes shut. Think, Petra, think.
Maybe I could wish us out of here the same way I’d wished myself out of the Darkness Beyond.
Maybe I could will it to be so, will us to be anywhere but in Malosym’s grasp once again.
When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see the sky had lightened. Barely enough to notice, just enough to give me pause. The smoke seemed thinner, too. It should’ve been a relief, should’ve eased some of the adrenaline pounding through me. But something wasn’t right.
“Stop the horse,” I yelled.
He pulled back on the reins, the stallion’s hooves slowing until they halted completely.
The stallion’s huffing breaths were the only noise in a place that was otherwise eerily silent.
The smoke continued to thin, my eyes suddenly able to see twenty feet in front of me, then forty.
I slid off the horse, Cal following close behind, and blinked as more and more of the land became visible.
And as the smoke receded completely, our mouths fell open.
What had been an idyllic village just moments ago had been reduced to ash.
The ground was scorched from horizon to horizon.
Waves, so large they could easily topple a warship, crashed over a turbulent gray sea, mercilessly pounding the shore.
There was no sign of life, no sign this had ever been anything other than what it was at this very moment — a barren land of ash.
But like a shining beacon in the darkest night, Soren’s castle had remained untouched .
It stood just as tall, just as proud over the scorched land.
At first glance, it almost appeared as if the Occulti had simply forgone the castle completely.
But as I looked longer, I noticed the almost translucent sheen around it, like someone had tossed an iridescent coat across the entire structure.
I wasn’t sure how it worked, but I damn well hoped everyone made it inside.
Cal was silent beside me, his jaw tight as he surveyed our surroundings. I opened my mouth to tell him everything that had happened, but stopped when the horse began shifting his weight, his breathing turning from exerted to erratic. Goose bumps prickled over my skin.
One look at Cal told me he felt it, too. His jaw ticked and his gemstone eyes moved back and forth, searching. His throat bobbed as he looked down at me. “You don’t have your powers here, do you?” My silence was answer enough, and he gave a single nod. “It’ll be okay.”
“Heaven is all but destroyed,” I whispered, hopelessness hollowing out my insides.
Every one of my muscles tensed when a chittering sound echoed over the land, the same sinister sound that filled the Darkness Beyond.
I whirled in place, my eyes wildly searching the land for the source of the noise, and I froze when I saw the mass of smoke pouring out from behind the castle. No, not smoke.
Occulti.
“We need to go,” Cal said, his hand closing over mine as he turned on his heel. Before I could reconcile what was going on, we were back on the horse, pounding over the charred earth.
I didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to face the truth. I burrowed deep within myself, trying to conjure something, anything from the deepest parts of me. I cast a hand behind me without looking.
“How close?” Cal asked, his feet digging into the horse’s side over and over .
“I don’t want to look,” I answered, shaking my head. But it couldn’t be avoided, and I craned my neck backward. “ Fuck .”
Cal managed to look back for a split second, long enough to see the Occulti had covered an impossible amount of ground and were gaining on us with unnatural speed.
I burrowed into myself, rifling through my soul for any spark, even an echo of a spark.
I cast my hand out behind me, hoping maybe, just fucking maybe, I’d surprise myself and a blast of fire would come hurtling forth.
But there was nothing. Just the cold realization that the Occulti behind us were moving impossibly fast. Much faster than we were.
“How are they so fast?” I shouted into the wind, my arms wound so tightly around Cal I had to be hurting him. “They weren’t like this in Eserene!”
Cal didn’t answer me, just pushed the horse faster. “Come on!” he called. “That’s it, faster!”
I turned to see the Occulti shoot forward in a terrifying surge, and we had maybe a minute, if that.
“Go, go, go!” I screamed, as if I could will the horse to move faster.
Cal’s knuckles were white where they were tangled in the horse’s mane.
Talons snapped behind us, and my scream died in my throat when I turned back again.
They were a hundred feet away, and I could finally make out their figures.
What ran toward us now were not the same monsters we’d battled in Eserene.
No. With bone-chilling horror, I realized…
this was their true form. Translucent skin was pulled over bony frames as tall as Cal.
The robes draping over their angular bodies were shredded and threadbare.
The demons were cut straight from the fabric of a nightmare, fabric they probably cut themselves with those lethally pointed fingernails.
They lurched toward us in a mass of snarling maws filled with jagged, snapping teeth .
The only thing reminiscent of the beings we saw in Eserene were those eyes that looked like swirling storms of ash, endless and empty and haunting.
We. Were. Fucked.
An ear-piercing screech sounded from the throng, and our horse’s steps faltered.
I shrieked as he reared back on his hind legs, his front legs furiously pawing through the air as my legs squeezed around his belly and my arms clung to Cal.
But it was no use, and the gray sky blurred as we fell backward.
I hit the ground hard enough to send stars swarming through my vision.
Cal managed to turn his body just enough so he didn’t land on top of me, and I heard the air leave his lungs in a painful whoosh , the same way it had left mine.
I gasped for that lost breath, my ears ringing from the impact as I fought to get to my feet, my blurry eyes landing on the horse who’d taken off like a cannonball in the opposite direction, his presence ignored by the Occulti.
Cal was already on his feet and pulling me along with him, my own feet scrambling to keep up.
Escape would be more likely if we didn’t run hand in hand. I knew Cal was aware of that. But it was like we had a silent understanding, a silent agreement. We weren’t outrunning the Occulti, even under the best of circumstances. We’d reached the end of the line, our final moments.
Come on, Petra. Of all the times I faced death, this was going to be it? Dying in a decimated paradise at the hands of monsters?
“I love you,” Cal shouted, breathless as he stared down at me.
I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him, too. That I’d loved him for years, had never stopped, even when betrayal was a river running red between us. But his declaration felt so final, and if I said it back now, it would mean admitting defeat.
And I decided I wasn’t ready for that.
My steps slowed, my arm jerking as Cal tried to pull me onward.
“What are you doing?” he called, his voice frantic.
“Come on, Petra! Let’s–” But his words stopped abruptly at whatever he saw on my face.
He came to a stop beside me. The Occulti were seconds away, the impending end we wouldn’t have outrun no matter how hard we fought.
With slanted brows, he pushed a lock of hair from my forehead. I laced our fingers together and squeezed hard, binding our palms. A soft, sorrowful smile pulled at the corners of his lips as he stared down at me. He thought I’d accepted our fate. He thought I was surrendering, abandoning hope.
I was tapping into my last resort.
One final surge and the Occulti caught up to us. And in the split second before I closed my eyes, in the split second before taloned fingers closed around my throat, I swore I saw the demons rear back, as if we were repelling magnets.
Anywhere but here.
Everything went black. But it wasn’t death.
It was the Darkness Beyond.
Yes.
Instinctually I blinked, attempting to adjust to the light of my surroundings, but there was none. Just inky darkness and an incorporeal form. Wherever we were in the Darkness Beyond was devoid of Occulti, disconcertingly silent.
My stomach dropped. “Cal?” I called frantically.
“I’m here.”