Chapter 2 #2
A group of vampyrs levitates on this side, but they’re gathered around a spot at the end of the valley where the mountain ahead forms a cliff face, a dead end closing in the valley.
Odd that they’d gather in front of solid rock like that.
Unless the rock isn’t as solid as it appears.
Find me where the light hides.
Listening carefully, I make out the soft whistling of wind coming from the rock face.
A tunnel!
Somehow invisible from the outside.
“Nara,” I whisper, knowing she’ll hear me despite the rushing wind and the increasingly loud shrieks ahead of us. “Leap for that cliff face.”
My command should alarm her. I’m effectively telling her to jump diagonally across the ravine and throw herself at apparently solid rock, right into a group of levitating vampyrs.
She doesn’t hesitate.
If anything, she speeds up, her head raised, her breathing audibly deepening as she drags air into her chest.
I’m certain she not only senses the tunnel within the mountain ahead, but she’ll remember the Oracle’s scent. As overwhelming as the reek of vampyric blood must be to Nara, her behavior indicates she’s picked up the Oracle’s trail.
It isn’t all good news.
The vampyrs that were following us are closing in on our left, and the whirlwind of streaming vampyrs flying above the mountain seems to have become aware of our presence, countless undead breaking off from the main group to fly toward us.
The group of vampyrs levitating in front of the tunnel’s entrance turns toward us.
We’re now facing threats from three directions.
I conserve my energy as each group rushes at us—thirty, forty, maybe even fifty of them.
My power is stronger than any other Frost Fae’s, but it isn’t endless, and I have no idea what I’ll encounter once I find the light of which the Oracle spoke. I need to conserve my power as much as possible now.
Forcing myself to wait, I focus on every step Nara takes as she flies along the ridge, her legs stretching, her breathing deep, her concentration so pinpoint that her calm is like a cocoon around us. An invisible shield.
We’re mere seconds away from the spot where she’ll need to jump across the ravine, but a glance upward tells me the main swarm is about to reach us, their hungry cries deafening.
If I could feel fear, it would be logical to feel it now.
Nara shoots forward, her momentum increasing for the final steps.
She soars out into the air, her body flying at an angle, straight at the rock face, her claws and teeth slashing at the creatures blocking the way.
At the same moment that her paws leave the ground, I propel myself from her back, springing upward, drawing both of my swords from their scabbards at my back.
My power explodes across my palms, along each sword hilt and blade, forming jagged spikes.
Black blood splatters around me as I rip through the oncoming vampyrs, striking and slicing, freezing and shattering, cleaving their bodies apart. So many, so fast, it’s impossible to keep count.
My ears fill with unearthly screams as my ice rakes through the swarm, spreading outward and upward until the air fills with icy-blue snow that sparkles, glints, and shatters their flesh.
But I was careful. Casting my snow outward. None of it falls near Nara.
My trajectory takes me in an arc, now plummeting toward her as I aim to reach her before she enters the tunnel.
Just as I’m about to drop onto her back, golden light flashes across my vision, obscuring everything around me.
My breath catches. The last time this happened, I lost consciousness of where I was, of all threats around me. A fucking assassin succeeded in stabbing me.
There’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The explosion of molten gold hits me like fire, instantly jolting my mind from my body.
I’m crouching inside a tunnel made of rock, my chest filling with the dank scent of stone while the coppery tang of blood coats my tongue.
A strange, silvery light glows in the background, and the sound of furiously beating wings meets my ears, but I can’t see the creature making the sound.
The Oracle stands in front of me, the armor she’s wearing snatching the breath from my chest.
She’s dressed in Lethian silver.
So many magical threads that the silent melody pulsing from it is dizzying. Overpowering.
But her breathing comes short and sharp, terrified, pulling the magical threads tighter against her body as she thrashes against the hold of a dark figure.
Her attacker looms behind her, his features obscured, darkness echoing around his form like a malicious song.
Tears flow down the Oracle’s cheeks, spilling from her pale-blue eyes.
Eyes that slowly change color, her irises fading to polished gray. The strands of her bloodied hair bleach from dull black to glistening white, and her sun-touched skin turns porcelain.
Deathly pale.
It’s the same physical transformation that came over her the first time I met her, but that isn’t what draws a new snarl to my throat, my outburst as feral as an untamed wolf.
Her attacker’s dark head bends to the Oracle’s throat, his sharp fangs the only part of his body that is crystal clear in my vision.
Fucking vampyr.
He’s going to kill her.
I launch myself forward, preparing to rip him off her and shatter his bones.
My surroundings abruptly change again. But not back to where I was. Not back to Nara.
Now, I’m shivering in a field of snow, glittering flakes floating to the barren ground around my legs.
My eyes widen at the gravestone resting in the powder ahead of me.
My sister’s gravestone.
The snarl in my throat becomes a threatening shout.
No.
I won’t return to this place—
My foundations shift again.
I come back to myself, finding myself sliding off Nara’s back, barely holding on as she soars into the dark tunnel for which we were aiming.
Losing my grip on her fur at the last moment, I hit the tunnel floor and tumble across it. I quickly regain my reflexes, rolling back to my feet without breaking any bones, and sprint along beside Nara.
She checks me as she runs, giving soft, alarmed growls.
I’ve never missed a landing before.
A moment later, I spring from the ground and onto her back.
Several vampyrs follow us inside, and I prepare to blast ice back at them, but they rapidly clamber out again.
It’s soon clear why.
The silvery glow I saw just now in the vision I was drawn into grows blindingly bright ahead of us.
Where the light hides.
If this is the same tunnel in which the Oracle was standing, then I only have seconds to reach her.
That is, if what I saw was happening in the present.
If it already happened… If I was looking at the past and she’s already been bitten…
The Oracle could already be dead.
Drained dry by a vampyr who—my forehead creases—didn’t shrink away from the light gleaming around them.
All I know for certain is that the light was behind the Oracle in the vision, and she isn’t directly ahead of us, which means she must be on the far side of whatever’s causing the light.
“Hurry, Nara,” I urge my wolf.
She whimpers, an uncharacteristic sound, as we draw nearer to the light source, so bright that I’m forced to squint. To push my arm across my eyes.
As painful as it is for me, it will be much worse for Nara.
She’s proven her bravery to me over and over again. Yet this light drives her to the left side of the tunnel, where the only shadow falls. I imagine her pupils are mere slits as her body tries to take in as little of the light as possible.
Brighter and brighter the energy grows, and Nara increases her pace, dashing forward, reckless about crashing blindly into the side of the tunnel, knocking against the jagged rock so hard that I’m forced to leap from her back before my left leg jams against it.
Landing lightly on the ground, I sprint as fast as I can through the magical energy, calling to Nara, “Follow my voice!”
I will guide her through it.
I wait only for confirmation that she’s closed her eyes before I begin to sing, my voice scratchy, the melodies of my childhood long lost until now.
Her head lifts as she runs beside me, her ears pricked as my voice grows stronger.
Maybe it was the sight of the Lethian armor wrapped around the Oracle’s body. Maybe it was the echo of so much power in my ears triggered for the first time in decades.
But the tightness in my throat eases and my song swells, a song of darkness as I call on the shadows lurking between the jagged rocks, drawing them outward, gathering them around my wolf’s body, shielding her eyes so she can make it through.
In my mind, I’m sitting beneath the shade of a giant tree, the kind I’ve seen only in drawings, its leaves rustling in the breeze, a cool shadow enveloping me.
So deep is my concentration that I barely register the shape at the center of the light, barely make out its parts.
All I know is that it’s breathing. Soft, whispery breaths meet my ears beneath the lilting of my song.
Something living.
But even within its quiet breathing, I hear the armor of its voice. As loud as a shove pushing me away.
Whatever it is, glowing so brightly, it is not for me to disturb. Of that, I’m certain.
Then we’re past it, and the promise of darkness beckons, the shadows growing around us once more, and now Nara surges ahead of me, her eyes opening, a predator in control of her responses once more.
She doesn’t know the danger that the Oracle’s facing, but her determination is as strong as mine.
We must reach the Oracle before it’s too late.