Chapter Fifteen Aria—Tearsith
Chapter Fifteen
Aria—Tearsith
“Peter is dead.” Aria heard Pax grit out the words from where he and Ellis were huddled beneath the great tree.
His voice was grave. The words as dire and bleak as Aria felt, where she lay on the cool grass next to the babbling stream, seeking respite within the confines of Tearsith after she’d been sapped of her strength.
The rest of their Laven family sat just in the distance, their turmoil distinct as they awaited instruction.
Only Dani was at her side, sitting beside Aria and running tender fingers through her hair. Whispering, “You’re going to be fine. What you did was so brave. I’m so proud of you. So proud of who you are.”
Above Dani’s encouragement, Aria could hear the hushed, brutal conversation between Pax and Ellis.
“None of this is chance. Nathan accidentally falling to his death and William overdosing? Doesn’t fit either of them,” Pax hissed.
“It’s too much to be a coincidence. And we saw the Kruen set on Peter’s destruction with our own eyes.
Saw it in both Faydor and while awake. Plus, the other five who did not show last night still have not arrived.
We can’t chalk that up to coincidence, and I fear the worst for them.
We believe every single one of us is in danger. ”
Ellis sagged in sorrow, his frail, thin frame slumping beneath the weight.
The soft breeze that usually provided comfort gusted like a veiled, baleful omen, whipping through the stringy locks of their teacher’s stark-white hair.
His pale eyes, which had witnessed so much torment and suffering in his lifetime, had dimmed to desolation.
“My children,” he gasped, and Pax darted out both hands to support him as the old man swayed to the side, nearly overcome with grief.
Aria’s own grief hit her on a swelling wave, crashing against her consciousness as she watched the scene. Dani whimpered and moved to wrap her arms around Aria.
“I’m sorry, Ellis. I did not want to deliver this news,” Pax muttered.
Ellis gripped his arm with bony fingers. “I do not understand. Others have succumbed throughout the years . . . targeted as humans. Susceptible like the rest. But never like this. So many in just a handful of days.”
Ellis wobbled again, and Pax’s gaze cut to Aria from the side.
She wondered, in that split second, if he questioned the same thing she did. If he questioned if their joining had caused this. If what Valeen had warned had come to fruition. Except that danger had not only extended to Pax and herself but also their whole family.
Had they done this?
“We have to warn them. Do something to help them prepare,” Pax urged.
“And how do we do that?” Ellis turned his gaze on his flock, who waited. Clearly, he was not asking for an answer, since none of them possessed it.
Grimly, the old man ambled over to stand in front of their Laven family. Pax followed him, standing at his side while Josephine took up the opposite.
Dani looked down at Aria in worry.
“Go to Timothy,” Aria told her. “He needs you. I will be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Concern creased at the edges of Dani’s eyes.
“I’m sure. And I know your Nol needs you.”
Reluctantly, Dani nodded before she dipped down and pressed a kiss to Aria’s forehead, then murmured, “You amaze me, sweet friend. I am so thankful for you. For all these years. No matter what happens, I want you to know that.”
Aria wanted to tell her they had many more years to share together, but she couldn’t make the words form through her thickened throat.
She could only nod, gripping Dani’s hand for a beat of deep understanding before Dani brushed the tears from her face and stood.
She moved to Timothy’s side just as Ellis began to speak.
“My dear family, I stand before you tonight with more devastating news. It has been confirmed that Peter has been lost to us. He has gone on to eternity, and his own Nol has not come tonight. We also still have no word of Lisa, Ivan, Steven, Beverly, and Jakai, though it is our greatest fear that they have also been stolen from us.”
A bellow of grief rode on the breeze, and Aria squeezed her eyes against the agonizing sorrow that gripped her family.
Ellis wavered, searching for what to say. “We don’t know why this has begun, what has changed, but there is no other conclusion than we are being hunted in the day.”
“It’s because Aria and Pax came together. They knew the law. And they have broken it and cost us everything.” The wail of words rushed out of Emilia, Steven’s Nol, who wept in the middle of the family.
Her pain sharp and brutal.
Aria winced from where she lay on the grass, her heart faltering at the possibility. She couldn’t imagine having brought this calamity on her family.
Her spirit thrashed, a wild clanging against her ribs, refuting the idea.
“Together. Wholly,” a high-pitched voice murmured through her mind.
Chime-like.
Delicate and wispy.
A voice she hardly recognized but remembered in the very recesses of her consciousness. She tried to clutch on to it, but another of their family, Katrina, called out, “I’m broken over your loss, Emilia, but I can’t believe that. I . . . I have this feeling. Something is calling to me.”
“Maybe we’re supposed to go to our Nols like Pax and Aria did?” another said. “Maybe it is the only way we can be safe in the day?”
“And make it even worse?” another shouted, incredulity in their voice. “We know the rules, and look what’s happening now that that they have been broken. I agree with Emilia.”
Aria could feel the torment that rolled through Ellis, who stood before them and lifted his hands as if he could give them all peace. “I know we are afraid, but we must not fight amongst ourselves. We must be strong. United.”
His gaze drifted over the hundreds who remained. The hundreds who sat in trepidation.
“Yes, I understand the creed that has been issued, but I have to believe Pax and Aria’s circumstances are special. I believe she had drawn the attention of this Ambrose before Pax had gone to her, and she would also likely not be with us had he not.”
Silence washed over the crowd, and Ellis wavered in uncertainty before he pressed on. “I would suggest that we share our information with each other so we have a way to track and keep in touch. To warn if we find something during our hunt in Faydor.”
A ripple of agreement seemed to go up.
“Please be careful, my family. Stay in your homes if you can. Stay away from strangers and even watch for changes in your loved ones. We need you all to come back to us. Now, we must descend and fight.”
A solemn understanding fell over them, and they all rose and began to pair off, though their voices were hushed as they each shared their contact information with those around them.
Aria wanted to get up and join them. Fight at their sides. But she didn’t have the strength to even get to her feet.
Affliction assaulted her as she watched them go. She felt aggrieved at the thought that she could have done this. That her love for her Nol might have caused this.
Those stolen moments.
Their kisses.
Their touches.
Had she been that selfish?
A moan bottled in her chest, and that sense was on her again. The whisper of that tinkling, melodic voice.
“Together. Wholly.”
It was a call that echoed through her middle.
Her family disappeared into the nothingness while Pax hugged Josephine, offering her his hope.
That voice whispered again, nudging in the deepest spot inside her. A call.
She had no choice but to heed it. To follow it.
Slowly, she rolled in the grass until she was on her stomach, then fought to bring herself to her hands and knees.
She gasped as she crawled in the direction she was led.
To the spring that rippled through the meadow.
The exhaustion was excruciating. Her joints felt as if they’d been pulled apart, her muscles sundered and riven.
She winced as she moved, grinding her molars against the agony of pressing her palms to the grass after they’d been completely scorched.
But she couldn’t resist the lure.
The innate need to get to the stream.
To listen.
To see.
“Aria,” the haunting voice whispered when she made it to the brook.
Barely able to keep herself propped up on one hand, she stirred the fingers of the other hand through the cool, placid water.
“Together. Wholly.” It was faint, nagging at the edge of her ear.
“Valeen?” she begged. Not for herself. For the others who had to be saved.
“Rise up, dear Valient.” The words wisped through the air just as the hint of a face passed through the rippling water. “You are the chosen. You must lead.”
“How? Show me how,” she implored, hand diving deeper into the water as if she could hold on to the vapor that whisked by.
“You hold the power inside you,” the voice intoned, drifting farther away. Farther away into the nothingness.
On a frustrated cry, Aria slumped forward, practically sliding into the stream as her hand frantically swished beneath the water. “Please. How?”
“Aria, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Pax rushed up behind her and dragged her into his arms as he sank back to sitting on the grass.
“The answer is already written inside of you,” the voice wisped before it fully drifted away.
Legs spread out in front of him, Pax tucked her onto his lap. Rocked her as he kissed her temple.
“Did you hear her?” she asked in desperation, wondering if she was hallucinating.
He curled his arms tighter around her, and he seemed to hesitate before he exhaled the admission near her ear.
“Only the last, when I was touching you.”