Chapter Twenty-One Aria—Tearsith
Chapter Twenty-One
Aria—Tearsith
“Are you sure?” Ellis’s question was wrought with worry. With the age-old wisdom that had been passed down from his elders, which he’d then passed on to them.
He looked at the flock of Laven on the grass near the stream. Tonight, they didn’t sit and rest in peace. Tonight, they wandered in turmoil and roamed in their grief.
Two more of their Laven family had not come tonight, and their Nols paced the boundary of Tearsith, their souls pleading with them to show.
Except everyone there knew they would not.
Aria and Pax had told Ellis what they had found. That Laven from one end of the earth to the other had been slain, though it was doubtful that authorities would ever make the connection.
Not that it would matter.
Ellis had dropped to his knees at the news, and Aria had climbed down to hers in front of him and told him of the hope they’d found in the middle of it.
Her altercation with Ambrose and her belief that she and Pax being together had made them stronger, rather than weakened them the way they’d always believed.
Now he peered over her shoulder to the Laven who wandered the meadow.
Torn.
Racked and wavering with uncertainty.
She took his frail hands, and she pressed them together with hers as if she were issuing a prayer.
“I can’t tell you with absolute certainty, Ellis, but I do believe it with all of me.
Plus, I know what I’ve seen. What Pax and I have experienced.
I have to believe that we’ve been led astray.
Kept apart to keep us from reaching our full potential. ”
Ellis’s attention traveled to Josephine, who tried to console Jeremy as he wailed for his missing Nol.
Aria didn’t miss the longing in his gaze. The wonder of what might have happened had he gone to her long ago. What their lives might have looked like if everything had been done differently.
Aria’s spirit moaned around Jeremy’s grief. The love that he’d forever tucked away. One she was sure he’d kept hidden.
“We have to try, Ellis.” Her plea sliced through his yearning. “We have to do something before it’s too late and every single one of us is gone.”
Sadness pooled in his hazy gray eyes as he turned his gaze to her. “And what if it only makes things worse? What if I send them on a path to destruction?”
Aria leaned in closer, her voice hushed. “They are already on a path to destruction.”
Aria could almost see the acceptance glide into his spirit, and he slowly stood, laboriously staggering to his feet. She was unsure if it was from the strain of what she’d told him or if it was his age that made his entire essence creak.
“Gather around, dear Laven,” he called.
Aria took a spot at his side. She felt the energy wrap her from behind. The belief that burned out of Pax where he stood three feet behind her.
Their family moved slowly, as if every step they took caused them physical pain. When they’d come together, Ellis began to speak.
“We have already come to the disturbing conclusion that we are being hunted.”
A slow wave of desolation moved through the crowd. A dull gravity that pulled them toward their fate.
“But it is not only our Laven family,” Ellis continued. “It appears those of every other Laven family throughout the earth are being hunted as well.”
Horror wheezed from their mouths.
“But there may be hope in the middle of it. I will not lie and say my heart does not fear what it does not know or understand, but I trust in our brother and sister, Pax and Aria. I know it was questioned last night—if their joining had possibly caused this fallout. But they say they have found strength together. Extraordinary strength that neither of them has ever known. And it leaves us to wonder if that strength might be extended to all of us.”
Shock rustled through the bleakness, and the air shifted as they looked between each other, at their Nols, whom they’d been forbidden to seek.
Those who’d lost theirs wept, their shouts of agony piercing the air.
Bearing it was nearly impossible, the force that pummeled Aria’s soul as she watched out over her family who had been battered and dwindled. She knew Pax felt it, too, and he was suddenly at her side, slipping his fingers through hers in staunch support.
“For so long I’ve warned you of the dangers,” Ellis confessed.
“But I can no longer stand here with confidence and continue in that vein. There is speculation that the edict we’d been issued to stay away from our Nols during the day may have been a fallacy.
A legend that has been passed down from generation to generation.
One that Ambrose fabricated to weaken us.
One that I had taken as truth from my own teacher and passed on to you. ”
He let go of a shaky exhale as he lifted a weathered hand. “Each of you have your own lives beyond the safety of Tearsith. Some with families. Others have found this life easier to traverse alone. But always, always separating our two realities. And maybe we’ve kept them separated for too long.”
He hesitated, then proclaimed, “Maybe it is time for those walls to come down. Maybe it is time for you to seek your Nol in the day, for we all know the grave danger that looms around us.”
The mass stirred. Unsure, though Aria could sense the glimmer of excitement that clashed with the arduous dread.
“I will not pretend to give you this advice with complete clarity, so you must decide for yourselves. I will no longer try to stand in your way. The only thing we can do is try and pray to Valeen that it is enough.”
Ellis squeezed Aria’s hand, urging her forward, a silent tip of his head for her to speak.
Aria looked out over her family, her throat thick as she forced herself to open her mouth.
What could she say?
What promises could she make?
There was one she knew she could keep.
“I know this is terrifying.” She struggled to keep the tremor from her voice. “I’m afraid, too. But I promise you, I will fight to my last breath to end the one who seeks to end us.”
Her inhalation was jagged. “Until then, be careful. Watch everywhere you go and everything you do. Listen to your hearts and find the inner strength, because I believe we are all much more powerful than we know. And if you seek your Nol, tap into the connection that you have in Faydor. Use it to protect yourselves. I believe you don’t only possess it here, but while awake as well. ”
Ellis lifted his bony hands. “Fight, my dear family. Fight with everything that you have. Both here and while awake. There is much work to be done . . . It is time to descend.”
Aria tracked through the bowels of Faydor with Pax at her side. The bitter cold wrapped her whole, and the howls of the depraved echoed in her ears.
They slayed each Kruen they passed.
Pushing themselves harder than they ever had before.
Their goal was to end them quickly. Their efforts were crucial since so many Laven had been lost.
But there seemed to be even more Kruen to contend with. Evil sprouting up from the nothingness. Growing in its own strength.
The chill in the air was volatile.
As if Faydor trembled on a brand-new axis, too.
Waiting for that tsunami to hit land.
The whole time, they searched for any Laven who might be targeted in Kruens’ minds.
Tracking over the desolate, barren ground, winding through the spindly elms as they raced through the wickedness.
“Take the gun and go in the store. Just walk inside. It’s easy. Point it at the cashier. She’ll give you anything you want.”
Aria heard the intonation in her ear, just off to her left. “This way,” she called to Pax. They shifted course and wound around a boulder.
She and Pax rushed up behind what appeared to be a young Kruen. They gathered the light, projecting it as they ran, never even slowing as they struck. The monster was obliterated in a flash and disintegrated into ash.
They continued to run. Deeper and deeper into the darkness that reigned.
She wasn’t sure when she noticed it, when she felt the creeping of the darkness growing thicker around them. The air becoming tacky. Aria struggled to breathe around it, to shun the sticky awareness that seemed to enclose her like a shroud.
It was as if the filament was taking form, a rippling boundary that sought to box her in.
She pushed herself harder against it, her breaths salient as she panted. Pax fell a step behind her.
And then she felt it distinctly—the air beside her taking shape. A diaphanous barrier that stretched thin like a blackened balloon.
Horror seized her lungs when she felt the presence on the other side of it. One that ran alongside her, separated by that gloomy, translucent veil.
“Do you think you possess the power to defeat me? Do you think you can stop me? I will take such pleasure in ending you.” The voice was hollow. A distant echo. But she recognized it completely.
She knew it, as sure as she knew the face that tracked along at her side.
Ambrose.
Lightning flashed across the horizon, a thunderbolt that streaked through the air just overhead. So close she felt it sizzle across her flesh.
“Aria?” Pax shouted. His boots thundered behind her as he raced to catch up. Anxious confusion twisted through his expression as he caught up and ran along on her opposite side. “What’s happening?”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer. She could only run.
“You think you can stop me from ending them all?” Ambrose hissed as he swiped a hand in her direction. The boundary stretched thin as he reached for her, and Aria saw the flood of his thoughts as he did.
Only he wasn’t feeding a command to a Kruen or a Ghorl.
It was him, standing outside a tiny white house with a small porch fronted by a green lawn.
He who held the knife when Dani stepped out of the front door and into the light of day.
Dani who bled out on the steps.
No.
Desperation gripped her, and Aria whirled as she ran, attempting to punch her fist through the gauzy barrier, compelling the light to bash through the ward. To leash the fiend. To stop him in his tracks here in the dungeon where he reigned.
But he only laughed as he drifted away. Out of reach. Untouchable.
Before he fully disappeared.