Chapter Forty-Five Aria
Chapter Forty-Five
Aria
Pax and I started running the same way we did in Faydor, hand in hand, directly into the war that had erupted.
In one instant, the thousands of people who’d gathered collided as they surged into battle.
Our boots pounded against the frozen ground as we launched ourselves into the mass of the depraved that rushed out to meet us.
A mix of humans who had completely lost their souls, their hearts calloused and cold, and the Kruen that had manifested in their full forms.
Metal bashed and clanged as each used whatever weapon they possessed. A riot of gunshots rang out, piercing the air as a toil of bodies swarmed and clashed.
It was chaos.
Pure, violent chaos.
Battle cries rang out, mixed with shouts and screams and pleas.
Desperation echoing through the riot that had descended.
Horror filled my heart with the sounds, that this was happening in the flesh, but I pushed myself into the tumult because it was the only thing I could do.
Pax shifted away from me for a beat so he could fire off two shots at a man and a woman who came running toward us. He hit each of them with a bullet to the chest. Their bodies convulsed as they dropped to the ground.
A Kruen was ahead of me, rising high and whipping around in my direction when he sensed I was there. Its gruesome face twisted in a snarl as its thoughts filled my ears.
“She’s the one. She’s the one standing in the way. End her.”
It sped toward me rather than splitting apart and scattering into vapor to flee, the way they normally did in Faydor.
Its goal was no longer its survival, but to end me.
I gathered the same light I used when I tracked through Faydor and propelled it. A flash of energy rushed from my hands and struck the Kruen. It thrashed and wailed before it disintegrated.
Ash.
A slog of exhaustion threatened to drag me down, but I couldn’t sit idle or even contemplate it before Pax shouted, “Aria, behind you!”
On a jagged exhale, I spun around to find a man rushing up from behind.
No weapon in his hands, but hate on his face.
Refusing to slow, I hurtled toward him, drawing the light and letting it go when I was within two feet of him.
It flashed through the space, and when the light struck him, his body blew backward, flying through the air before it crashed down onto two other deviants who were moving toward a Laven twenty feet away.
Each toppled, limp when they smashed to the ground.
I gasped for air, for strength, and I focused on the light that I could feel lapping inside me.
Dulled but still real.
I willed it to build. I needed to be able to wield it. Over and over. For it not to fail.
To my right, Pax warred with a slew of the corrupt, fighting them off one after another.
My attention roved over the mass that battled and raged, searching for Ambrose in the middle of it.
I had to get to him. It was the only way.
Darkness sat heavy on the earth, and the whirling clouds continued to spit spikes of ice from above. I blinked through it, trying to find the monster who no longer stood on the gazebo steps.
Frantic, I searched.
There was no sign of him.
Though what I did see sent a buoy to my spirit.
Laven.
They’d begun to pair with their Nols. Their hands bound for a few moments before they would split apart.
And they were splitting apart to bind the Kruen that battered through the horde with their tendrils whipping as they lashed out at any Laven they passed.
But the Laven were prevailing.
Throughout the crowd, I saw it. The wails and writhing of the Kruen before they were left to dust.
Annihilated.
Pax raced up to my side and grabbed my hand. A flash of warmth streaked up my arm. It rushed through me.
A stark rekindling of my strength.
“Do you see it?” I muttered in disbelief as we ran, diving toward a seething knot of people to our left. “The Laven. They’re binding the Kruen in the day. While awake. Together. They just needed their Nols to be able to do it.”
Because that was what we were when we joined.
Powerful.
Unstoppable.
Pax’s hand tightened on mine as he exhaled a rasping breath. “You were right, Aria. You were right.”
“But it’s so much more than I had ever thought or imagined.”
“It’s why Ambrose was afraid. Why he tried to end you all those times. Why he sought to distract us and keep us from coming here,” he said, voice grating from his ragged breaths. “He knew what would happen if we came together.”
“But we were all drawn here anyway.” It was awe. A blustering of hope swelled from the deepest parts within me.
The despair that had riddled me when I’d first seen the number of mutants drawn here was eradicated in a burst of belief.
An echo of Valeen’s voice whispered in my ear, a reminder of what we’d been sent here to do.
A Kruen suddenly surged out from the mob and thundered our way.
This time, Pax just held my hand as we gathered the strength.
The light.
We released it at the same time, and the Kruen roared when it was struck before it combusted to dust.
A disbelieving laugh ripped out of me, and Pax almost smiled as we shared a look.
An understanding.
Pure awe that rippled through us before we threw ourselves back into the riot.
To my left, a man burst through the crush, a screech flying off his tongue as he drove a knife into a Laven who battled with another beast. On a shock of pain, the Laven woman fell, trampled underfoot.
I felt torn, rent in two, the one second of levity we’d found now extinguished in the dismay of what this battle would cost.
Those who had already fallen.
My spirit ached as I watched the woman meet her death. I wanted to lean down. Pick her up and hold her as she breathed her last breath.
But there was no time. Nothing I could do.
I could only drive deeper, searching through the disorder for the one I had to bring to his end.
Internally, I begged for my family to be safe.
Josephine and Ellis.
Timothy and Dani.
The four of them swept into the tumult.
Plus, in the chaos, I’d recognized a few faces of other Laven from our family. More who had come when they’d been called.
I wasn’t shocked. I understood now. What had been pressed on all our souls.
Pax fired at a woman who was clawing her way to me.
Though his hand on mine ensured that the reserves inside me built and built. A burn within that raged, pressing in on my psyche and gathering in my limbs.
One of the debased suddenly wheeled over me from above, propelling himself off a tree. His boiling skin had begun to peel. Sickness twisted through me. He appeared as if he were being burned alive, his screech vile as he launched himself toward me overhead.
Aiming high, Pax fired off another shot. The man howled as he was hit, and his body convulsed as he fell.
He landed on top of me, limp and heavy when he slammed against the back of my head and shoulders.
Gasping, I whirled to shove him off.
“Are you hurt?” Pax shouted.
“No, I’m fine.” It was haggard. Grating. Cutting as the energy that gathered inside me neared overwhelming.
I was consumed with the need to emit it.
To end the horrors that surrounded us.
“Keep moving!” Pax’s voice vibrated over the clamor. “We have to find Ambrose.”
“He’s still here,” I muttered. I could sense the distinct stench of vileness, which poured its toxin out on those who were slain because of his call.
“Fucker is hiding. Knows he’s met his match,” Pax grunted as he kicked a boot out to deflect the fall of a possessed woman who lumbered backward, already struck by a knife in the side by another Laven.
The battle raged on, the deviants and Kruen destroyed, one by one.
I could feel the belief being renewed.
Restored.
Conviction pulsed from the Laven, feeding into one another. Sustaining our strength.
“End her. End her. End her now. She must not prevail.”
It became a screech. A rash cruciality that stank of fear.
He was afraid. He was afraid.
And he was near.
For a flash of a second, I closed my eyes so I could listen to the call that had led me here.
And I felt it.
Spearing into me. A dark, bitter blade.
My eyes flew open, seeking its source, and my attention whipped back to the gazebo.
Though now he no longer stood on the steps, but rather atop the roof.
His arms were outstretched with his bellowing command: “End her! Bring her to me! The one who stands in our way.”
He didn’t need one of his servants to bring me to him.
I was already on my way.
Rage pulsed through me, and I shouted to Pax, “This way!” as I bolted toward the gazebo.
Pax was instantly at my side, one hand in mine and the other fighting off any beasts that got in our path. Our boots thundered across the snow-covered ground.
Ambrose’s focus turned to me. The deadened depths of his eyes filled with hate.
Pure, absolute hate.
His flesh was translucent, fiery veins curling up his neck and face. His short blond hair gusted with the storm that raged right above him.
The hole to Faydor was gaping and wide, throbbing and appearing as if it might swallow up the earth.
“Do you think you can defeat me, Valient?” His voice took on a different intonation. Curling and twisting with the otherworldly, then seeping back into his normal human voice.
There was something in it . . . something that nearly made me trip.
My head spun as I processed. As my spirit listened to the inflection.
It didn’t take much to realize that Ambrose had merged.
He had become an extension of Kreed.
Oh God.
Fear sent my knees quaking, but I refused to back down. Refused to succumb when I knew why I was here.
“Don’t you see that is exactly what we’ve been sent to do?” I did my best to keep the tremor from my voice.
The words grew brittle, though they were still filled with the determination that we could see this through.
Hollow laughter rolled. “So brave, little one. I see why she chose you. But Valeen is weak. Just like the rest of you.”
“That is where you are wrong. Do you not see what’s happening around you? How we are defeating the army you’ve gathered?”