Chapter 4 Velra
~Velra~
“You belong here.”
“Stay with us.”
“Closer… cross the Veil.”
That certainly wasn’t how my dreams usually went.
Well, mostly they were nightmares.
I hadn’t suffered one in a long time, not since coming to Wraeven Academy. Being with the boys had helped, yes, but it wasn’t only that. I’d started opening up to more in my life—breaking from the trauma, finding small ways to heal, to be happy, to let go of the fear.
Of course! The trauma.
It had happened.
He’d come for me again.
Puritas was rising once more.
This wasn’t a dream.
This was reality. A confusing and different reality to what I was used to.
But one I had been briefly familiar with.
Because I’d touched it before.
I sucked in a sharp breath. Well, what seemed like a breath in this place.
The Valley of the Dead.
That was why the eerie and aggressively determined voices were telling me I belonged, that I needed to remain.
Sorin had killed me.
Again.
I gritted my teeth.
Things were different now, though. Very fucking different.
Last time, too much of me had believed I actually belonged here, that I was finished.
I’d wanted to die so badly that I hadn’t even tried to pull the iron blade out, hadn’t called on my Wraith power when I should have. And by the time I’d fought back against what was pulling me toward death it had been too late.
But now I belonged somewhere else.
With my men.
With the life I’d been building, one that was a far cry from gloom and despair. There was more than trauma and pain steering me now.
There was hope.
Something to fucking live for.
And that conviction and hope was manifesting physically in the fact that my shadows were swirling all around me, brushing my feet and twisting and sweeping wildly several feet above my head.
Protecting me in the most powerful way I’d ever seen from them before.
I hadn’t even known they’d been capable of this, that I’d been capable of employing the shadow magic from my Wraith side in this form.
It wasn’t just my shadows either.
As I focused in more detail now that I was becoming more cognizant with every moment that went on by—I guess I’d been in some sort of stasis or suspended animation before when I’d first… arrived—I saw my frost anchoring my boots to the ground, spread all up my ankles too.
It wasn’t keeping me in the Valley of the Dead, because I realized I wasn’t technically there now.
I was on the periphery.
My frost was preventing the powerful pull I could feel trying to drag me to those specters in the near distance. Souls, forms… whatever… of the absolute dead who were partially visible in unclear outlines in the heavy mist through the trees all around them.
My shadows were repelling the attempts from the dead and the determination of the nature of the place itself, by deflecting their commands, trying to repel their efforts, as my frost acted as the final line of defense.
Well—outside of the Soul Brand.
If it hadn’t been for that, I didn’t think I would have been able to stabilize myself in this periphery position very well.
I wasn’t completely sure, but it felt like I’d been here doing this for some time now—maybe hours?
Time seemed to linger, to stretch longer than it was meant to, especially compared to the living world.
I’d clearly died on my Dark Fae side and my Wraith side was what was keeping that from being permanent, from me crossing over into the heart of the Valley of the Dead with the others there in the distance.
But I could feel myself weakening, my magic becoming a strain to hold steady.
And I could also feel him giving me his strength.
Cassius.
Through the Soul Brand he was helping me.
But that fucking worried me. Just the thought of what it could be doing to him twisted me up inside.
And I knew him. I knew he’d allow himself to be completely drained, to give every ounce of his power and energy, in order to save me.
I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want him suffering.
He’d already paid a heavy price the last time he’d spared me from death.
Things would not play out that same way again.
I couldn’t feel him through the Brand right now, so I couldn’t tell how much he’d already drained himself to fuel me.
All I did know was that I had to stop it. I mean, Lazriel could tide him over with his potent vampire blood to assist, and Sylas could likely tether him so he wasn’t weakened to the point where he was pulled in here as well. But all the while I was here, he would still be in danger and straining.
As a Wraith I technically had the ability to walk among the dead. At least briefly. To shadow them, but not be with them in a whole sense.
But with me being a hybrid, that had complicated matters and it didn’t exactly operate in a straightforward way.
Not to mention, the Wraith ability to walk among the dead was a choice, one I was supposed to invoke while I was still living, one where I could pass through should I wish.
In this case, I’d been forced in here against my will when my Dark Fae side had been killed by my psychotic brother.
This place didn’t like that.
I could feel every moment I remained here was upsetting it, angering it.
My Dark Fae side that had been sent here in death was what they wanted to keep here, and the Wraith aspect was putting one hell of a wrench into that.
But not for much longer if I didn’t do something.
It would take me. My Wraith side couldn’t withstand the pull indefinitely.
And I also wasn’t fool enough to think that my men were just standing idly by and would allow this to happen, allow me to be taken for good.
I already knew Cassius was fueling me. Fuck knew what lines Lazriel and Sylas were crossing as well.
My shadows surged suddenly all around me.
A moment later, shrieks sounded, piercing and painful, making me grimace.
I felt a pull, urging me toward the mist up ahead, and then the frost around my boots and ankles started cracking.
Time was almost up.
The pull was stronger now, brutally so.
Trying to drag me over there.
Trying to take me.
The fuck I was gonna let that happen.
I wasn’t going out like this.
Especially not at the hands of my highly disturbed and disgustingly radicalized brother.
“Enough!” I roared out into the distance.
The furor of my voice echoed all around me.
I’d been holding my hands out either side of me this entire time, my shadow magic coursing, but it had also taken on some sort of sentience as well, given the extreme and dire situation at play.
As I pulled my right hand away, my shadows fought me, trying to resist, but I yanked it free.
It caused massive strain to holding them steady against the onslaught of this place, my left hand shaking with it. Hell, all my limbs trembling with it.
But I thrust out my now free right hand at the blackness behind me, turning enough where I could see that nothingness to my right, and the Valley of the Dead to my left.
My Wraith side’s relationship to death served me well, and I watched as I made a tear in the fabric of this periphery area—in the Veil.
I cried out and smashed my fist swirling with shadows into it.
Relief coursed through me as the tear widened, becoming a hole about a foot in diameter.
Bright light filtered through from beyond, albeit restrained by what existed on this side.
The voices shrieked.
Wind whipped around violently.
The ground rumbled beneath my feet.
I felt the frost protecting me completely crack then, leaving me entirely.
And my swirling shadows to the left were slowing down, their constant spinning lagging and struggling.
I pushed all my might into the magic wrapped around my fist, managing to widen the hole another foot.
It was enough to throw myself through.
I started forward.
And then a swirling ball of blue light shot toward it, whipping right past me.
Magic concealing something within, it seemed.
I went to reach for it, but I was startled as something appeared through the other side of the hole.
My breath caught in my throat as a hand shot through, withered and covered in black veins, the nails brittle yet long and sharp in a monstrous sort of way. It snagged the ball of light, then came into view.
Partially.
Most of his identity was obscured by a thick red velvet hood from his cloak.
He had a creepy air about him, black veins and fissures crawling like rot across his skin. His lips were pressed into a disdainful line, jaw sharp and unmoving. His skin was drawn tight and twisted in many places. Wisps of his stringy, straggly dark-brown hair escaped the hood.
A voice whispered on the wind, the cadence and tone unidentifiable, just… there. Just words that sung painfully all around.
“Scion, remember our bargain. This for my freedom. You deny me and I will see you suffer alongside me here.”
A smirk curled the lips of the red shadowy being.
Then a definitive nod.
Black tendrils shot out then, sealing the hole I’d made rapidly.
“No!” I cried. “Stop!”
I thrust my shadowed fist forward, but a jolt of painful power blew me backward. It tasted like sludge, felt like an awful chill.
I tried to return to the area, but my shadows protecting me on the left fell.
And then I was being dragged toward the Valley of the Dead, my feet scraping on the strange ground that was hard some places, but unstable in others, then nothing when I frantically fought for friction.
I called my Wraith magic, but neither my shadows nor my frost responded.
They were done.
I was done.
Closer and closer I was forced toward what could never be escaped.
That bastard, whoever the fuck he was, had ruined my shot at leaving this place.
He’d even somehow sealed it off so I couldn’t attempt it again.
Vibrant-red magic exploded into being, blinding me from its brightness and ferocity for several moments.
When I could see properly again, I watched in a whole lot of shock as a red wall shot up between me and the Valley.
A voice roared through the area, resounding all around.
"Mors mihi nunc non imperat.
Cede voluntati meae.
Flecte corpus et animam.
In genibus—subiice!"
This voice was absolutely distinguishable.
“Sylas,” I breathed.
In the next second, I spun around as I felt another massive surge of magic—this one rocking the ground beneath my feet.
And there was a shimmering red tear in the fabric of the Veil, a massive one that could be easily passed through.
Holy hell.
Through the light, I could see back into the living.
There Sylas was standing within a magical red dome with my body, bellowing that incantation I’d just heard as he’d ripped into the place in two ways—with the wall, now this tear as well.
The shrieks intensified, and then hundreds of figures rushed the wall, slamming into it, impacting it, hurting it, trying to get to me, to keep me here.
I turned back and watched Sylas stumbling in the world of the living.
Then he steeled himself and ripped into his wrists with two strikes of his own power.
I choked as blood literally started pouring from them.
He was killing himself.
No. No. No.
I shoved myself toward the tear, fighting against powerful winds trying to keep me from moving forward, wanting to drag me back to the wall—and beyond.
And that was when I saw Sylas wasn’t alone.
Just outside the dome stood Lazriel and Cassius. Warlow was with them and chewing on his knuckles as he watched Cornelius clutch Kai Hunter’s hand and allow him to channel his power into the dome.
Kai’s magic started spreading all over it, trying to take control of the spell, to override Sylas.
Lazriel yelled in a mixture of rage and agony for Sylas to stop his spell, to find another way—one that didn’t involve him dying too.
But it was clear to me from my vantage point that Sylas couldn’t register any of them currently. He wasn’t fully there. He was between life and death, much like me, all the while his magic reached into this place.
I leapt toward the tear.
Spirits slammed into me, knocking me back.
Just as I managed to catch my footing, they surrounded me, then moved in closer and closer, so many of them.
Within moments, they were swirling around me like a tornado of painful motion, the force of the rushing making it impossible for me to remain standing.
I was ripped off my feet and with a grunt I landed on my stomach.
I felt them clutching my legs, pulling me backward.
I dug my nails into the strange ground, a scream ripping from my throat.
And then something grasped my right wrist.
I shot my head up to see it was a shimmering magical red hand.
It started pulling me toward the tear, fighting against the spirits.
Adrenaline thrummed through me as the tug of war became immense, too close, sending both burning heat and a chill through me all at once.
I heard a roar outside in the land of the living.
And then the hand released me.
I went skidding across the ground, heading right for the Valley of the Dead.
An eruption of crimson ripped into the immediate area.
And then Sylas was standing there right in front of me.
A barrier between me and the Valley of the Dead.
He slammed glowing spheres of necromantic power together with a violent crack, sending twin waves of red energy surging outward.
The spirits shrieked as they were hit, twisting, writhing, scattering like smoke.
And then they were gone, sucked back into the misted depths.
An eerie silence fell.
I went to reach out for Sylas, but then the spirits started screeching and yelling in a deafening cacophony,
“Necromancer!”
“Necromancer!”
“Necromancer!”
They wanted to take him now.
“Go!” he told me, shoving me toward the tear with a blast of his magic.
I stumbled as he flung his hands wide, rivers of crimson energy flooding out from him, pushing the spirits back even as more kept coming.
I saw the flicker in his magic, some waves sputtering out before they reached their mark.
Sylas cursed, then bellowed, voice thundering through the space, “This is my domain, Kai! You cannot overpower me here!”
He sent another blast toward me.
I threw my arm out to him. “Come!”
“I can’t.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
He merely smiled. “Take care of them. Especially our volatile wolf. He’ll need you more than ever.”
Terror rushed through me, adrenaline surging to new heights.
“No! You are not doing this!”
“It’s already done, little Wraith.”
“Sylas!” I screamed, as he forced me further toward the tear.
I was right at the edge when two rose-gold shimmering tethers shot through the tear and drove toward Sylas at rapid speed.
They wrapped around his arms, pinning him, completely subduing him.
And then they yanked.
Hard.
He hurtled toward me.
We collided, crashing through the tear.
Bright white light filled my vision.
And then all consciousness slipped away.