Chapter 22
TWNETY-TWO
Kallie
My vision is hazy once I finally come to.
Specks of light dance in front of me before slowly coming into focus.
Odeyssa stands over me, her mouth moving at an unreasonable rate, but nothing reaches my ears—the ringing drowns out everything else.
I try to sit up, but immediately regret it.
My skull feels like it weighs a metric ton.
Wincing with each movement, I finally get to an upright position and slowly look around, reorientating myself to get my bearings.
“What happened?” My voice comes out gravelly. I almost don’t recognize it.
Odeyssa puts her hand on my upper back, holding me steady. “Are you alright?”
“I’ll live, but what happened?” I ask again.
“We went through the wall?” she explains like a question. “And you just started convulsing,” she finishes gently, as if that would be enough to tip me over the edge. My eyes widen. She clearly looks fine, but Voraxis… Despite the throbbing in my head, my eyes swing side to side, needing to see him.
“He’s fine,” Dessa assures, and my shoulders instantly sink with relief. “He just went to scout out the area,” she adds. But I’m way ahead of her.
Where are you?
Coming back now. You had me worried there for a minute.
I let out a chuckle. It’s gonna take a lot more than a wall of mist to get rid of me.
Calling this a forest is a bit of overkill.
Dead, dry branches sprout from the ground, so brittle I’m worried they would snap with just a look.
The ground lacks color—this whole place lacks color, actually.
It’s a barren land that’s starting to repress any emotions other than the simmering rage that’s been festering just out of reach.
The sky is coated in ominous clouds, not allowing the sun to penetrate through, casting the land in a dark and gloomy atmosphere.
It’s disturbingly accurate but, at the same time, makes my skin crawl.
“Are you sure you’re alright? You look…different,” Odeyssa asks again, eyeing me warily.
“Besides the pounding in my head and the subtle ringing in my ears, I’m fine.
” Always fine. But the truth is, my limbs feel heavy, and my chest is tight with the anxiety that something changed when I went through that wall.
At the same time, it’s like there’s clarity.
The fog that I didn’t know was coating my vision has been wiped away, and I’m seeing through a new lens.
Voraxis comes into view, the saddle still strapped to him, and when he lands, the accumulated dust bounces off the ground.
What did you find out?
There isn’t anything for miles. But I couldn’t see much through the trees, he states. But looking out into the beyond, I’m curious how far he went, because from where I’m standing, there isn’t anything resembling what he described. Just a barren wasteland.
How are you feeling?
Why does everyone keep asking me that? This wasn’t the first time it happened, and I have a sinking suspicion it won’t be the last. Ignoring him, I turn toward Odeyssa and tell her what he found.
“Okay, so where is it exactly that we’re supposed to be going?” Why is she asking like I have a fucking clue?
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I bite, annoyance breaching the surface. I try to rein it in, but it’s like my fuse is shorter than normal. That might be due to the lapse in time, the torture…the impending doom. Take your pick, really. “Do you know how big this place is?”
“Nope. It’s like a mirage of sorts. I’ll be surprised if we make it back here at all.” Well, that’s comforting.
We all knew the risks of coming when we agreed—not that there was much of a choice—but still.
Strangely, I don’t feel the weight of being confined.
I fully expected, the moment I woke up, to be in such a blinding sea of panic that I couldn’t go through with it.
But it seems the anxiety has passed—or it’s buried beneath all the other bullshit coming our way, but I’ll take the wins where I can get them.
“She said it was encased in something, right? Are we looking for an actual glass case? A tree trunk? A secret door in the ground leading to the depths of the realm?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out a long, heavy sigh. “We’ll know it when we see it.” At least, I hope we do. Voraxis takes off, obviously done with all the bickering because it’s getting us absolutely nowhere.
We collectively decide it’s best if Odeyssa and I stay on foot, in case we see something on the ground, and Voraxis will stay close, flying high in the sky for a better viewpoint.
But with each passing step, I fight to look behind me at the wall to freedom, wondering if this is a good idea or if we just replaced one prison for another.
For this to be considered a purgatory, there hasn’t been a single soul moping about.
Just the three of us and a whole lot of nothing.
Voraxis has flown down a few times to check in and also to make sure that we eat at least something as we continue making our way through the pits of Hell.
But the deeper we go, the more I’m certain this is all just a hoax.
My necklace isn’t here. It probably never was, and that whole speech—or prophecy as she put it—was all a bed of lies to trap us here forever.
“This is hopeless,” I tell Odeyssa, my voice booming off the surrounding space.
“Aslan knows what she’s talking about. It’s here. You just need to have a little faith.”
I scoff. “Faith? You’ve got to be joking.” My gaze quickly flicks to hers, and I catch the end of her eye roll. “Oh yeah, my bad. Am I being too dramatic for you?”
“Oh my gods, Kallie! I get it. I understand the whole story, and what you went through, and blah, blah, blah. But there are—according to you—much bigger things to worry about here.”
“Are you forgetting that I was thrown into this! Are you forgetting–”
“No!” she yells. “I haven’t forgotten anything because you never shut up about it! Poor Kallie, always the victim. In case you haven’t noticed—which you might not because all you do is talk about yourself—you’re not the only one in this realm that has shit going on!”
“Oh, here we go.” I stop walking, a menacing grin taking over my features. “Are you really trying to compare your love life to me literally almost dying? Multiple times?”
“Don’t act all high and mighty. You have no idea what I have going on! You haven’t been here!”
“Oh and that’s somehow my fault? Be so fucking for real!”
“I don’t even know why I bother!”
“I wish you wouldn’t! After all, it was probably your dad who locked me up in the first place!” My mouth slams shut as soon as the last word leaves. I said it. It’s out there in the realm, and I can’t take it back. Her face looks like I struck her, and it probably feels like I did.
“Why…why would you think that?”
No going back now. “Maybe because he stalked me? All but forced me to go to his house and then, unknowing to me, made me drink a truth serum to get me to spill all my dirty little secrets?”
“My dad would never. He loves Nefarium—Siderium. He wouldn’t do anything to put his people in jeopardy.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I’m not.”
Footsteps pound against the ground, pulling our attention away from the inevitable. My eyes peel back, scanning the land for whatever is coming our way.
We heard something. Do you see anything?
Nothing from up here.
Stay up there. Maybe they don’t know you’re here, and we can have the element of surprise.
Odeyssa’s eyes meet mine, and I give her a curt nod. Light on our feet, we go toward the last noise. The land is still, no indication of another person being here.
Until I hear a scream ripped from Odeyssa, and I whip around.
It’s here.
Claws, talons, razor-sharp teeth circling Odeyssa. The creature from my nightmares. They’re real? What a sick, twisted game Callum played.
We have company.
My body seizes up, paralyzed as the nightmares come back like a memory. Suddenly, a pounding hits my temple, hard and throbbing like something is trying to break its way out.
“A little help over here!” she cries out, but my vision becomes blotchy as another wave hits. There’s no water here, nothing living for Odeyssa to pull from. I don’t register the slash down my back until I’m on the ground.
Of course there’s another one. But I can’t move…can’t.
A switch flips, and I’m up on my feet, all essence of pain gone in an instant, and I pull fire to my hands.
“What are you doing? You’re going to torch this place!” That’s the idea. A wicked grin pulls at my lips, and blood races down my back from the scratch the poor, pathetic creature gave to me as a gift. A reminder.
I launch the fire at it, his wails music to my ears, but it only lasts a second. The flames dance along the dry floor, and I will it to the beast, reveling in the pain it feels as it burns to ash.
Next, my eyes land on the poor helpless princess on the ground, the creature stalking up to her, ready to pounce.
Maybe I should let it have her. She wouldn’t be my problem anymore.
Firebird?
Rolling my eyes, I shut off the connection.
Odeyssa’s pleading eyes meet mine, and I lazily toss a ball of flames at the lunging creature, hitting it in the side.
Its attention pulls to me. Fantastic. Its tongue slashes out, giving me a glimpse of all three rows of sharp teeth.
With a tilt of my head, shadows lash out from my body, and I guide their way until they’re wrapped around its arms. The sound it makes is…
pitiful. Silently, I command the fire to move from the first victim and toward the next, but before it reaches it, the thing bites at the restraints, severing the connection.
How rude.
Swiftly, it evades the flames, and I let them die out. “It won’t burn unless I want it to.” Something else rustles to the right of me. Seriously, more?
“Kallie. Your eyes… They’re–”