Chapter 55 #2
A sphere of liquid radiance suspended above the stone floor, floating.
Around it, strands of crystal stretched from floor to ceiling, weaving a shimmering cage of power older than language.
Rynna’s heart beat, and the sphere seemed to answer, pulsing in perfect time with each thrum, as if the chamber itself had found her rhythm.
The glow filled her vision—blue at first, bright and clean—then, without warning, the color warped. Sickly green splashed before her.
The chamber wavered, stone rippling like water under a storm, and air pressed against her skin until it wasn’t the chamber around her anymore.
Cold iron cut into her wrists, and the smell of dead blood filled her nose, metallic and sour.
Surrounding her, the orb crowded in, and through it came taloned fingers, sliding past her ribs, digging inside.
She screamed. And they pulled, revealing a thread of her soul stretched and flayed…
Pain erupted in a blinding wave.
Her knees hit the floor before she even realized she’d fallen.
Another memory. Of a different time, a different life, a different orb. A prison.
Gritting her teeth, Rynna pushed up on her good arm, eyes locked on this device. It burned so brightly it should have seared her retinas, yet something in it called to her. She raised her uninjured hand and reached toward the light.
“Rynna?” Kaelith’s voice.
She braced for the familiar bite of fire against her skin, ready to ruin this arm, too, if it meant answers. Instead, golden scales bloomed across her forearm in living armor, chasing each other up her flesh as her nails hardened into curved golden talons.
“Empty night,” she whispered, shock rooting her in place.
Turning her hand slowly, she watched the light slide over the new surface of her skin. Then, drawn forward by something she couldn’t name, she pushed her hand into the burning light.
Sinking into the liquid luminance, heat wrapped around her wrist, pulling her in deeper, just as something shifted inside. A shadow moved within the brilliance, stretching, until another hand emerged to meet hers—black, scaled, and clawed.
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then the other hand clasped her palm, locking their fingers together as if it had been waiting for this for an eternity.
What are you? the voice growled in her head. Another monster from beyond the stars?
“I’m here to help.” Her voice splintered, hot tears sliding down her cheeks, knowing what she held. That the pain within the orb was endured endlessly, and, in this case, willingly.
Ahhh… the voice sighed, a sound of recognition more than relief. You, too, have been trapped. Used to feed them. I can see the markings on what’s left of your soul. So similar to my own. It hesitated, coiling tight. Do you now seek revenge?
“What…?” Her thoughts scattered, tripping over one another in their scramble to catch up. “I don’t…I don’t understand.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “We’re here to lower the barrier. The enemy threatens this world again. We’re going to stop it.”
Silence answered. A silence heavy enough to press against her lungs. Then the orb tremored, and agony washed through her again. She knew this kind of pain, had drowned in it before.
We? the voice rasped as the wave receded. Who do you bring?
In answer, hands settled on her shoulders, one on each side. Fenn’s grip was firm and grounding, Kaelith’s solid but electric with something she didn’t dare name. Together, they anchored her as the orb’s light flared brighter.
The presence slid through her, then, coiling around her spine and questing outward. It teased against her memories, then reached further, tasting. Fenn’s ceaseless heartbeat. Kaelith’s sharp-edged power. Their scents. Their magic. All of it sifted through, examined, and drawn in.
Then it froze.
We have survived, the whisper threaded through her skull, soft enough to raise gooseflesh.
Agony followed, then, in another wave, slamming through the three of them, wrenching Fenn’s hand from her shoulder and hurling both men backward.
No! The voice from the orb fractured into a scream. Bring them back. My children!
The pain threatened to drag her under, but Rynna dug in. She clenched her jaw, pulling the torment into herself, siphoning it away from the others like a dam taking on floodwater.
“Come back,” she rasped, forcing her voice through the pressure. She nudged Fenn’s boot with her own, then Kaelith’s. “I’ll hold it off. Talk to her. Get her to lower the barrier.”
“Rynna, it’s too much. You can’t—” Fenn’s hand clamped over his temple as he pushed to his knees, sweat streaking down his face.
“I’ll be fine.” She widened her stance, planting her feet.
Bring them back! the voice howled again, and the room quaked, crystals groaning in their cage above the orb.
Kaelith lurched forward, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Hurry, wolf.” His gaze tracked the glowing sphere, his body pressed to hers. “Another wave’s coming. We need to connect with the one inside before it hits, so she can shield us.”
Fenn shook his head, hair scattering droplets of sweat as he forced himself upright and met her eyes. There was no hiding the ache in his expression.
“I hate that you have to endure this for us.”
She gave the smallest nod she could manage. Then his hand found her shoulder again.
The next wave was already building. She felt it in the air, in the pull against the shifted hand within the orb.
In response, her mind stretched outward, reaching for both men and the presence on the other side.
Threads of connection formed, thin at first, then weaving together into a fragile lattice.
She wrapped herself around them, not physically but with every scrap of Will she possessed, drawing them into the circle of her mind.
You can do this, she told herself. What’s a little more pain after lifetimes of agony and emptiness?
She set her feet, and the scales on her arm shimmered as she flexed her shield, pulling it tight around the three others. Then, the wave struck, and her knees wobbled at the onslaught, but her men held her upright.
It was like…being flayed from the inside, layer by layer, until only raw nerves remained.
Her vision fractured, and a scream pierced its way out of her throat, ragged against something too vast to comprehend.
But she held, even as the agony rebounded against her shields, shredding through her soul instead, wrenching pieces loose she hadn’t even known were there.
Still, she held.
Thoughts broke apart. Time became immaterial.
And the last thing that crossed her mind as darkness took her was a single, quiet relief: I’m glad they didn’t have to feel that.
Then everything went black.