TWENTY-SIX
Darkness pressed against her like a living thing, wrapping around her limbs, pulling her deeper. Cold seeped into her bones, a biting, unnatural chill that gnawed at her skin, at her very being.
Amelia tried to move, but the shadows curled tighter, their touch whispering against her flesh like ghostly fingers. Shapes flickered in the abyss, half-formed figures, faces stretched in silent screams.
She knew where she was.
Amelia was back in the Midnight Realm.
The air was thick, heavy with something that wasn’t quite mist, wasn’t quite smoke. It clung to her, sinking into her lungs, turning every breath into a struggle. A whisper brushed against her ear.
" You don’t belong here."
She turned sharply, but there was nothing, only the void, only the endless dark.
A hand on her wrist, gripping tightly with bony fingers.
She gasped, wrenching away, but the grip tightened. It wasn’t Silas. It wasn’t anyone she knew. It was something else. Something wrong .
More hands emerged from the darkness, reaching for her, clawing at her arms, her throat. Panic surged, wild and desperate. She struggled, kicked, but the shadows dragged her slowly down, down, down.
She didn’t want this fate. She didn’t want to become…
A voice spoke. It was deep, ancient, echoing from all around her.
“ You belong to us. ”
The hands yanked harder, pulling her under, pulling her into the pressing darkness.
She wouldn’t become her. She wouldn’t be like Lyana.
Amelia screamed.
Then there was a light among the darkness.
It started small, a starburst of white brightness, until it grew, and grew.
The light formed the shape of a person, a woman. Her light pushed back the oppressing darkness, the shadows and whispers disappearing with it.
It was like Amelia could breathe again, the bony hands leaving her, the ominous whispers becoming a quiet calm.
She glanced around, the edges of darkness forming tall, barren trees. The foggy ground evening out, shapes forming. Suddenly, there was the glassy surface of a lake before her, beautiful and serene.
Amelia blinked with confusion, looking up at the bright outline of the woman, her hair of light flowing all around her.
“Who are you?” Amelia asked as the woman walked with light, easy steps across the lake, the reflective surface shining from her glow.
She walked closer, and as she did, the light ebbed away slowly, until her hair turned auburn, her clothes took on colours and billowed around her, and her face was suddenly visible, looking at Amelia with curious eyes.
And she recognised her.
“Lyana,” Amelia whispered. “You…you were the last one…”
Lyana smiled sadly, coming to a stop at the edge of the lake, giving a grave nod of her head. “Yes,” she said in a soft, lovely voice that seemed to echo in her ears. “I was you…years ago.”
The red of her hair reflected in the surface of the lake, like blood. Amelia shuddered and met her eyes.
“Are you—I mean, where are you? Are you okay?” she asked tentatively, hyperaware that this could be her fate.
Lyana glanced away. “You don’t want this,” she said softly, the worrying words floating to Amelia. Lyana looked back at her. “I want to help you succeed. When your dreams bring you to the Realm, think of me,” she said.
Amelia tried to take a step, but realised she wasn’t able to move.
“It will allow my memory to strengthen, so I can help you.”
Her heart jumped. “How can you help me?”
“With the ritual, Amelia.”
She pulled in a stuttered breath. “You can tell me about this ritual?”
Lyana smiled, sadly still. “Bane, he was the scientist, not me. He explained everything to me, but I…” She reached up, placing two hands to the side of her head, fingertips resting lightly at her temples. “I am not what I was once, only a shadow of my old self.”
Amelia swallowed her disappointment. “You don’t remember it? What we need to do to survive?”
Lyana cocked her head. “We?”
She looked at the red-haired woman in confusion. “Yes, of course. Both of us, how do we get out of this?”
Her eyes flitted away again, glancing at the reflective pond around her. “The ritual…it will always require a sacrifice. There is no way around that.”
Amelia’s heart began to pound, just as menacingly as it had when she had been surrounded by the shadows, being pulled into the darkness. “What do you mean?” she asked stupidly, knowing exactly what it meant.
“Amelia,” Lyana said, voice cracking on the syllables of her name, “you do understand… oh …you don’t.”
“What?”
She sighed, hands coming together before her.
“The bonded pairs, they are an extension of the Monoliths themselves.” Lyana looked directly at her now, eyes sombre.
“They are the original, true pairing. Light and dark, a true balance. When they came into this world, they were torn apart, on differing edges of the land, far from one another.” Amelia wanted to move again, to step away this time.
She didn’t want to hear any of it. “They want to be together, they need it. The bonded pairs represent one of each Monolith, and the ritual was created…to join them back together.”
“Join them?” Amelia’s voice was small, wobbly.
Lyana nodded. “Yes. The magic of one, needs to enter the other. Two must become one, and to achieve that…one must be sacrificed.”
Amelia felt her chin wobble as her eyes fell shut. “There has to be another way. That can’t be the only way.”
“It is, Amelia,” Lyana urged. “If you don’t, you will both end up taken, lost to this place forever. Like all the rest before you.”
She opened her eyes, finding Lyana again. “Why did you not succeed?”
Her red hair flowed in the absent wind, brushing against the side of her face, eyes flickering.
“You can see it yourself by visiting the place where it happened. There is a magical signature left behind that only you and Silas, with your bond, can access. You will see what happened, and you can learn from our mistakes.”
Amelia shut her eyes to process.
She looked back up, shaking her head. “I’m the siphon, right? That’s what that crazy man Demetrius told Silas.”
Lyana seemed to pause, something passing over her face, a reflection of anger or something that ran deeper. But then it was gone.
“Not so crazy,” she said with a shrug of one delicate shoulder.
Amelia scoffed. “That means Silas has to be the sacrifice? How is that fair…that’s it’s just decided like that?”
“It’s not fair,” she said, “but that does not change what is fated to be. Find Bane’s journal, it will explain the ritual, so perhaps…
you can survive this, Amelia. Bring the Monolith’s back together, and it will restore magic to its balanced state.
It will repair the Rift, and most importantly…
it will stop the cycle of bonded pairs falling to the same fate, once and for all. ”
Lyana began to dissolve into light, her features slowly softening at the edges and fading away.
“Wait,” Amelia said, panicked, needing so many more answers, needing to fall to her knees and beg for a different solution, a different outcome. “What journal! Wait, don’t leave me!”
“Complete the ritual,” Lyana’s voice said in the same echoing voice, her body now nothing but brightness. “Stop the cycle.”
Her brightness disappeared, and the darkness returned.
Silas stared into the low flames in the hearth, watching them dance while he begged his eyes to remain open.
It was a battle he was in grave danger of losing, lids heavy, his blinks long and arduous.
That was when he heard her.
It was a soft noise, low and steady. And then a sharper sound, like a gasp, cutting through to Silas clearly over the crackling of the fire.
He pushed himself up with an arm, looking towards the dark passageway. Silence fell once more.
He looked to the clock behind him. Still ten minutes until midnight.
He started to settle back on the couch with a deep sigh when he heard it again. An unmistakeable noise of alarm coming from Amelia’s room.
He pushed his blanket away and stood, creeping into the passageway until he stood before the slightly ajar door of her bedroom. Silas reached up and laid his palm on the door, pushing it open quietly.
He felt something ease in his chest when he saw her, laying in darkness on the bed, facing him on her side, arm draped above the covers.
He toed forwards carefully, drawn to her by the inevitable pull of the tether between them.
The bond always felt stronger near midnight, like the rope was pulled taut when apart, making the pain of being away from her sharper, more noticeable.
He swallowed, taking in her soft features, so smoothed out and peaceful in her sleep.
Silas settled gently on the edge of the bed, close but not touching, intending only to be there when the hour struck.
Amelia shifted, breaths turning uneven.
Silas frowned. He glanced at her, barely able to see in the dim glow of the moonlight from the single window. Her face twisted in a grimace, hand curling into a tight fist against the blanket.
Then she whimpered, and his heart jumped painfully in his chest. It was a soft, broken sound.
Silas stiffened when he realised it was happening again. She was having another nightmare.
He exhaled roughly, reaching out but stopping just short of touching her shoulder. He didn’t want to startle her, but she was still shifting, her breaths turning sharp, panicked. Her entire body jerked, her breath hitching on a sob.
Silas felt his chest tighten at the sound of her discomfort.
“Amelia,” he murmured, reaching for her now, his hand brushing her arm.
She flinched violently, twisting away, still locked in whatever dream held her captive. Silas made his own noise, a deep growl low in his throat.
“Amelia,” he said, firmer this time.
Her face contorted in fear, back arching from the bed.
Then, she was screaming. The raw and agonising sound ricocheted around his body.