CHAPTER NINETEEN
The realm flashed white and then eerily dissipated, leaving behind only a night sky and a chasm of nothingness.
Lightning split the darkness, crackling in white illuminated vines against the cool night.
I startled, stumbling backward as the rolling thunder boomed behind the electric jolts.
Strike after strike bolted the cloudy ground, only allowing me to barely make out my surroundings as chunks of stone erupted at the collisions.
I am alone.
The sun that kissed my skin mere seconds ago had vanished, its light dancing on the other side of the realm. Space and time had moved without warning—along with the council. And Noctis.
Something shifted ahead, and I tensed, unsheathing my daggers.
The land cracked into masses, suspending midair.
Surrounding the chunks of cloud-covered ground was a deadly plunge back to the Terraguard Bound.
The shards of land glided across the night sky with meters gaping between them, hovering effortlessly.
They moved by an unseen force in unidentifiable patterns.
Finnegan’s voice filled the air, low and resonant, though I could not see him, as if he lingered just beyond sight, watching from the shadows. I couldn’t see anything except the shifting, floating land segments ahead.
“Get to the end first, mortal. Such a relic is reserved for those who have proven their strength.”
A shoulder rammed into my back, sending me tumbling through the low hanging clouds across the dirt. When I stopped, my head lolled over the edge of the piece of land I stood upon.
Would I die before my body crashed into the Bound below, the drop stopping my heart?
“Out of the way, or I’ll push you over,” a female growled, voice dripping venom as she stalked toward me.
Lightning crashed beside her, and I fumbled upright away from the ledge.
Surges lit the sky, revealing the woman who approached, stalking forward like a predator assessing its prey.
Her straight auburn hair fell across her face, shaved around the nape of her neck and ears.
Scars littered her bronzed skin, and for a second, pity settled low into my stomach—for the anger the woman held for a complete stranger and the life she must have endured to distrust people so easily.
But it was quickly overwhelmed in creeping dread that clawed at my chest, leaving me unable to move or speak.
The woman launched herself over me, feet nearly clipping my scalp. She jumped from one platform to the next effortlessly, blades strapped across her body—her thighs, back, waist. The lightning surges glinted off the metal, momentarily blinding me in the flashes.
I’ll lose if I don’t go now. I sprang to my feet in a burst of frantic determination.
The only way to win was by surpassing the woman and crossing the end first, but my eyes could not make out the shifting platforms well enough to feel confident in the leaps. Cracks of light filtered into my vision, offering only slight visibility, and then, I jumped.
My feet planted on the gliding square of land, and I took off running to the ledge of the next as the sky lit the path.
Fear overwhelmed my senses, and it didn’t take me long to recognize that it wasn’t my own.
It felt powerful, ancient even… rageful.
I didn’t even have time to question it. One moment I was myself, the next I was hijacked by emotions that weren’t mine, so vivid it felt like my mind had been split open to let someone else in.
Noctis.
His emotions laced through my veins, amplifying my already coursing inner tides. I worked to sever the connection, so I could focus, building a mental wall brick by brick until the fear expelled.
Sparks shattered the ground at my feet, splitting it into two jagged slivers, my body teetering on a splinter. Flame lit the cuff of my pants and erupted across the skin of my leg. Fire licked up my calf, and I beat it back with my hands until it died beneath my palms.
If the fall back to the Terraguard Bound didn’t kill me, the lightning storm surely would.
The next electric surge lit the sky, so I leapt to the next shifting mass, narrowly missing the bolt. Strike after strike threatened to char my body, but I gambled anyway, throwing myself from wavering landform to the next.
The woman’s silhouette purged through the void a few platforms ahead as she trudged through the obstacles.
Two throwing stars whizzed past me, spinning through the air like a near silent whisper, followed by a brutish laugh ahead.
They sliced the skin along my ear, blood slowly dripping down my jaw.
A bone-white jagged strike blew through the land the woman ran across, propelling her over the ledge.
Shit.
I gasped, lunging toward the scattering land section, pushing my legs to comply, and overlooked the ledge. The woman hung, her scarred fingers slipping as they held her above imminent death.
“Don’t stab me,” I breathed as I reached to pull the woman up.
“Help me,” she begged, the plea sounding uncomfortable from the brutish female’s lips.
My shoulders burned and screamed under her weight, every movement a battle against the limits of my own body, but I tightened my grip and forced myself onward, carrying her through the pain and into safety.
A sweet smile lifted the woman’s lips as she collapsed back to the shifting landmass, right before a dagger pierced through my forearm. It ripped through the skin, the meat of my flesh, and clanked against the bone.
A raw, piercing wail echoed through the realm. My head spun, vision fading at the ambush of agony. I worked to swallow it down, focusing on the threat before me. As the woman withdrew the blade from my flesh, it ripped tendon and muscle along with it in retreat.
Fury overwhelmed all senses, surging Noctis’s rage through the Blood Tie.
The barriers I built in my mind separating us fell.
My hand lifted to retaliate without a second thought, but I froze midair right before the blade pierced the throat of the woman.
This isn’t me. Instead, I focused on building back the mental barrier between my mind and the god’s.
Layer by layer, I imagined cementing bricks until the anger was replaced with adrenaline of my own.
I’d find a way to get Noctis out of my head when the trials were over. Permanently.
The woman took advantage of my distraction and took off toward the next floating land fragment.
Light flashed, and the ground exploded to my left.
I rolled across the clouded earth to narrowly miss the strike.
Then, the sky ignited. Lightning bolts attacked, taking chunks out of the platforms and aiming for me.
They gravitated closer as if drawn in by my presence—as if they were begging for my attention.
I used the abundance of light to jump toward the woman ahead. The ground beneath my feet ruptured, shifting my balance violently. Death was going to take me using the ambush in the sky.
The woman drove forward without slowing, relentless, and though she was only feet ahead, I was already losing her.
I reached over my shoulder and unsheathed the imbued sword with my uninjured arm, rotating the hilt between my palm.
The sword and the potion were bound for the trials, though their moment and purpose remained shrouded in uncertainty.
If anything, I would use it as protection.
A strike of lightning blasted into the weapon, but instead of ricocheting off the metal, it was drawn in. The white light poured into the blade like water into dry, famished earth, pulled by a divine will woven into its core.
I spun, my mind reeling with energy and adrenaline that coursed through my veins. I needed to see, needed the lightning to no longer be a threat, needed to get to the end of the floating platforms before my opponent.
With a roar, I drove the sword over my head and slammed it into the ground singlehandedly. Lightning tore down at once, detonating around the weapon in blinding bursts. One strike erupted at my feet, and the blast sent me flying through the air in the opposite direction.
Shocks rippled through my body like every nerve was tinged with energy. I landed platforms ahead, miraculously on shifting ground. Pain jeered my thoughts, my body.
The sword stood like a beacon that attracted every strike the sky sent down, illuminating the path. I could see the end, and the lightning no longer posed a threat.
I shifted quickly to my feet, careful to not apply pressure to the gushing wound in my forearm. The woman ran with such grace, her steps barely touched the ground, as if hovering over the land.
Every step screamed for speed, but it wasn’t enough. I could not fly like Noctis, nor could I outrun what was coming. My body stumbled as the blood rushed from my arm, head spinning.
When I watched the woman land on solid ground, I fell to my knees in defeat. A small whimpered cry escaped my lips—so fragile and broken. I let the Terraguard Bound down. I let the entire realm down. I let Noctis down.
And the world went white again.
My stomach turned violently while my mind floated weightless, lost in an endless spiral of a dream I couldn’t break free from.
Nothingness surrounded me—no light, no sound.
For a moment, I let myself feel the relief of no longer carrying the merfolk and Terraguard’s burden.
A slow breath escaped me, my body starting to soften into the calm, but even as it came, I feared it, as if peace itself might be the first thing to break me.
But calm never lingers forever, no matter how tightly it is clung to. The weight of life always finds its way back.
Especially to me.
The tingling in my limbs crept back as I lunged into motion, attempting to grasp any sense of reality. My heart pounded against my sternum, arms reaching to feel anything tangible. Sharp agony raced through me at the movement of my arm’s wound. Wetness coated the opening along the flesh.