36. Chapter 36 #2
“Guilt. Our time has come and gone—for better or for worse. Don’t let this rob you of what you have in your grasp. She’s going to need you.”
“What do you mean?” Urgency now laced my voice.
Talia gave me a quizzical look. “I don’t know why, but Cisoi has let me see more than any other who hovers around his threshold, and… Well, it’s best that I just show you. I am so deeply sorry for what you’re about to see.”
Without another word, she rose to her feet and grabbed both of my hands in hers, clasping them tight.
I rocked back with a sharp pang as a firestorm of energy ripped from her fingers and into my hands.
Pain overrode my body, forcing my muscles to tense against the strange power right before it entered my mind.
The whitewashed room was ripped away in a cyclone of an unknown wind.
I was suddenly on my feet, wind ripping past me, but no debris or matter hit my skin.
In the distance, I could make out shadowy figures fighting.
My feet felt drawn to them somehow. Suddenly I was upon them, but watching them as one does through a window.
Scenes flashed, one right after the other, in an ominous loop.
A desolate battlefield gloomed at the forefront.
It wasn’t hard to imagine that the place filled with fire and embers once used to hold fields of green and life.
A city on a hill, wrapped tightly in stone walls, was scorched, with pillars of smoke polluting the darkening sunset.
The scene suddenly vanished and turned to reveal another angle of the battlefield.
Bodies of all kinds were strewn across the ground, filling the dirt with copious amounts of blood and sinew.
Wielders were fighting soldiers in black who moved strangely. Swords and beasts clashed with magic of every kind. Waves of heat soared as vines crashed around the opposing forces. A tall Wielder, who looked so familiar, battled alongside someone in strange robes, their eyes glowing red.
Another scene ripped through. My heart threatened to stop mid-beat as I watched the teal eyes I had grown to know and love these last few months.
Eyes that saw past the monster and beheld the man I once was.
The eyes that playfully shied away under my gaze or stared back into my soul as our love united. She was a marvel. A vision.
Ophelia was Thuvina incarnate. Her moon-powered sword severed the head of a soldier in black as her illicitus claimed the death of another.
She moved with grace and poise, as if she had trained specifically for this moment.
I was too distracted to notice the other opponent who stalked her, too amazed by how effortlessly she Wielded. She was made for this.
A man stepped up to her, radiating an energy that felt wrong, his sword drawn as he aimed to claim her life.
His back was to me. I couldn’t make out who the man was but yelled Ophelia’s name, begging her to watch out.
Her head snapped up, rogue pieces of hair whipping across her face that had fallen from her war braid.
I needed to get to her, to help fight against whoever this was, but my feet were frozen in place, forcing me to watch the scene unfold.
I witnessed Ophelia drop her sword and shake her head, screaming something at the man.
Was she refusing to fight him? He threw back his head in laughter.
I noticed then that he held a black stone in his hand.
Black tendrils seeped through his skin, coating it in a sickening color of ink.
Tiny webs and strands climbed up the arm that held the black stone.
My eyes ripped back to Ophelia and I roared in horror.
The man, with his sword still drawn, raised his other fist toward her, casting a web of black shadows toward her that slinked along the ground, traveling up her body and holding her in place.
She was voiceless but it was evident that she writhed in pain the more this man used some sort of magic on her.
Her body thrashed against the phantom hands but her fight was useless.
The man’s sword was close to her body—too close—and yet he still pulled her toward him with his shadows until the tip of his blade pierced her chest. I didn’t have to hear her to know that she screamed in agony as rivulets of blood ran down and coated her body.
Shadows wrapped around her throat, squeezing her delicate skin until her face turned red.
Despite her torture, she refused to fight the man. Her eyes looked as if she half expected for this to happen.
I beat against the invisible barrier. My heart was ripped from my body as I watched the man withdraw his blade and stab her again in the abdomen, then again, and again…
Roars of agony ripped through my throat as I watched my love’s body slump to the ground, yet no sound escaped.
Ophelia landed on her knees with such force I was sure her bones had cracked.
My body mirrored hers and I crashed onto mine in front of her, watching a small river of blood run from the side of her mouth and splash onto the dirt.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest forgot how to work. I desperately tried to reach for her, the barrier refusing to budge. Over and over again I cried out her name, begging the fucking giants to please let her live.
Suddenly, her eyes flickered to mine. The teal radiated and glowed brighter and ghostly.
Her mouth opened but the voice wasn’t hers; it was an array of new and ancient.
Man and woman. Thousands of them layered on top of one another.
“She will restore. She will unbind you from the power. She will end this.”
“Ophelia! Can you hear me?“ My body was frozen in place and I considered ripping off my own arms if it meant that I could reach her.
This nightmarish version of Ophelia’s eyes closed as she took in a ragged breath and slumped to the ground with a soft thud.
“End what? Please! Just tell me!” I pounded on the ground with all of my strength as I roared, “Come back to me!” A ripple of energy scattered across the ground, momentarily shaking the dirt and rocks.
In a flash, the man turned as if noticing I was there. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw as I gazed into the silver eyes that were mine.
Suddenly I was back in the white room, still on the bed but drenched in sweat.
The cream-colored tunic stuck to my skin, sending a wave of chills against my warm body.
My mind couldn’t discern what was real and what wasn’t as panic consumed me.
She couldn’t be dead. I will face down every giant, or even Thuvina herself, if she thought she could tear Ophelia away from me.
“Breathe. Breathe. Find your calm.” I heard Talia’s encouragement as I panted in shallow breaths. Finally I gulped in a large inhale, finding a way to slow my pace. “That’s right. Breathe in through the nose. Exhale slowly through the mouth. That’s right.”
“I have to get back to her,” I bit out as soon as I felt my chest teeter away from bursting. I tried to sit up and swing my feet off the bed but was met with a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “I have to get—“
“It has not yet come to pass.” Talia’s eyes glowed brightly.
“What? What do you mean?”
“You know of the prophecy, yes?”
I nodded. “They are working on it.”
“This will unfold if you do not find the key. Two halves of the whole that started it all. Bring them back together. End this. Slay the monster that’s controlled you for so long. You have the power to change the course of where Ophelia is heading. Where you are heading.”
I shook my head. “Keys. I keep hearing about these keys. What are they? How can Ophelia and her sister find them? Tell me what you know!”
Talia sat there a moment and slowly shook her head. “This is all I was allowed to relay to you. It was my bargain in order to see you one last time before stepping through, to warn you that they’re coming.”
“Who’s coming? How did you know you would see me again?”
“I didn’t. But I hoped that I could, and in the event I did, this is what I promised Cisoi I would show you.
” Talia leaned in with closed eyes and placed a small kiss at my temple as she whispered, “Be well, Peiro. Live your life with the giants’ blessing.
You deserve love and happiness too. Go back to her and love her with all of your being.
” She paused, studying my face as she said, “Tell Ophelia I said thank you for this moment.”
In a blink, my world turned. I was falling and floating together through the unknown. Phantom voices beckoned me to fall like a blazing comet and meet my makers, but it was the other—the singular voice—that grabbed my attention the most.
It was soft. Sweet. It didn’t outshine the others but connected to me in a deep way. I turned my attention to it and soared in its direction right when it commanded, Come back to me.