Chapter 31
Ian
Stepping into the portal, we were immediately surrounded by deep glittering colors, swirling together in a vortex.
My stomach dropped as a falling sensation made my insides feel like they were coming out of my body. A band of magic propelled us forward. I couldn’t be sure how long we were in the portal, but it felt like mere moments before we stumbled out face first on the other side.
Well, Jax and I stumbled. Lucien trotted past us with a look of exasperation as he waited for us to regain our composure.
“That was the freakiest thing I’ve ever done,” Jax mumbled as he brushed the dirt off his pants.
Nodding, I blinked, then shook my head in an effort to right myself. “I honestly couldn’t agree more.”
By the looks of the puffs of smoke in the distance, I’d guess Lucien’s portal landed us on the outskirts of Firestone.
The jagged landscape provided a stark contrast to anywhere I’d ever seen before. The earth looked dead, cracked and forgotten. Though an eerie sense of beauty lingered here, it was the opposite of Brookmere in almost every way.
“How is this the same world as Brookmere?” I asked, stepping around a deep red tree whose sap oozed like blood down its bark.
Jax snorted. “I’m partial to Brookmere’s beauty myself now.”
I narrowed my gaze at the wistful expression he wore at the comment.
“Because, well…you know, all that green.”
This time Lucien huffed from beside us, smoke puffing between our legs where we stood.
“Right, not the beauty of one of my best friends. The greenery.” I nodded, hiding my eye roll as I straightened and faced the direction of the volcano. “Ready?” I asked both of them.
“Let’s do this.” Jax cracked his neck twice before shifting into his panther form. He leapt forward, sprinting toward the volcano without a second glance toward Lucien or me.
The pugron let out a plume of smoke from his snout and ran off behind Jax, trying to keep up with his stubby legs. Snorting, I shook off the laugh at the sight and looked to the sky. Inhaling, I shifted into my hawk form, taking off into the cloudless sky.
Soaring over the land, I could hardly comprehend the landscape before me. I remembered the Mysthaven crew discussing the differences in our lands, but seeing it in person was something else entirely.
Even from above, the land held the same haunting look. Where were the lush rolling hills? The forests? Wildflower groves? All I saw was shrubs that looked like they would draw blood if you got too close, poking through dry dirt.
I wondered where Raya wanted to be after all of this ended. If she enjoyed Brookmere or preferred Mysthaven’s climate and landscape. The bond thrummed inside of my chest.
My preference will be wherever she is.
The thought hit me hard, almost sending me plummeting from the sky. The bond was so much more than a deep well of love.
It was a reforging of what it meant to be home.
My wings wavered as the scent of sulfur permeated my senses, pulling me from thoughts of Raya. The heavy aroma clouded the air, burning my nostrils. The closer I flew to the volcano, the stronger it became.
In our shifted forms, it took no time at all for us to reach the base of the volcano. I passed by Jax and Lucien, splitting from their side, and continued to fly over the area to get a better view.
Indistinct noises echoed as I soared above the opening, where a line of Fae stood just a few feet away from where Jax and Lucien now hid.
They shuffled forward in a queue, waiting to enter the volcano itself.
Beyond them, though, my stomach bottomed out at the sight.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of them waiting.
I continued in a loop, noticing a vast area of tents set up.
Thames’s army strode around, and a small fight between soldiers even broke out around a campfire.
An oily sensation I now recognized as the darkness skated over my skin.
This had to be Thames’s army, including all of the dark ones called here from Ellevail.
“Are you okay?” Raya’s voice caressed my mind, and I let out an audible breath, even in hawk form.
The reassurance of her presence, even in my mind, kept me from spiraling into defeatist thoughts. His army is massive. How could he possibly recruit this many people?
“Most were probably forced.”
My muscles tensed automatically in disgust, and my wings stiffened.
“Be careful.”
While I hated that she had reasons for her fear, her concern bolstered the protective obsession she was slowly becoming. Worried for me, mate?
“You wish,” she huffed.
As I flew back toward Jax and Lucien, I tried to get a final estimate of the army’s size. I didn’t know how we could possibly defeat all of them. We had to find a way somehow. Right now, we needed to focus on the task at hand: finding the weapon. We’d face the army itself soon enough.
Will you stay? I asked Raya.
I felt a comforting warmth radiate through my mind and spread into my chest. “Always.”
Do you think you can get into Jax’s mind?
She paused. “I haven’t ever done it except with you. Though…” She paused. “The seers made a comment that the mate bond could make our magic stronger. So I can try.”
Tell him I’m taking one more loop and to stay where he is, I said. Please.
Raya left my mind and our connection ended. I hated it. When this was over, I had quite a few things I wanted to try with our bond. Experimenting with what we could feel in our minds was at the top of my list.
I felt her again before I heard her. “It worked,” she said breathlessly. “I did it.”
Grinning internally, I tried to allow her to feel my pride. Good girl.
She scoffed but this time, stayed.
I soared farther around the volcano to glimpse the Fae side I’d passed in my first loop. A screech escaped me as an immense fear rattled through my entire body. Along this side of the volcano, massive cages rattled, the sound echoing in a small trench. Inside, huge beasts thrashed back and forth.
Raya? I asked breathlessly in my mind. Can you see this?
“Fates, it’s the voidlings.”
Voidlings?
Tension radiated from her presence, even though it was only inside my mind. “Poisonous creatures contained to the void when the mist still existed. They’re deadly.”
I used my keen eyesight to observe as much as I could of the monsters.
One opened its mouth, snapping at a guard standing feet away from its cage.
My shudder ruffled the feathers on my wings as I stared in horror at its three rows of razor-sharp teeth and impossibly thick, snake-like tongue.
The beast’s scaly exterior shifted from blue to black as they moved.
And they’re poisonous? I muttered in my mind. Just what we need.
“I’ll tell Cassandra immediately. We need to start working on an antidote if Thames has them for his army.”
Finishing my last loop around the perimeter, I dove toward the ground to join Jax and Lucien again. I was thankful for my hawk sight since it didn’t take long for me to spot them hiding beside some brush. Jax remained in his panther form until he spotted me.
By the time I landed a few feet away, he had shifted back into his Fae form. “Took you long enough,” he joked.
How was he ever left in charge of anything?
“Yeah, well, perks of a being able to fly, I can see everything. There are thousands of dark ones on the other side of the volcano." I let out a breath, putting my hands on my hips to stretch slightly. “Plus, something called voidlings? About thirty cages, filled with them.”
Jax’s face slackened and lost almost all of its color. “Voidlings? How do you know that?”
I tapped the side of my head. “Raya saw it and told me.”
“I knew hoping they’d simply disappeared with the void would be too good to be true,” Jax said, running a hand through his hair. “Of course they’re Thames’s pets now. Can’t just settle for thousands of dark ones, had to go and add the poisonous voidlings into the battle too.”
Lucien let out a growl, and our attention shifted to the pathway a few feet from us. Immediately, we dropped, crouching behind the thorny green bush. Two dark ones marched past, patrolling the area, and we waited for them to move away before we continued our conversation.
“We need to keep moving and get back. Any ideas on how to get inside?” I asked. “I’ve never even seen a volcano before, let alone tried to enter one.”
Jax shook off the concern about the beasts and cracked his knuckles, then indicated for me to follow.
“Rumor has it there are several entry points built into the foundation of the outer walls. How or why, we were never told. Even as one of the elite, I was never privy to that information.” He pointed to the base of the volcano just a few hundred yards away. “Let’s try over there first.”
I surveyed our surroundings, ensuring all remained quiet, then gave him a nod. “Lead the way.”
Silently, we moved along the fractured ground, hiding behind sickly looking wind-sculpted white trees to avoid detection. As we got closer, the air thickened, the humidity rising. Sweat beaded on our brows, and my tunic stuck to my body.
“Is it always this hot?” I muttered, shaking my shirt, peeling it from my skin.
Jax shook his head. “I mean, it is a volcano, but no, it’s not normally like this.”
Lucien took a step as the ground cracked beneath his feet. With a small leap, he escaped a fissure appearing in the ground, revealing a fiery-looking substance.
Jax inhaled sharply. “That can’t be good. We need to move faster.”
I agreed, watching the ground at our feet as well as our surroundings now.
Creeping a few more feet, Jax finally reached a small opening to the volcano.
“We’re here.” Lucien shook his entire body, barbed tail knocking into the rocky mountainside, clearly relieved not to be lingering around the outskirts anymore.