Chapter 10
Elariya
“Of Ashes and Darkness”
The portal spat us out, and we went tumbling into a world drained of life.
The warmth that had followed us from the Southern Isles died the moment we crossed the threshold, replaced by a cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with absence.
The endless gray was more foreboding than in my dreams. It wasn’t the soft gray of storm clouds or morning mist but the dull, lifeless gray of something that had never known color.
Ash drifted through the air like snow that would never melt, coating everything in a fine layer of desolation.
It was as if joy itself had been leached from this place, leaving behind only the hollow echo of what warmth might once have been.
“Everybody okay?” Alaric asked, but his voice fell flat, sounding muffled and wrong.
We all nodded, but it was clear we were far from okay.
“Has anyone ever been here before?” Arielle’s voice was shaky.
“Not me.” Garrick shook his head and grimaced.
“Nor us.” Bastian pointed from himself to Alaric. “This isn’t a place anyone wants to be. Not even out of curiosity. I’d welcome the ghost roads any day.”
And I’d heard those roads were the worst. But at least we knew how to maneuver them.
“How different is it from the ghost roads?” I asked.
Bastian’s brows knitted. “The Fae liken it to the first hell.”
A stone dropped in the pit of my stomach. In the mortal lands, the first hell was described as a place filled with demons and devils that could devour you whole before you could blink. And that was considered the most tolerable of the six hells.
“That sounds… terrifying.” I breathed out a sigh.
“I will scare you no more.” Bastian glanced around the expanse, his jaw clenched, his expression unsettled. “Let’s pray to the Gods our presence here goes unnoticed for as long as possible.”
“Weapons at the ready.” Alaric tapped his daggers, then focused on me. “We’ll need you to guide us from here onwards. You said you felt a pull earlier when you dreamt of this place.”
“I did.”
“You should feel it stronger now that you’re actually here. And the spell is still active within you. Focus and allow it to guide you to Wolfe.”
Focus?
All I wanted to do was to cover my skin and shield my soul. Every instinct screamed at me to retreat from this place, to fold inward, to make myself small. Morg?ven was definitely not meant for the living, least of all for someone like me.
But I summoned bravery and shook the fear from my mind. The sooner we found Wolfe, the sooner we could get the hells out of here.
I drew in a slow, steady breath and focused. It didn’t take long.
The sensation stirred, faint at first, then stronger, like embers being coaxed into flame. As if my thoughts themselves were feeding it, kindling something deep inside my chest.
I guessed that was the spell working.
Or maybe… it was him.
I turned right around and stopped, then pointed ahead to where I felt the magnetic pull.
“That way,” I said.
Arielle smiled. “It’s working.”
“Follow my lead.” Bastian motioned for us to move forward. “We need to be extra careful.”
We moved together, our footsteps swallowed by the thick air before they could properly form. There was no wind, yet the ash continued its lazy dance around us, moved by currents that obeyed no earthly laws.
When I turned my head, shadows slid across the cracked stone beneath our feet. It was unnerving, as if even darkness couldn't find its proper place in this realm.
The tension in the air settled on my shoulders with the weight of mountains, pressing down on my chest until each breath became a conscious effort.
“You alright?” Arielle caught the hitch in my breathing.
“It’s hard to breathe.”
“You’ll be okay.” Within the shadows, a smile danced across her lips. “Remember your element is air. Fray magic is with you no matter where you go. If you need to breathe easier, call for air through a balancing spell. It will come to you.”
She was my mentor. The spells she’d taught me were written in my journal. The balancing spell was one of them. It was the one I’d first used to restore my powers.
I thought of the words, and cast the spell in my mind. Moments later, my lungs loosened. Thank the Great Mother.
“Feel better?” Arielle smiled like she sensed what I’d done.
“Much.”
For a few breaths, it almost felt manageable, like we could walk this dead world and leave without consequence. Then the ash shifted.
Not drifting.
Listening.
The guys noticed it, too.
The flakes veered toward us in a slow, deliberate spiral, tightening like a noose, and the pressure in the air deepened, as if the realm had finally realized we didn’t belong.
My skin prickled. My breath stilled. The hair at the back of my neck rose.
Before I could take my next breath, a shape peeled itself from the gray.
We stopped cold, midstride.
At first, it was only a darker smudge against the endless nothing. Then it tightened, becoming darker. It stepped closer, its outline almost human, as if it remembered what it had been once and couldn’t bear the truth of what it was now.
It didn’t charge. It didn’t snarl.
It simply… reached.
And the shadow smiled.
Not with lips.
With hunger.
Then it grew.
A hand—if it could be called a hand—slid through the ash toward my shadow, and the instant it brushed the edge of me, cold clamped down on my spine like a vice.
A blast rippled across the ground and surged upward, sending us flying backwards.
Arielle tore away from me as if something had yanked her by force, and I hit the cracked earth with a thud that knocked the air from my lungs and filled my vision with stars.
Then the coldness hooked into something deeper than flesh and pulled.
Gods, my soul—my soul—being dragged toward the surface like it was something the monster could peel from my body.
Air vanished. I tried to scream, but my throat locked. Nothing came out.
My limbs seized, numb and useless, as invisible fingers reached inside me and kept pulling and pulling and pulling.
“Elariya!” Arielle slammed to her knees beside me and grabbed my arm, but the cold only deepened, spreading through my veins.
“H-help…” I managed, the word scraping out of me.
Arielle yanked me closer and began to chant, her voice sharp with urgency, each syllable snapping into place. I couldn’t make sense of the words. The pain stripped thought from me, leaving only instinct and terror.
Steel flashed.
Bastian moved first, blade up, stance wide. Garrick and Alaric drew their swords in the same breath, stepping between us and the thing.
And above us, the shadow swelled, thickening as if my fear were a feast. The pressure in the air deepened. Cold tore through my veins, sharp and invasive, and strength bled from my limbs like water from split skin.
“Fuck, take cover!” Garrick bellowed.
A spherical shield of light snapped into place around Arielle and me an instant before the monster lunged.
Its arms morphed mid-strike, smoke hardening into blades.
Alaric met the first blow with a ringing clash, his boots skidding across the stone.
Bastian drove in from the side, his sword cutting through the dark, only for the shadow to fold and reform, unharmed.
Garrick struck next, fast as lightning, forcing it back a step…
and still, it didn’t bleed. Didn’t falter.
The Bloodsworn were terrifying in their precision, too fast, too lethal, too Fae, and yet the monster drank the strikes like they were nothing.
“What’s happening to me?” I coughed, the words ragged. “Why…why can’t I—”
“It’s draining your soul,” Arielle cried, her voice shaking even as she held herself steady.
Her arms wrapped around me, trying to keep me upright, but I was already slipping—weightless and heavy at once, like my body was becoming a husk around something the monster wanted.
The world tilted. Darkened.
Arielle’s chant rose, relentless. “Lumiere… tundas… luminas.” The final word tore from her throat like a command. “Luminas!”
White fire erupted around us, light so bright it hurt, crackling along the ground, climbing the air, wrapping me in heat that didn’t burn but cleansed. It surged through my skin, into my veins, and the thing holding me snapped.
I gasped hard, my lungs dragging in air like I’d been drowning. My body convulsed as the cold claws peeled away, and I clung to Arielle like she was the only solid thing left in this dead realm.
For one breath, there was nothing but relief.
Then the locator spell shifted inside me. I could feel it swirling.
It flared, violent in its clarity.
A pang seized my chest so sharply I choked, and heat licked along my soul mark like a warning.
Wolfe.
He was close.
So close that for a heartbeat, I swore I felt his pain echo through my ribs.
My head snapped up. My gaze locked on the gray ahead, and my hand trembled as I lifted it.
“That way,” I rasped. “Wolfe. He’s there.”
I pointed. Arielle's head whipped around, following my gaze to the distant gray. Then her eyes went wide. Her face drained of what little color it had managed to retain in this lifeless place.
I followed her stare, squinting through the ash and gloom, to find more shadowy shapes gathering in the distance.
"We need to move." Urgency sharpened Arielle’s. "More of them are coming."
“What are they?”
“Soulwraiths.” Her hands shook as she turned back to the fight, her expression shifting from horror to grim determination as she watched the Bloodsworn dance their deadly ballet around the Soulwraith.
Bastian's blade carved through smoke that reformed instantly. Garrick's strikes found nothing solid to bite. Alaric spun and slashed with inhuman grace, but the monster simply flowed around each attack like water, growing larger with every passing second.
Their battle was fruitless, and the spell Arielle had used merely untangled me from the wraith’s grasp.