Chapter 55
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
LYVIA
Broken links to the realm leave the body through blood.
Lyvia – Eye of the Wood, Lotrennia
Memories floated forward as I stood at the edge of the Eye of the Wood, the ominous lake a dark void at the bottom of the thousand-foot cliff. A shiver racked my shoulders as I stared at the darkness, waiting for the eye to blink open.
Tiberius’s coat emanated heat as he stepped next to me, his wide nostrils blowing a snort at the lake far below. I frowned.
We never really talked about what we saw that Awakening, I murmured.
Ti huffed. It felt more… curious… than evil, I think.
My brows furrowed. There had been so much happening during that celebration, I hadn’t even told Bayne what we’d seen when we reunited. There was so much to catch him up on, and then there was the queen’s proposal, the Waters of Ascendiel, my mission…
I don’t think we were supposed to see that, Ti said.
I nodded, my brows narrowing as I replayed that remarkable, yet terrifying moment, when Tiberius had flown over the Eye of the Wood while the mystics spun its water up the sides, revealing the depth… and what lay hidden below.
Some things are better left forgotten, I agreed. For now.
I turned to find Drystan and Kellan at the edge of the pine forest, heads bent in discussion. A crisp fall breeze snaked its way through those trees, urging me back to the edge of the cliff as I strode toward them.
“Aquila or Nishanth will contact you,” Drystan explained, nodding to Tiberius as we approached. “Khato has a plan. They’ll explain where to meet the rest of us.”
I nodded and reached for my friend’s shoulder.
I met his bright blue gaze and scanned his face.
His features had hardened this past year, and though he still donned the round spectacles, the harsh lines on his face and the thick, rounded muscle on his shoulder made him appear so much more like a soldier than the scholarly friend I grew up with.
He seemed to reflect on the same things as his ebony brows rose, and he watched the darkness slithering beneath my arms.
“How did we get here?” I asked, my brows pinching.
His lips pursed, and he shook his head. “We got curious. Dug a little too deep,” he replied. His lips quirked to the side as he chuckled.
A laugh snorted out of my nose, and I rolled my eyes at the Death Scholar joke.
“Good luck,” I signed.
Drystan’s gaze cut to Kellan, and with a crack, he was gone.
I heaved a breath and turned to Kellan, my brows narrowing as I scanned his pale face against the Votruvian war paint. The pads of my fingers rubbed against my thumb, the thick paint dry now.
Tiberius clomped back to the edge of the cliff, and I pulled a rag from my pocket.
Kellan’s dark eyes were soft as I reached up to wipe the twin lines of blood dripping from his nose into his short-cropped beard. I caught them before they pooled over his full lips, dabbing the rag a few times.
“I heard what your mother said. What is the cost, Kellan?” I asked, my voice quieter than intended. “When you give power to others… what do you give up?”
I frowned, angry with myself, with the fact I hadn’t even thought it might take a toll on him.
What was wrong with me? After two years of being exposed to greater powers, I knew there was a cost. There always was.
Why hadn’t I considered there would be one for the Conduit?
Did I really think the Starlings would be immune?
That their status as demigods would mean their powers needed nothing in return?
Beads of blood reformed at the base of his nose. I lifted my rag once more, and he caught my hand in his. I dragged my gaze from his lips to his hooded eyes.
The marbled gray seemed darker than usual tonight, like rivers lost in the night.
His warm hand wrapped around mine, and he pressed a kiss to the center of my palm.
His fingers twined in my own, and our joined hands fell to our sides as his other moved to the side of my face.
He brushed a thumb over my cheek as he blew a sigh through his nose.
“I lose…” He paused, his eyes shuddering. “Whatever tethers me here, to this realm. A bit of my humanity, my mother thinks. A bit of my soul.”
I sucked in a breath, my pulse seeming to still as the words sank in. A sick, plunging feeling sucked in my gut, and I swallowed.
“What do you mean, ‘your soul?’”
Kellan shrugged, the black tattoos shifting on his muscular neck.
“Whatever remains after we die,” he murmured. His hand tightened around my own.
“Like the souls in Tynan’s Hell. What remains after they pass through the Abyss.”
Kellan dipped his chin in confirmation. “I suspect so.”
I squeezed his hand back, narrowing my brows.
“What about when you take some back?” I asked, pressing my palm against his, as if I could force my power into him. “Does it save some of your soul? Can you stitch it back?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Kellan’s eyes softened, and his brows tilted up as he shook his head. “I don’t know, Bonscaíh.”
A vice wrapped around my chest at the same moment a burning formed behind my eyes.
“Then take some back,” I urged him. “Take some of your power back, take some from me, just in case.”
Kellan’s lips tilted into a sad smile.
“Don’t ask me to weaken you, my love, because I won’t,” he murmured, shaking his head softly. “Especially not before a war.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Kellan’s hand slid to the back of my neck and his lips crushed against my own.
A desperate urgency drove him, and I opened my mouth for him as his tongue slipped against my lips.
His head bent over mine as he pulled me closer, and I dropped his hand to wrap my arms around his neck.
His arm hooked around my waist, and my boots lifted from the ground.
My eyes closed as my lips memorized every curve of his, the fresh reality of our situation hovering just beyond.
The bond between us tightened, the weave’s lovely, fresh knots looping and twisting into precious promises.
The kiss strengthened it with its own sort of unbreakable oath.
His arms hardened around me, and his mouth moved faster, not in a lustful heat, but in a fierce, drastic protectiveness, as if his kiss placed a line of daggers around the love we held between us.
A promise to defend against anything and everything.
A promise to never turn back, to do whatever it took to come back to one another.
Kellan’s lips slowed, and he gently lowered me to the ground, slipping his hands to the sides of my face. My eyes had pinched shut, and my mouth followed his lead until he paused, finally breaking our connection and resting his forehead against mine.
“To Hell and back, Bonscaíh.”
My throat bobbed, and I blinked as I looked up at him. A fierce wave of protectiveness washed over me, and I nodded.
“To Hell and back,” I breathed.
We wouldn’t lose each other, not after everything.
It’s time, Tiberius said softly.
I glanced at where he stood at the edge of the Eye of the Wood. His head was still angled toward the large elven lake.
Kellan’s dark eyes scanned my own, and he nodded, somehow always knowing when Tiberius spoke to me.
“I’m with you,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re not alone.”
He swallowed, and I reined in the intense wave of emotion that followed as I recalled what created our initial connection. Honor warmed at my waist, and the thick scar on my neck tingled.
“I’ll always be with you.”
He pressed a quick kiss against my forehead as Tiberius clomped to where we stood.
Pyracantha, Ti explained. They want you inside and me outside. They set up a rubelline perimeter.
My stomach clenched at the thought of returning to Lotrennia’s lethal prison of vines and thorns and the notion of us separating, but I nodded as I explained the plan to Kellan.
“They think the Embodied will split up, going after each of you for the Transcindiel,” he murmured. “It’s not a bad plan.”
We need to keep our powers locked down until we’re in position, Ti continued. We need to fly dark.
I nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Kellan’s arms were hard and steady as they reached around my waist and gripped Tiberius’s thick mane.
The three of us soared through the black night hanging above the Land of Light and Life.
His chest pressed against Enya’s sheathed blade along my back, and the distant echo of battle rippled through the wind buffeting my ears.
Dark shapes materialized above the city of Ayla, and adrenaline surged as the silvery wings of large pixies came into view before a blast of brilliant white light erupted in the distance.
Aquila.
The hawk circled above, his flames raining down on the transformed pixies as they dove for the elven soldiers fighting on the ground. Screams were lost in the rush of the waterfalls pouring from the base of the Gilded Fortress.
A line of archers crouched on the upper battlement, constructed of vines and the thick branches of the birch and golden trees that made up the elven castle.
White flashed, and my heart squeezed as I caught sight of Vulcan on the back of the white, winged horse.
He nocked an arrow, its tip poised at a flurry of silver shadows in the distance.
His face lifted, and the line of War Slayer paint shone against the limited light of the first crescent moon to rise on this dark evening.
The dark point of Vulcan’s arrow drew a quick arc across the sky, following the wild flight of the pixie, before he let it fly. A slight wail caught in the pixie’s throat before it stilled midair and fell.
Vulcan and his mount disappeared as we rounded the Gilded Castle, and my stomach lurched in my throat as the battle unfolded in the center of the city square. Even with my elven eyes, I could just barely discern the pixies from the fighters on the ground.
Blasts of magic illuminated the chaos below.
The thumping of wind barriers and crashes of air-bound boulders clashed amongst the shrieks of the pixies and cries of soldiers.
A line of blue light ripped through the space as Selvina’s white braid flew across her face, sending a line of pain at the approaching horde.
My heart lurched in my throat as she threw her arm in front of Aeriden’s back.
My brother sliced through the pixie in front of him with our father’s blade.
The soft sparks of gathering power pricked the air in the distance, and a wave of power rippled across the sky.
The kind only felt in the presence of mystics.
My brows pinched as I made out the three elves standing in a line before the Living Library.
Khato, Queen Antares, and Isla stood side-by-side, their hands pressed against its massive trunk.
My breath caught in my throat as the branches of the enormous tree began to lift and twist through the air, slashing through the bodies of the nearest pixies.
Two dark figures broke from the flock as they caught sight of us, their silvery wings flapping wildly.
My body tensed at the unwanted attention, and I leashed the Obscura threatening to break free of its tether.
Kellan’s curved blade gave off a soft whine as he slipped it from its sheath, and I felt him put space between us.
Tiberius banked hard, and I tightened my grip on his mane, pinning Kellan’s free arm to my waist. He twisted behind me, angling his blade toward the approaching pixies when a loud snap cracked in the sky.
Tiberius faltered for just a moment, his entire body jolting at Drystan’s sudden appearance.
My friend’s bright blue eyes sparked against the dim light of the moons as he appeared on the back of the nearest pixie.
His face twisted in disgust as he wrapped his long arms around the pixie’s neck and ripped his dagger across its throat.
Black blood spewed through the night air in small droplets as the two of them began to fall. A moment later, a crack ripped through the air, and Drystan was gone. The dying pixie fell to the battle below.
Wings flapped overhead as the second pixie gained on us, and Kellan’s hand appeared on my shoulder to steady himself.
His blade hissed through the air above us, and a quick cry shrieked overhead.
He shoved his momentum to the side, Tiberius lurching his body in the same direction to keep him on his back.
Bile rose as hot liquid poured down my back, and Kellan shoved the pixie off his curved blade.
A blast of brilliant white light lit up the ground from behind us, and my stomach lurched as we flew away from the battle.
I knew the strategy was sound—and I was happy to play my part as the bait—but leaving my friends and fellow Bellators to a fight I could help win left me sick.
Guilt stabbed at my chest as we snuck away to Pyracantha, the twisting prison black vines and thorns sprawling open below us.