Chapter 34 #2
The echoes of his voice propel me further down into the depths of whatever lies beneath Orvynn.
I leap forward, my cess magic sparking under my feet to take me yards ahead.
The foreign feeling, though fleeting, gives me hope.
I silently thank Avonde and the cess at Demis before skidding to a stop at the edge of a chasm.
That is the only way to describe this. The stone ends abruptly and I nearly slide off the edge into the indescribable darkness between the pathways.
Two wooden posts on each end of the chasm indicate a once-existing bridge but now a fatal distance remains.
With my vampyr sight, I try to quickly calculate the sheer strength, and luck, it would take to clear the jump.
My head darts around, trying to find something, anything.
“I always wondered what it would be like,” Killian growls behind my ear, nearly knocking me over the edge.
Throwing myself to the side with no other choice to make, I meet the stone floor and quickly stand up.
“I wondered what it would be like to chase you again. To have this opportunity to make it count again. He will not let me live if I fail again.” My core lights on fire from the effort to stay upright with so much nothingness behind me.
I breathe a haggard breath and meet his eyes. Empty.
“You were behind the carriage. My curse.” I spit on Killian’s face. He flinches, raising a hand to wipe his check clean. When his eyes meet mine again, his ire has turned into fury. He grabs my arms with such a force I know bruises are forming.
Killian leans down, his eyes level with mine and no more than an inch of space between us. “You have had many choices to make, Elivienne. And I will call you as such because the you that I told him to create, with my spell, never existed. No, she would not fight her destiny.”
I can’t even think about his words because he pulls us back three steps from the chasm edge, moving one hand into my hair, yanking me to the ground with a devastating throw.
I slam into the raw stone wall, realizing how unhewn the space is compared to the rest of the manor.
As if this was carved during a time of early civilization.
I choose not to scramble back, not to cower – I meet his gaze. “What do you plan to do now, Killian? Throw me off the cliff edge? Kill me? Coward,” I bite, feeling anger dance all over my skin like sparks of a fire.
“What do I plan to do? This has advanced too quickly for his plans but –” he tilts his head to the side, as if assessing the situation – “contingencies do come up.”
“His?” I try to channel my magic, feeling its warmth in my palms. Those sparks begging to be willed into something useful, but I can’t. Standing, I shake the exhaustion plaguing my muscles. The small knife warms against my chest, as if reminding me it exists.
“This is so much bigger than you and I,” Killian bites as he lunges for me and every instinct awakens to fight.
Making a grab for the knife, I swipe up, grazing his face.
We switch places, my back now to the cliff edge, something I note.
Killian lifts his hand to his face, making the same motion when he wiped my spit from his cheek, only this time it now comes up bloody.
He whips his head to me and I realize the damage.
A deep gash cuts from his chin diagonally over his cheekbone, narrowly missing the outer corner of his eye.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he growls as he unsheathes his short sword. “He would have my head if I took yours.”
“Is the blade a contingency?” I chide, widening my stance. I may have just a small blade but I will go down fighting because if I let him take me from here, to a second location, I will be lost forever.
He lunges with immortal grace, jabbing the sword at my face and I duck nearly quickly enough to miss it, my feet slipping on the gravel embedded in the soles of my slippers. I quickly lurch forward and slice across his leg, blood and flesh squelching.
Killian brings his weapon down and I jump to the side, knocking my head into the stone jutting nearly crumpling at the intense shock of pain.
I weigh the metal in my left hand, my other holding me up against the wall.
He swings again and I barely move back enough before the sword collides with the stone, sparks flying.
It wasn’t far enough and the blade’s edge narrowly slices the space between my neck and shoulder.
Where is Sawyer?
I scream, the pain yanking me away from my oppressor, but I remember I must continue to fight.
Grinding my teeth together, I slam my head forward meeting its mark.
Killian bellows and falls backwards and I fight forward, slicing my blade every which way I can manage, my head feeling heavier and heavier with each bit of movement.
Black edges my vision and I realize I am fighting nearly blind but I continue, screaming with each cut I try to make.
Without warning, my knife meets steel and sparks fly.
I grunt at the sheer strength of his blow, trying to push against his weapon but everything hurts.
We push, locked against one another and I wonder how this dagger is even able to withstand his force when I take a blow to my stomach.
Dropping my only weapon, I collapse and try to pull air into my lungs. The pain, the pressure – it’s suffocation at best. I claw my abdomen to find air, but my muscles are stunned. My vampyr and cess blood try to heal me but it is not coming fast enough.
A hand yanks my hair, hauling my body up with it.
Every movement pushes those black edges further into my vision.
I struggle to catch small, quick breaths, realizing every rib must be broken.
Blood trickles down the side of my head and I feel the wetness across my cheeks.
Tears, blood, it doesn’t matter because he brings his sword up to my throat, pinning me against his body.
“And here I thought you couldn’t fight. That you were weak.
I’ll admit, you put up a good show of strength but without those powers –” his breath warms my ears as he tuts – “you’re useless.
But you won’t be for long. Oh, no, you won’t have to wait much longer.
” He brings the sword tighter against my throat and in that moment I choose to stop fighting.
The fraying edges of my vision take over and an overwhelming silence swarms my mind.
I send out a shiver of pain, or fear, or knowing into the mental void. A prayer. A plea. Letting it be the last thing I do in this world.
Killian is saying something else, the sword now biting into my skin with warm blood trickling beneath it but I hear nothing because, right as my consciousness winks out, I almost feel the void of the world shiver back.
It’s not just a shiver, but a groan from the darkness a foot behind us.
Killian notices it too because his blade slackens just enough for my elbow to jab into his ribs.
He barely finds his footing and I turn to see the utter darkness rising from the void and then I see it.
The brutal scratches into the rock of the chamber.
The shredded ropes which lay dangling from the posts.
Everything I have learned about Krue makes this stench of death terrifying.
The continent was a land of ancient, magical beasts before the first kingdom, under Martine, conquered every inch of forest, stream and mountain that harbored them.
Sawyer mentioned the ruling family turned Krue specifically into a prison for the rest of the continent.
What better way to take care of enemies of the state than to feed them to the monsters of the land’s past? This – this is what drew Cedric’s ancestor to Krue.
The darkness shifts and moves like smoke.
The black mass holds no solid form. My eyes, the injured state of my head, can barely recognize it as anything but the darkness of the chamber but pale-yellow lights twinkle within, as if it is sentient enough to lock eyes with its prey before eliminating their existence.
It floats above the missing bridge, nearly taking up the entire space.
No mouth, no limbs. But the utter reek of the cavern indicates it does indeed feed.
It continues to rise, writhing and growling.
We both back up a step. “Run,” I breathe, more to myself than to Killian.
With no time to think, I turn heel and sprint down the tunnel, Killian a step behind me.
The monster begins to chase and though it makes no clear sound, the utter force of its devouring power creeps along the sides of the wall.
My lungs scream as the broken ribs try and fail to mend themselves with my movement.
Any cess power that carried me earlier is now weakened.
The tunnel turns and turns, ascending back to the main cavern. I slip in loose gravel, feeling the warmth of the void behind me so I drive forward, glancing to each side but seeing or hearing nothing of Killian.
There was no sound. No scream. No devouring.
The monster barrels on and I almost trip on every panicked step.