Chapter 18 Dina
DINA
Ilie on the cold, smooth stone of the altar, a willing sacrifice.
My heart is a heavy, aching thing in my chest, but my resolve is a shield against the fear.
The air in the cavern hums around me, a sweet, melodic thrum of pure magic.
The silver-blue light from the water below casts shifting, beautiful patterns on the high, crystalline ceiling.
It is a beautiful place to die. A part of me, the part that has only ever known servitude and pain, is grateful for this small, final mercy.
I close my eyes and think of Xylon, of his face when he is whole and healed and free.
That is the image I will take with me into Kasian’s promised peace.
Kasian stands over me, a figure of midnight and sorrow. He raises his pale, elegant hands. “Be at peace, child,” he whispers, his voice like the rustle of dry leaves. “Your gift will bring an end to great suffering.”
He begins to chant.
The change is instantaneous. The gentle, melodic hum of the cavern sharpens, rising in pitch to a high, electric crackle.
The soft, silver-blue light intensifies, becoming a blinding, brilliant white that shines through my closed eyelids.
The air grows thick and heavy, chaining me down like metal, making it hard to breathe.
This is not the gentle, soothing magic I expected.
This is a raw, demanding, and hungry power.
Kasian’s voice, once a soft whisper, transforms. It becomes a resonant, powerful boom that seems to shake the very foundations of the cavern.
He is not pleading with the Wildspont. He is commanding it.
I do not understand the ancient, guttural words of his incantation, but I understand intent.
The words he speaks are not of healing or release.
They are harsh, angular sounds of binding, of pulling, of forcing.
They are words of exchange. A cold seed of doubt begins to sprout in the pit of my stomach.
A shimmering in the air above me makes me open my eyes.
The brilliant white light is coalescing, weaving itself into threads, forming a shape.
The shape of a person. A woman. She is beautiful, with long, flowing hair and a face of heartbreaking sadness, but her form is translucent, ethereal.
A ghost. Is this Kasian’s lost love? Lyra?
My doubt blossoms into full-blown, ice-cold fear. This is wrong. All of this is wrong. Why is she here? The ritual is for Xylon. To heal him.
I turn my head, my gaze snapping to Kasian.
The mask of weary, tragic grief has vanished from his face.
It has been utterly consumed by a raw, obsessive hunger that is terrifying to behold.
His black, bottomless eyes are not on me, not on the glowing font.
They are fixed on the ghostly image of the woman above me, and the look on his face is that of a starving man who has not seen food in a thousand years.
It is a look of pure, selfish, all-consuming need.
And in that moment, all the pieces of his terrible deception slam into place.
The words of binding. The ghostly apparition.
His obsessive hunger. The need for a pure heart, a strong life force.
He is not breaking a curse. He is paying a ransom.
He is bringing his lover back from the dead by trading my soul for hers.
The lie of a “gentle release” is a sickening mockery. This is not a sacrifice. It is a theft.
Panic, stark and absolute, explodes in my chest. A scream builds in my throat. I try to sit up, to struggle, to throw myself from this cursed altar.
I cannot move.
My body is pinned to the stone, held fast by invisible, unyielding bands of magical force.
I am trapped, a prisoner in my own skin.
The only thing I can move are my eyes. The scream dies in my throat, choked off by the magical pressure.
My heart hammers against my ribs, a wild, terrified bird in a cage of bone.
I am going to die here, not as a willing sacrifice to save the man I love, but as fuel for a madman’s obsession.
The ghost of Lyra becomes more solid, her sad eyes looking down not at me, but through me.
Kasian’s chanting reaches a fevered, frantic crescendo.
He raises his right hand, and in it, he holds a ritual knife carved from a single piece of gleaming, black crystal.
It is a shard of solidified night, and its point is aimed directly at my heart.
This is it. The final, terrible moment. My life is about to be stolen, my soul used as currency, and Xylon will never even know why. He will wake up cured, and I will be gone, my spirit devoured by this ancient, hungry magic. The despair is a black, suffocating tide.
The tip of the crystal knife glints in the blinding light. Kasian’s face is a mask of triumphant madness. He is about to complete the ritual. He is about to bring the knife down.
In that last, silent, hopeless second before the end, a roar of pure, possessive, earth-shaking fury explodes into the cavern, a sound I know better than my own name.
It is a sound that shatters the spell of the ritual, that shakes the very stones of this ancient place, and that rips through my despair with all the force of a lightning strike.
It is the sound of Xylon.