Chapter 19 Xylon
XYLON
My roar rips through the cavern, a primal sound of absolute fury and terror. The air crackles with it. I burst from the passage, my monstrous form a thunderous blur of grey-green muscle.
She is there. Laid out on the black altar. Her eyes are closed. Kasian stands over her, his pale, elegant hand raised, the crystal knife a shard of obsidian pointed at her heart. The ghostly form of his lost love shimmers above her, translucent and terrifying.
He is too close.
My mind collapses into a single, burning purpose: reach her. Stop him. Kill him.
I do not think. I simply move. My powerful legs launch me across the glowing pool of the Wildspont, the water boiling and hissing as my colossal weight displaces it. I am a living battering ram, a force of vengeance unleashed.
Kasian’s head snaps up, his ancient eyes widening with a flicker of surprise, a spark of something almost like… annoyance. He had not anticipated me. Good.
He is faster than anything I have ever seen. Before I can even reach the island, before my first monstrous stride lands on the obsidian rock, he is gone. One moment he is standing over her, the next he is a blur of midnight robes, reappearing on the far side of the island, chanting.
Bolts of dark energy, colder than the deepest void, erupt from his outstretched hands.
They scream across the cavern, aimed not at my body, but at the glowing pools around the altar.
When they strike the luminous water, it erupts in explosions of crackling shadow and blinding light.
He tries to weaponize the Wildspont against me, to sever my connection to the island.
I ignore it. The spray of superheated water and raw magic lashes at my hide, but I do not slow. My course is set. She is my world. He will not take her from me.
I crash onto the black rock of the altar-island, my weight shaking the entire structure. The impact sends a wave of force through the cavern, making the crystal formations shudder. My claws permeate the obsidian, leaving deep gouges.
“Fool!” Kasian’s voice is a whip-crack of contempt. “You cannot stop this. Her soul is already—”
His words are cut off by my roaring charge. I’m a whirlwind of fury, a storm of muscle and claw. He tries to evade me again, a shimmering blur of shadow magic. But my beast-honed senses anticipate his move. I shift my weight, a powerful lunge, not where he is, but where he will be.
My massive, clawed hand slams into the air where he is about to materialize.
He flickers, half-formed, and then my blow connects.
Not with the full force of my charge, but with enough power to send him reeling.
He cries out, a thin, surprised sound of pain.
He crashes against one of the smaller waterfalls, his midnight robes tangling in the spray.
The interruption is enough. The ritual falters. The blinding white light of the Wildspont flickers, momentarily dimming. The ghostly image of a woman, solidifying above Dina, shimmers and wavers, becoming translucent once more.
Kasian recovers, his black eyes blazing with a cold fury.
He launches himself at me, not with raw strength, but with a torrent of shadow magic.
Tendrils of pure darkness wrap around my limbs, biting into my flesh like countless razor-sharp teeth.
They try to bind me, to pull me down, to drain my strength.
The cold, lifeless magic is an agony, a creeping paralysis that tries to invade my very core.
I roar, a sound of defiance and refusal. The beast’s rage is a burning tide that climbs my throat. My claws dig into the obsidian floor, the rock groaning under the pressure. I will tear them all apart for touching her. I will tear him apart for touching me with this vile, dead magic.
I ignore the pain. I ignore the draining cold. My strength is fueled by a single, unyielding truth: she is in danger.
I pull against the binding shadows, my muscles bulging, screaming in protest. The Vrakken magic, ancient and powerful, strains against my brute, monstrous strength. I feel something tear in my chest, a fresh bloom of agony, but I do not care. I will not stop.
The shadows snap. They break, dissolving into nothingness.
Kasian stumbles back, his face pale with shock. He had underestimated my monstrous power. He had underestimated my rage. He had underestimated my love.
I charge again. He tries another trick, conjuring a wall of shadow to block my path. I do not slow. I hit it with my shoulder, a thunderous impact that sends ripples through the magical barrier. It holds for a moment, then shatters like glass, throwing splinters of dark magic through the air.
I am on him. He raises his hands, a desperate incantation on his lips, but there is no time. My massive clawed hand slams into his chest. Not to kill. Not yet. I want him to feel it. To know what it is to be helpless.
He is thrown backward with a sickening crack, his body sailing through the air like a broken doll.
He crashes into the largest of the crystal waterfalls that feed the Wildspont, his thin form disappearing in a blinding explosion of silver-blue light and spray.
The entire cavern shudders, the humming power of the Wildspont reacting violently to the intrusion.
The ritual is utterly, irrevocably broken.
The brilliant white light of the Wildspont flickers wildly, then pulses, growing impossibly bright. The magic unleashed, unbound by Kasian’s control, surges through the cavern, a wild, chaotic storm of raw power.
Above the altar, the ghostly image of Lyra, Kasian’s beloved, solidifies completely.
She is no longer translucent. She is real.
Her eyes, filled with an ancient, profound sadness that mirrors Kasian’s own, open slowly.
She looks down, not at Dina, still bound to the altar, but across the cavern, straight into the eyes of Kasian himself.