60. Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty
Kya
W e appeared in an open field of grass. The air was warmer and it was darker than back in Oryn. The bond tugged at me, urging me to be with my mate, but I pushed that feeling aside.
Malina hurled over herself and emptied her stomach. I cringed at the sound and the smell of the acid spilling onto the ground.
“Shit.” She spat on the grass. “I forgot what that felt like.” She kept her hands on her knees taking deep breaths.
“You good?” I handed her a canteen of water from the pocket of my cloak.
“Just give me a second.”
I looked up at Theron. “Don’t bring him here. No matter what. Ignore him if you can.”
With the dip of his head, he disappeared, leaving Malina and I alone. After a few moments, she stood and wiped her mouth.
“How far away is it?” she asked.
“Not far. Just beyond those trees.” I pointed to the small patch of forest ahead of us.
“How do you know he’s there?”
“This was where the book was found. The river points to here. It was just the most logical place I thought he would be. ”
I pulled out my bow and strung an arrow, then led the way through the trees, using my terbis to navigate us in the darkness.
Malina’s boot kicked something, and she grumbled a curse under her breath before she manifested a small orb of light above us, just bright enough to see the ground.
She kept her hands near her blades, ready to grab them if needed, and trained her eyes on the trees.
We remained silent as we trekked through the small patch of forest.
Just past the tree line, I held up my fist for us to stop. Up ahead, we could see the edge of the Rip on one side and the Glaev touching the end of it on the other.
The destroyed Nation of Atara.
It never got any easier seeing it, knowing just how many had died that night in a matter of minutes. Our home. Our people. While our families still lived, they were suffering more than if they had died too.
Malina stepped up and stood next to me, both of our arms crossed over our chests. We didn’t speak. We just stood there for several moments, staring at the vast wasteland before us.
“For them,” I finally broke the silence.
“For them. And for us,” she echoed softly.
Then I turned and headed toward the edge of where the Glaev met the Rip.
I took a deep breath, grasping my magic, and the swirling tendrils of energy filled my palms and ran up my arms. Without hesitation, I thrust my energy out on to the decimated land, turning it from black to gray, to brown, to green.
I made a path wide enough for the two of us to cross without having to worry about the Rip or the Glaev on either side.
I made a promise to myself that when this was all over, I would restore our Nation’s lands, restore the balance. Just like Kleio ordered me to.
As the path grew, I walked forward onto the restored land, extending my magic farther ahead. I could feel myself weakening with the exertion, not having fully recovered from earlier and still unused to the amount of power I was wielding. Malina could tell too.
“Kya, slow down. You’re going to strain your reserves,” she said.
“It’s fine,” I panted and sweat began to bead on my brow.
I clearly wasn’t. I was becoming exhausted quickly, but Malina wasn’t going to push me on it, she had to trust that I knew my own limits.
But she remained close, following me as we passed between the deadly Glaev and the depths of the Rip until we came up on the beach Ryker and I had tried to find before.
When the Glaev was cleared enough for us to reach the other side, I collapsed, falling to my hands and knees on the sandy beach.
My head spun and my vision was spotty. I dug my fingers into the shifty substance, focusing on that instead.
I knew I was pushing it, but it was necessary.
I couldn’t have flown over it while carrying Malina, and we needed a quick getaway in case we were ambushed by Daegel.
Taking a deep breath, I turned to find a beach.
The one that wasn’t there the last time Ryker and I had come.
But I hadn’t thought of the sea. The low tide having receded, exposing more of the land.
Slivers of moonslight reflected off of the water’s surface.
Large boulders were visible as well, smoothed from thousands of years of the water’s erosion since the Rip’s formation.
“Kya?” Ryker’s voice sounded through the bond. “Kya, what’s wrong?” I knew that he could feel just how weak I was, just as I could feel his panic before a wave of understanding washed over him. “Little gem…where are you?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hating the pained sound of his voice. He knew. He just didn’t want to believe it. We couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts from this distance, but we could still communicate from anywhere in the realm and feel each other’s emotions.
“I’m fine. Ryker, I’m sorry. But I need to do this.” I kept my inner voice calm, soothing down the bond to let him know that I was still with him.
“No…no, no, no. Please, come back. You promised I would be with you.”
“I know. But I couldn’t let anything happen to you. Oryn needs you. Your people need you. I need you. Safe and far away from here.” My vision started to come back with my slow deep breaths.
Malina gave me the water and I drank nearly the entire thing.
“This isn’t one of your Roav jobs. This male is after you. He’s dangerous.” His voice was desperate.
“And I won’t endanger you!” My voice was raised. “I will not risk your life, not if I can help it.”
“I’m coming.” It wasn’t a question, but a promise.
“You won’t make it. It’s a two-day flight.”
“Fuck! Theron won’t answer me.” I could feel his adrenaline surging.
“He’s protecting his Worthy,” I said apologetically.
I took Malina’s offered hand and stood. I tried to block out the sound of his voice in my mind. I concentrated on the sound of the ocean waves, the sound of the wind skating across the shifting sand beneath my boots, the eerie silence of the Rip directly behind me.
“You good?” Malina asked.
I gave a shallow nod. “Ryker’s awake. He’s pissed.”
“Do you blame him?”
“No.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, tell him to be quiet. You’re already weak and the last thing we need is for him to distract you.”
I nodded in agreement and was about to speak to him when he beat me to it .
“You took Malina…but not me.”
He must have found Hakoa. And quickly. It was the only reason he’d have known Malina was with me.
“I did. It wasn’t entirely my choice and I will explain everything later,” I said quietly to him. “But please trust me.”
“I do trust you, but it’s not about trust. He is trying to take you from me!“ The bond rumbled with fear and anger.
“No one will take me from you,” I stated firmly. “Ryker, I love you beyond the bond. But please shut up. I need to focus.”
He was silent for a moment before he responded. “I’m coming for you.”
And I expected nothing less from my shadow.
“Kya,” Malina whispered.
I looked at her. Her eyes were trained on the water ahead as she slowly pulled up her mask before unsheathing her daggers.
My head snapped in the direction of her stare, and my eyes widened in disbelief.
There was a sandy path around a bend that was visible due to the low tide on the other end of the beach, right where it met up with the edge of the Rip.
But what nearly made my heart stop was the island at the other end. One that hadn’t been there before.
A Drift Island.
Following Malina’s lead and mostly out of habit, I pulled up my mask and drew my bow. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of the islands that our family had been stranded on. I hoped it wasn’t, seeing as it was dead, rotted with the Glaev.
The boulders obscured the entire sandbar and island from us. Malina gave me a knowing look and a nod. We both ran, keeping low to the ground, toward one of the large rocks and crouched behind it.
“Can you feel anything?” Malina whispered. The roar of the waves drowning out her quiet voice so much that I struggled to hear.
“No. Not through the sand or the Glaev.” Another reason I hated the dark magic.
“Let’s get closer then. See if we can spot any movement on the island.”
I looked at her like she was crazy. “No one can be on it, Mal. It’s the Glaev.”
She shared the same look of astonishment. “He can. He stood on it, back in Oryn. I saw him.”
Well shit.
“Alright, let’s get closer,” I conceded.
We darted across the beach to the next boulder nearer the Drift Island, pausing to glance around for movement, then sprinting to a space between two boulders next to each other at the curve of the bend.
We pressed our bodies against the rock before leaning over to peer around the side of it.
I could see where the sandbar met with the beach.
The path itself was narrow and unaffected by the Glaev.
My spine shivered as an accented voice came from behind us.
“Hello, Diamond.”