The Legacy (The Darkness Within Saga Book 1)

by JD Franx

  Pain roared through the core of Kael’s chest and out to the rest of his body as he heard Arabella’s whisper through the delirium of pain. Agony similar to that he had come to know on an intimate level over the many long months hit his body with new life.

  But this time things were very different. The savage pain lasted for less than a single minute before Kael felt the threshold of his power peak. His returning magic was back. The agony from the witch’s attack evaporated, disappearing like the remnants of a bad dream. His head, forced back in a scream from the intensity of the initial torment, dropped, and transformed to a grin of morbid satisfaction as power that had been gone for so long flared to life, and then surged with need as it became an explosive inferno inside his very existence.

  Kael dropped his head down to look into Arabella’s eyes. “Is that best you have, witch?” he snarled. With a hatred-filled excitement, he tugged against the Orotaq guards, pulling them forward by a couple of inches. Without being told, Darthinia hurried forward and slapped a second spiked device to his stomach, but he never even felt it. Instead it transformed into even more raw, magical power. Memories of what Arabella and her ternion had done to the people in the cell, as well as to himself, came pouring back to the front of Kael’s mind, blanking his thoughts of all but the burning need for revenge.

  He heard Arabella’s cursing through a vague fog as they were locked eye to eye, magic and fury pounded in his ears like thunder hammering though a veil of thin cloud cover. She sneered, and like a fool, reached for a third device as she barked the words to release her magic from the second clawed apparatus, all of which did nothing but continue to feed more magic to Kael’s raging needs.

  “How’s that for more power, Kael? I have as much as you want to take. The Lower Brethren have made sure of it,” she yelled, as more vile, green magic seeped into his body through the two torturous claws. The thin thread that had been holding Kael’s sanity together for months, snapped, burned away by his urge to kill. The dark, growing desire to make Arabella and her kind suffer overwhelmed his entire being.

  Already with more than enough power to break free, Kael smiled at the steady influx of the witch’s magic that did little more than increase his power to staggering heights. His own smirk curled with fury and he pushed against the Orotaq guards that held him secure once more.

  “Power?” he snorted, laughing. “Let me show you how little you understand about real power, old woman.” He jerked free of the guards and slapped the palms of his hands to their chests screaming the words to his spell. “Kveysa Drepa!”

  The words Lycori taught him so long ago lit up with magic that showed no signs of failure. Black and purple lightning leapt down his forearms to his hands as it cracked and sizzled like a dark storm from Hell. Charged by the unleashed darkness growing inside him, the potency of the simple spell surged from both of his hands. Euphoria flooded his soul as the dark electricity ripped clean through both guards’ chests and sparked on the cell’s bars behind them, jumping from cell to cell. The Orotaq guards crumpled to the floor, dead. The black lightning died just as quickly as it came but continued to coil and jump around his right forearm like erratic, furious, black snakes. With no hesitation, he reached out and snatched Arabella by the throat with his left hand.

  Kael’s vicious spell triggered the rebirth of the tattoo-like vines previously growing across his body. A dormant beast for so many months, the black vines from the death-flower on his chest rose to life like a wraith from an old grave. Vibrating with renewed vigour, the vines were on the move only seconds after he killed the guards. With a tearing sound audible to everyone in the cell, they burrowed through the skin on his sides and further into his back, resuming their course from before the capture like some predetermined, but psychotic road map. At the same time, more vines carved their way through the flesh of his stomach. Kael welcomed its return and the magic that came with it.

  With two dead Orotaq guards already at his feet and Arabella struggling at the end of his left hand, Kael’s right hand shot out, more intense, dark lightning bolts streaked away, forking twice. The Orotaq guard watching over Galen crumpled as the first fork seared through his chest. The second branch of lightning arced sideways and struck Darthinia. Energy sizzled as it entered her side and burned its way through her body before the thought of spelling a shield could cross her mind.

  The Dead Sister’s young novice, Ashea, along with their third, Verrysa, rushed to help, but both were hit by the same fork when it exited Darthinia’s cooked body, as Kael forced more magic into the spell, extending its effects. The force of the strike launched them out the cell’s door and down the hall, trailing dark smoke and a smear of bloody, black ash. The sickening crunch of their bodies impacting the bars of the last cell made Kael’s blood race with excitement. He released his connection to the spell and the dark lightening died out.

  As Arabella watched the last of her protection fall, instinct finally overruled her surprise. Raising a shield to protect herself, she cursed as it fluttered and failed. The presence of such overwhelming underworld power swallowed her own magic as if it never existed.

  From his peripheral vision, Kael could see fear on the face of every person in the cell, except for Arabella. The defiant look on her face nearly made him choke her to death right there, but with his sanity lost in the ether, he couldn’t resist the chance to return some of the psychological torture she’d inflicted on them all.

  “What’s the matter, Dead Sister?” he mocked. Seething with anger, he breathed through clenched teeth. “You wanted me to kill. Not happy with the results?” The witch smirked, but said nothing. Kael shook her by the throat. “You need to learn which side is the right one, witch,” he growled, quoting the same words back to her that she had said to him the day of Lycori’s death. Still she showed no fear. Kael’s puzzled expression made her laugh.

  “I couldn’t be happier, my dear,” she wheezed, choking through Kael’s strangle-hold, as she laughed harder. “You’ve taken lives, Master, that is all that matters. You were told by the Cardessa many months ago that our lives were yours to take for what we had to do. The darkness within you will continue to grow now. My task is complete. My life is yours to take.” She cackled as he stared at her unsure of what to do.

  Pulling a ragged breath past her partially crushed throat, her voice softened and she added, “This world will never accept you, Kael. Why do you shun us, of all people, the ones who do accept you? Without us you will die in this world, alone and hunted until your last desperate breath abandons you and your soul falls among the savage claws of Hell. I wish I knew how you regained your power. Some day soon it’ll be important knowledge. No one has ever circumvented the Gyhurra, ever. But it really doesn’t matter any longer, Kael. You are reborn.” The surety of her words renewed the rage burning inside, he dragged her closer, until they were nose to nose.

  “Think hard and maybe you’ll figure out your mistake with the two minutes of life you have left,” he spit, with disgust.

  With no more threats alive in the cell, and for some strange reason, craving even more power, Kael finally turned his attention to the Gyhurra around his neck. A dull grinding sound rasped from the collar as the large spikes slowly retracted from the nerve cores in Kael’s neck. Metal squealed against metal as the spikes rubbed against the months-rusted collar housing. A grunt of discomfort escaped his lips as the spelled spikes withdrew clear of his neck. A focused thought of power snapped the metal of the collar with a sharp crack. The shock to his body as the collar came free nearly swallowed his mind in blackness. The rest of the powers that the Gyhurra had been suppressing returned with a jolt that weakened his knees. The confusion caused by the raw power of the two different energies nearly overwhelmed his waking mind. Knowing he could hold on to neither his broken reality or his failing consciousness for much longer, Kael refocused his attention on the last Dead Sister, Arabella.

  “Figure it out yet, witch?” he panted.

  “I
don’t know, Kael. Please, just stop. We only wanted you to become what you were born to be. We can still show you how to use your full powers. It’s what we do. I can see both magics conflicting inside you, let me help y—” she started to offer. But Kael interrupted, pulling her closer, he twisted her head to the side and whispered in her ear.

  “I don’t need your help, witch. The more my kind suffer, the stronger we get. I have all the power I will ever need now. Thanks to you. And I will use it to hunt down every last one of you.” As he turned her face back to his, the reality of what she had done set in and the look on her face was the one Kael had hoped for. His voice rose with anger. “I will remember this for as long as I live, Arabella. Your mistake has set us free. One hundred and fourteen days you have tortured every person in this cell. I cannot give you their pain, but I can sure as hell give you some of mine. That will have to do,” he yelled, his voice rising out of control. “All those days of suffering you gave me increased my power enough to give you back all that I experienced. All of it. All. At. Once!” he screamed, and slapped his right hand to her chest. As tears ran down his cheeks, he released every ounce of pain he had received at her hands during the past one hundred and fourteen days. Power flowed into her chest on a direct line from his hand, the exact same way as she had done to him so many times before. The magical equivalent to months of pain and suffering raced from his hand into her body as fast as he could force it, and all the while, he smiled at the excruciating agony that flooded her eyes.

  Lost in the abyss of his emotions and magic that no one alive understood, Kael focused on Arabella’s internal reaction to what he was doing. The heightened magical state allowed his esoteric sight to slip into her body with ease, but he had no intention of healing her. Instead, he watched as endorphins flooded her blood stream in an attempt to help deal with the onslaught of suffering, but it didn’t help, and her body began to die as organs shut down from the trauma and the incredible pain. Her heart pounded with the power of a jackhammer until it could take no more. Kael refused to allow his senses to leave until he felt her heart still and he knew she was dead.

  A deep breath relaxed his rage the slightest bit and he returned his senses to their proper place in his own body. Though it had felt like longer, Arabella had held on for only a handful of seconds against the nearly four months of savage pain he inflicted upon her. The sight of her dying in such agony filled his soul with euphoric satisfaction, even though a part of his broken mind was disgusted by his actions. Her body sunk to the floor as he refused to release the hold he had on her throat. Kael followed her down until he was on his knees beside her. N’Ikyah’s touch on his shoulder brought Kael back to his shattered senses.

  “It is over, Kael. She is dead. We must go before others arrive. I can feel your exhaustion. You will not survive using much more magic. I can already feel your strength fading.” As she pulled the two clawed devices from his chest and stomach he nodded his agreement, but knew without some kind of help they wouldn’t make it out of the prison alive. Though she was right about both his fading strength and consciousness, an idea entered his mind.

  “Galen, come here,” he said, with a sense of urgency. “Help us get out of here, will you?”

  “I’ll help you all I can, Kael, but with this collar and no magic there is little I can do. I trained with a staff, not a sword. Still,” he said as he picked up two dropped Orotaq daggers the size of short swords, “better than nothing, I guess.”

  “Keep those, but we can’t fight the Orotaq with weapons. Let me get that collar off you,” he offered, swaying from exhaustion.

  “Kael?” Galen replied, clearly concerned. “My bond is gone, it’s not like yours, if you remove the collar, my life will go along with it.” Though he felt more like throwing up, Kael smiled to reassure him.

  “Let me worry about that. I can give you back your bond as well as your freedom.”

  Shaking his head in doubt, Galen stared at N’Ikyah in horror. “Can he even do that? That’s not possible, is it? N’Ikyah? You’re the healer,” he questioned, looking back and forth between Kael and N’Ikyah as fear danced in his eyes.

  She nodded to him. “If anyone can, it will be him. If you cannot trust him after all this time, Galen… The sooner it is done, the faster we can leave.” She watched both men for a second and then warned them both. “If you do this Kael, it may very well kill him, but it may kill you first. I can feel no magical reserves left in your body. Your magic is spent. What you draw for this now will come directly from your life force.”

  “Then I’d better hurry, right? Trust me, Galen, so we can get out of here. Your magic will keep us alive. We won’t make it otherwise.” Without saying another word Galen knelt beside Kael on the cell’s dirty floor.

  “Please, Kael, don’t waste your life to save mine, not after all this,” the Cethosian wizard said.

  Hoping he could still do the things he had accomplished moments before, Kael closed his eyes and sought out the call of his power once more. Unlike so many other times before, it answered with a restrained fury. Realizing for the first time that his own willpower controlled his underworld magic, he smiled to himself, knowing he could help Galen.

  Touching the wizard’s chest with his left hand Kael could feel a void inside the man’s being that he assumed must be where his earth-bond should be. Though it wasn’t his intention, he could also feel the violation and degradation Galen had experienced upon its loss. Kael’s anger flared to life at the injustice and the restrained fury of magic began to rapidly accelerate once more.

  Again Kael acted without conscious thought, directing his power to the collar around Galen’s neck. The Gyhhura Torque cracked, split in half, and fell to the floor with smoke rising from the charred metal. Kael’s magic made an automatic attempt to sustain the weakening life force inside the wizard, and failed. Both gasped and Kael realized that even should he sacrifice all his own life force to recover Galen’s bond, it wouldn’t be enough. Kael stared into the wizard’s eyes, panic fluttering inside his chest as he realized too late that his underworld magic could never restore Galen’s connection to the earth. Death can’t restore life.

  Frozen with panic Kael struggled to find a way to help the dying man who had trusted him with his life. Like a switch inside his brain, body, and soul, Kael’s own connection to the earth woke with a rumble of pure power; in desperation, his need had woken his second bond at last. It swallowed almost all of his conscious thought in less time than it took to draw a single breath. With power well beyond his conscious understanding, Kael drove his right hand into the bedrock of their cell floor. The rock cracked and his hand slid into it, like a tight-fitting glove, unharmed.

  A small part of Kael’s mind could feel the power of the earth as it was connected to all life. Plants, animals, people, and even the magic of the earth itself, his own magic seemed to touch every ounce of life in all of existence before rushing back and filling him with an understanding. The sensation and the vast scope it contained was staggering. Combined with everything else, Kael’s mind was a whirling storm of knowledge far beyond his comprehension. He shook with tremors throughout his body and his eyes opened, but they were glossed over with moisture and no sense of conscious recognition looked out.

  Without being consciously aware, Kael expanded the emptiness inside Galen as much as was possible. The wizard’s heaving chest and a wheeze of surprised panic stopped him from going further.

  “The spell,” Kael growled, “Your bonding spell... cast it!”

  Clearly shocked, Galen stuttered for a second. “Oh, Sk... Skafa n’orr nattura gor einn. Let our souls become one.”

  Both men groaned as Galen’s cruus returned with an explosion of magic inside Kael’s head and the wizard’s chest. Using his own body as a conduit, Kael transferred a very minute amount of the earth’s power through Galen’s cruus into the void he had expanded inside the Cethosian wizard. Galen gasped a second time and his breath caught in his throat as the en
ergy flooded his body. When the exchange was complete and the new bond stable, Kael secured Galen’s cruus—reinforcing it with a layer of his own magic. Pulling his right hand from the earth, Kael released his hold on the restored wizard.

  Kael’s head pounded and his body burned like hellfire stormed through his veins. He assumed it was the price for handling the magic that saved Galen. Black spots and explosions of colour began to jump across his vision as he realized his time was up.

  “Both of you listen, carefully,” Kael gasped. “You have to get my travel bags if you can. You can’t leave it in their hands. Once you have it, run the opposite way from where we were brought in, where they took us, Galen, to steal our magic. Down those stone… stairs… caves… escape.”

  “We will, Kael, I promise,” Galen answered, still unsteady on his feet.

  Looking in the direction of their only escape route, Kael saw the burned body of Darthinia, the broken mess that was Verrysa and the crushed figure of the young girl, Ashea. Blood and ash was smeared everywhere and smoke still rose lazily from all three bodies. The raging fury that had kept him going slipped away in an instant as he realized what he had done. So many lives… gone.

  “What have I done… I, I… did…” he stuttered, as tears streamed down his cheeks and fell from the hairs of his beard. No longer able to hold on, his eyes rolled back in his head and darkness entered his mind, but for the first time in so long, the hope of freedom went with him into the black.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  One always believes, deep inside, that they will be strong enough to survive the trials that the gods lay down before us. The truth of the matter normally lies somewhere in between. I have always thought that I would be ready for any tests that would cross my path. That I would have the strength of spirit to surpass any obstacle. But the reality turned into something far beyond any wizard’s worst nightmare. Months imprisoned beneath Tazammor Mountain, stripped of our magic and tortured daily, hope and strength of spirit quickly faded. Of the hundreds of wizards captured trying to protect the civilians of the Blood Kingdoms, only two of us walked out of the nightmare that had become our reality. A reality that we must stop from happening to others. At all costs.