Morning was pale and generally sad. The sight of this place seemed to hurt her deeply. “My brother exists here, in this emptiness,” she said, leaning into Phantom.
“If wood nymphs lived here, then they must’ve experienced some kind of tragedy, much like that other place you and Kelara visited.” Widow looked at Soul, then me. “Think we can find another Beta element here?”
I shrugged, looking around. “We can certainly try.”
“Well, we can see the central structure here,” Soul said, pointing at the white stones. “Maybe someone left us a message from Night on one of these things.”
My stomach was churning. I knew Night had been here. I could feel his distant presence. This sensitivity was likely due to the first Beta element I’d broken. My entire physical form was suffering the aftereffects of that endeavor, but Soul had stayed close, frequently checking on me to make sure I was okay. I couldn’t help but find that somewhat endearing, especially coming from a self-described psychopath.
I checked the outward parts of the settlement first, but I soon realized the Night Bringer’s presence was fading. “How do you feel, Morning?” I asked, wondering if she could sense him like I could. She should’ve been able to detect traces of him already, given that they were twins, created by Death at the same time, much like Dream and Nightmare.
“Empty,” Morning replied, sitting on a square gray rock.
“You don’t sense Night at all?”
Soul eyed me carefully. “Do you, Kelara?”
“I think so… but I’m not sure what it means.”
“It means we’re onto something,” Phantom said, smiling as she settled next to Morning. “Go on, follow your instincts. Where does the feeling lead you?”
Closing my eyes for a moment, I tried to home in on the source of Night’s presence. The shape of every stone around me became clear in the darkness. Outlines spiderwebbed across my field of vision until one piece stood out, brighter than the others.
“Here,” I murmured, crossing the central arrangement and kneeling in front of a rectangular plaque. Most of it was buried, so I used my hands to clear the dirt away. Running my fingers across the smooth surface, I shivered as familiar sensations washed over me. My skin recognized the narrow carvings. I’d touched something like this before. “I think this is it.”
Soul walked over, while Morning, Phantom, and Widow stayed behind, watching us. “You know what you have to do.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?” I asked as I glanced up at him. He shook his head, and I understood that I was in for a world of pain. Cruor’s memories were alive, the Night Bringer’s suffering embedded in them. He wanted us to find the truth, and there was no easy way to do so. “Okay… here goes nothing.” I sucked in a breath and placed both palms on the stone plaque, moving them across it until a surge shot through me like lightning.
I got dizzy, fast.
Everything turned white before the world came back into focus. I was experiencing everything through the eyes of another wood nymph, but I didn’t feel Night inside me this time. No, this was a simple soul, a creature in a time before the Elders had even touched Cruor.
I could see it all. The endless emerald woods. The perfect blue skies with cotton-white clouds and a sun beaming so bright, it made me smile. I could smell the spring blossoms’ sweet fragrance floating on the wind. I could hear the birds chirping, fanning their wings and spreading their rainbow tails as they danced on tree branches, courting one another.
There were other nymphs living here. Men and women of various ages, all of them clad in the same natural fabrics, with pointy ears and flowers and leaves braided into their long hair. Some walked around laughing and talking. Others brought water in clay vessels from the nearby spring. A few carried woven baskets filled with heart-shaped fruits and ruby-red berries. It felt like a good day, and I didn’t immediately realize how everything was about to go wrong. Awfully wrong.
A distant boom stopped me in my tracks. I looked up and saw a bright light slashing across the sky. It looked like a massive meteor, the clouds ripping open in its wake. I heard myself shout, telling people to take cover as I watched the large object headed dangerously close to our village. My first thought was to run back to my hut and take my daughters to safety in the lush woods surrounding this land.
But I was hypnotized by the movement in the sky. The light split into two glowing orbs that kept knocking into one another. They landed close to the stream. The impact was devastating, tearing the ground open with an explosion. Sparks flew, and a devastating shockwave followed. The other wood nymphs screamed. Those closest to the river were obliterated, vanishing in the flash.
I managed to duck behind a wall. Most of it came down when the shockwave reached me, and the air got knocked out of my lungs. I prayed to the forest gods to protect me and my children, but the nightmare was only just beginning, and I knew it.
Pulling myself up, I looked back at the crash site. A massive crater had fractured the crystalline stream, and the water was now pouring into the hole. From it, vibrant black smoke emerged. Two figures, bouncing all over, fighting one another.
I recognized them, and the terror was so powerful that I could feel myself slipping away. My host was dying. The shockwave had driven a shard of stone into my back, and I was bleeding out, no longer able to stand.
Jumping back into my own Reaper skin, I went limp, feeling suddenly weak. Soul was there to hold me up, his arms coming around me and tightening slowly. “You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay, Kelara. Take deep breaths, come on.”
“Wow, you’re weirdly more human than I ever was,” I muttered, my head resting on his shoulder. After all, I’d been a human in my living days. The Soul Crusher had belonged to another species prior to becoming one of Death’s first Reapers. I doubted he even remembered those early days.
“What did you see?” Phantom asked.
I took a minute to catch my breath and regain my senses. The weakness that had almost knocked me out had not been mine. I glanced over my shoulder to find Phantom, Widow, and Morning staring at me. Well, at Soul and me. Widow had his head cocked. I wished I could see his expression.
“I was in another wood nymph’s skin,” I said. “And I saw a crash.”
After I gave them all the details, the First Tenners agreed that my quest here was nowhere near over. Soul moved back, giving me room to breathe on my own. “I’m afraid you’ll have to keep touching that stone until you find the Beta element. You and I both know it doesn’t have to be the same piece in which the memories were implanted. Night was much smarter, more cautious than that.”
“I agree,” Morning added. “He gave you the first one easily just to get you started, probably fearing the Spirit Bender might come around and foil his escape attempt.”
“Kelara, you’ve got this.” Phantom encouraged me with a warm smile. “You’re clearly more capable of finding the Night Bringer than all of us put together. You can pull through. I know it.”
“Your confidence is encouraging,” I mumbled, feeling drained of all my energy. A mere glimpse into the past had depleted my spirit, and I still had a long way to go.
Running my hands over the stone again, I found another familiar symbol. This time, the jolt was even more violent. Past the blinding white that swallowed me, Cruor emerged once more. I screamed as a rumble echoed through my village.
Around me, most of the hut had come down during the shockwave blast. My mother was dead, her arm sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble. I was crying, only a twelve-year-old nymph now, my legs shaking as I tried to get out.
People screamed. Some were running, desperate to get as far away from the broken stream as possible. Others didn’t make it, collapsing on the ground in puddles of their own blood. The carnage was horrifying, and it wasn’t over… it was only just beginning.
I managed to get out, wondering if my sister or my father had made it. The pain in my soul throbbed as I thought of my mother, so I pu
shed myself to remember that I was Kelara, a visiting Reaper, not the young wood nymph whose body I was borrowing.
The black smoke spread outward, and from it appeared two figures—each dark and as fast as a shadow. They darted after one another across the village ruins. They weren’t bothered by the fires or the wood nymphs they kept bumping into. They were too busy fighting each other.
One of them vanished and reappeared closer to me, and I held my breath. He looked at me and mouthed “I’m sorry!” before he disappeared again. The second one bolted after him with no regard for me whatsoever. I watched them fight. They wore black suits, and they had scythes. Reapers.
“Holy crap!” I heard myself say.
I recognized the Spirit Bender first. He was the aggressor, the one who didn’t care about me or the many wood nymphs he’d already hurt by coming here. He was too busy trying to take down the other Reaper.
“The Night Bringer,” I managed.
The one who’d said he was sorry. He hit the ground hard, and Spirit’s boot came down on his neck. I stared at Night, and Night stared at me. He reached out, as Spirit laughed and shouted his death spell. This was it! This was the five-Beta seal he was putting together, literally rubbing it in Night’s face. The satisfied expression on Spirit’s face made me recoil, and I took a few steps back.
Spirit looked around and spotted me, but his attention moved to my right, where a pillar stood. He whispered something, and the stone pillar glowed an incandescent white. I tried to touch it, but it was too hot. I knew, then. I knew it was the second Beta element. I didn’t need to see more. Spirit’s presence, the details of his movements and reactions, told me everything I needed to know.
Looking back at Night, I understood his plight. He knew what was happening, and he could no longer stop it. The grief in his galaxy eyes was gut-wrenching, but there was also quiet resolve. He hadn’t given up. The fact that he’d found a way to mark all the Beta elements was proof the Night Bringer had not gone down without a fight. He had not succumbed to the poisonous darkness so easily.
Before I could figure out what to do next, I found the Spirit Bender standing right in front of me. I wanted to do something, but his hand shot through my stomach. I landed on my back, slowly dying as I watched him draw something on the incandescent pillar. He’d just killed me, but he’d also shown me a Beta element without even realizing it.
Back in my own form, I bolted upright. Forgetting how weak I was, I scrambled around the village until I felt it. Soul stayed close, watching as I searched for the Beta element. It was here, and it had been made using the blood of a young wood nymph. My heart broke at the thought and the vivid memory of it all, but it also drove me to keep looking, knowing such a violent death must have left an imprint on this place.
“You know what it is, don’t you?” Soul said.
“Mm-hm,” I replied, then settled on a stretch of hard dirt. Using my scythe, I started digging. He joined me with his own blade. The deeper we got, the more pain I felt, as though Spirit’s hand were stabbing me again.
I reached through the softer underlayer until my fingertips touched the stone. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew. I’d found it. Soul flashed me a bright smile, then jammed his scythe deep into the ground and pulled the entire pillar up.
Morning gasped somewhere behind us, but I couldn’t look away from the slim piece of stone. The blood had faded, but it wasn’t completely gone. Soul held the pillar upright and gave me a nod. “Again, you know what you have to do,” he said.
I did. I’d broken the first Beta element, and I had to break this one, too. “It’s going to hurt more than the first one, huh?”
“Yeah. But you’re not alone in this, remember?” Soul said.
I brought my scythe down with all the rage I could muster—most of it aimed at Spirit for all the senseless murders he’d committed. And for what? To piss Death off? What a selfish trash bag that guy had been.
The pillar broke in half, and every symbol Spirit had drawn with the nymph’s blood shone red for a moment before it all vanished, and the stones fell on the ground, white and barren. The Beta element had been broken.
“Woo-hoo!” Phantom exclaimed. “Two down, three to go! Kelara, you are definitely our star, darling!”
I wanted to smile. I wanted to experience relief, too. But the pain that burned through me was so powerful, I couldn’t even stand anymore. Dropping to my knees, I bent forward, letting go of my scythe. Soul was close again, but I could barely hear him.
Morning sobbed. “Oh, I can feel him now,” she said. “I can feel my brother. He’s in so much pain… so much of it…”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I groaned, curling into a fetal position while Soul tried to comfort me with his touch. His fingers felt cold. Hot ice spread through my stomach, working its way up my throat.
“You can feel him, too?” Morning asked me.
I cried out in agony. “And then some!”
“He’s trying to reach out,” Morning said.
“Well, he picked a funny way of doing it,” Soul grumbled, resting one hand on my shoulder.
Whatever happened next, I knew he was right. I wasn’t alone in this. Despite the pain, despite the troubling memories and the horrible truth that had led to our presence on Cruor in the first place, I found a sliver of comfort in the fact that we’d taken two Beta elements down. There were three left, and I had no intention of stopping now.
The more I hurt, the more determined I became to undo as many of the wrongs Spirit had committed as possible. The more I hurt, the more thankful I was that Soul and the others were with me. No one had claimed this would be an easy journey. But damn, no one had estimated how agonizing this would be, either.
Nethissis
Veliko told his Darklings to stand back as they waited for the Whip to enter. Considering where we were, it didn’t take long to put two and two together and figure out who the Whip really was. Chills ran through me as I considered the implications and the risks she posed to Esme and her crew.
“Don’t do anything unless I order it,” Veliko warned his six men. “I’m not sure how effective the Whip is in her position. We might have to topple the hierarchy in order to achieve our goals.”
One of the black guards sucked in a breath, his eyes bulging. “Wait, you want to go against the Whip?! We didn’t sign up for this, Scholar!”
“It’s too late now. You’re here with me, and if you disobey my orders, I promise you there will be hell to pay,” Veliko replied. “Do you want the Darklings to succeed and save our entire species, or do you want us to languish under incompetent leadership?”
The Darklings thought about this for a moment, exchanging nervous glances. In the end, they agreed to stay, though they obviously didn’t relish the prospect of taking on the Whip. Veliko had quite the pair on him, I had to give him that.
“Good. Then we’re all on the same page, so follow my lead and do as I tell you. Greatness awaits,” he continued, turning around as the door opened.
Petra Visentis walked in. She kept her chin up and her lips pressed into a thin line, not hiding her displeasure at seeing Veliko. The air became thick, her presence adding an almost palpable degree of pressure.
“What are you doing in my house?” she asked, her tone clipped.
“Well, Zoltan is out, and I’m the new—” Veliko replied, but Petra cut him off.
“The new Scholar? Are you delusional? You have not received my permission to claim that title.”
“I’m the best equipped to take Zoltan’s place,” he insisted.
Petra chuckled, closing the door behind her. “After the mess you and Zoltan made, it’s hilarious that you have such audacity.”
“That whole thing was Zoltan’s fault, not mine! I advised him, I begged him to do things differently. But he didn’t listen, and now he’s been captured and will be put to death because of it!”
“The fact that you were unable to change his mind proves just how inadequate you
are for the job. Nevertheless, until we find a proper replacement for Zoltan’s Scholar position, we’ll have to settle for you.” Petra crossed her arms. “It’s not looking good for our mission. It’s bad enough Zoltan got caught, and now my son has returned as a prisoner, as well.”
Veliko’s forehead smoothed. He could smell blood, and he was ready to pounce. “Which of your sons, Whip?”
“Ansel. It doesn’t matter now. He won’t talk. I’ve already tested him repeatedly. Even starvation won’t break him. He’s young. There’s room for him to grow. I’m afraid that ship has already sailed for Zoltan.”
“Even so, Ansel is now a problem for us, Whip,” Veliko said. “He’s been exposed. Who knows about this?”
“Kalon. Esme. I presume the rest of the outsiders, as well. Ansel said they were keeping his capture a secret from the Lord and Lady Supreme, so I’m guessing that’s as far as it goes. No one else knows of his affiliation.”
“He was foolish, Whip. He should not be allowed to live,” Veliko declared. “The laws of the Darklings clearly state that—”
“I will rip your tongue out and feed it to the ghouls if you say such things one more time!” Petra hissed. “I will chop you into bits and pieces. I will drink your blood and set your remains on fire. Don’t ever go there. Ever again. You’re a substitute Scholar and an underachiever, at best. It is not your place to pass such judgments, especially against the son of the Whip.”
She spoke with a calm that chilled me to the bone. The other Darklings were clearly frightened by her reaction. Veliko maintained his smirk, but I could tell from the subtle changes in his expression that he feared her more than he let on.
“Pardon me, Whip,” Veliko muttered. “We can discuss this another time.”
Petra shot him a glare, fires burning like fluorescent sapphires in her eyes. “There’s nothing to discuss. I thought I made that clear. However…” She paused and cleared her throat. I took a cautious step back, sinking deeper into the corner with Seeley, Sidyan, and Lumi. “Your presence here might be a nuisance, but I think I have a task for you boys.”
A Shade of Vampire 81: A Bringer of Night Page 17
