I raise my eyebrow at her. Pity those monster. That’s the last thing I’ll ever do.
“What I mean is, the shadows do what they are doing because that’s the only way they can survive. Like I said, they are a type of spirit; their very existence on the physical plane is limited to their need for a host. Plus, Reaper is controlling them; they have to do its bidding. In the end, there is very little we can do for Elvendora’s people.”
“So, we let them die,” I frown.
“Unless we find a solution to the problem, yes,” she responds logically. Clearly, she has thought about this a lot.
We walk in silence for the rest of the way until we come to another cliff at the end of the path. There sure is a whole lot of cliffs on Elvendora. We stand looking out at the scenery, feeling secure and happy.
“Reaper,” Crystalline gasps.
I look over our shoulders to see it standing a few feet behind us. Both of us let go of one another and face this beast. I hold my glaive and she draws her bow. Reaper, however, stands unmoving.
Crystalline releases her bowstring and a couple laces of faint burgundy light trails behind the arrowhead; a clear indication of her weakened state. I follow her lead by releasing a bolt of lightning from the glaive. Despite our exhaustion, the power within us seems eternal.
My lightning fuses with the power of Crystalline’s arrow. We both smile as the energy bellows with increased strength. Reaper is unamused, like before, it captures the arrow, however, this time, it uses both hands to do so. Its palms radiate a weird force that holds the arrow and our combined power in place. A flick of its fingers and the attack is reflected back at us.
Lunging forward, I counter the attack with my mother’s glaive; the sheer force knocks me to the ground and repels the weapon, sending it over the cliff. Deja vu just hit me.
I jump back to my feet as Crystalline releases two more arrows; Reaper catches both but is taken back when they explode with a burst of energy. Ebony tentacles race through the distance between us and go straight towards her; quickly, I thrust my arm up and multiple stone spikes rise up and stab the tentacles.
One managed to dodge around our protective wall and rams into Crystalline; she is knocked right off the cliff’s edge. I dive forward and reach for her. I barely catch her arm in time, grasping it as tight as I can.
“Don’t let me fall,” Crystalline says calmly.
I give her a greatly motivated and intimate glare, “I promise.”
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep,” a deathly voice of both a man and a woman speak in perfect unison.
Next, the ground shakes beneath me, as I look back, Reaper’s tentacles drill into the earth behind me; seconds later the cliff’s edge breaks off. Multiple rocks fall past Crystalline and me as we begin to plummet. To keep my promise I twist my body and, with everything left within me, I throw her back up the cliff; along with a gust of wind to ensure her safety. She glides back onto the ledge as I continue to fall.
When I am about to hit the ground, a translucent pink bubble encloses around me. Moments later a tiny orb zips through the air, towards the cliff; then a large explosion shakes the mountain side. Crystalline is blown over the edge; when she is about half-way down the cliff a beam shoots out from my sphere and creates another one around her. Our bubbles collide together, bringing her back to me.
“Told you I wouldn’t let you fall,” I grin.
“Well—” we both disappear in a blink of an eye and reappear on top of a glowing circular platform; multiple symbols rotate through the magic forming the platform. A tall old man stands in the center of the disk holding a staff radiating a current between it and him. “—I did fall…what just happened?”
“I brought you to safety,” his voice is mellow, despite the situation.
He brings his staff out to his side; tiny particles begin to swirl together at the staff’s apex. Once they form an orb the man releases his magic and it is launched through the air. Reaper jumps high into the sky and the spell explodes on impact with the monster. It shakes it off like nothing ever happened. Clearly, it’s going to take a lot more than a little attack to kill this…whatever it is.
The figure begins to descend towards us but an object, spinning at an intense speeds, collides with Reaper; together, they slam hard into the cliffside. Through the floating debris, small waves of light are emitted. A couple minutes later, a body is thrown through the dust and into the forest; knocking a few trees down with it. Reaper walks through the fading clouds of dust and stares ominously at us. The mage’s staff begin to glow; the figure brings forth its engraved hands from the darkness of its cloak.
“You don’t have to do this,” the man’s voice echoes.
Reaper’s hands thrust forward sending forth a surge of grey energy; the man counters with a turquoise wave. I can almost feel fear in the mage; he clearly doesn’t want to do this. Either that or he is just too damn old to fight.
Their magic clashes above the treetops; space begins to warp and shift under the force extending from the two. The old man sweeps his arm through the air, causing his spell to pierce through the figure’s power. With some reluctance, he releases his full strength upon the figure; it tries to retreat but isn’t fast enough. The magic wraps around the dark form, zapping it deep into the cliff; this nearly collapses what’s left of it.
“Something’s not right,” he breathes.
Right then, a shadow forms next to Crystalline and myself. Its appearance is different from the others; a solid form with white eyes, faceless, and talons for fingers. It is much larger than us. When Crystalline’s eyes meet with its eyes, she screams and the man instantly turns around. His hand shines as a beam shoots from his palm; destroying the shadow. As I turn back, Reaper floats in the air leveled with us; a sphere spawns at the center of its chest. When released the magic becomes a crescent moon shaped blast.
Crystalline sees this before I do and immediately pushes me down; as her hands touch me, a burgundy light glides over the surface of my body. I fall hard on the platform; the mage turns, slamming the end of his staff down. A barrier rises before him, however, it wasn’t fast enough; she is struck by the attack and knocked out cold; her shielding barely protected me. Quickly, I get to my feet and go to her.
The old man grabs my arm, “wait! We don’t know what the spell did to her.”
When I look back at her, small jolts flicker across her body. I close my eyes and feel anger run through me, yet it is easily replaced with fear as a cry of agony rips across the land. My eyes shoot open to see several tentacles wrapped around Genu; dark energy electrocutes him as they crush him.
I feel the anger build deep within me; lightning races across the skin on my arms and fire flares around my hands from the wrists. The two elements combine into one as I hurl them at Reaper. The fire-lightning ball lands at the center of the figure’s tentacles; once it explodes, the flame consumes the tentacles while the lightning counteracts the energy shocking Genu. He falls to the ground and Reaper waves away my attack.
The man decides to take extreme action; standing at the center of the platform, he slams the end of his staff hard into the disk. I swiftly move out-of-the-way and crouch beside Crystalline. Careful not to touch her.
A magical aura consumes him as he concentrates. Bringing his hands together out in front of him causes the staff’s apex to charge up with power. Throwing his arms towards the sky summons a translucent green bubble around Reaper; the figure liberates dark pulses against the sphere but fails with each succession. Finally bringing its hands together, gathering tainted magic from deep within itself. Reaper throws its arms off to its sides, discharging the magic and the bubble shatters.
The man holds steady as he collects more strength, quickly, his fingers bend and intertwine. Five small orbs gather about him, magical particles flow between them before they twirl together into a larger sphere. The mage combines them with the energy radiating from his staff. Muttering angrily under his breath a
beam is cast out from the staff’s apex.
Reaper puts its arms in an ‘x’ formation, causing a barrier to expand around itself. The beam strikes the shield, the collision causes multiple rings to race across its surface.
The old man’s fingers cringe; beam begins to crack Reaper’s barrier, however, the dark form is ready. The barrier and the beam mix together, then, like before, it throws its arms out to its sides. Both of their spells disperse.
Genu rises from the forest, once he is leveled with Reaper, he claps his hands together; a large wave of force ripples through reality as it slams into the figure. It is knocked back but manages to reflect some of the force back at Genu which sends him hurtling back to the forest floor. Looks like he’s not going to be much help in this fight. He’s better off transforming into a monster.
The old man releases another beam from the staff’s crown but Reaper phases its body through the attack. Moments later, a portal open behind it; slowly the figure begins to fade away within the void.
Two rings emerge along the portal; four circles form inside the larger two. Inside of those circles, four runes glow; between the four rings, other symbols write themselves in the empty space. Reaper disappears and so does the portal, along with the mage’s spell.
“You let Reaper go?” I question.
“Yes and no. I’ll explain the details later, right now we have to get Crystalline and yourself to safety,” he responds bitterly.
I feel a little spark of energy tickle my skin as the dragon glaive flies to me. Putting my hand out I catch my mother’s weapon; it restores most of my strength, heals my wounds and soothes my aching muscles. I have a feeling that this feeling won’t last very long.
“I’ll get Genu.”
I shift my free hand towards the edge of the platform; concentrating, I conjure as much wind as I can control into a vortex. Hesitantly, I jump on and manage to hold myself steady as I glide down to where Genu fell. When I reach the spot, his body is nowhere to be found.
“Genu,” I call.
“Under the rocks,” a voice rings in my head.
As I look around, I see a large pile of rocks and a couple trees that had fallen on Genu after Reaper attacked him. Apparently, I am not really observant. Focusing, I grip the glaive with both hands, gradually shifting the rocks inch by inch; I toss them off to the side then work on the trees. First, I cut them apart and then push the pieces of the trunk out-of-the-way with both my strength and a large gust of wind.
“Are you alright?” I ask just to be nice. I honestly don’t care about his well being,
“I’ll live,” Genu chuckles, “what about Crystalline and Reaper?”
“Crystalline is down and Reaper got away.”
Genu grunts and then gets to his feet, I help balance his stance, then begin to summon a vortex around us until Genu stops me.
“What is it?” Probably some criticism he’s had on his mind.
He responds by pointing to a puddle; next, to the water lies a black cane with a milky pearl as the handle.
“Bring it here,” Genu says.
I wave my hand and the water rises, bringing the cane over to us. Genu lifts it with his mind and puts it into his hand. Why didn’t he just do that to begin with? I just don’t understand.
“Is that really important?”
“To me, yes,” he sighs, “I hope you know that the glaive contracts.”
I raise an eyebrow to him, “how?”
He shows me by forcing my thumb to press against the handle and then flick my wrist. The opposite facing blades slide into the mouth of the dragon heads, the mouths close and then retract to the handle.
I slide the glaive into the waist strap on my armor, “thank you.”
Genu nods and I recreate the vortex; floating us back to the platform that glows brightly under the night sky. As our feet touch down onto its surface, we all immediately disappear.
Once reality comes together, we find ourselves in a huge circular stone room; six different color banners, each with a different symbol in the middle, hang around the room. Multiple bookshelves press against the spaces on the walls between banners; a large circular marble table sits in the center of the room, four chairs rest at different ends; a giant carpet, made from a mixture of different clothes and symbols, spreads out beneath us. It covers most of the center floor; the ceiling is cone shaped, small at the top and then expands, ending inches above the bookshelves.
“Where are we?”
“My home,” the man replies tiredly.
“Who exactly are you?” I ask.
“The name is Asvarp and it is an honor to meet you my grace.”
I ignore his overly polite answer for now and help Genu to a chair; Asvarp floats Crystalline’s body onto the table.
“What happened?” Genu asks.
I explain my perspective on everything after she and I got into the training room; both of them stare at Crystalline, waiting for her awakening. I go to grab her hand but Asvarp stops me and shakes his head. Some of Reaper’s power still lingers over her and she needs her rest. This is my fault.
“I will bring her to a safe room for her to rest,” Asvarp announces and both of them flicker out of reality. A moment later he is back and sitting in a chair.
I take a seat between the two of them and feel a little out of place: like I don’t belong.
“We need to discuss a plan to take out Reaper,” Genu starts off.
“First, we need to get leverage on it before we do anything,” Asvarp counters.
“What kind of leverage?” I ask.
“Anything really. The more we know the better. Knowledge is power. And Reaper has a lot of power”
Genu mutters, “what good is that?”
“We can figure out a way to counter it,” Asvarp glares.
“What do we know?” I ask.
“Reaper clearly has something big planned. It needs us for something,” Genu answers.
“Agreed. Reaper also has an arsenal of different ways to attack us and counters to our attacks.”
“Arsenal?” I ponder.
The vampiric-kaine shakes its head and the mage answers, “its cloak, for one, is a mystery. Not something from this world; the garment is an endless void filled with annoying ass tentacles. Plus it helps hide Reaper’s true identity, from which no one knows; not to mention its magical powers and natural abilities, which still bewilders me as to how this…this being managed to obtain such level of strength.”
“Let’s not forget its whip,” Genu adds, “that weapon is nothing to ignore.”
“Yes, it can cause death in a single strike.”
“I think I may have something,” I speak with a raspy voice.
“What is it?” They ask in unison.
“I heard Reaper speak and—”
Asvarp’s abrupt aggressive standing position interrupts me. “You heard that creature speak?!”
Genu ask, “what did it sound like?”
“I don’t know, it had both the voice of a man and a woman.” These two are starting to get very agitated over nothing.
The old man walks over to the window. Genu gets up and walks over to him in a perfect manner as though he was never hurt; they whisper in low voices without looking at each other and seem to be in a mutual state of understanding. Easily, I am annoyed by their sudden action that it causes the entire room to quake under my frustration. Both of them turn around and see the irritation in my eyes.
“I am sitting right here, do not turn your backs on me! Whatever it is that you two are discussing I wish to know, now!” I am now standing tall and angry. Tired of secrets and lies.
Asvarp bows his head, “of course. We were talking about the castle’s barrier that Reaper had to break through in order to destroy the castle. The figure shouldn’t have known that the castle was there in the first place; it was completely hidden from virtually everything.”
“Something must have brought it there,” Genu adds.
After calm
ing down, I respond, “it could’ve been Crystalline.”
They stare at me, “how?”
“Before we went to train, she…did something and everything got a little weird. I didn't tell her that but I felt everything around me was off. Plus, she kept talking to someone but I don’t know who. At one point she seemed a little shocked when she was staring at me.”
“I know that stare; it’s not as though she is looking at you, as much as she is looking in you,” Genu says.
“She knows,” Asvarp mutters.
“Knows what?”
He catches my glare, “I was telling Genu earlier, before we came to rescue you two, that something isn’t right. And that both you and Crystalline are being very affected by it.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Explanations will be given later,” Genu chimes in, “first we need to discuss more important matters.”
Next, both Asvarp and Genu, fill me in on the very first crystal ball ever created, the ruvtag; they tell me that it is within Levouay’s kingdom and she is the banshee queen of the fey. They explain that my discussion with my parents about the time shift is seemingly correct; also, we will need to prepare ourselves for the coming battles.
They begin to discuss more between themselves about a strategy but I tune them out as I hear a faint whisper gliding along the wind: remember. I just sit at the table, my hands over my face, and think back to the castle…Reaper wasn’t alone.
Chapter 8
It’s been two days since we’ve arrived at Asvarp’s tower and we haven’t done much. I’ve mainly stayed in Crystalline’s room; until now, I never realized that I hardly need to eat or drink to survive. However, I still need my sleep. Just not as much as mere mortals do. Nevertheless, I just close my eyes and let my mind wander through Elvendora; at times, I hear voices from far away that are specifically in tune with my powers. I haven’t brought it up to Asvarp or Genu for my trust in them isn’t so strong; I have also neglected to tell them that the night Reaper attacked the castle I sensed six other people. They seemed to have the capacity to drawn energy from nature, that must have attracted them to me.
Dark Form_Book 1 of the Shadow War Trilogy Page 8
