And so I followed the guard and prepared my mind for an interrogation.
18
BRETT
Brett walked through the forest in his dream. The moon peeked from between the leaves, dappling the ground in silver. Up ahead the crackle and pop of a cheery fire lured him forth. Five figures sat around it, their voices a low murmur on the air.
Well, this was different, but he’d take anything as long as it wasn’t the dank creepy underground cavern with the bone chilling voice that wanted to eat him. Yeah, this was new, and with the usual sense of malevolence absent, curiosity gripped him. He edged closer to the fire.
The murmurs stopped.
“You cannot steal up on us friend,” a smooth low voice said. “We are the eyes and ears, the very breath of this place. We have been waiting for a traveller such as you. And now that you are here, it is time for us to tell our story. Come closer. Warm yourself by the fire.”
There was no threat here. None that he could pick up on anyway, and his feet were taking the guy up on his invitation. Stepping into the glow of the flames he scanned the five faces, which in turn took him in. They were bland, almost too bland. No feature stood out, none that he would remember or comment on, and he found when he looked away the memory of the face blurred in his mind. Their clothes were plain dark fabric, wrapped around their bodies to stave off the chill that Brett didn’t feel.
“Sit friend,” another voice, this one gruff and older sounding, said.
Brett parked his butt on a boulder. “Who are you?”
“Weary travellers such as yourself, taking a rest.”
No, they were more than that. “What is this place?”
The man opposite him looked about, as if assessing his surroundings. “It looks to me like a simple forest.”
His comrade snorted in amusement.
They were toying with him, and his temper flared. He was curious, yes, but he wasn’t in the mood to be made fun off. There was real shit to deal with in the waking word. “You know what? Sod this.”
Brett made to stand, but a hand grabbed his wrist. It held him in place, unforgiving, like a band of steal. He looked down and caught a glimpse of bone, white and stark, poking out from beneath the dark brown sleeve of the male beside him, but in the next instant it was just a hand—a normal weather-tanned hand. Brett shrugged him off.
“Don’t you wish to hear our tale?” The man on the other side of the flames said. His face glowed orange and yellow in the firelight adding the eerie edge that had, so far, been missing from this dream.
Brett’s scalp prickled, which was strange because he was diamond-made now, but this was a dream so wasn’t anything possible? The urge to get up and run was a tension in his thighs. But he held his ground, because his gut was warning him to hold fire—to stop and listen.
The man across the flames began to speak, and the already silent forest fell into a deeper hush, almost preternatural in nature.
“We came to this land when the first green shoot pushed itself free of the earth. We cultivated it, nurtured it, and it was our home. Our people were simple folk with simple needs and wants. We were a peaceful tribe with a harmonic existence. And then fire fell from the sky bringing it to us.” He fell silent for a long moment.
Brett sat forward. “What? What did it bring?”
It was another voice that took up the story. “An ancient force we were ill equipped to face.”
The fire cracked and popped.
“As the smoke died and the ash settled on the ground, we gathered our weapons of spear and bow and went into the blackened forest. There we found an abyss filled with darkness, and the darkness seeped out into our world, infecting and tainting flora and fauna, bringing with it fear and despair.”
“As the land died, so did our hope,” said a new voice. “We turned on one another. We became the darkness, and the darkness grew. It fed off our pain and discord. It drew strength from it. It was decided that the best of us would gather what provisions we could and go in search of aid. My brothers and I took on the mantle. We travelled for days, and yet no matter how far we went there was evidence of the darkness. It was a plague, a blight on our lands buried deep beneath our soil. We were beginning to lose hope until the world about us changed. The air stung our cheeks with a fresh briny scent and the ground grew green and lush. A mile or so more and we came upon sand dunes, and way ahead the great expanse of the mighty ocean. There were people here, living untainted and free. They took us in, fed us, and listened to our tale. It was through them we found salvation.” He broke off and turned to the man to his left.
His companion inclined his head and took up the tale. “These people were no ordinary folk. They were sons and daughters of the sea. Related by blood to the ocean folk, their blood had a power we discovered could be used to save our lands.”
Their blood? “What do you mean?”
The man speaking bowed his head and the one beside him took up the tale. “We discovered it was the essence of the ocean in their blood that kept the darkness at bay, and so we did the only thing we could. We slaughtered them all and collected their blood to purge the darkness from our lands. They were simple folk, peaceful folk. The kind of people we too had once been. With his last breath their leader placed a curse on us—to reap what we sowed. At the time we did not understand the implications of this curse. We returned to our people and spilled the blood we’d collected into the abyss. As the darkness retreated, as our people rejoiced, the curse of the ocean bloomed. The darkness wrapped its fingers around us, claiming the five of us as its final victims. We fell into the abyss, confidant in the knowledge we had saved our loved ones.”
“But we were wrong.” The first man continued the story. “From that day forth, on the night of the Hunter’s Moon, we were forced to ride, to reap the souls of our brethren and feed the darkness below. It lives on, and now it awakens. We are slaves to the puppet and the master. We are never to be free, for the blood that could weaken the visitor is gone. The ocean people grieved themselves into oblivion, their tears seeping into and salting the earth. It is the only place we cannot walk. The rest of the world is doomed, because soon we ride. We ride and we reap.”
“Our vigil must end now, but you must carry our knowledge from this place. Remember.” Their voices rose as one. “Only the harmony of races can slay Legion.”
The flames flared up, spitting embers. Brett’s heart was pounding. The salt, the reaping, the creature under the ground, and Orin, it was all connected. He just needed to—
“The tale has been told. And our vigil is at an end.”
The flames began to ebb and die. The forest around him began to wither and blacken and the men—fucking hell, the men were nothing more than stark white bone. Around him the trees began to crumble and the ground began to morph. The fire blew away in a whirl of ash, leaving nothing but cold dark earth and stone … there was stone closing in around him.
No. Not again. Not the chamber. Not now, he had so much to tell Kenna. He had the key, he had the answers. He broke into a run, but something snagged the back of his shirt and the awful voice filled his head.
“I’ve got you now little pig.”
19
We were going down. Further into the earth. Mum was right. I could sense the layers packed above and around us now. Thank goodness I wasn’t claustrophobic. My face throbbed and it was difficult to breathe through my nose—pretty sure it was broken.
The guard stopped outside a door, pushed it open, and ushered me through. It was a lab of some kind. Various bubbling concoctions in a variety of glass containers were dotted around the room. Was this where Caldwell had worked on the serum for Orin? Speaking of Orin …
A tall broad-shouldered man stood with his back to us, his long silver-blonde hair trailing down his back. He turned to face us, his expression impassive, pupils large.
“Thank you Bernard, we are pleased. Leave now,” he said.
The guard retreated, closing the door behind
him. As soon as he was gone the man gritted his teeth and blinked rapidly. His eyes widened when they fell on me. He strode over and grabbed my chin. I tried to jerk out of his grasp, but the fucker was strong.
“Stay still,” he said. “Do you wish your nose to remain at that angle?”
He grabbed it and I screamed. Something clicked, and then a cool soothing sensation infused my face.
“There. All better.” He smiled down at me. His gaze lingered for a moment longer, focusing on my birthmark and then he stepped back.
My face no longer hurt. In fact … I reached up to gingerly touch my nose—my perfectly intact, unbroken nose.
“We do not have much time. I’m Orin, King of Twilight, and I apologise for the manner in which you were brought here.” Something akin to real sorrow crossed his face. “It cannot have you free to sow harmony. It must have chaos.”
“It?”
His gaze flicked from side to side as if in panic. “There is so much, so much you need to know, but there is no time. I do not wish to hurt you.” He took a step toward me. “The moments are few and far between now. I am gone for longer. I am tired, too tired, but you … you can …” His left eye twitched. “Remember that I would never hurt you.” He turned his back on me, whispering furiously.
I couldn’t catch the words. “Orin?”
This time when he turned to me he was like a different person. There was no warmth, no spark in his eyes. His face was a mask of nothingness, and when he spoke his voice was deeper, with a scratchy edge that coaxed gooseflesh to life all over my skin.
“Sit,” he pointed to a strange, dentist-like chair behind me.
“Orin?”
His lips parted in a smile that made my stomach hurt. “Sit, Kenna Carter. Sit so that I may come to know you.”
He advanced and I backed up, terror a real squirming entity inside my gut. This wasn’t Orin, this was something else. The back of my knees connected with something. I stumbled and fell back into the chair.
Orin leaned in, his face inches from mine. “We enjoy guests. We enjoy learning them.”
The thing, whatever it was, looked out at me from behind Orin’s eyes. I sensed its presence, cold and alien and hungry.
He held up a syringe filled with black viscous fluid. “We enjoy being inside.”
No fucking way. I pushed at his chest and kicked out, but he was immovable, a stone barrier, and there was no escape. His hand closed around my throat, pinning me to the seat, and then needle bit into my arm.
The black stuff. He was filling me with that black stuff.
He stepped back, his lips curling in a satisfied smile. “We will learn you, and you will join us.”
My veins flared black beneath my skin with whatever poison he’d injected me with. Was it the same stuff that had fucked up the guard? Oh god.
“What is that? What did you put in me?”
“The connection. The essence of us.”
“Is this the shit you used on my friend? On the emissary Lindrealm sent?”
“No. Your friend received a tiny taste mingled with a dose of servitude, this, what we offer you, is a gift. You will join us.”
Fuck that. “You’re delusional if you think I’ll never join you.”
He cocked his head then closed his eyes, inhaling through his nostrils. “You won’t have a choice.”
The conviction in his tone stamped at the hope in my heart. “Why? Why do you even want me?”
“Because you are important to him, and therefore you are important to us.”
What the fuck was he on about? His face rippled and blurred, and I caught the flash of a familiar mark slicing down from his temple to cheek—a mark very much like my birthmark. I blinked and it vanished.
He glanced at the door and it opened. The guard strode back in.
“Take her back to her cell. We have her now, it matters not where she turns.”
The guard hauled me to my feet. I wanted to fight, to push him away, but my limbs were heavy and hot. The world turned upside down as I was slung over the guard’s shoulder and then we were on the move—back to the cell, back to Mum. Mum would have the answer. She’d help me fight this. I could feel the black goo inching up my spine, digging in its claws as it went, gaining a foothold. If it reached my brain I was gone. I knew it as sure as I knew that the sky was just a reflection of the damn oceans.
The guard threw me onto the stone floor. The urge to sit up, roll over, do something, was smothered by the paralysis in my limbs. The door clanged shut and the key scraped in the lock.
“Kenna!” Mum pulled me into her lap.
Alive then. Good.
“Oh, god, baby girl.”
At least I could feel her hands on me; not numb then. It was comforting. Her face appeared in my line of sight, a bump the size of an egg decorated her forehead.
She smoothed back my hair. “Did you see him? Did you see Orin?”
My lips were immovable. The black gloop in my body was turning me into a sack of potatoes.
“They injected you with something.” Mum picked up my arm to examine the network of black veins. “It’s doing this to you. Okay, sweetheart, listen to me. Listen carefully. You can fight this. It’s your body, and you have immense power inside you. He may be able to overpower your twilight power, but not the power of the flame.”
How did she know this?
“Baby girl, trust me. Please. I’ll explain everything, but first you need to burn this shit out of your system.”
She’d said shit. She never swore.
“Use the flame. Use the power your father bequeathed you. He knew about you. He knew we were to have a child. After Dante passed, he wanted you to rule. He hoped for an alliance between the fifth dimension and Twilight. What better way than to marry Twilight’s princess and sire the Twilight king’s granddaughter?”
Wait what?
She stroked my face. “Orin is my father. Ibris didn’t know, not until we got pregnant with you. I was afraid he’d spurn me. I was afraid my father would find a way to keep us apart. You’re a Twilight Princess, Kenna.”
The mark I’d seen on his face—the one so like mine. It made sense now. So many questions rushed through my mind. Why hadn’t she told me this before? Was it Orin she’d been hiding me from? Had she known all along that her father was responsible for my father’s death?
“I can see the questions in your eyes, and you will have your answers, but first you must purge your body of the taint. Use the flame, Kenna, find it and use it.”
A tremor wracked my body and needles pierced my flesh. A scream lodged in my throat, impotent and choking. I gagged. Mum raised me up, pulling my back against her front and holding me tight.
“I’m with you baby. You can do this.”
The flame. I needed to … Argh it was inside me, everywhere, sliding up the nape of my neck, making a beeline for my brain, as if it knew it was running short on time. It knew … Of course it knew. It must sense its destroyer lying in wait. But then the cell was rushing away, and I was slammed into a stone cavern.
What the heck?
I could move, and I was on my feet in an instant, alert and ready for whatever. My skin was pale and unmarred. This was the black stuff in my blood. It was tricking me, lying to me. Something scuttled to my left, and my hand went to my everlight sword, but of course it wasn’t there. The drip drip of water drew my attention to the pitch black maw ahead of me. It beckoned and tugged at me.
Come here, come closer, join me, join us.
Shit! I slammed on the brakes, and laughter—cruel and sinister—drifted out of the aperture.
“Come now. Don’t be shy.” The voice was fingers on chalkboard setting my teeth on edge.
“Who are you?”
“I am many. And you will be many.” The voice broke and splintered into a multitude of voices. “We are Legion.”
Knowledge slammed into me, squeezing my lungs and stealing my breath—knowledge of the magnitude of this thing—the hu
nger and the potential to devour. It was an eater, an annihilator, and it wanted me. It wanted everyone. It wanted the world.
The darkness shifted and terror clamped a hand over my racing heart. No. I couldn’t let it touch me. If it touched me then there was no going back. The flame. I needed my flame.
The fist around my heart eased and the flame hidden deep inside flickered and flared. Yes. Burn. I needed to burn.
The black entity inside me reached for my brain with its claws just as the flame exploded into a glorious inferno inside me, burning a path through my veins and annihilating the foreign body inside. Were those screams in my head? No. That was me. I was screaming. Fire filled my vision and seared my brain, and then the heat retreated, curling back into its box.
“Kenna.” Mum’s cool hands were on my brow.
“Mum.”
My body was my own again—slick with perspiration but able to move at my will. I’d done it.
Mum pulled me into a hug, sobbing into my hair. “I thought I’d lost you. After everything I’ve done to protect you, I thought I’d lost you.”
I pulled back, chest heaving, and pushed tendrils of sweat soaked hair off my face. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
20
BRETT
The alien evil thing had him by the cuff of his shirt, tugging him back toward the dark maw of the cave, its home, where Brett was certain it would strip the diamond from his bones to get to the juicy human centre. It would feast on his heart and entrails and devour the very essence of him.
He’d survived being turned into Orin’s slave. He would survive this dream. Just a fucking dream, and there was no need for shirts in dreams.
The fabric melted away, and so did the thing’s grip. Brett hurtled forward.
Wake up, wake up, wake up!
The thing was at his back, clawing, its talons scraping off diamond.
Please. No. Please.
“Wake up!”
Brett bolted upright, slamming his head against something that made an oomph sound. His heart threatened to burst through the layers of crystal encasing it, and his pulse raced in his veins as if completing the final stretch of a marathon.
Under Twilight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Fearless Destiny Book 3) Page 11
