Reign of Darkness

by Michaela Riley Karr

  Each of them had one foot firmly planted in front of them with their hands lifting to the midnight sky, a chorus of staccato war songs emanating from them as they cast their magic. A brilliantly-lit wall of glass-like magic was rising in front of them to divide our forces. It mimicked their glass shard wings, except it was huge, solid, and a rainbow of bright colors pulsated through it like a solitary heartbeat breaking through the cacophony of the battle.

  Frederick, Sam, and I gaped as this wall built itself crystal by crystal between us and our foes, frozen and mesmerized. It wasn’t until my mind finally registered Evan’s voice screaming at us to run that I could wrench myself away from the immense sight. Frederick did an immediate one-eighty and burst into a run toward the forest away from Rhydin’s palace, following a couple hundred others doing the same.

  Sam grasped my hand and pulled as he shouted over the deafening vibrations of the magic wall, “Come on, we need to go!”

  I looked over my shoulder one last time at the glass wall that beat like a heart, and while it could have been the pain of my head, I could have sworn that Rhydin stared back at me from the opposite side, his violet eyes glowing in simultaneous victory and fury.

  Transfixed, I put every ounce of energy I had left into one final attack spell, balling the glowing power up into my hand. I had to end this. I had to try. I couldn’t simply turn tail and run without trying even though a small part of what was left of my thinking knew it was preposterous.

  Nonetheless, I fired that shot at Rhydin, and while it hit him smack in the face, it actually futilely bounced off the Ranguvariians’ wall. Rhydin cackled at my stupidity and desperation, while Sam tugged on my arm hard to get me to follow him. But, my strength utterly spent, I finally lost the battle against the darkness that infringed upon the edges of my world. Rhydin’s hateful face, eerily lit with the light of the Ranguvariians’ magic, was the last thing I saw.

  Chapter Twenty

  T he smell of damp dirt permeated my senses. My heavy eyelids blinked sluggishly, struggling to focus. It was so dark. Where was I?

  Ever so slowly, the ceiling of a patchwork tent appeared above me, and I could feel the ache in every one of my muscles as I lay upon ground that felt like rock rather than earth.

  I tried to roll my head along the rolled-up blanket serving as a pillow, but I grimaced when a lightning bolt of pain struck the whole side of my head and along my left ear. Confusion plagued me until I spotted my sword lying a couple feet away from me, dirtied with blood and grits of sand.

  The battle. The Ranguvariians’ spell. Rhydin’s face. Robert. Luke. It all came back.

  I sat up in spite of the throbbing pain, and suddenly I noticed Sam sitting in a dark corner of the tent. His eyes were overflowing with concern as he moved forward and whispered, “Take it easy. You took quite the knock.”

  “What happened? Where are we? Did everyone make it?” I blabbered like a waterfall of anxiety.

  “It’s been a couple days since the battle. The Ranguvariians’ wall allowed us to get away. Everyone who survived the battle made it here,” Sam replied hesitantly before he grasped my hand. “We’re in the Dome.”

  “The Dome?” I asked confusedly before wincing as the raising of my eyebrows sent another shock through my ear and scalp. Reaching with my fingers, I was relieved to find that ear still attached beneath a mountain of gauze.

  Sam gave me a slight, lop-sided grin. “It’s what we’re calling it. The rebellion location Evan and Sabine found. You’re gonna love it.”

  I nodded gingerly, and the tent fell into silence. It had been months since I’d had so much of Sam’s attention, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I found myself grasping at the first thing I could think of to say. “Did Kelsi make it?”

  Sam’s mouth turned into a thin, grim line. I didn’t need to hear the answer. He spent a couple seconds licking his lips and weighing his words before saying, “I’m so sorry for derailing our mission. She’s my sister…I had to try.”

  “I know,” I sighed, folding my hands awkwardly in my lap. “I would have done the same thing if it was Rosetta.”

  My husband huffed, lowering his bandana-ed head to his hands, “Perhaps, but you wouldn’t have pushed me away like I did to you.”

  “Hmm,” I replied, “I don’t know about that. But what I do know is that we both seem to get ourselves into sticky situations or arguments while trying to protect the other.”

  “It sure seems so,” Sam grumbled before meeting me in the eyes again. “I was trying to protect you, but I never should have tried to trick you into going to Caark without me or keep you from helping me in Stellan. I really am so sorry, I’ll never shut you out again.”

  “I know. I’m sorry too,” I answered quietly as I reached for his hand. “Don’t forget, it was my trying to protect you that led me to keep my dream of you dying a secret back during the war. That only got you drafted and down that path in the first place while if I’d just told you, we might have avoided it altogether.”

  Sam chuckled, “Looks like we’ve nearly gotten each other killed a few times in the three years we’ve been married.”

  “I guess we really can’t protect each other…can we?” I asked sadly. My fingers drifted to my aching scalp. Another battle scar to add to my collection.

  “We can try,” Sam whispered. He pulled himself closer and lovingly wrapped me in his arms. “But we need to trust in each other’s strengths. And no more secrets.”

  “Okay.” I smiled, and my pain numbed a bit. “In plenty and drought, in plague and blessing, until my coal goes out.”

  “Until my coal goes out,” Sam repeated, before kissing me.

  “Ahem,” a low, feminine voice sounded.

  Sam and I glanced up to see Anne…Sabine holding the flap open to our tent, letting in a small amount of aquamarine-tinged light. She was wearing nicer clothes than anything I’d seen her wear before: a beautifully embroidered, sapphire tunic that had long tails draping to the ground with the tiny golden baubles typical of Auklian nobility. Overtop her best trousers and boots, of course.

  She cleared her throat nervously, “Lina, can I speak with you?”

  I nodded, and Sam gave my hand a squeeze before he stood and ducked out of the tent. Sabine remained in the back corner, uncertainty written all over her face. In a good mood for the first time in ages, I grinned at her and spoke first. “I understand why you lied.”

  “You do?” Sabine asked shakily as she rubbed the back of her neck, brushing the ends of her short, emerald hair.

  “Yeah, and I don’t blame you one bit. I was surprised, sure,” I chuckled, “But, you made it clear from the beginning that you wanted to journey with us to learn if you could trust us.”

  Sabine inched closer to me, looking a bit more at ease as she knelt at the foot of my blankets. “You have to understand. Even after everything my parents did, it seemed like I was the most hunted woman in Nerahdis after my cousin, Daniel, died.”

  “Everything your parents did?” I repeated confusedly, drawing myself upward to hug my knees.

  “I was only a few years old when my father became Archimage. I don’t remember anything from that time, but I remember moving from Auklia to the Archimage Palace and losing everything remotely Auklian,” Sabine answered, her crimson eyes drifting to the dirt. “I lost my friends, the rest of my family. My entire heritage. Just because of the rule that Archimages are stripped of their nationalities to be impartial among the Three Kings and even their previous lives to keep the position a secret from the people. History was rewritten to remove my parents and I from existence.”

  “Wow,” I breathed, “I can’t imagine. It was certainly difficult for us to figure out who you were.”

  Sabine snickered suddenly, “Yeah. I did tell you some of the truth though. I did grow up in the Archimage Palace, although my mother certainly wasn’t a maid. She left my father when I was twelve and took me with her. She hated living a life away from any sort of society. J
ust the three of us, all the time, except for the rare meeting among the Three Kings when they were arguing, in which we could have no part as ladies. We made a quiet life for ourselves when we left, so I fully expected to still have fallen off the map. Apparently a select few remembered my existence when Daniel died.”

  “I’m sorry,” I responded as I imagined such a lonely existence. “I can’t say I liked Dathian very much, but he must have really loved and missed you. We found out about you from the tiny portrait miniature he’d been holding when he was murdered by Rhydin.”

  Sabine smiled sadly. “It’s okay. You can’t change the past. I missed my father, but there was definitely something strange about that palace I won’t miss. You might think I’m crazy for this, but…sometimes I wonder if it’s haunted.”

  My face went slack. Was I finally not the only one who could sense some other presence in the Archimage Palace? The seemingly helpful spirit that had warned me of Rhydin’s arrival at the palace, led me to the book that revealed his past, and more? I was about to gush these sentiments and ask what she’d experienced when Sabine suddenly continued her train of thought.

  “Eh, I was just a kid, it was probably nothing,” the green-haired noblewoman mused.

  “R-Right,” I stuttered, my cheeks in flushing in embarrassment. The last thing I needed was for Sabine to think I was nuts, regardless of how certain I was that there was more to that palace than anybody was willing to think. “So,” I stammered, “did you really mean everything you said to Rhydin? You’re going to join us and give Auklia a future?”

  “Oh, I definitely meant it!” Sabine enthused, her eyes shining bright. “I’ve always dreamed of returning home and helping my people! I never once thought it’d be as queen sitting on my cousin’s throne…but you can count me in for the long haul. I’m looking forward to shaking up the monarchy. We’re even making it official today.”

  Just as I was about to ask her what she meant, blue-green light flooded my tent once again as the flap opened. Rachel hurried in with something under her arm, dressed to the nines in orange and yellow Ranguvariian garb with beautiful beads woven into her gleaming red hair. Her face lit up upon sight of me conscious and exclaimed, “Lina, you’re awake! And just in time, too. We’re about to begin.”

  My heart panged at the sight of her. At the memory of Luke’s broken and bleeding body. I desperately hoped that Evan or Sam remembered where I’d put him and brought him home. My throat swelled to the point I could hardly swallow, and heat flooded my face. I tried to speak, “Rachel…I am so so sorry!”

  My red-haired friend’s smile vanished, but she held up one pale hand to stop me. Grief was etched into every nook and cranny of her freckled face, but most would never see past her steely eyes. She cleared her throat and replied firmly, “Don’t be. Every Alyen nou Clarii takes the same vow to lay down their life to protect the Allyens. Luke fulfilled his warrior’s vow and died the most honorable of deaths.”

  “But-…!” I interjected.

  “Do not take that from him. There is no way to know what would have happened if things had played out differently. It was his destiny,” declared Rachel firmly. Then, she strode forward past Sabine and extended her hand.

  I slowly took it, trying to accept Luke’s death, and Rachel pulled me up, my head throbbing. Once she did, she gingerly placed her small bundle in my hands, and I gave her a confused look. “What’s this for? What’s going on?”

  “The end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one,” Rachel answered cryptically with a shadow of a grin. “Just put it on.”

  She left quickly before I could protest with Sabine in her wake. Alone now in my small, dark tent aside from a puny lantern sitting on the ground in one corner, I unfurled Rachel’s bundle. Inside a drab tarp was a dress cut to my short stature, but it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It looked like it was made of silver thread that shined in the firelight of my lantern; every inch of it sparkled as if it was a jewel.

  I ditched my tattered tunic and trousers that were still soiled with Luke’s and Robert’s blood and smelled of Rhydin’s dank dungeons. However, it felt like an insult to the dress to put it on while my skin and hair still stank of memories I wished I could forget.

  Thankfully, in one of the other dark corners of the tent was a small basin of water, so I spent several minutes doing the best I could to wash myself clean. I scrubbed every speck of dirt and blood long after it had disappeared, leaving my skin red and raw, yet I still felt dirty. I didn’t realize how long I was taking until I heard a soft but impatient “hurry up” from Rachel just outside.

  Finally, I donned the dress, and I inwardly thanked Rachel that it was sleek and not poofy like some Royals’ dresses I’d seen. It hugged my collarbones and had long sleeves that draped at least a foot downward from my hands. The hemline dragged the ground a little bit, but not nearly as bad as most dresses that were loaned to me. The entire thing was silver except for a thick border of scarlet etched with black Ranguvariian patterns around the neckline. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of occasion was occurring outside that necessitated such attire in a hole in the ground.

  I smoothed the fabric of the dress, grabbed my sword to re-conceal it within my trusty sash, and reached up to touch my locket – an old, nervous habit – to make sure it was still there. I panicked for a split second when it felt lighter against my fingers, until I remembered that I only had half of my usual necklace. There was another piece somewhere that I could only hope Evan had recovered from Robert.

  My, how things were changing.

  Rachel lifted the flap, blinding me with the blue-green light yet again. “Come on, they’re all waiting for us!”

  I stepped out of the tent and waited for my eyes to adjust. When they did, my mouth dropped open. “The Dome” was an apt name for this place. We were in a gigantic, rounded cavern that was several stories tall, and I could hardly see the edges of it. It had to be an entire mountain that was hollow or something.

  At the zenith of the cavern was a bright cluster of what I could only describe as some sort of crystals that gave off several different colors of light, although the end result was the aquamarine color in which everything on the floor of the cavern was bathed. Patchwork tents, a few small campfires, and a few bigger areas where people could meet or were filled with some crates of supplies. I had only been out for a day or two, yet the Dome was already turning into a quaint community of revolutionaries.

  The most amazing part? There had to be enough tents to account for a few hundred people down here with us.

  Gaping, I turned to Rachel and breathed the only word I could manage, “How?”

  “Our cause is growing every day,” Rachel replied, beaming with pride. “The news of Rhydin’s lies and his execution of the Royals has spread coast to coast. The people’s responses to the news are varied. Many remain loyal to Rhydin, either due to fear or because they are just that fed up with the Royals, but we are gaining a few numbers here and there all the time. It’s very slow, but far better than I expected so soon.”

  “Wow,” I exhaled, unable to fathom it. Then, after another quick look around the empty tents surrounding us, I added, “If there’s a few hundred people down here, where are all of them?”

  “Waiting for you,” Rachel groaned yet again. The tall redhead steered my shoulders to my left and would have pushed me along the whole way if I hadn’t started walking faster.

  “Why me?” I responded anxiously. “Where did Sam and Sabine go?”

  “You’ll see,” my friend said quietly. “They’re already there. On time, I might add.”

  There was a hum in the air as we grew closer to whatever event was transpiring, and the flicker of fire appeared around the next corner in a blue-green hue. We started seeing a person or two as we approached, a man in Auklian silks and a woman in Lunakan leather. Soon, we were pushing through a crowd like sardines until we reached an abrupt clearing in the center of the Dome. All the while, the hummi
ng became louder and louder, but my heart plummeted when I beheld the scene around me.

  People watched, some stoically, some wide-eyed, from the sidelines of a big, open space like a canal between two landmasses. I saw faces young and old, male and female, pale and dark, of all three of the Three Kingdoms. With our appearance, all of them had their eyes on me, and I tried not to panic at the sudden attention.

  At one of end of the large, empty aisle among all the people was a big pile of logs, which we were closest to at the moment. The other end seemed to mostly consist of a small stage from what I could see at this distance. A few people were standing upon it, but I couldn’t tell who from so far away.

  Just when I thought the humming couldn’t get any louder, several Ranguvariians came forward from among the humans, evenly spaced down both sides of the aisle. Each Ranguvariian spread its wings wide, casting a colorful glow upon the people around them and the empty aisle.

  However, I couldn’t help but notice the gaping holes in their wings where several feathers were missing, like frayed holes in a quilt. My brow furrowed, wondering why so many had sacrificed so much. Surely not every person down here could be wearing a feather? Especially since I’d heard that Rhydin knew how they worked. I would have to ask Rachel about this later.

  One of these Ranguvariians was banging a wide, animal-skin drum rhythmically, a thump-thump like a heartbeat. Another Ranguvariian was bearing a tall, golden torch with ornate designs, but it was unlit. Without missing a beat, Rachel walked toward her and took the dead torch, then my skin erupted into goosebumps when she then handed it to me.

  I stared at it for a couple seconds, then whispered, “What do I do with this?”

  “Light it,” Rachel murmured under her breath, “with your magic!”

  “I have light magic, not fire!” I hissed.