Bereft: Demise

67 | Of Crows and Their End

Darius and I argued for an hour over how we were going to return to Crow's End. I described how Sethan had taken me through the Realm, though I omitted the spiritual agony it had inflicted upon my very soul. Unfortunately, Darius knew of the method I was referring to, and it only darkened his already black mood. 

As the Sin explained it, what Sethan had done was akin to slamming my arm into a car door and using it to drag me down the street. It got me to my destination with no guarantee of my arrival in one piece. He was averse to doing the same—until I pointed out that we were in the middle of the Cascade Mountains with no readily available way back to civilization. It could take days to walk out. 

Days without food. Without water. Without safety. Sethan may be dead, but Balthier still lurked. Neither of us would survive long outside the manor.

So, grim-faced and not shy about voicing his opposition, Darius scooped me into his arms and plunged us both into the sweltering heat of the Realm. The pressure mounted with alarming quickness as the black flames stole my breath and I choked on the embers. It began to push us from the Realm, but Darius held steady against the Realm's insistence.

The pain set in with burning familiarity.

To his credit, Darius stopped three times to allow both of us a breather, the first stop in a barren field, the second in a sleepy town blanketed in white, and the final stop on a slender spit of land in the midst of a churning ocean. We paused with enough frequency for me to retain consciousness—but the trip was arduous.

I almost wept when he moved a final time, and we stepped into the water-logged land of the manor's moors.

"King's breath," Darius groaned as he eased my feet to the road and kept a grip on my arm. He bent at the waist to catch his breath and braced a hand upon a knee. "You're heavier than you look."

"Oh, that's rich." I slapped his arm and wondered if sitting in the middle of the path for a nap was a viable option. "That's hilarious coming from you."

Darius sighed, then—as if reading my mind—prodded me in the side so I would squirm. "Don't sit. We're almost there—." He suddenly straightened, stiffening. The Sin's attention followed the road to the lane ahead. "There's something wrong."

"Wrong?"

Darius disappeared without explanation. Gawking, I stared at the spot he'd vanished from. What did he mean by wrong?!

I kept walking along the road to the lane—which was when I heard Amoroth's raised voice and Darius's answering snarl. "Cuxiel!"

Standing at the ward with the manor's name silhouetted above them, the two Sins were watching the scene before them unfold. Peroth was positioned among the graves with a disheveled Anzel at his side.

Beyond them, wearing his typical suit and sneer, was the Sin of Envy. Visible only when the mist shifted, Danyel was a nonthreatening sentinel in designer garb too far out to do anyone any good.

Balthier and Sloth were inside the ward.

Words failed me as I came to a stop next to Darius, feeling the static of the ward wend through the air. No—not just one ward. Two wards, similar in composition but with subtle, inherent differences in their design, pressed upon one another in dazzling lightning displays.

Two wards. Balthier had set a second one inside Peroth's.

The night was dark but for those bursts of lightning highlighting the dreaded scene before us.

Amoroth had open blisters on her quavering hands from striking the ward. Her hair was a coiled mess, unbrushed as if she'd been woken from a dead sleep. I wondered how she'd escaped the creation of the second barrier before it'd been erected.