^^^The Darkening's vibes in the 3rd book
Norah
Silence claws my insides, shredding every fiber in me until I am a shell that cannot bear to live without Rima.
Finally, I truly understand why Alyran's dragon chose to die in the tombs. He hadn't been blinded by rage, but blinded by the grief of living in a world where his rider was not there.
Something wet and warm spills down my fingers, down my arms and neck as I scream.
And scream, scream, and scream.
Rima.
We had been so close in the beginning. She was my dragon and I was her rider and together we would face anything and everything. But somewhere between there and now, we drifted apart. I drifted, closing myself off from the one being in the whole world who loved me unconditionally.
Until the darkness claims us, she would say. But now I am here and she is not.
Black boots appear in front of my lowered gaze.
"You should have appreciated her more."
Rage sends me surging up, reaching for their throat.
Air slams down upon me, my knees cracking on stone.
Not air, I realize. Magic.
"Lower," purrs a woman, her voice rolling like the heat of a bonfire.
A blazing inferno presses me down and down until my hands lay on the stone and my head touches the stone.
"That is how mortals should be," a woman croons. Red, dagger-like nails gently tilt my chin up to meet slitted eyes. "Worshipping their God."
Her eyes are like Rima's. Only hers had been like blood in snow, not the oranges and blacks of a dying sun.
Pain washes over me anew, chest splitting. Rima.
"My dragon." I don't know if I'm screaming or sobbing the words.
Her fingers squeeze my jaw shut until I can no longer breathe or scream. Anger flares in those powerful eyes, her jaw locking tight. "Why do you suddenly care?"
Tension eases enough for me to speak but it's mushed like trying to speak with my mouth full. "She's my dragon."
"No," she hisses. "She is my dragon. You haven't fully accepted her bond and never had the intention to do so. Dragons are a gift. Why would I bestow her back to you when you never appreciated her?"
Her truth leaves me silent.
"I thought so." She straightens, releasing my face to watch me cough and claw at my chest. The metal scales on my armor, slice into flesh and muscle and cover my hands in blood.
"Do you know who is before you?" she wonders.
I hesitate even as my skin is ablaze with her magic, my veins crackling in white fire.
It's a dangerous question. A double-edged sword with no right answer.
Still, I buy myself time. My eyes rise, roving over her muscled figure. She is beautiful like a sword is deadly. Power, like living flames thrums off her in waves. Her face is sharp, her jaw chiseled. Black hair is smoothed back, framing her grey-brown face and emphasizing her long, pointed ears. Gold earrings pierce the cartilage, shining like golden stars despite the dim lighting. Two curving horns rest atop her head, the color of orange fire coiling around like lava cracking through molten rock. I stare at her eyes, following the red liner on her eyes, the same shade of deep red staining her lips and staining her jumpsuit which looks more like a regal dress
Still, I say nothing.
"Do not worry, mortal," she says with a spider's smile. "By the time we're done, my name will be carved into your soul."
--------------------------
The air shimmers, like ripples in water. Everything falls away until darkness surrounds me.
"Holland!" I surge to my feet. My bones turn brittle, my stomach wrenching. I shut my eyes, fighting the nausea.
I had forgotten about him. I had forgotten about the person I killed my dragon for. The thought tastes like bile in my throat.
I blink away the colors, my gaze darts through the darkness before snapping to the woman who would tower over Holland, over any person with ease. "Where is he? Where is Holland?" He was still breathing when I left. Bleeding and choking but alive and I need to be there to help him.
Her gaze smolders over me. "Your lack of focus is what caused your friend's death. Focus on what's in front of you now."
"No. I need to help Holland."
Fire pours into me, pounding through my veins. I scream, fingers gripping black. Then, the pain is gone, fast and quick. A reminder and warning.
"They're all dead," she hisses, her voice like water on hot rocks. "Did you not see their wounds? Too horrible for any mortal to survive? Millions of others will face a similar demise if you cannot set aside your selfishness to obey a single word I say." She glares down at me, never letting me rise to my feet. "I have taken pity upon the human race, time, and time again. But given my interaction with you, I question myself. My time and energy can be better spent elsewhere."
An image of Adam lying dead on the ground ignites a deep ache in me. I remember holding Easton in my arms, red-white spines through his chest and Holland, his last words to me sawing like a rusted blade. Clarika would still be alive, they would all still be alive if it hadn't been for me. Rima would be with me right now.
She pauses, letting the words penetrate.
"Do you know how Andis was created?" she asks coolly, but a simmer of venom underlines each word.
"An explosion of particles?" I say, though some part of me feels like I'm wrong. She wouldn't have asked the question otherwise.
"Worlds are created by Gods." Light explodes, shattering the pitch-black. I barely have time to shut my eyes and try to blink away the flicking lights. I watch as the lights become a blanket of shimmering pearls of stars. "We sacrifice a piece of our soul to create planets," the woman says.
We.
The sea of stars disappear and suddenly I'm on vibrant green grass. Hills crest the land, rolling like calm waves of an ocean until a blue horizon merges with them. Two people appear, one the woman in her red and gold, and a man in white and gold and blue.
They survey the lands with appraising eyes. "Does this one suit you better, Khalixis?" The man asks, his voice clear and resonant as summer's wind.
Kal-licks-is, I mull over the name, running it through in my memories, hoping my repeating it enough will put a name to a Goddess. A Goddess.
They exist.
The thought hasn't sunk in yet and part of me wonders if I've gone insane, the absence of Rima's bond taking its toll.
Holland had always said the gods abandoned humanity, but I thought they existed in words and song only. Their stories being weaved and spun in dark times by people needing hope and needing to believe in something bigger than themselves because they couldn't handle what science and facts answered.
Slitted eyes find him with neither a cold nor warm expression. "We'll need followers."
Time speeds, no longer shimmering walls but pages being flipped. Forests and mountains and oceans and lakes all rise across the planet. Animals follow, then humans. The God and Goddess are there through it all, creating seasons for crops and soil to rest and flowers to blossom. Wooden towns rise into grand castles, tall enough to reach the skies with bridges arcing to the nearby towers and lowering into the city's streets.
A city of white stone stands below me, a birds-eye view-- a God's view. Khalixis and the man parade through the crowded streets. People dip their heads as they pass.
The God, his skin the blue-grey of cold ocean water, walks through the crowd. Each step is regal and graceful and radiating power. With the flick of his wrist--of either of their wrists--entire cities could be destroyed. Yet he stops to listen to the people's worries and takes their offerings with a small, grateful nod. A smooth piece of metal wraps around his head, either end rising up his forehead like horns. It's a bright, vibrant blue against dark, wavy blue hair and moon-grey eyes.
"Your magic will come," he says, kneeling before a young girl no older than six. His voice is soft, yet firm. A father teaching his daughter patience. Holland comes to mind and my vision blurs, my lips wobbling. "But you must first grow yourself."
"But why must I wait?" she wonders, her mother's hand laying gently on her shoulder. "Everyone else has something."
"How can you harness the sun's energy without first understanding the sun?" he asks, "how do you bring forth a flower when you do not understand how the seed grows? Your magic is unique to who you are within and you cannot harness that without first understanding yourself."
She bobs her head, some spark of understanding crossing her face.
Her mother leans in, ducking her head. "Praise you, Etin."
He rises, continuing deeper into the city. Khalixis follows, a ring of silver flames and wings nestled atop her horned head. Three dragons march behind her as silent guards but against who, I don't know.
One is silver with glittering gold wings. The largest is brown with flecks of green in his pointed scales. The third is a deep, plum purple with a sleek body and long, curling fangs.
My body screams at them, at the silence the Dawnwings wash me in.
"Humanity prospered beneath a God's rule," Khalixis begins, eyeing me. "We gave you the collective wisdom of the Gods, an eternity's worth of knowledge. We gifted you with power over the elements, to hear life around you." She pauses, gazing down at the world below. "But I saw your species' true colors, even if Etin's love for you blinded him. I bonded my most treasured dragons with a small group of your kind who were only loyal to me. Together, we protected Etin."
A mountain, with towering peaks that reach into the sky form a place that I recognize. It's the cove Holland and Galeur took my team to as Scubs to find our dragons, where Rima chose me to be her rider. But it does not float in the sky, not yet.
The same dragons from the city and several more stand before Khalixis. The warriors are decorated in more weapons than armor and they stand before her with a lethality to their eyes.
Etin. The name is startlingly recognizable.
The dragon's jolt, their hard eyes now burning on a human of their choosing. They charge, all teeth and claws.
A woman in grey armor dances out of the silver-golds maw, her sword unsheathed in a smooth, graceful movement. She grips her sword, digging her feet into the ground as the dragon charges. They fight in a gruesome, bloody game as if the others were not fighting to face against their own dragons.
The woman is knocked down, a tail sweeping beneath her feet and the dragon pounces before she can rise. The dragon drives her talon into her own heart, pulling away golden fluid and inserting it into the woman's chest, merging their souls. The warrior screams and screams, but the pain does not last long, and then she is unfolding to her feet, rubbing her chest.
They stare at each other as if truly seeing one another for the first time. Her eyes are wide, wincing as what must be the first words of her dragon booming in her mind. I glance across the field where the single-colored dragon stands. Their bond had been much like Eastons, an indirect connection.
I turn to the Goddess, her slitted eyes already fixed on me even as the world's pages flip again. "Etin," I say, my mind spinning to recall all of Professor Mikel's lunch lessons. "The God of Preservation."
"You know the God who is destroying your planet, yet you do not recognize the Goddess who gifted you Rima and created your faction?" She demands, offended.
Uncertainty and wariness settle over me like a heavy cloak. "I'm new to the dragon world?"
Her nostrils flare.
Too many questions cloud my thoughts, too many and I hardly feel the will to ask them. Though there is one. "You gifted me Rima?"
"You think a little mongrel girl gets one of the best dragons by chance?" she asks, scoffing.
"Yes?" The look she gives could melt stone. She actually might given her power. "Thank you," I murmur because Rima was the best thing to ever happen to me, even if I never truly saw it until now. The silence creeps up my chest and I try to shove it down, try to focus on the Goddess. "You said Etin's destroying Andis?"
"Your kind let greed blind you," she says as dragons and dragon riders fly over the city, burning Etin and Khalixis' white city to ash. People rise against them with their ice and earth and familiars, but nothing can stand against such powerful dragons. Especially so early in life when people had no reason to fear them.
"You plotted against Etin, attacking him and everything we have ever done for you." Khalixis eyes glow as the last of human cities burn and then her dragons turn on their humans, spilling more blood. "I was left with no choice but to eradicate your kind."
Time passes, the soil charred, and black. No life exists but for the dragons and with no food left to eat, they starve. I watch as Khalixis walks upon the earth, her dragons following proudly behind her despite the bones that stick out beneath their scales. She waves a hand through the air, more for show than necessity, and the mountains before her rumble. Seven chunks of earth rise, rise, and rise high into the grey clouds.
The islands, I realize. The Goddess sprouts trees and bigger mountains for her dragons to live in. Green vines drape from one island to the other, keeping them from drifting apart. She gives them animals to hunt, some docile and easy to eat, others more dangerous to catch and far more entertaining to hunt. Then she leaves and her dragons continue to roam the planet where life eventually finds a way to blossom.
Yet winter's still growing colder, too cold for even dragons to withstand. Dry plains become oceans, and warm, sunny lands are now icy tundras.
"Time is not the same to us Gods as it is to you mortals. As Etin retreated to attend matters in his realm your planet's core was offset," she says and the God appears for the first time since his disappearance. His eyes widened as his white city is nothing but a raging storm of ice and sleet. Then he disappears again, but to where, I do not know. "He found that Andis was purging itself, trying to cleanse its soil from the damage that harmed it. But in doing so, it was also speeding its demise.
"Out of love for his creations, Etin sacrificed his soul to your planet's core." Life blossoms once more, green splitting black earth and ice melting over the eons. "But what he had thought would be the salvation of Andis, was only a temporary fix. He had given too much of his soul and his magic was stripped from him."
Centuries pass in the vision, humans have risen but their cities are not as grand as they once were. Made of stone and wood and brick and not nearly as towering. I search over the muddied streets, finding Etin in a library. But it is not Etin. His skin has turned pale white, his blue crown gone and hair onyx black. He wears mage clothing, a notebook open on the table. Words appear on the paper as the god goes about his day.
"He had lost his soul and, with it, most of his power," Khalixis says, pausing for a long moment. "In the beginning he had helped others, teaching them how to strengthen and understand their abilities while they, in turn, taught him how mortals lived. Only a select few knew of his true identity."
A group comes to stand before him on a yellow grass field. Dragons and familiars beside their humans while Mages wear their abilities with pride. Wars brew as the human race grows, and together they fight side by side, sharing blood, sweat, and tears.
My eyes dart around, counting their numbers. Three from each faction. The start of the pureblood lines, I realize, as generations pass. Tidal waves have begun to sweep over the coasts and signs of meteor showers are now posted in cities.
Etin sits at his desk, candles flickering on either side of him. As his nights become longer, sleep comes hard for him and writing becomes a regular occupation for him. He never picks up a pen, never utters a word, but uses magic to write what he thinks. The night wears thin when his black inked words suddenly stop and he laces his finger on the table, his spine straightening further.
His eyes flick to the window in front of him, reflecting the shadow looming by the door. "Vaella," he says, a greeting and warning.
A woman bleeds out of the darkness, her hair like liquid moonlight and eyes as black as the gaps between stars. Her wings, three pairs, are made of long glorious feathers. They do not flare or shrink before the god but stay tucked tight on her back, an immovable force. She places the end of her spear on the floor, the arrowhead glinting. The other end splits into two sharpened daggers, arched like claws and keen enough to slice into dimensions. In the center of the forked end, the metal twists to form the rounded body of a crescent moon, glowing like a ball of celestial steel.
She takes in the God with the impassiveness of stone on her ivory face.
"Etin," she says, her voice carrying like wings in darkened air, yet I imagine her angry and her tone turns to waves crashing on jagged rocks. The grey diadem on her head, a crown for war, winks with every flicker of the candles.
"Another God?" I wonder, watching as the two talk. My ears strain to hear but there is nothing. So I try to read their lips, the Goddess' stained black like her midnight armor.
"When a god of Etin's power disappears, others demand truth." Anger swirls in her slitted eyes, deepening the longer she stares at the Goddess.
"How many Gods are there?" As soon as the words are out, I feel stupid. Hundreds of Gods have been written about, but how many of them are real I cannot be sure.
"Many."
"If there's so many of you, why are none of you on Andis?"
"This is my realm," she growls. "No one may cross without my approval." She turns her glare to life below and images rip through my head.
"So she crossed with your approval?"
"Did you not hear me? I would not have allowed it otherwise."
Vaella comes and goes with time, sometimes disappearing for months to years at a time. She stands on Etin's right during meetings with the purebloods, her eyes always searching for something deeper. She counsels Etin, offering her opinion and challenging him in others. I see her slaughter entire armies for him, great canyons are left in her wake.
A once patient and kind man turns brutal, the loss of his soul eating away at him slowly, a festering disease. Etin's nights become longer, his concentration thinning. He begins to wander the streets instead of writing, sometimes walking with a silver-haired man or woman, depending on the generation. He gives his stack of journals to the dragon riders, the only immortals who will know to safeguard their secrets for eternity.
Etin runs, abandoning his city and the friends he's made to protect them from the tendrils that spill from him. But they follow, tracking him down to a small cabin rotting away at his presence. They spend hours trying to convince him to come back, that they can help fix the wrongness and hatred consuming him. It only makes him angry, lashing out with waves of darkness that destroys the cabin and the people within. The despair and shock in his face is something I have only recently come to understand.
News spreads quickly and a war rages against the fallen god. The war lasts for years and eventually, Etin stops running and fights back. He wipes out entire civilizations before a sword through the chest kills him. The children of the purebloods, and the one original who had not been with the other's when they were slaughtered, mourn the loss of a friend and bury him near the city he had lived in for centuries.
But Gods, even mortalized, are not so easily killed.
Black smoke pours out of the soil, destroying the flowers and burial stone. He destroys his city before being trapped. It's a cycle, I realize, watching as The Darkening rises and grows in power only to be caged again. Every time he breaks free, he hides longer and longer, letting himself grow stronger and his army larger.
I see the battle in Aros, where the Darkening surges out the tunnels and into the city. I watch the body I had inhabited at the tree sprint through the streets and dive into the army's lines. A soldier helps him up, patting him on the back before he joins the line. My eyes dart over their faces. The original pureblood is there along with a man with silver hair. They stand together as darkness pounds on their barriers, searching for a weak spot to crack.
Suddenly, light envelops the darkness, not chasing it away but pulling it in. It bathes everything in white until fading back into the tree and a crumbled city. I stare at the leaves, all single colored like the dragons that had been there. The commoners had become the roots and mages the force that kept The Darkening locked within the tree's heart. Families and lovers mourn their losses before the mages seal the mountain, leaving Aros untouched.
An earth mage is the first person to enter three centuries later. The dark mages follow behind him, killing the person who could spread their secret when they reach the tree. They begin calling to him, the God of Death who will teach them their dark magic.
But he is no God of Death. Etin is preservation turned twisted.
The onyx skeletons slaughter the dark mages as the black cloud slowly tears itself out of the cage. A fireball sears past one of the skeletons and the darkness jolts. Black tendrils shoot out, striking like a whip at the flames Renora uses as a shield. Emre rushes out of the flames in a suit of silver and red, with a gust of icicles. Mages charge with him, nearly twenty of them.
The battle is long, the several dead now clawing down the living. Each second The Darkening grows and grows, his smoke solidifying.
Renora uses her hottest flames to try and push the god back, her hands burning blue. But it is pointless and it only annoys the god. A tendril lashes out, arcing and striking her stomach. It sends her back several feet, rolling over the roots. She tries to get up, a wave of black rising above her head when ice laces over her body and yanks her across the floor and to Emre's side. She stands, a rare scowl on her face.
She sends a wall of sparks and flames at the darkness. The cloud disperses like smoke in wind and the dark mages take advantage quickly, using runes and their power to seal him back into the tree. They add more runes, stacking them upon each other before leaving and sealing the tunnel they came through.
Aros is left in silence until a shadow within the city stirs. It floats toward the seals and shatters them, releasing the rest of the gods' form into the world. Etin tries to kill the tree, to destroy the cage that had held him captive for millenniums. But it stands strong and Etin rages over the city, using his darkness to eat at the stone. Rock splits in a tall, narrow tunnel as he forces it apart and out into the tundra where his enemies believe him defeated.
"Your mother risked death knowing you were in her womb," Khalixis says. Ice freezes my veins, heart stuttering. "Have you ever wondered why the same day Etin is powerful enough to bring meteors down on a city, you erupt in ice? Why, when his creatures and power drown your beloved mage capital, a familiar tracks you down?"
"I thought it was because I was a pureblood."
"You are not a pureblood," she hisses, heat rippling off her body. "You share a connection with Etin, every day he grows stronger you do in turn."
I try to find the words, but my thoughts run silent.
"Did you really think you were so special to receive these gifts out of coincidence?" Khalixis sneers. "After everything I've done to get you here-" My face twists. She notices quickly. "Frovein finding you was not by accident, the words he said carefully arranged so you would leave for Aros and arrive when the veil between realms was thinnest."
Her words fall like a great weight on my head, on everything I believed I knew. It's like a switch has flipped, the silence freezing my thoughts and feelings, suddenly storming with too many questions to process.
Mansiah. The holiday Dagen hates with a dying passion.
"But--I, I don't understand," I stammer, my fingers still slick with red and my fingers lacerated. The sting has already begun to throb but the numbness, like a barren winter's field, is all consuming. "If you could talk to Frovein on the Islands, why couldn't you talk to me? Why did I have to come to Aros?"
Invisible flames ripple off her with her rage, constricting around my throat like rope. "You are here because I demanded you experience how the greed of mortals have once again put this planet in jeopardy."
"Is there any way to stop this?"
Her fury makes me flinch, even as her magic releases my throat. "I wouldn't have brought you here if there was no way to fix this, stupid girl. I need your mortal body to act as a vessel for the other half of Etin's soul until it can be reunited with his form."
"Would it kill me?" With everything that's happened, I don't know why I ask the question. There is no part of me that wants to live. But Holland could still be alive.
"You have a connection, you will live," she says.
"Why can't you hold on to him?"
Khalixis bares her teeth, white like the moon. "His soul is in the mortal realm," she growls as if this is common sense. "I am in the God dimension. You are in the mortal one."
I know the risk I take by asking these questions, yet I do find myself caring. "But I saw you on the planet-" A plume of blazing heat slams into me and I scream.
She says, every word blazing. "It was a projection of my true form. Your kind would burn if they ever truly laid eyes upon me," she says, lifting her chin even higher. "Once you find the other half of Etin's soul, I can use my magic to connect them without hurting you."
"Where is he--The Darkening?"
Her face turns sly, like jerking away the cookie everytime I reach for it. "If you can find a forgotten city, you can find The Darkening."
My tongue is dry, pulse racing. I stare at the ground, now pitch black again. For the first time since I joined with Rima there is no second mind listening in. No person to go turn to besides Riveta on the other side of the world. She might as well not exist in this moment.
For the first time, I feel truly alone and the pain of it blankets my soul.
"Look at how much I've done for you," Khalixis says, her voice suddenly sickly sweet. "Now you need to repay me."
"I--don't--I can't do it alone," I say, wishing that I could. "I need help. I need Holland, he would know what to do."
Rage explodes over her, her lips pulling back as she grabs my face. "Your duty isn't to him, it's to me."
"He would know what to do," I say, breathing in flames.
"You think your Holland is perfect and infallible?" She shoves me back and I stumble, letting myself fall onto the ground. I wish I didn't have to get back up.
The darkness shudders, lightening like night breaking into early dawn. I stare at her, every muscle taut as a bowstring. Something shifts in the corner of my eye, and I whip my head around to find Holland standing there.
"Holland!" I scramble to my feet, relief hammering through me even as the world spins round, and round. Khalixis healed him, brought him to whatever space she created.
Not him, I realize, forcing my feet still. Not the muscled, broad shoulders Holland I know.
Light floods beneath the door he waits beside, the only source of lighting in what looks like a tiny room. He presses his back against the wall, metal bar in hand. His face is narrower, thinner, younger-looking. His silver hair is messy, untamed, and reflects the light now flickering with someone's footsteps.
The lock clicks and Holland raises the bar. A man, dressed in pebble grey armor walks in, a sword strapped to his hip.
Holland swings, his arms too thin yet I see the muscles lining his arms.
The man ducks on instinct, shock burning into anger. He swipes his foot across the ground and Holland jumps but his foot still catches. He staggers, body swaying as the door kicks open. The tiny room, more like a closet, is flooded in light. Stains of blood seep into the dirty concrete, some old and some new.
Holland moves faster, every movement straining. He knocks the guard over the head and he crumbles but isn't unconscious. The man starts to his feet when the bar arcs, striking him in the chin. Holland doesn't hesitate, thrusting the bar down, again, and again, and again, until the man's skull has caved.
The world ripples back into darkness. I stare for a moment, feeling Khalixis simmering anger buzzing overhead. As if she could shove her anger down my throat and into my mind.
I try to find something to say before her, but she says, a small relishing smile on her red lips. "Your Holland does not seem to be as perfect and almighty as you see him, little mortal. His hands soak in blood."
Like yours, I think, the words bitter and sharp in my head.
She leans over, forcing me to tilt my head back to hold her gaze. "Who is your duty to?"
"You," I murmur because I want this to be over with.
"You will be a vessel to The Darkening?"
"Yes," I say. It will make Clarika, Easton, and Adam's death's worth it.
She smiles, a cat full on warm milk. "Your sacrifice will not be wasted."
My heart stops. "What?"
The Goddess disappears, consumed in black smoke. It wraps up my legs and drags me down, down, down until there is nothing. As if the earth has swallowed me whole in a single, deep breath. Then there was darkness.
And silence.
Then pain.
Pronunciation:
Vaella: Vay-A-la
Khalixis: Kal-licks-is