Chapter Nine Pax

Chapter Nine

Pax

Tearsith

“Aria!” Pax shouted.

Fear streaked down his spine as he watched his Nol stumble out from the dense forest and drop to her knees, collapsing onto the ground.

His heart raced at warp speed, and terror ripped through his consciousness as he ran to where she had collapsed just inside the boundary of Tearsith.

The entire day, he’d known she was in trouble.

Through time and space, he’d felt her turmoil. Had heard her calling his name. Louder than ever before, which he knew was something he shouldn’t be able to do.

He wasn’t supposed to be able to feel her while they were awake.

But he could.

He swore he’d always been able to.

The hours of the day had haunted him as he’d warred with the nearly irresistible urge to look for her.

To seek her out.

Find her in the day.

He knew better, though, didn’t he? The rule that it was forbidden.

A knot formed in his gut. Somewhere inside, he knew the rules were there for a reason. Logically, he understood why. He would only put her in danger. Make him somehow turn against her, though the thought of that seemed like complete bullshit to him.

He would never hurt her.

But he also couldn’t imagine putting her more at risk by going to her, either.

That didn’t make any of this less unbearable, though, did it?

He dropped to his knees at her side. His stomach twisted in agony while his spirit coiled in hatred.

He had no idea what had happened to her. What had caused this or what was wrong with her. But if anyone had hurt her? They would pay.

“Aria, are you okay?” His voice scraped through the horror clotting his throat. Carefully, he turned her over where she lay in the deep grasses, and he slipped an arm under her upper back to support her, frantic as he brushed away the long locks of her black hair so he could see her face.

Her skin was always pale, but normally, it glowed with life. Tonight, it was pasty and dull.

“Aria, talk to me. I need to know you’re okay.”

She moaned something incoherent, and her lips barely moved as she mumbled, “Pax.”

The smallest amount of relief heaved from him at that.

At least she could hear him.

“It’s okay. I have you. I have you. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise you.” Every word was gritted out, an oath forever carved on his spirit, one he would do anything to keep. “I have you.”

Slipping his other arm under her frail body, he lifted her as he pushed to standing.

He carried her over the lush, green grasses of the meadow, his boots thudding as he treaded through the ankle-high vingas toward their Laven family, who sat along the brook that ran through the clearing.

Dani jumped to her feet when she saw them coming. “Oh my God, what happened? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. She passed out the moment she stepped into Tearsith.” Fear ground out with his words.

Dani took Aria’s hand, and she searched her face. “Are you okay, Aria? Can you hear me?”

A low sound rolled from Aria’s throat.

Concerned awareness rippled through the mass of Laven, and in curiosity, they began to gather, their worry thick and clouding the normally tranquil peace of their sanctuary.

“Everyone back.” It whipped from Pax’s mouth on a command, his voice hurtling through the air with a viciousness he could not contain.

When they made room, he knelt and gingerly set Aria on the thick bed of grass.

Ellis and Josephine pushed through the crowd. Worry twisted across Ellis’s face when he saw them, and he was quick to kneel at Aria’s side.

“What has happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Frustration carved Pax’s response into blades.

Josephine stooped down. He could almost hear her bones creak, her long, gray hair wiry and thin. She lifted a hand and danced her fingertips over Aria’s brow and across her neck.

“She is drained,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Completely drained.”

She moved to the stream and dipped her fingers into the cool water and returned to dribble the droplets onto Aria’s lips. Aria’s tongue stroked out to receive the moisture.

“There, sweet child. You must rest.”

“What does it mean?” Pax could hardly force the question from his mouth.

Uncertainty furrowed Ellis’s brow. “I am unsure, but it seems her energy has been zapped.”

Dread pulled through Pax’s being, terror at the thought of what might have caused it. Here, in Tearsith, he wouldn’t be able to see if she had any physical injuries, their sanctuary shielding their bodies from any wounds they’d sustained both while awake and while in Faydor.

But he’d never seen any of their Laven family ever arrive in Tearsith in a state like this before. And his gut told him whatever had happened was bad.

Ellis suddenly stood and waved an arm at their family, the crowd roiling in the disquiet that hummed in the air. “Everyone, give us space. It is nearing time to descend on Faydor. Prepare yourselves.”

Then he returned, the old man’s voice held low in distress. “Could she have been in Faydor? By herself?”

Rage filled Pax at the thought.

“No. She couldn’t have been. She would never descend on her own.”

She wouldn’t. Not without him.

“Then she must have been injured while awake.” Ellis’s voice was grim, covered in care and concern.

Pax’s insides turned molten. He would destroy anyone who had dared touch her.

Josephine set a hand on his forearm, no doubt sensing his anger. “She needs to remain in Tearsith for the night so she can recover. Stay with her.”

He held back the menacing laughter that threatened his throat. Nothing could force him to leave her side.

Still, he nodded. “I will watch over her.”

“Take care of her, my son,” Ellis said before he took Josephine’s hand as they prepared to descend into Faydor.

A swell of protectiveness roiled in his gut as he watched them.

Pax hated the idea of Ellis and Josephine walking in darkness. Their bodies were frail, carrying the weight of a lifetime of wounds and burdens. Yet they still raced through the evils each night, and they took on the injuries that would follow them into the day.

The excruciating pain.

Pax had no love for his human family. But this? It was like watching his grandparents being beaten each night.

When he had suggested it was time they rest, Ellis had refused. He’d reminded Pax it was what they’d been created to do, and he would fight the wickedness until the day he went on to rest in eternity.

Pax remained with Aria as he watched their family file toward the invisible gateway that led to Faydor.

Each couple stepped forward, striking in a blinding flash of light before they disappeared.

Dani and her Nol, Timothy, had trailed behind. Worry churned in their gazes as they peered back.

Of any of their Laven family, Pax and Aria were closest to Timothy and Dani.

A friendship had formed. A bond of understanding. It had been forged like metal during the years when Pax had fought by their sides while Aria had remained within the safety of Tearsith.

Timothy held Pax’s stare with a knowing concern written in his expression. He was in his early thirties, a tall, slender Black man, his hair cropped short.

The guy was full of life. Always willing to give and sacrifice. Compared with what Pax knew, he had lived a semi normal life, feeling comfortable enough to blend in and function in society. His eyes were the same pale gray as the rest of their family, and he always joked that he made good use of sunglasses to ward off the gawkers, though Pax knew that wouldn’t be possible to do at all times, especially since he had become a teacher, claiming children were his calling, both in night and day.

There to teach and to protect.

It was clear tonight that Timothy warred with that calling, torn between staying and going.

Pax dipped his chin at him, promising they were fine.

Dani’s wave was reluctant before they turned and stepped toward the gateway that rippled in the woods. They flashed a brilliant light before they were gone.

None would return to Tearsith tonight. They would fight until they were awakened or were burned.

Pax shifted to look down where Aria slept on the bed of grass.

Face porcelain, waves of black strewn out around her head, a halo of perfection.

His gaze tracked over her like he could see where she had been burned over the years.

It didn’t matter the burn marks were hidden.

Pax knew they existed.

He could remember every fucking agonized moment of watching her go through the fate he would have given his life to protect her from.

A sigh slipped between her lips.

He wished for a way to hold her burden.

Erase it.

Carry it all.

For hours, he watched her sleep as her body regained strength and her spirit refortified its purpose.

“Pax.” She finally stirred, moaning his name, though this time, her voice was clearer. He could feel her easing toward coherency.

“I’m right here.”

Gray eyes so pale they were almost white blinked open. Eyes that speared through him. Eyes that were carved to the depth of his soul.

He’d known from when he was a boy that his purpose would be to protect her.

He’d also somehow known it would cost him everything.

That his life would be given.

He didn’t know how, but sitting there then, he’d never felt the truth of it so distinctly.

He scooted forward so she would know she wasn’t alone.

“I needed you,” she whispered.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat, the words rough as he confessed, “I heard you.”

He’d always been fearful to ask Ellis if he was alone in this or if others experienced it, too.

“What happened?” He had to fight to keep the fury out of his voice.

Aria blinked like she was trying to process it.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Who hurt you?”

“No one.”

“Then what happened?”

Uncertainty and something that looked too much like fear passed through her features.

“What is it, Aria? You can tell me anything. You know that.”

Hesitancy rolled through her as she slowly sat up. Her words shook when she forced out, “My mother saw my burn from the other night. They readmitted me to the mental facility.”

Rage blazed through him, every nerve in his body frayed with the singe. “I told you that you needed to get away from them.” The words snapped from his mouth. “They will never understand you, Aria.”

He’d pleaded it before. He knew from his own experiences the dangers of being too close to someone who was not a Laven. He’d left his own family at fifteen—not that they’d been much of one. They’d despised him from the beginning.

Humans could sense they were different. Besides their eyes, they could just tell something was off. Could feel the undercurrent of the ethereal that ran through them.

It usually elicited fear, and people tended to hate what they feared.

But Aria had believed her family was different.

He felt bad when she flinched at his words. But God, she was setting herself up to be hurt.

Her expression twisted in uncertainty. “It’s not that. I mean, I don’t want to be there. I can’t be there. But there is something else ... something that happened there.”

Dread tightened his chest. “What?”

“I ...” She trailed off, her brow furrowing.

“Aria, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

Her delicate throat wobbled when she swallowed, and she looked away for a beat before she turned back to him with the full force of her penetrating gaze. “I bound a Kruen while I was awake.”

Confusion tossed his thoughts into mayhem. “What do you mean, you bound a Kruen?”

“I bound it, Pax. Crushed it.”

His chest tightened.

It was impossible.

A shudder rocked through her body before she rushed to explain. “I kept feeling something different. All afternoon. Like I could hear the evils that echoed through the halls of that place. I thought it was just the stress. That I was tired and vulnerable. But there was this girl ... my roommate.”

Aria’s tongue stroked out to wet her dried lips, and her voice was hushed. “She started telling me why she had been admitted. And I could feel it , Pax.” She fisted both hands in the stomach of her shirt. “I could feel her turmoil. Her grief.”

Her hesitation was palpable, though a newfound ferocity lined her bones. “I had an overwhelming urge to touch her. And when I did, I saw it through her mind, the Kruen who was feeding her lies. I bound it.”

Words began to frantically tumble from her mouth. “I bound it. I saw it, and I bound it, and I destroyed it. It drained me. Drained me so badly that I could barely move, but I did it.”

She lurched forward and grabbed him by the forearms. “What does it mean? Tell me what it means.”

Pale eyes widened with the plea.

Alarm pounded through his bloodstream, and he warred with the urge to jump to his feet and rage. “I don’t know what it means,” he finally managed to say.

They were created to walk through the darkness of Faydor. Chosen before birth to fight for the good. To protect from the monsters that were bred to destroy.

A Laven’s spirit was amplified when they slept. Permitted to cross into the plane that ran over the surface of the Earth like a wicked, infected shroud. A world where demons peered into human minds and preyed on their weaknesses.

In the day, Laven were just as vulnerable as anyone else.

Human through and through.

But if Aria possessed this power? It would set her apart. Put her in greater danger.

A tremor ripped down his spine, and he ground his teeth. “I don’t know what it means, Aria, but I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

He would protect her till his last breath.

Aria looked into the distance, to the lush foliage that surrounded them. A haven that couldn’t be touched.

But Pax knew it was all a false sense of security. In one second, she could be gone, torn from this place and taken to one where he couldn’t protect her.

“Do you ever wish that we hadn’t been given this?” She whispered it out into the nothingness, letting the words ride on the soft breeze that forever blew through the meadow. “That we didn’t have this burden? That we were normal?”

“How could I, Aria? Not when it means I get to know you.”

He knew his love for her was greater than anything else. Greater than anything he would ever experience.

It was absolute.

Born of some twisted fate that would tie her to him forever.

Her eyes both dimmed and brightened, and he could feel the swell of her nerves crash through the air. “Pax ... I—”

Suddenly, a blinding blanket of intensity burst in front of him. A radiating light as electricity sparked in the air.

Then she was gone.

No doubt, she’d been awakened in the human realm.

On a roar of frustration, he jumped to his feet. He wanted to reach out and drag her back, all while knowing he had no power to do it.

They’d only been in Tearsith for maybe five hours, and it was far too soon for her to normally wake in the day.

He hated that she was in that place and he had no way to find out if she was okay.

A prisoner held.

He’d never forget how terrified she had been the first time she was institutionalized. How she’d wept each time she arrived in Tearsith, so misunderstood and undefined.

But he understood her.

He swore he was the only one who really could.

“Fuck,” he spat, driving his fingers into his hair as he began to pace through the torment.

“Pax.”

Shocked, Pax whirled when he heard his name, sure he’d be alone for the rest of the night.

Ellis lingered in the distance. Concern was written in the lines of his face.

“What are you doing back?” he grated, unable to keep the harshness from his voice.

“I came to check on Aria.”

Pax scrubbed a palm over his face. “She was awakened.”

He started to pace again, agitation burning beneath his skin as his thoughts began to spiral.

Aria was locked in a facility.

She’d bound a Kruen while awake.

She was alone and vulnerable.

He yanked at fistfuls of his hair.

“I need to go to her.” It mumbled out in a desperation he’d never felt before.

Ellis was suddenly at his side, his hand on his arm. “What did you say?”

Pax looked at him. “I need to go to her. She’s in danger.”

He knew it.

Could sense it as strongly as he’d sensed it during the day.

“No,” Ellis wheezed. Fear crawled across his features. “You must not let those thoughts enter your mind.”

Pax shook his head, grinding his teeth with the anger that sprang from the depths. “What? Am I just supposed to stay here and know she’s being harmed? Ignore the fact that she’s in danger? When I can help her?”

“You want to protect her? If you go to her, you will only be putting her in more danger. You must remember that. You are protecting her by staying here and keeping to your Laven creed.” Ellis’s words were edged in urgency. “Our bond with our Nol is the greatest, most powerful connection we will ever experience. But we cannot interact with them in the human realm. We cannot. If we do, we only welcome destruction into our lives. You know what happened to Valeen.”

It was something that had been pounded into his head since he was a young child. A Laven would destroy their Nol if they came together while awake.

That somehow, their souls would eat away at the other. That their love would turn to hate.

But Pax had never quite been able to accept it. Had questioned it because there wasn’t one single speck inside himself that could believe he would ever hurt Aria.

“I would never turn on her.”

Severity lined Ellis’s voice. “The only strength the evil ones possess is when you’re awake. They can’t destroy you here, in this place, and not in Faydor, either. But they can in the day. Laven can be led astray in the day. You’ve seen it yourself. None of us are exempt from the sins that our human minds open us up to. But if two are together? Nols, nonetheless? You will be that much more noticeable to the Kruen who will seek your demise. Kreed could not resist the lure of depravity, and all the world fell because of him. And he was a god. Think of what might happen to a lesser man. How much greater their ability to tear you apart? To pit you against one another? To inflame and incite? They would bring desolation into your life. Our human minds cannot handle that sort of attack, nor can our bodies. One of you would succumb.”

Death.

It was what Ellis promised.

But Pax would gladly accept death if it meant Aria was safe, because he knew, to the deepest depths of himself, that he would never cause her harm.

Ellis squeezed Pax’s shoulder. “You lose sight of your purpose when you’re with her. She’s already overshadowed the importance of what you are.”

“Fuck what I am.” Pax couldn’t keep the shearing bitterness from his tongue.

Ellis flinched, then pressed on as if Pax hadn’t cursed his fate. “Do you think I haven’t had to fight the urge to find Josephine while awake? Do you think she’s not special to me in ways that no one else could ever be? That I haven’t feared for her or wanted to be there for her? But it’s my duty while I’m awake to protect my family. To give myself to my wife and my children. I was meant to live that life, too.”

He set the full force of his gray eyes upon Pax, and his tone hardened. “Just like you must live yours.”

Pax had to hold back his scoff.

As if he would ever allow anyone to get close to him there.

As if he’d ever allow himself to care.

He could never wrap his mind around the fact that Ellis was married. Had children and grandchildren.

“You don’t understand, Ellis,” he grated, shifting the focus of their conversation. “Something happened while Aria was awake.”

“Was she hurt?” Concern flashed through their elder’s expression.

Bile gathered at the base of Pax’s throat, and the words were shards when he forced them out. “No, Ellis. She bound a Kruen while awake.”

Ellis turned a pasty white.

“She saw into Faydor by touching a girl.” Dread filled Pax’s voice. “Saw into her mind. She saw a Kruen, and she bound it. She bound it, Ellis. How is that possible?”

The old man’s skin was pallid.

“What is it? What do you know?” Pax demanded.

Pax could see the alarm rolling through Ellis, the way panic held his tongue.

Pax reached out and grabbed his forearm. “Please, tell me.”

Ellis’s throat trembled as he swallowed; then he lifted his chin in frankness. “I heard of it happening once.”

Pax shifted, angling down so he could read what was written in Ellis’s expression. His elder’s dread was so thick Pax could taste it. “Who?”

“A girl. Long ago.”

“What happened to her?”

Agony spiraled through the murky gray of Ellis’s eyes. “I have read a vague mention of it in The Book of Continuance . An obscure statement that there are some of us who are given a greater gift. But I’ve never seen it in my lifetime. I have only heard of it once, passed down from my elder—and from his warnings, I understand that they hunted her. Hunted her until they ended her.”

A blade of torment pierced through Pax’s chest.

No.

He wouldn’t allow it.

He would die before he let anything happen to Aria.

Seeing Pax’s intentions, Ellis grasped Pax by the wrist. “Pax, you cannot—”

He was cut off when frantic shouts suddenly pelted through the air. “Pax! Pax!”

Pax spun around as Timothy burst through the edge of the dense foliage. Bending over, he rested his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath, haggard and panting through his exertion.

Dani flashed in behind him. Tears streamed down her face.

“What is happening?” Pax yelled across their sanctuary.

“It’s Aria,” Timothy wheezed. “A Ghorl. I saw.”

Alarm battered through his insides, and Pax flew across the meadow until he was standing in front of them.

“What did you say?”

“A Ghorl.”

Pax only knew of Ghorls in Ellis’s teachings. The most powerful of Kruen. Those that were so aged and mature they were nearly indestructible. He’d never come upon one himself. Had even believed them mythical.

Timothy sucked for air and grabbed on to Pax’s shoulder as he stood upright. Grimness cut into his expression. “It was speaking wickedness into a man. A man who was near Aria. The Ghorl only planted the first thoughts, but they will grow. He will harm her, Pax. Snuff out her life. I tried to bind it. I fought so hard. I promise. But it was too strong. It broke apart and I lost it.”

No.

Dani whimpered. “I’m so sorry, Pax. We tried.”

“Where?” Pax was already running toward the boundary. To the hazy ripple in the air that would lead to depravity.

They raced to catch up.

He didn’t hesitate. He jumped through the threshold.

Searing cold sliced through his being.

Holding his breath, he fell for what seemed like forever, the wails of the evil stinging his ears and sickening his stomach.

Then he collided with the darkness, landing in a crouch on the frozen ground. Light throbbed and crashed as three of his Laven family flashed in beside him.

Shadows sluiced along the ground, twisted and gnarled, seeking out the minds of their prey.

His attention darted over the dead terrain. All around, Kruen thrashed and wisped as shadows over the barren expanse.

Pax searched through the desolation and chaos, through the constant barrage of wickedness overwhelming and pressing on his spirit.

He couldn’t heed his calling right then. He only had one intent in mind.

Timothy touched his shoulder. “This way!”

They tracked, each despairing as they ignored the vileness that rose up around them as they went.

“ Beat it out of him. He’s going to grow up rotten if you don’t. ”

“ One more drink isn’t going to kill you. Get in the car, you’ll be fine. ”

“ How beautiful would her blood be, spilling out on your fingers? ”

In a blur of rage, Pax sped past the calls of the depraved. He pushed himself harder. “We have to find it.”

Timothy careened through the darkness, leading the way, racing in the direction where he and Dani had seen it.

It was then that a disgusting voice hit their ears, but it wasn’t the one Pax was searching for.

“ Take him now. His mother is distracted. You are ready for this. You need this. ”

Through the Kruen’s mind, they could see the little boy standing on the street, a foot away from a woman who was looking at something on her phone.

Agony cut through Timothy’s spirit, and he slid to a stop. Dani nearly bowled over with the weight of the voice.

Regret filled Timothy’s expression when he whipped around, the voice still echoing over the desolate ground. “I’m sorry, Pax. We have to stop this.”

Pax understood. “Go.”

Timothy dipped his head before he and Dani changed direction and chased the Kruen into the shadows.

Pax pushed forward in the direction they’d been traveling, and Ellis ran at his side.

They tracked through the wisps and trails of shadow that swarmed and slithered, peering into each as they passed, searching for a glimmer of Aria being watched through the eyes of a man.

Ellis fought to keep up, and a pang of guilt struck Pax in the chest that he was pushing the man so hard, but he couldn’t give up.

Not until he’d trampled the evil. Crushed the foulness of the Ghorl that dared to breathe her harm.

Ellis rasped through ragged breaths, exhausted, beginning to lag.

Pax drove forward.

Finally, he saw it.

A Ghorl. Twice the size of any normal Kruen. And in its mind, he caught a glimpse of the blackest hair, the sweetest soul, the grayest eyes that swam with goodness.

Aria.

She lay completely still, buried beneath a blanket.

But her breathing was too controlled, too labored, too shallow. Pax had seen enough people through the vantage of Kruens’ minds, the cowering in fear and the feigning of sleep, to know intuitively that she was awake.

The Ghorl was feeding thoughts into a man’s mind.

Provoking him.

Tempting him.

A man who was in her room, who Pax knew in an instant shouldn’t be.

“ She won’t know if you touch her. She’s asleep. ”

Images flooded Pax’s vision.

The vile.

The foul.

The seed that had been planted and its ultimate progression.

Pax’s knees weakened, yet he somehow became more determined.

He rushed toward it, gathering the light as he bent his mind to wrap it around the Ghorl.

It startled, detecting him before he had time to contain it.

It shattered into a million pieces, the shadow breaking apart and darting along the ground in every direction.

Hopelessness took his chest in a fist.

He would never be able to bind every fragment as it fled.

The light had to be focused on the shadow as a whole to completely extinguish it.

It would speed along the barren floor, hiding within the rolling fog, and then regather. In its regeneration, it would grow stronger.

A roar broke from his throat. “Aria!”

He couldn’t let this happen.

He couldn’t.

And all logic was lost.

Every warning he’d been given ceased to exist.

His purpose forgotten.

His blood pumped with fury, his mind frenzied as he searched the soiled ground for the nearest Kruen.

One he knew would lash out.

Pax rushed up behind it.

It whirled around and reared in defense, its eyes wild and vicious.

“Pax!” Ellis cried out when he realized his intention. “Do not do it!”

Pax didn’t slow. He lunged forward, and he propelled himself through the air with his arm cocked back in a fist, loosing a misleading threat.

It lashed out, just as Pax knew that it would.

Satisfaction billowed through Pax when it struck him across the chest, the burn searing through him and sending his spirit toppling back to humanity.

Because if he was going to get to Aria in the day? Every second counted.