Chapter Thirty-One Aria

Chapter Thirty-One

Aria

Tearsith

Aria appeared at the edge of the meadow. Peace had followed her, as if the way she’d fallen asleep had carried her here on a cloud of serenity. She inhaled, drawing the sweet floral scent of the vingas into her lungs, and she opened herself to fill her senses full of Tearsith.

The gentlest breeze whispered with the perfect temperature, and she inclined her ear to the babbling of the stream and the murmur of her Laven family, who had already gathered at their great teacher’s feet.

Her spirit jolted, already sensing the presence of her Nol a second before he flashed in at her side. It was the brightest light that shivered through the air and ricocheted through her body.

Energy.

Electricity.

A magnetism not held by the rules and bounds of the mortal world, but something else entirely.

Something all their own.

She thought the entire fabrication of her being might have been altered by the kiss.

Aria saw Dani jump to her feet the second they appeared. Anxiety radiated from her aura as she hurried their way, concern in her gaze as she approached.

It felt disorienting to know it had only been the night before when they’d all begun hunting the single Ghorl in the recesses of Faydor before she and Pax had been jolted awake by the intruder.

Dani immediately reached for Aria, her tiny hand on Aria’s arm. A frown pulled through Dani’s expression, and she cocked her head, her face so pale and thin with the shock of cropped-blond hair surrounding it that there was no chance those in the day couldn’t sense that she was otherworldly.

“What happened last night? I was so worried about you.” Her eyes jumped between Aria and Pax. “For both of you.”

Timothy was suddenly there, too, taking them in. Dread clear in his gaze.

It was Pax who sighed, scrubbing an unblemished hand over his face, one that Aria now knew appeared so different in the day. He warily glanced between Dani and Timothy. “A man was sent for her. I woke to find him in our room.”

“Fuck,” Timothy spat beneath his breath. Worry lined his face as he stepped closer. “What happened?”

“I took care of it.” Pax lifted his chin, and Aria was sure there was no mistaking what that meant.

Dani choked a quiet sound of horror, and she hung on tighter to Aria, as if her touch could act as a shield and stop anyone else from getting to her. “Are you okay?”

Aria attempted to tamp down the emotion. It was both fear and joy that she felt, this gift a blessing and her biggest curse.

Likely her demise.

But it was what she’d been given.

“I am for now.”

She wouldn’t keep the truth from her friend. The truth that neither she nor Pax knew how long they could stay out ahead of. How far they could run.

Pax hovered beside her. A quivering, violent fortress.

A shield.

Both here and awake.

“Did anyone else find anything while you hunted?” Pax asked, his attention flitting between Timothy and Dani.

Bleakness filled Dani’s features. “No, none of our family heard it last night.”

Disappointment blew through Pax.

Timothy visibly warred; then his voice came out as grit when he spoke. “Let me come to you while awake. Maybe I can help.”

Surprise and gratitude filled Aria’s heart. Apparently, with his concern for her, he was also willing to take the chance of coming together.

“You know I can’t ask that of you,” she whispered.

“You’re our family,” he argued, his demeanor urgent as he angled his head.

An offering.

Supplication.

“I can’t stand aside and know someone is coming for you.”

Alarm pushed Pax forward a step. “Don’t do something foolish, Timothy. You know you can’t put yourself on the line like that.”

Disbelief puffed from Timothy’s nose. “Don’t do something foolish? Like you going for Aria? Like you taking care of some monster in the day? You are our family .”

Aria reached out, shaking as she took his hand. “You are my family. In my heart and my spirit.” She reached for Dani’s hand with her other. “And I love you both. But you know this isn’t something you can get involved in during the day. You have your lives, the people who rely on you. And we don’t know if all four of us together would make it even worse. If it would be even easier for the Ghorl to find us. They need you here, to fight in Faydor,” Aria added. “It’s what’s important. You know that.”

“ You’re important.” Dani pleaded it.

Aria shook her head. She couldn’t imagine asking them to step into the danger that surrounded her. Dragging them into it the way she had Pax.

Pax’s spirit thrashed, a vibration that buzzed between them, and she knew there had been no option for him. Pax couldn’t have physically stayed away.

Dani went to say more, only the atmosphere shivered, as if the ground rolled as their Laven family parted and Ellis and Josephine slowly made their way across the meadow.

“If there is anything more we can do ... please ... just say it,” Timothy muttered under his breath.

“What we need to do is end that Ghorl,” Pax grated.

“Has there been danger?” Ellis’s voice was filled with caution, though Aria was certain of the awareness in his eyes. The weathered edges of the old man’s face deep and knowing, a chasm carved of alarm and misgivings.

“A man broke into our motel room. I saw him in Faydor, through the Ghorl’s mind. I was awakened before Aria and I were able to bind it,” Pax explained.

“Oh my God. What happened?” Ellis asked.

“I ended him,” Pax spat, venom on his tongue.

Surprise gripped Ellis in a fist of dismay, his pale, pale skin blanching to white. His nod was grim. “It was the only thing you could do. The energy will be greater with the two of you together. Everywhere you go, they will know you are there. They will be drawn to you.”

Pax’s head shook. “No. I don’t believe this is about us. It is about her. It wants her.”

“But why does it want her?” Dani asked, her voice hollow, needing answers to the questions they’d all asked themselves a million times that remained undiscovered.

“Because of this unfound power,” Pax said, completely sure. “It’s a threat to them.”

Timothy ran a hand down his face. “How did she develop it? Never once have we been told of it.”

Uncertainty cut through Ellis’s expression. “As I told Pax, I’d only heard of it happening once, many years ago, before our time. There is only one obscure mention of it in the great book, though it is a reference to a Laven with a greater gift, so I have to assume it is a most rare treasure.”

Treasure.

A blessing and a curse.

“There have to be more teachings on it,” Timothy mused. “Answers that can help. Why would Valeen leave her vulnerable like this without anything to go on?”

“We have not all the answers, my children. We are given what is important—and that is the truth that Kreed birthed Kruen to destroy humanity, and we have been charged as humanity’s guard. Aria has developed the extraordinary ability to wield this power in both places, and I believe Ghorls were bred as a direct counter to that power. The only thing we can do is continue to hunt this Ghorl,” Ellis said. “Fight it. Pray we can put it to its end, and when we do, this critical danger Aria is in will be resolved.”

Stepping forward, Ellis gathered Aria’s trembling form into his arms, hugged her as a father would as he whispered, “Fight with everything you have. You are strong. Gifted. I saw it from the beginning, and I see it even stronger now. I never understood it, and I still don’t, but the one thing I do know is, it floods from you on a current of power.”

Aria lifted her chin to him. A promise that she would. She would give it all.

Then Ellis turned, his voice lifted, the words carried on the breeze. “It is time, my family, to descend on Faydor. Together we fight for Aria. For our sister. Bind the Kruens you come across, but listen, search, seek. If you hear or see anything pertaining to Aria, make it your priority.”

A rumble of agreement rippled through the crowd. Mournful yet determined eyes washed over her, and they came to her, two by two, their fingertips brushing across the backs of her hands and the sides of her shoulders as they passed and headed across the meadow toward the dark energy that pulsed before they flashed through the threshold.

She and Pax slowly trailed behind.

With each step, she could feel chains that yanked at her spirit grow in intensity. The horrors that howled. It grew louder with each step they took, so loud that it screamed in her ears.

“We find it. We end it.” Pax squeezed her hand in a firm grip. She nodded; then they took the last step forward.

Blistering cold streaked over her flesh, and she clung to Pax’s hand as they fell through the consuming darkness. The vast desolation that slayed. Horrors screamed louder.

Aria and Pax slammed to the barren floor, making impact with Faydor.

They didn’t hesitate, rushing headlong into the voices.

Struck by the instinct to fight. To hunt down the wicked and end them at their source. Ignoring that it was excruciating. Pain licked across her flesh as the voices howled.

Lightning cracked across the darkened sky, so close above that Aria felt the electricity quicken and the hairs rise across her flesh. They ran beneath it, over the barren plane toward the evils that intoned.

They ran through the abyss, through the disorienting maze of depravation, in the direction of where they’d tracked the Ghorl the night before. Their ears keen, their hearts manic.

Nothing.

Nothing.

They ran farther and deeper than they ever had before, twisting through the gnarled desolation and into the nothingness that went on to eternity. Darkness somehow both crackled and glowed as they raced.

Aria suddenly fumbled to a stop, unsure of what it was that had halted her. Pax threw a glance at her from over his shoulder, urging her forward. “This way, Aria.”

She blinked, confused.

“What is it?” he asked.

Her head shook, uncertainty pulling through her consciousness as she searched for what she’d felt. A disorder amid the depravity. Something bigger than she’d ever felt.

A gravity that tugged at every organ inside her body.

Turning to her left, she stretched out a palm as if she were reaching for it.

The air shifted where she dragged her fingertips through the vapor. It felt as if she could step through the rippling air and disappear into the haze.

So similar to the way it felt when descending into Faydor from Tearsith. An energy calling to her.

“Aria?” Pax moved to try to peer at her face.

Confusion clutched her in a vise.

Then she froze when she heard it.

It was the faintest intonation in the distance. On the opposite side of where she’d been turned. It was a Ghorl’s thoughts, echoing from far away. The one demanding her demise.

It was farther away than they could ever travel in a night.

The intonation was vague.

So obscure she wondered if she were making it up.

“ It’s her fault that Aria escaped. She’s weak. Pathetic. Punish her. ”

Her father’s face flashed through Aria’s mind, one moment before the back of his hand struck her mother’s face.

The image was smoke. Mist. Gone in an instant.

A shiver rolled down her spine.

A second later, Pax had her by both shoulders. “Aria? What is it? What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

“Did you hear it?”

Uncertainty slashed across his fierce brow. “Did I hear what?” Blinking, she shook her head as if she could clear the image. Pax hadn’t heard it. She had to be making it up. Hearing things that weren’t there.

So she whispered, “Nothing.”

He hesitated, then urged, “We need to push on.”

She swallowed hard, nodded, and took his hand. She only glanced behind once before she raced with Pax into the depths of the night.