Gaze of Fire: Sequel to Veins of Ice

by Melissa Kellogg

  Karena tried to use her powers again, but it was like she had goo in her veins.

  “I can’t do anything,” Karena said. She cried a few tears.

  Asher held her close. His arms squeezed her against him even tighter. Something horrible was going to happen, she knew it, and didn’t want it to start. She wanted to freeze time right then and there because whatever was coming was going to be awful. Necromancers were known for their cruelty.

  “I love you,” she whispered in Asher’s ear.

  “I love you too,” he said. His breath was warm against her neck and ear. “This was a set-up.”

  “It was. I didn’t know that or realize it. I felt something when I entered the area, but I ignored it.”

  “I felt the same thing, but didn’t care. I wanted to see you so badly. No matter what happens, I’ll find you again.”

  “I’ll find you too.”

  Karena watched the obelisks, and how they frothed with black light and iridescent smoke. She could feel the power coming off of them and securing them in the spiritual realm. The chains that linked the obelisks together were yanked back and forth by an invisible force. They clattered and clinked.

  The necromancer pulled back his hood, revealing a face that she knew. If Asher’s arms hadn’t been around her, she would’ve collapsed. She paled and cringed. He had been more of a danger than she had ever imagined. It was Tristan. How was this possible? She hadn’t once suspected that he could’ve been a necromancer or interested in black magic.

  “How can you be a necromancer?! You never showed any signs of being one. Why are you doing this!” Karena shouted at him. She hated the sight of him even more than before, more than she thought humanly conceivable.

  Tristan held up a hand and drew it back. Asher was ripped from her grasp. Tristan was moving the circle on the ground, which not only entrapped Asher, but also isolated his powers. Asher slid to the center of the area. Energy tendrils wormed their way out of the ground, latched onto him, and dragged him down into a kneeling position. Tristan moved the circle around her feet too. She skidded back, like a chess piece being moved back on a board that she didn’t have any control over.

  With a proud note to his voice, Tristan said, “I’ve been one for a couple of years now. My grandfather has been teaching me.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “His body may be, but not his surviving consciousness,” he said, and returned to the book in his hands.

  “Where did you get that book? What are you planning to do? We can come up with a better solution than this,” she screamed at him, trying to delay him, but to no avail. She kept talking and shouting at him.

  Tristan didn’t answer. He resumed chanting. From between two of the obelisks, the chains broke free. Their absence produced a passageway into and out of the dark spiritual realm from the platform all three of them stood on. When she saw what hovered through, her blood ran colder than it ever had. It was like seeing her worst nightmares materialize into one form.

  “NO!!!!!! Tristan don’t do this! We’re friends, remember? Don’t do this. I care about him!” she cried.

  Worse than death itself, a wraith levitated towards Asher. It was drawn to him. Dressed in a torn robe that resembled a dirty, grey sheet, it was a figure of torture. Its yellow, twisted claws reached for Asher. Asher strained against his restraints.

  Wraiths ate souls. When it consumed a soul, the souls weren’t released until either the wraith was killed or the souls were destroyed by it over thousands of years. Wraiths were primarily scavengers, and were attracted to the evilest of souls because the negative energy that emanated off of them was what gave them the greatest nourishment. But because it had been summoned by a necromancer, this wraith would consume whatever the necromancer wanted it to, which in this case, would be Asher’s soul.

  Out of desperation, Karena said, “Tristan, what do you want? I’ll do anything if you stop this from happening.”

  Tristan wasn’t listening. He was committed to seeing this through. She said all of the canceling spells that she knew to try to free her feet from the circle that kept them within its diameter. Nothing was working. Golden dust continued to blow off of the pages that Tristan was reading and chanting from.

  Asher began to convulse. The wraith descended upon him. Its hooded face floated inches from his. Its clawed hands cradled Asher’s head. A ghostly mouth protruded from the wraith, and latched onto Asher’s face. It pulled back, and the soul of Asher was forced out of his body. His soul looked like the ghost version of his body. His soul thrashed around, fighting to the last to stay in its body. But the wraith was too strong and kept pulling until it succeeded. Asher’s body slumped to the ground, while his soul, translucent and radiant, continued to try to wrestle itself free from the wraith’s hold.

  The wraith dragged Asher’s soul away and left the way that it had come in, through the two obelisks. Once this happened, the chains lifted and bridged the gap between the obelisks. They reconnected, and the platform was sealed from the dark spiritual realm. She screamed at Tristan until her voice became hoarse.

  Outside of the obelisks, Asher was released from the wraith. His fists pounded on the invisible force field that surrounded the obelisks. Asher couldn’t enter the platform. He shouted, but she couldn’t hear him. The chains he was close to shook from his efforts, but nothing more. He looked at his motionless body in the center of the platform, and then at Karena. He was just as scared as she was.

  His body was deathly still, but she could see the rise and fall of his chest. How much longer did his body have to live? What was Tristan doing? She had to get free and fight him, but she couldn’t even take a step. Never before had she felt this helpless. The love of her life had been pried from her, again, and she had a sickening feeling that Tristan was making sure that it was permanent.

  Tristan walked up to her and smiled.

  “What have you done?” Karena asked. She despised his waxy, pale face, which beamed with arrogance and joy.

  He said, “The wraith separated his soul from his body, and it will start to sever the link so that his body dies. Once that link is separated, it’s game on and the wraith will hunt him down and consume his soul.”

  “Why would you do this?”

  “YOU SLEPT WITH HIM!”

  “I’m glad you realize that I slept with him. I’ll do it again.”

  A sadness came over him. Tristan said, “You have never appreciated me. How can a slug of a Fire be better than me? Your stupid ways have to come to an end. You will see the truth now, the truth that I am meant to be with you. You forced me to do this, to protect you, to give you the love you deserve.”

  He continued, “In regards to sleeping with him, go for it, but all you’ll have is a dead body a day from now, which will start to decompose shortly after. You won’t see Asher again for hundreds of lifetimes. He’ll be trapped in that wraith for thousands of years. Now that I’ve taken care of him, I’ll tie you to me in all future reincarnations. We’ll be together lifetime after lifetime.”

  “You’re demented. Black magic like that doesn’t exist.”

  “It’s not black magic. It’s magic from the god of the underworld. This is the Book of the Dead. My grandfather found it during one of his expeditions to the desert lands in the far southeast. This is a tool for creation, for banning dark entities, and repairing broken life plans. However, I’m corrupting it for my own purposes.”

  She looked at the book in his hands. Artifacts like that were said to have been destroyed long ago, or else kept hidden by guardians of the world. The book gleamed, as it had for a while now. Its onyx pages were stiff and thick. Because he stood closer, she could see that the letters in it had been inscribed with gold. Though gold dust had blown off of it, there was still gold lettering.

  When she got free, she was going to do everything that she could to incapacitate or destroy Tristan before he could do any more damage. He was mentally disturbed and had a powerful book in his hands, two fa
ctors that meant that he was a danger not only to those she cared about, but to everyone else as well.

  “They should’ve been able to root out your grandfather,” Karena said, unable to see past him to where Asher’s body lay and his soul out in the dark spiritual realm. If she was to be condemned to spending lifetime after lifetime with Tristan, then he would need to get used to her taking her own life before that could happen.

  “They weren’t. He’s crafty, even to this day in spirit form. He has all sorts of traps and security measures in place to keep his stash undetectable. Even though he is right in the heart of this nation, which is teeming with magic-sensing patrols that are always on the lookout for necromancer activity, he’s never been caught.”

  “This won’t work. You can’t force someone to be with you or love you.”

  “I can too if you have no other choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, even if there’s a life plan. It’s called free will.”

  “I’ll make sure that there isn’t until you learn better. Maybe I’ll write a life with you in it where you are a slave to a cruel master somewhere in the Wildlands.”

  “You’re not strong enough to control that book.”

  “Watch me and see,” Tristan said, but there was a growing tremble in his hands that he couldn’t stop.

  Despite this, he cupped her chin with his hand. She tried to bite him, but he drew away. He laughed.

  With a lustful gleam in his eyes, he said, “You’ll be kissing my hands and feet soon enough.”

  “Kissing your feet would be better than your lips.”

  His eyes roamed her face and down her body, and then back up to her face. “You’re mine, and no one else’s. I’ve tried so hard to impress you and get you to see my worth, but you’ve forced me to resort to other measures,” he said.

  “You’re insane. Ever since your grandfather died, you’ve gotten stranger and stranger. Are you sure that you’re Tristan, and not partially him?”

  He looked at her blankly and said, “I have no idea what you mean.”

  The book shuddered in Tristan’s hands. He tried to flip one of its pages, but it wouldn’t let him. An angry roar came from it. The platform they were on dropped. Her hair whipped around her as a vortex spun the air. Her stomach heaved.

  Seconds later, they returned to the dark night inside of the ring of willow trees. She could feel the lightness of her home world with relief. They had left the dark spiritual realm, but that also meant Asher too. Grief flooded her, and began to replace her shock. It was sinking in that she wouldn’t ever see Asher again.

  Now preoccupied with the book and getting it to do his bidding, Tristan backed away. Because he had moved, she could see Asher’s body, which was in the same position as before. His back was against the ground and one arm lay across his chest. His body was so still. Her lips quivered, and she cried, which was something that she was sure that she was going to be doing for a long time now. Tristan was going to pay for what he had done, but that held little meaning to her. No amount of revenge was going to fill the empty void in her heart unless she found a way to get Asher back before his body died.

  “What’s going on?” Tristan muttered to himself.

  He tried to pry free some of the pages of the book, but they wouldn’t yield to his efforts, even when he commanded them to obey. All of the glowing lines on the ground winked out. The obelisks lowered back into the ground. The circular disk around her feet vanished. She was free, but she didn’t launch herself at Tristan in order to tear him apart and get that book away from him. Something was happening to him, and she didn’t want to get anywhere near that book.

  Tristan began to lift off of the ground. The tips of his toes barely touched the dirt. The book snapped itself shut on his right hand. His fingertips barely showed from its book pages. They had been smashed to the width of a pancake. He screamed in sheer pain. Blood streamed from his flattened hand. His eyes were large and scared. He looked at her, and pleaded for help. He didn’t know what was going on.

  Karena ran to Asher’s body, and covered as much of his body with hers in order to protect it. She watched Tristan. His legs snapped backwards like a scorpion’s tail, breaking at multiple points. The snapping of his bones ricocheted into her ear drums. He was dropped onto the ground. He lay in a crumpled heap. He kept screaming and choking from the pain that was hammering through his body. His left hand tried to pry the book off of his right one.

  The book opened, and flapped like a bird trying to get aloft. The book landed on its page ends, and scuttled away like a crab. The book had a life of its own.

  Tristan’s body shook from the traumatic injuries. He pulled his bad hand in front of him to look at. It was a gruesome mess. It wasn’t the least of his worries either. His legs were beyond repair. It looked as though he couldn’t feel them anymore. The book had taken care of him, and rendered him in more pain than she was capable of inflicting upon Tristan.

  Karena turned her attention to Asher’s body. She stroked his face.

  “Wake up,” she said. She kissed his lips, and rubbed his chest. “Come on. Open your eyes. Make it back to your body.”

  No matter how much she begged for him to come back, he didn’t respond. He lay there, motionless. Tears streamed down her face. Reality was setting in. He was gone, and she didn’t know how to get him back. She put her head on his chest and sobbed. Her worst fears had been realized; he had been taken from her. She replayed over and over again in her mind how he had been torn away from her.

  The pounding of footsteps rushing into the area barely registered with her. The enormous disturbance of dark energy had alerted everyone to a possible necromancer threat. Hands grabbed her and pulled her away from Asher. She cried, and flailed to get free. Before her powers could freeze anyone, she was numbed with a spell and lost consciousness.

  Chapter 14

  Karena woke. The first thing she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling of smooth, grey stone above her. Where was she? With a jolt, she remembered what had happened. Like a spring, she sat up. A chair squeaked in the room, and she turned to see a woman seated at a table. The woman’s glasses were set low on her nose, and she looked over at Karena from above their rims.

  “You’re awake, please sit down,” the woman said, motioning to the empty chair across from her. “I’m Brielle, an interviewer from the Archelm City Police.”

  Karena did as she was told, and drank the truth potion set before her. She told Brielle everything that she knew, and Brielle’s self-animated pen flew over her notepad. When the questions were done, which ranged from how she had met Asher to her childhood and to Tristan, Brielle leaned back in her chair.

  “It’s clear that you are innocent,” Brielle said and sighed. It was as though she was disappointed. She studied the notes that had been taken.

  Karena asked, “Have you interrogated Tristan? How did he get that book? Is there any way to save Asher?” She was desperate to know.

  “We did question Tristan. As far as the finer details go, I can’t divulge them to you. But what I can say to you, is that Asher is still unconsciousness.”

  “Will the healers be able to wake him?”

  “Like I said, I can’t tell you anything more. You will be taken home, where you will stay under house arrest. It will be for your own good.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “The investigation is still ongoing. We could put you in a cell, if you prefer,” Brielle said, never wavering from her emotionless and unsupportive attitude.

  “No.”

  “As I thought. Once we thoroughly investigate and can conclude with absolute sureness what happened, then the house arrest mandate and the accompanying bracelet will be removed,” Brielle said. She reached into a bag next to her on the floor, and pulled out a metal bracelet.

  “Tristan said that the spirit of his grandfather is still in his house, and that his grandfather taught him necromancy.”

  “We haven’t found a spir
it or necromancer materials yet.”

  “What about that book? What kind of book was it?”

  Brielle flipped close her notebook, set the bracelet down in the middle of the table, and stood up.

  “Someone will be here shortly to fit this onto you and take you home. Thank you for your time and cooperation,” Brielle said.

  Brielle left the room. The door shut behind her, leaving Karena alone to stare at the bracelet on the table. It didn’t have any seams or a locking mechanism to it. It would be fitted on by magic, and could only be taken off by magic or sheer force. She hated the bracelet before her and what it represented. The silence in that windowless room rung in her head just as loudly as the questions did in her head.

  Her mind went back to thinking about what had happened. She shouldn’t have run to Asher; she should’ve paid attention to that magical snap she had felt upon exiting the willow branches. She should’ve called to him, to run to her, and sprinted out of there with him at her side. But how could she have known that they were in such extreme danger? Necromancers were rarely encountered anymore in the Sundarin Nation.

  Asher’s body had less than a day now to live before that wraith severed the link between his soul and his body. She had no way of helping him or knowing what progress was being made. She wouldn’t even be able to leave her house. If she did, she would be found within minutes, and then apprehended and detained. The situation was hopeless. Karena despaired. How would the magical task force teams, healers, and mediums be able to reverse what Tristan had done? He had performed an ancient spell, and the book had walked off.

  Over and over again, the scene of being ripped apart from Asher and his soul being extracted from his body replayed in her head. She felt his loss like a death. His body would be dead soon, and his soul would be condemned to lifetimes of torture inside of that wraith. It would’ve been better if they hadn’t ever met, because then, it wouldn’t have come to this. She wished with all of her heart to turn back the clock in order to prevent that tragedy from happening.