Abellia heard the inflection he’d placed on the word darkness, as if it were the good of the world. And she closed her eyes with the shutting of her door.
***
Alathain made his way back to his post atop the temple before the sun fell past the tops of the trees in the distance. The howls of the Orcish War still carried through the night. A day would come when he’d finally return to his king in Castrolyl, he knew. For now, he’d appease Lord Daen, as he was instructed.
As if his thoughts were premonitions, a latch in the temple roof opened from behind him. He could see the green glow of Grizlok’s eyes without even turning himself from the stunning view of the West Lands. Shortly after, he heard the tapping of Lord Daen’s black boots upon the rooftop.
Alathain stood and turned, bowing before the Dark Lord. “Am I to be off again?” he asked, tired of the master’s biddings.
“No, no,” Lord Daen said calmly. He walked to Alathain’s side and looked out over the West Lands. “The mirror has shown me the time has come.” His fraudulent lips curled beneath his hood, and Lord Daen looked at Alathain. “Rest tonight, my loyal servant,” he said. “We begin the ritual at dawn.”
Chapter Thirty-One
A Waking Warning
When, finally, Kyrn grew too weary to remain awake aboard the Sea Maiden, his body rested, but the dark dreams returned.
In his slumber, a laborious fortnight had passed aboard the teetering vessel. The inclement weather had severely worsened the further the ship traveled from the ransacked village. Kyrn realized quickly that he was not laying in his cabin on the Sea Maiden in his dream. Now, he was aboard a large fishing vessel in the village where he had driven off the Dark Ones in his previous nightmare.
The Grey Sea showed no mercy. Every day the clouded skies poured heavy amounts of thickening snowfall over the deck of the ship, and the waves crashed amongst the diminishing sides, spraying the crew with hypothermic waters.
By the last night of the run-down crew’s travel, they sat upon the open deck of the ship, huddled around a small fire—struggling to stay lit with the smothering snow falling over it—that they’d lit within a cast-iron barrel one of the crewmen found below deck. Most nights were silent, filled only with the chattering teeth of the freezing crew. The old harbormaster had shared stories of his youth on the open sea, most of which were too elaborate to be fully believed. On this night, he had started a story in a remote forest far east of their distant home. He never finished the story, questioning Kyrn to finish it himself.
“Is it true?” the shipmaster asked, watching Kyrn run his calloused fingers across the elven inscriptions of his blade.
When Kyrn looked at his cracked knuckles, he realized that they weren’t his own hands. He was reliving the distant memories of his ancestor. The memories of the fallen King Ezroch.
“Is what true?” Kyrn felt the words fall from his mouth, though he knew where the old man’s story was going. In truth, other than questioning towns and hearing their formulated tales for nearly ten years, the ashen remains of his home was something he never talked about. It felt strange thinking, but Kyrn knew that, in this moment, he was Mayhlan Ezroch.
“Your home,” the shipmaster continued, wrapped in dirty rags. “They say it was burned by a black dragon.”
“A dragon?” Kyrn laughed at the notion. “I’ve become one of your bard’s tales then?”
It was enough imaginativeness for the crew to fabricate the rest of the story quietly in their own sorrowful minds, staring blankly into the popping fire. They all missed home, but an aura of sympathy for Kyrn, for the fallen king, was shared between all of them, ostracizing all the fear and hatred they’d once held for him.
A sudden, heavy wind whipped through the air, extinguishing the small fire and thrashing off the tattered cloth that warmed the old shipmaster. As the grey clouds blackened, the crashing waves rose until they poured over the edge of the small freighter. The wind deafened the crew, louder than the imaginations of the screeching black dragon that’d been filling all their weary thoughts.
An immense force rocked the boat, nearly spilling the entire crew off the port side. Before they had time to shake the thin layer of ice from their cracking skin, a protracted appendage crashed upon the deck of the ship, splintering the hull.
Kyrn surged with the electrifying power of the king’s glaive in his grasp—more powerful in his vision of the king himself. The vitality of the sword glowed with its dark blue etchings, and he felt it slide through his body. Leaping over his staggered crewmen, Kyrn pierced the slimy, resistant green tentacle that’d suctioned itself to the cracked deck of the ship. A thick, green blood oozed from within, and the Grey Sea became more violent. Whatever lurked beneath the dark waters had surely felt his blow. “Lay into it!”
They did.
Sword after sword they slashed and gouged into the relentless tentacle. Their arms burned, until they could no longer lift them, and the thick tentacle kept hold of the vessel. A smaller tentacle rose above the deck, towering over the petrified crewmen. It quickly grabbed hold of one, wrapping around his meager waist, and with no effort broke him in two, spilling his insides. His burgundy blood spread through the blanket of snow like drops of poison in an unsuspecting flask. With the same effortlessness, the large tentacle squeezed the ship, cracking it in two.
Kyrn and his crew, split almost evenly on either side of the ship, slid down the deck as it sank towards their thrashing end. If for some reason the lurking monster didn’t end them, the freezing waters would. Feeling the pain King Ezroch had suffered throughout his torturous travels, Kyrn couldn’t decide whether it was truly a sad end. He dug his blade into the wooden deck, slowing his descent, but it was not enough.
His breath was instantly stolen as he plunged into the dark depths. Around him, he watched his crewmen struggle to return to the surface, only to be pulled back down by the shadowy tentacles and whipping currents. The frigid waters numbed his already frozen body. Kyrn floated underneath the sea, still holding his glowing glaive, emanating off the spiraling waters.
Above, he watched the moon shine brightly through the dark clouds, its rays of white light scattered by the dancing waves of the Grey Sea. A sound louder than the howling winds broke through the clatter of crashing waves and muffled screams of the beast beneath the water with him. The most enormous black shadow of a winged beast eclipsed the moon, its wide-set jaw opened wide.
The black dragon’s silhouette vanished as it passed the moon, and Kyrn let his eyes shut fully.
***
Consciousness proved more fretful than the subconscious. Some hidden power kept Kyrn trapped within the dream. He knew fully that he was dreaming, seeing the trying times of his ancestor, though he could not wake himself.
His uncontrollable cough spewed the remnants of the Grey Sea from his lungs. Face down in a bed of packed snow, the high tide reached out to grab his soaked leather boots—desperate attempts to pull him back to the depths. Kyrn’s body simmered with the emanating heat of his enflamed home—rather King Ezroch’s home—still burning in his every thought, every emotion.
Lively blood spread through the pure snow when he strenuously lifted himself from the ground, as the sharp layers of blue ice cut into his palms. Around him, he saw no one; no crewmen, all swallowed by the Grey Sea or the lurking beast within its depths. It was a snow-covered beach that he now stood upon, looking out over the calm sea, resting under the still night sky.
The entire island—as far as Kyrn’s eyes could see in the hampering darkness—was inhabited by luscious, green trees, still fully blossomed with their prickling pines. Their limbs dropped low with the weight of the heavily packed snow.
He’d spent so long forcing his isolation that fate had now let him fully have it. Again, Kyrn felt the fallen king’s emotions flow through him.
With the soothing winds nipping at his cracked skin beneath his clothing, the reality of hypothermia became increasingly apparent. In his first st
ep towards the solemn, forested shelter, an agonizing pain shot through his left leg, and he collapsed.
Kyrn clutched his thigh, realizing that it’d not been cramped from exertion. His cherished glaive, hung safely on his back, radiated a faint blue glow. He had been warned of its curse, but had just as little care then, as he did now.
Gripping the perfectly-etched handle, he yanked the glaive from his back and the pain instantly receded from his leg, shooting now through his tender arm and into his chest. The pain was greater than anything he’d ever felt, growing worse each and every time he used the magical glaive.
This was his binding curse.
As always, Kyrn turned the intensifying pain into restricting anger.
“Come, King Ezroch.” A low, monotonous voice echoed inside of his head.
He stood, unshaken by the sudden entrance of this voice inside his thoughts. It wasn’t the first time it’d called to him, somehow Kyrn knew. He watched the dark blue pulsations illuminate his surroundings, eager to use his blade once more.
“You have searched tirelessly for us. Do not stop here.”
He would not. He marched towards the quiet forest. Recirculating the blood-flow allowed his body to feel the burden he’d placed upon himself for so long now. He was beaten, bruised, and exhausted from this tedious hunt. If he was as close as the Dark voice insinuated, he knew it would be over soon. Life or death—either ending would suffice.
The forest’s appearance proved deceptive. Entering the chaotic woods seemed as if he’d traveled to another world, colder and wilder than the one in which he’d been in for the past few months.
The density of the forest didn’t cut back on the wind chill, instead, funneled the biting winds through their winding labyrinth—straight to Kyrn. The grip of his curse held too powerful a grasp for him to feel any sort of expiration.
Shielding his eyes from the hardening balls of ice that seemed to magnetize directly to him, Kyrn’s foot caught on something thicker than the ice, dropping him again to his knees. He lay his head back, seeing nothing but the blizzard conspiring above him, waiting for anything. He waited for the voice to fuel his anger, drive him forward. He waited for the powerful curse of his forged glaive to painfully jolt him back to life, but he had died many years ago. Kyrn felt it—King Ezroch was now an empty shell, destined only for his final fate.
He noticed, firmly planting his hand in jagged, ice-covered ground that he’d tripped over, a hand-carved rock. It was square, perfect. Another lay in front of it, slightly higher than the first. They were stairs, he noted, leading up into the mist-concealed peak of the small, mountainous island. He couldn’t see past the debris of ice spiraling through the night sky, but a dark opening lay at the height of the glassy steps. If it was not the invitation of the deep voice clouding his judgment, it would at least provide cover from the wicked winds.
He split each icy step with his glaive to keep his balance, splintering them like pelted glass with each ascending step. By the time he’d fully given up on protecting his face from the incoming hailstorm, he took each stinging blow without as much as a wince.
“Welcome to our world.” The deep voice reemerged, pausing slowly between each word.
Kyrn could hear the impatience in the voice, masked by a slight smirk, as if this buried entity had waited for this moment as long as the fallen king himself. Perhaps it had. He matched the voice’s smirk with one of his own, feeling the hatred flow through him. He stood in front of the cave’s menacing opening. His black cloak flittered in the storm as the frozen fragments of the Grey Sea broke off, merging into the ice storm surrounding him. Prepared, he pulled his hood, dark as night, down over his eyes and entered the cavern.
***
Worlds open for reasons unknown to most. Something as simple as a helping hand can change the world of someone at their lowest. Kyrn learned from the dream he found himself trapped within that worlds can change, just as quickly, for the worse. The Dark Ones had taken something from the fallen king, that Kyrn could feel. They’d shattered the light within his soul, leaving him barren and destitute. In an instant, they’d removed him from his world. Just as quickly, he planned to end theirs.
The inside of the cavern opened up tremendously, larger than should have been possible. With the wizardry he’d come across in his travels, it didn’t surprise him, especially not when dealing with the Dark Ones. Letting his eyes adjust to the drastic contrast of the pure white snow to the evil darkness of the large cavern, the room wrapped itself into a dome above, at its height. Etchings ran along every inch of the white rock, pulsing blue in rhythm with the glaive he clutched so tightly. The elders had lied to him. More likely, they’d been oblivious to the magics of the Dark Ones.
Had they known it would lead him straight to them?
A stirring blur at the top of a smaller set of stairs sent loose rocks and debris clattering down. Mirrored shoulder blades jutted out, elbows wide, cracking the loose rock of the platform as the beast unwound its elongated neck. Stretched nearly to the roof of the cave, the creature cracked its neck. The sound of popping bones reverberated so fiercely that it broke loose ice from the ceiling of the cavern, falling to the ground below.
The black dragon curled its neck towards Kyrn, though he knew the dragon truly saw King Ezroch.
“At last, Mayhlan Ezroch,” the dragon breathed towards the elven king.
Even with their distance, Kyrn felt the warm mist that poured from the black beast’s nostrils. The stench was awful, and he fought to keep his face composed as his stomach contorted. The pain that sparked through his body now felt controlled, but he wasn’t aware if it was him that controlled it.
Kyrn briefly recalled the fear of goblins attacking Grimmrich, the horror of the snow-giants with Syonne, and the crippling terror of the Dark Knight in Castreeth. He was beyond thankful for his ancestor’s emotions as he found himself face to face with a dragon.
“That weapon.” The dragon stood as it spoke. “It needs something... more, does it not?”
The air in front of Kyrn rippled, tearing apart into an open rift. Closing as quickly as it’d opened, the rift released an exploding burst of energy, forcing Kyrn into a widening stance to keep himself from toppling over. As he unshielded his eyes, a familiar face stood before him. Not familiar to Kyrn, necessarily, but to the body he possessed. Kyrn knew it was King Ezroch’s brother.
He’d seen wraiths before and was not tricked by the dragon’s deception. The ghastly visage of his brother wisped through the air, shrieking at him. Wraiths proved to be tricky, Ezroch’s experience informed Kyrn, but not with the glaive he now possessed. With one quick slash, the wraith stuttered, and burst into a light as blue as the rift before him.
He looked up at the dragon. “No more games.” His voice was low and unfamiliar, feeling as if it’d been frozen shut. “You cannot faze me with illusions of something you’ve taken from me so long ag—” A searing pain interrupted his speech, bringing him yet again to his knees. The glaive clanked upon the ground, no longer pulsating. It now glowed a solid blue. Within his clenched arms, his veins matched the blue, as the remains of his brother—or whatever wraith-like form he’d been transformed into—faded into the ethereal plane of existence it’d come from. Kyrn could physically feel the last ounces of King Ezroch’s remaining soul fading through to the unknown world with him.
The dragon laughed as its heavy, clawed feet descended the stairs, smashing the white stone beneath them. Subtly at first, the dragon began to lessen. It retracted its elongated tail and neck, slowly taking on a more humanoid form. By the time it reached the bottom of the staircase, its jagged shoulder blades cracked disturbingly back into place, until a beautiful young lady stood before him.
“Amellia, my granddaughter?” Kyrn questioned. He felt the confusion Mayhlan Ezroch had felt, how drastically ten years could change a girl. Though, he also felt his own confusion, seeing his mother standing before him once again, a much younger girl.
“
Call me what you will,” she snickered. “Devil, Demon, Dragon.” She knelt before him and whispered, “Whatever I once was, you’ve finally set free with the destruction of your brother’s wretched soul.”
He hung his head low. He’d been used by the Dark Ones. His own granddaughter—his last living relative—stolen, held captive with the hope of releasing her uncle’s soul. Whatever she was now, the Dark Ones were in full control. She was no more than a servant to them, and he’d just made certain that he’d not have the power to stop them.
“Why must it have been me?” he asked.
The woman in black extended her fist. “You are bound to me, King Mayhlan Ezroch.”
As she squeezed her fist tighter, Kyrn could feel his veins closing off. The freeing power would forever be his binding curse. He didn’t hunt the Darkness for ten years to become a part of them. He reached for the glaive lying next to him, and it felt as if he were breaking a locked elbow. He could hear the bones within his arm splintering, fighting the magical will of the woman before him.
She smirked, the same smirk he’d known curled upon her face when she spoke within his mind. “You cannot fight my power, Ezroch.”
He closed his eyes. Forced himself to forget his granddaughter; in this moment, she was gone. Nor did he remember his wife, for she was lost as well. Kyrn felt every remnant of King Ezroch leave fully moments ago. In truth, he’d failed to protect his family and save his own granddaughter. The hatred he harbored for himself was more powerful than any he’d ever felt towards the Dark Ones, or what they’d transformed an innocent child into.
The serenity of peace was where he wished he could have been, but the brutality of his hatred would do just fine.
A Flutter In The Night (Kyrn's Legacy Book 1) Page 25