Ascension (Unbound Prophecy Book 1)

by J. L. Jackola

  Sinow stood and slammed his hand down on the table. “I don’t need a history lesson. I want to know what her abilities were. Were they greater than the average Elvin? If so, how?”

  “Ahhh, I see. Well, yes, they were greater than the other Elvin. She was royal, and as with any royal line, she was blessed with special powers.”

  Sinow impatiently interrupted. “So what could she do? Were their royals any threat to the Light or Dark?”

  “Well, there were differences. Where the normal Elvin could grow flowers or even a tree here or there, one from the royal bloodline could call a storm or fell a forest.” He paused a moment then looked keenly at Sinow. “Is that your worry, my liege? That Violissa’s Elvin gifts might be a threat to you.”

  Sinow growled at him, but kept his mouth shut so Kanine would continue. “Elvin powers, even their royal line, were weak, Sire. They were never strong enough to go up against a Darkbearer, let alone a Dark King. The nature powers Violissa possesses from her mother’s side are strong but only because they are enhanced by her Light magic. This simply brings her to an even level to your Dark powers, my liege. It certainly does not make her stronger. No one can surpass the powers you possess nor has there ever been a ruler as strong as you.”

  Sinow didn’t know whether Kanine was trying to make up for his past discretion or if he was simply being honest. He had remained standing near the table he had littered with books while Kanine spoke, but now he moved toward Kanine.

  As he grew closer, he spoke, “Thank you for your honesty, Kanine.” Kanine bowed and turned to leave. “Oh, and Kanine…” The Darkness within Sinow rose again. Kanine turned and looked at him, a moment of fear passing through his eyes. Sinow felt the beat of his heart race and smiled inwardly. Even with all their powers, his Council knew to fear him. His rage and strength could make even an immortal suffer, especially if he was out of control as he currently was.

  Sinow moved his hand, and Kanine struggled not to collapse in pain. He slowly closed his palm and felt the bones within the man snapping one by one. “If I ever find out you’ve hidden something from me or neglected to tell me something again, I will send you to the Fates myself.” He released his hand, and Kanine dropped to the floor on his hands and knees. Sinow saw by the shake of his hands that he was in pain; he was healing, but the breaks had hurt. He knew Kanine wouldn’t let him see any weakness, however. He was a Darkbearer, and weakness was death. Sinow stepped forward and planted a foot on the man’s back, slamming him all the way to the floor. He stepped forward, hearing the snaps and pops of his spine as he walked over him. “Do you understand, Kanine?”

  Kanine struggled to answer but managed a low, “Yes, my liege.” Sinow could see the healing of the vertebrae as he glanced once more at him. He’d be up and moving again within minutes, but the point had been made. “Oh, and clean up my mess before you head up. I seem to have been a bit sloppy.”

  With that he shifted, leaving Kanine to deal with his misery and the mess.

  Thirty-Three

  Violissa walked along the path leading out of the small village that had so recently been ravaged by the Torathar. She had made peace with her Council, quickly choosing to forgive them for keeping her past from her. She knew they were simply following the orders of their former king, her father, as well as the Fates. Only she had the nerve to disobey the Fates, and she knew from experience what punishment that could bring. Instead of holding onto her anger, she had shed it and embraced the idea that she wasn’t as different as she’d always assumed. Although she knew her appearance as well as her power made her different from every woman in her lands or even in their world for that matter, knowing she had been born to parents who had loved her enough to lay down their lives to protect her made her differences seem small. Knowing the truth now helped her feel more as one with those she ruled.

  She stopped walking and stood overlooking the land where she and Sinow had fought the Torathar: the same place where so much had changed for her. As a breeze picked up, blowing a few strands of golden curls across her face, she took a deep breath. There was something here still, something slight in the air that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She walked forward, all thoughts of what had happened here banished temporarily from her mind as she tried to determine what it was. As her feet walked through the tall grass, her toes sinking slightly into the ground with every step, she felt it below her. She stopped and closed her eyes, sending her senses out through the ground into the roots and sediment that lay below. That’s where it lay, deep below them. She sensed it moving but couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. It wasn’t anything tangible but was more like a sensation. She pulled back suddenly as her eyes burst open.

  “No, it cannot be,” she whispered to herself.

  Cyric, I need you here now. There is something happening, she called out in enaigne.

  Cyric shifted in within seconds. “Violissa? What is it?” he said as he looked around the empty field of grass.

  “Do you sense anything? Anything Dark?” She watched as he closed his eyes and allowed his powers to feel out beyond just as she had done.

  He shook his head. “No, nothing. But you feel something, don’t you?”

  “Yes, below us.” She knelt and put her hand on the ground. “Far below something stirs and moves toward the border.” She rose and walked toward the boundary wall. “It’s as if it’s being called by something.”

  A look of concern passed his eyes. “The Torathar feed off Dark power, Violissa. If their return broke through in our realm, it would only make sense that their essences are trying to reach that Darkness to strengthen themselves in an attempt to re-emerge. Sinow’s powers are volatile now, and they are massive. The Torathar are feeding from it, trying to make their way to it. In their current form, they are harmless, black ooze like that surrounding the Hidden Realm entrance, but if they find a way to feed, they will find form again, and this time there will be more than one.”

  Violissa listened as he talked and sent her powers back down through the ground below again. There was something else. She felt their need, their desire to move. It was as if the blackness that ran deep below them made up one massive collective mind, and it was screaming to move. There was something more than just the Dark power calling it though. Something she wasn’t familiar with, a power she couldn’t name that sat just beyond her knowledge. She pushed her senses a little deeper, trying to grasp what it was, but then she felt herself being pulled down. She tried pulling her powers back, but something had hold of her. She had the sensation of total darkness engulfing her, trying to fight its way into her consciousness. She struggled to gain control, to get out of its grasp as tentacles of black ooze reared up around her senses. She fought, knowing from the outside, anyone looking at her would not realize anything was wrong. She briefly wondered if Cyric could sense her trouble but didn’t have time to think on it. The battle she was fighting was one she wasn’t sure how to win. If the attack had been physical, she would have responded with the force of her power, but it wasn’t. Her mind raced as it warded off the impending violation, and time seemed to freeze around her. She reached out to her body for her power, grabbing onto her nature gifts and demanding her body to release them, felt her gifts slam into the ground, pushing the blackness back away from her. She heard a chorus of voices within that blackness scream in frustration, but before it had time to come back at her again, she pulled her senses out, withdrawing back into the protection of her body again. She threw her eyes open and slammed a bolt of Light magic out into the ground around her, commanding it to weave around the Elvin magic she was still throwing down. The two gifts moved quickly across the land, surrounding the border, and buried themselves as one through layers of dirt and rock below. She felt the ooze shift lower as the ground bulked then felt her power engulf it. Nothing remained below once her magic hit. She thought she would have felt it flee but instead she suddenly felt nothing. It was gon
e, destroyed by her power just as the Torathar had been.

  Violissa looked over at Cyric who was staring at her with wide eyes. She realized she was still casting her spell and quickly drew it back in. “Did you sense any of that, Cyric?”

  “Any of what, Violissa? I was speaking to you, but when I looked to see why you didn’t respond, you were lost to me. It was as if you had fallen asleep while standing. As much as I tried, I couldn’t wake you, then suddenly you cast out your powers. What happened?”

  She explained what she’d experienced, and Cyric listened intently while she spoke, never interrupting or stopping her to ask questions. When she was finished, he scratched his head and started to pace.

  “It must be your nature gifts that gave you the ability to know it was below. I couldn’t feel anything, so our Light powers are not sensitive to it. What you described though, leaving your body through your senses, Violissa. That isn’t a power any of us have.”

  “Sinow and I do,” she stated matter-of-factly. She didn’t know how she knew Sinow had the ability, she just knew it.

  “Gifts from the Fates,” Cyric muttered. “Violissa, can you still feel it? Do you have any sensation of the black matter being near us?” He waited momentarily for her to respond then added, “Don’t send yourself out beyond your body again, though. We can’t take the chance whatever it was that tried to ensnare you isn’t gone.”

  She laughed. “No, I don’t ever want to experience that again.” She drew in a breath and closed her eyes, listening through all her senses but not daring to move beyond the boundary of her body. She didn’t feel anything nearby and couldn’t sense anything in Cirillia. Tenebron was what now worried her. If there was black ooze underground preparing to take the form of the Torathar, she wasn’t sure if Sinow would sense it if he was busy battling his inner demons. There would already be enough Darkness surrounding him; a little more would easily go unnoticed.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said to Cyric, then shifted to the border that ran along that part of her lands. She could see beyond the barrier but didn’t venture through it. She would be able to sense enough from this point and didn’t care to upset Sinow any further by crossing into his realm. She closed her eyes once again and listened. No, there was nothing there. No sign of anything like what she’d just encountered. As a precaution, she knelt and laid both hands to the ground. She drew upon both of her powers and, weaving them together, cast them out along the land through the border into Tenebron. A wave of green and blue light ran quickly across the land in front of her and within minutes had spread as far through Tenebron as she could reach. No one would notice it, except for Sinow and his Council. She just hoped he’d understand what she was doing. She waited quietly for repercussions.

  Sinow’s held his head in his hands in an attempt to assuage the pressure that now never seemed to abate. The Darkness had been surging through him since he’d left Violissa that day in the clearing. Part of him wanted to reach out to her, to see her again and have her wind one of her calming spells through his soul. The other part of him reared with objection at such a weakness. Would there ever be a time when he wouldn’t need a spell to be in her presence? Was this how they would spend the rest of eternity if they did ever manage to wed? The anger swelled, and he tried to calm himself. He was being irrational. After all, this couldn’t be how the Fates expected them to live. Could it? He needed to talk to her, to have her talk some sense back into him. Still needed to talk to her about all that had occurred the last time he had seen her. He had left so abruptly but had known he needed to. What had she thought of him when he’d left? Keary had talked to him about what had happened afterwards, and his hope that she had not taken it personally was not likely met. He briefly contemplated opening his mind and removing the barrier he’d placed within it to keep his mind from hers. Maybe that’s what he needed; a few minutes to speak with her even if only through enaigne. He stopped as the darkness rose within once again. It was so hard to keep that other side of him at bay. He concentrated on reining it in and had just grabbed hold of it again when he felt the power race across his land, felt the combination of nature and Light woven together just as it had that day in Cirillia. Then just as suddenly as it had been there, it was gone as a wave might pound the surf then disappear with only a line of froth as evidence it had ever existed.

  “Violissa,” he whispered. He thought briefly of confronting her about it before he was interrupted by the onslaught of Council voices in his head. Quiet! he yelled in enaigne. There is nothing to be done. The spell is gone, and there is no evidence that there was any ill intent to it.

  On the contrary, he understood exactly what she had done. The spell was the same he had felt that day. She was cleansing the lands in an attempt to avoid any future occurrence of the Torathar. He should have been angry; in fact, part of him yearned to confront her. Thankfully, he had just caged that part of himself and instead he chose to let her go. There was no need to confront her on something he understood. He would broach the subject at their next meeting.

  Thirty-Four

  The day had finally come for their regular meeting in the glade, and Violissa was dreading it. She’d tried to put Sinow’s reaction to her heritage aside, to write it off as one of his dark moods, but it still bothered her. It had been almost two moons since the incident, but it was still fresh in her memory. She shifted to the glade and waited. She’d known the instant she’d arrived that he wasn’t there yet. She could always feel his aura when he was close. She paced the open field where the Councils usually met and over to the trees to the patch of grass where she and Sinow had spent their last few meetings. Her heart skipped a beat when she thought of him, but then her mind wandered back to the reality at hand, and she let out a long sigh. He was so unpredictable. One moment he was everything she wanted, she was completely lost in being with him and the next, he was utterly terrifying. If only he could find the balance.

  Violissa lifted her head as she felt him shift in. When she turned to look at him, her heart sank. His eyes were blacker than the normal shade in which she loved to lose herself. He was still out of control, lost to his Dark powers.

  “Don’t hit me with one of your calming spells, Violissa,” he demanded the moment his eyes met hers, his hand held up as if to shield himself from it if she even tried. “This is not the right time and it will only make me angrier.”

  She didn’t bother to argue. He was not himself, she knew that just by looking at him. There would be no cordial talks, no relationship building today. This was business only.

  Sinow swiped his hand in the air, and the meeting table appeared. They had not used it since that first day they had met so long ago. He stood over the table and a map appeared of the western part of Tenebron.

  “We have an outbreak here in our western lands,” he said, pointing to the area. “Any medicines your Council can provide will be helpful. The reserve we had has long been used up.”

  Violissa took a deep breath and prepared herself. She was not about to stand here, pretending that nothing had happened the last time they’d seen each other. She let a moment pass before she responded, watching as the irritation started to show on his face.

  “You didn’t really come here to discuss what healing magic we can send your people, Sinow. Our Councils could have discussed that. We need to talk about what happened. If anything, we need to discuss the threat to our people. The black scourge that is threatening our lands must be addressed, not to mention the creature it brought about.”

  “Your lands, Violissa.” His eyes darkened, and she noticed a flicker of red appear around the rims. “There is nothing threatening my lands so there really is nothing to talk about.”

  “Dammit, Sinow.” She refused to stand for his dark mood or his avoidance any longer. “Is it really such a problem to you that I am part Elvin?”

  “Half Elvin,” he interrupted. “Honestly, Violissa, I don’t really car
e that your mother was Elvin. If anything, it makes you that much more alluring,” he said, letting his guard down. “I care that I was deceived, that both of us were deceived. And I don’t like being lied to.” His eyes flared a black she had only seen the day of his ascension. It sent a chill down her spine, and she now realized why people truly feared Dark Kings.

  “I never lied to you, Sinow, and from what I heard that day, there were reasons we weren’t told the truth of my origins.” She bit her lip and watched him for a reaction. When she saw none, she continued, assuming that was his sign that she could continue. “I have just as much right to be angry. No, I take that back, I have more right to be angry. Sure, you were deceived, the whole truth never really told to you, but my entire existence has been fabricated.” She felt the anger building in her, and for once understood that her Elvin side fed that part of her. “All this time I believed that I was different. There was so much about both of us that separates us from being normal, but for me there was much more. My hair, my eyes, my nature powers, and then believing that I never had parents.”

  She paced to get her thoughts out. She didn’t know where she was going with this or why she was telling him so much, but she felt she needed to get it out before she exploded. “Do you know what it’s like thinking that you were not born but created? All this talk of prophecy and the Fates made me feel as if…as if,” she struggled to get the right words out.

  “As if you were only put here for one reason?” he said quietly. She turned to him, surprised that he would have known what she was thinking. His eyes had grown a shade lighter since she’d last looked into them and she felt her heart stop as the breath caught in her throat.