by Brindi Quinn
The dark agents of Ark. What Pedj said was true. There really are nefarious naefaeries out there, paired with a villainous man seeking to crack the Eternity Vessel.
“Thanks to that one, I was late.”
The words of Ark return to memory. At the Rise he mentioned that he was late because of someone.
“Grim, did you pull my hair in the night?”
Chast and Mael have been betraying our location to Ark. On the wind, Awyer’s hair was sent.
“Can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” says Pedj, disheartened. “And you got on foolin’ everybody else, too! Through the Rusticlands and the Reck and . . .”
Something dawns on me.
A naefaerie may not leave their ward’s side at any great distance. And yet we all together crossed the Gloerlands where our magicks were visible.
Peculiarly, the gloer’s is black.
The trail of blackness was not the gloer’s; it was Mael’s warden. She snuck along behind him so that we would be deceived. That must also be why Mael’s color was darker than Pedj’s. Mael’s Bloőd has been tainted by void through her pact with a naefaerie tainted by void.
KRRRRRSHHH!
While I am coming to awareness on everything that has happened, an enormous crash sounds through the arena as the gray man throws his whips at the heavens. From his hands, the hellbeast hair, fueled now by Awyer’s emancipated Amethyst, rises, catching hold on the sky.
“What is happening?!” I cry.
“What’s is, is Ark’s crackin’ the vessel,” says Mael, calm. “And then everyone’s gonna descend into sleepness. Startin’ here and going out, out, out.”
“WHAT?!” crows Pedj.
“This does not make sense!” I say. “Why are you fine with this, Mael?! Why do you not seek to stop it?!”
“Why don’t I?” Mael taps her lip and stares into space.
Chast pushes Mael territorially behind her. “With the vessel cracked, man will fall and the mythics will rule. Sphinxes will again roam the earth. Naefaeries will fly unpacted. The creatures of old will come out of hiding and take the land for themselves. Rock imps, merbabes, gloers.”
“Again, WHY would you agree to somethin’ like that?!” Pedj shouts at his cousin.
“Why would I . . .?” Mael repeats, voice trailing.
“You’re a loonsie!” says Pedj. “You’re lost in the nut! You aren’t thinkin’ straight!”
“No,” I say, reaching comprehension. “Mael has not thought straightly in a long time, has she?” Not since being corrupted by Chast’s voided magicks. “Mael,” I attempt to reach her drifting gaze. “You are mortal,” I say. “You will also descend.”
“Not true,” says Chast. “Necromancers are counted among the mythics, for power runs through their blood that is not bound to any of the Eternity Vessel’s colors. Any who are fully mythic will be spared, necromancers included.”
“Yeah, and hows about me!?” says Pedj. “You didn’t forget ‘bout your good ol’ cousin, did you, Mael?”
“Did I?” says Mael, looking to Chast.
Yes, I am beginning to see who has really been speaking for Mael all of this time.
Chast retorts, “Don’t be a baby, Pedjram. Once you activate the Thyst Glyph, you’ll be okay.”
“But you didn’t know I’d have the Glyph thinger for sure! You were gonna leave me to descend or whatever!” Pedj says in a fury.
Mael shrugs.
So it was either Pedj or Awyer all along. “And what of Techton?” I say, voice cracking out of heartache for my pactor. I search the crowd to find the Azurian, but he is no longer where he was.
“Shhh.” Chast puts a finger to her lips. “We don’t discuss him in front of the necromancer.” She leans in closer to me. “I don’t know how that addict’s going to do. He’s no mythic, but something tells me he won’t go down without a fight. After all, he’s been chasing after our void since he first sniffed it.”
Mael’s smell. That is what Techton meant. For days, his yearning veins have lusted after a body corrupted by magicks strongest, darkest, and most impure.
If Ark succeeds, there will no longer be Bloőd, Azure, and Amethyst. There will be only Gold and Void. But I know, better than most, that voided magicks are not to be taken lightly. Voided magicks corrupt the soul. Hamira and Gorma, once normal casters, touched the darkness beyond the vessel and became witches. Will not the mythics of the world be corrupted in the same way?
The overhead sky, formerly overcast with golden storm clouds, is quickly turning black as it is fed by the hellbeast hair. Awyer is yet doubled over, suffering the forceful removal of enchants from his body.
“Look at me,” I mouth to him, communicating not by speech, but through our immaterial bond. “Look at me!”
And he does. He manages to look up at me from the edge of the pillar. Cupping his stomach, he props himself onto one hand and one knee and then, weakly, he . . .
He grins at me?
“My sphinx!” But because I am currently in the presence of many sphinxes, it is an unwise thing to cry. “Awyer! You fool! Why do you grin?! Come down from there!”
He opens his mouth to tell me something, but it is disguised by the roaring of beast I cannot understand. But though I cannot, there is someone in our presence who can.
“Oh, is that so?” says Chast, glaring at Awyer. “Slim chance.”
“Tell me what he said!” I demand of her.
But Chast will not translate. Her silver mouth has turned to steel.
“Come down, Awyer!” I call again. “Please!”
I am dimwitted. Though I can see that he is too drained to move, I continue to call to him, as though it might actually do some amount of good. It does nothing but tear at me in the places that hurt most. As the first trickling of void comes from outside of the Vessel, it mixes with the golden fog of the sphinxes, covering the stenchy smell of the hellbeast’s hair and replacing it with an intoxicatingly sweet scent. A mist colored of darkened, voided gold flows downward from the heavens, afflicting Awyer first. Immediately, his head falls and his eyes close and his propped limbs give.
“AWYER!”
“It hit him,” says Chast. “He’s the first of many. The enchants of each sorcerer hit will drain and leave from the vessel, making room for Gold and Void.”
The sleepness has taken him.
A long sob releases from my throat.
But at least I still exist. It means that Awyer’s life has not ended. A void-driven, death-like slumber is NOT true death. And the pull, though faint, remains between my pactor and me.
There is work to be done.
It is too late to alter Awyer’s fate, but it is not too late to save the others. Pedj gawks at the sky, quaking in fear.
“Quickly, Pedj! Activate that token!” I tell him.
Giving a jolt, he tears his gawk from the sky. “Oh right! But how the hoop do I get on doin’ that!? Mael, help me!”
There are other matters for me to attend to. Techton must be informed of what has happened! If he is not warned, he will be next to fall under the sleepness! I expeditiously scan the area for his presence.
Though I cannot find it, it finds me.
From around the corner of the boulder we have gathered near, Techton reveals himself. Within his hand, he holds a salient hunting knife, one of the many found within his rucksack. What is more, he appears on the ready to defend himself from the misting threat.
“Techton!” At once, I begin to unleash a reel of recount. The Azurian, however, does not desire to hear any of it.
“Come here, Lady.” Smiling with urging, he motions to Mael, who remains behind Chast’s territorial stance. Again he says, “Come.”
But when it becomes apparent that Chast has no intention of giving up her ward, Techton turns attention on the naefaerie herself. His mouth falls, leaving no trace of pleasantness. “Do you want to know what your sloppiest move was?” he asks unforgivingly.
The tone is unusual of him.
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Before allowing the silver woman a chance to answer, he makes a great lunge at her, and she, who is, like me, unaccustomed to moving without constant flight, makes an instinctive flit which results in a stumble over her own untrained legs. While she is distracted, and while Pedj and I look on in shock, Techton thrusts his knife squarely into her chest. “I’ve been through the Gloerlands before,” he says, “and gloers don’t have black enchants.”
“AAARGH!” Together, Chast and Mael fall, screaming out in unison.
Without showing an ounce of remorse over the deed, Techton pulls the knife from Chast’s chest, which has begun to burble and froth with an airy silvery liquid, and slips it into a stirrup on his rucksack.
He even thinks to do so with a smile.
Scooping his lady off the ground, the brutal Azurian nods to Pedj. “Press the Glyph to your forehead, and be quick about it.”
Pedj is not so easily composed. “What the ERF?! You just stabbed Mael’s agent?!” cries the soon-to-be-no-longer zombie.
Indeed, that is exactly what has just happened. And indeed, I too feel an amount of disbelief that is not so easily blown aside.
Techton nods, setting Pedj into tooth-grinding anxiety. Through a closed, vibrating jaw, the pale boy wallows, “What’s gonna happen to Mael now?!”
“She’ll be right as rain. Her pact is breaking. She’ll be sore when she recovers, but she’ll be fine.”
“Techton,” I speak, overtaken by all that has happened. “Why have you gone as far as to–”
His brilliant-colored eyes meet mine. “I’m assuming you won’t stand for this. You’re going to look for a way to wake him, right? I figured it would be a little more difficult for you with that faerie stuck to Mael. All I ask in return is that you wake me when you wake him. Heloõs brolee, aquis brolee.”
Techton looks to the gilded void falling over the sky. Very soon it will be upon our party. Against Pedj’s forehead, the gift meant for my pactor glows golden. With Mael in his sturdy arms, Techton draws in a deep breath and turns his regard to the heavens. As the voided gold falls over our broken party, his eyes begin to droop.
“There is another way,” I say somberly, for it is not the best way. Then again, in this situation, there is no best way.
The vial of void is yet within my smock.
“It your choice,” I continue. “When you are afflicted by the sleepness, the Azure will remove from your veins.” I pull the small vial of dark substance from within my smock. “You may replace it with this and have a fair shot of escaping the curse. It is pure void from beyond the Vessel – purer than the sleepness’ gold-diluted mist. If you decide to take the offer, heed this: you will no longer be human. You will be a witch. And you will gain your power not from color, but from secrets. You will henceforth be corrupted as the witches of Ensecré are corrupted.”
The girl in Techton’s arms begins to stir, and as her eyes flutter open, I notice a change. They are no longer vacantly lost. They are sharp and shrewd. “Tech?” she says and her voice holds intonation it did not previously hold. “Tech!”
Tech slumps beneath her weight.
“The corruption of the void beyond the vessel is not something I would wish for anyone,” I say with haste, for the falling gold has almost submerged him. “I suggest only in absence of a better solution.” I look to my Awyer’s sleeping body surrounded by sphinxes. “If we are really to revert what has been done, we will need strength. When we leave this place, I will not be visible. Drinking this vial will allow you to see and hear me. It will also allow you to assist us with your strength and knowledge. Will you do it?”
I extend the vial to Techton. I will not force it on him. If I do, I will be as nefarious as Pedj first thought me to be.
“AAARGH!”
As if to show agreement, a cry vocalizes from the zombie’s throat. But he is no longer a zombie. As I watch, his cheeks fill in, flush and full. His eyes unsink. His skin darkens. The gift of the sphinxes is taking hold, and it is just in time.
The sleepness sweeps over us.
It is done.
But not quite. While I again look to my fallen pactor on the rock, from my hand the vial of void is swiped; and before I can stop it, Mael has undone the topper and forced the vile thing against Techton’s mouth. The addict’s tongue, tasting for the first time the voided scent that he has been chasing, thirstily drinks from the dark magicks.
“MAEL! What have you done? It was to be his choice!”
My eyes fall upon her tiger stripes. A piece is missing – a piece in the shape of a cracked, imperfect shard of crystal. A spelled tattoo present no more. It is what Mael has been hiding with her painted stripes. When she looks up at me, her cheeks are stained with remorseful wetness.
“What’s is, is my fault! All my fault! Chast’s gone! Ower’s gone!” Again, her gaze holds clarity it otherwise did not hold. The sobbing necromancer, no longer under the influence of a dark agent, wishes to save her Azurian. But whether or not she has saved him, is yet to be seen.
Pedj remains in a slumber following his transformation to mythic.
Techton’s transformation, on the other hand, ends in a matter of seconds. No sooner does the emptied vial drop to the foggy ground, than his eyes shoot open. And his eyes . . . They are . . .
Once purest, brightest blue, they have become tainted dull.
Not any longer does his face sport a pleasant smile. Teeth showing, it draws in heavy, restraining breaths. His arms and jaw shake. His eyes roll backward, his fingers trail his quivering lips, and a sinister smirk lights his face as his head is thrown backward in indulgence.
The taste is pleasing to him.
Mael has awakened a beast.
And because it was the very outcome I wished for, I am no less evil than she. Two women driven evil by their hearts.
“Is Pedj oka?” Mael asks, trembling. She is in disarray. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of what would happen to him,” her lips whisper.
“He will be fine,” I tell her. “Behold, he is almost in a snore.” My attention is drifted to a more pressing slumber. “Meanwhile, Awyer does not even appear to breathe,” I say. I wince over the words from my own lips. My pactor is lost to me.
Lost.
Lost.
But I take a grain of hope in the fact that the pull I yet feel between us signals that life yet flows through his slowed veins. I will cling to the pull, dreadful of the day that it will end, undertaking that I will find a reversal before that happens. Impossible that it may be. I do not understand anything. I am small and ancient in this changed world, and it becomes more and more difficult to lead with my old soul. My young heart beats far too swiftly and loudly. It distracts. It focuses me on Awyer’s pull more than anything else.
“Tech?” Mael takes the sides of Techton’s ecstasy-ridden face, as he touches his lips with shaking fingers.
At her call, his head snaps downward. “You smell delicious, Lady,” he says.
He speaks of the way she is tainted with void. The way she will forevermore be tainted with void. Now that he has had a taste of power most adulterated, Techton craves more. More. MORE.
And in an effort to acquire more, the newborn witch does something he would not per usual do. He brings his mouth close to the crevice of Mael’s neck and licks it with sensual intent.
“Tickles!” squeals Mael.
Techton draws a deep, raspy breath and a shake runs through his body. He pulls his mouth from her, but it is not without a fight.
Aye, a beast has awakened.
“Apologies, Lady,” he says through tight teeth. “I’ll try to hold back.” Mael’s squeal is replaced by a coo of concern. This, Techton overlooks as he looks to me. “Where to now, Mistress?”
“Call me Grim,” I tell him. “I am not suited for naefaeriedom, after all.”
“Sure, then. Grim, what’s your plan?”
“Count Bexwin was on his way here to warn us of Ark. We shall find him. It is obvious that he
knows things. We will join with him to do what we can . . . that is, if anything can be done. I do not know enough about the composition of the Eternity Vessel to make an accurate judgment. So we will turn to him, and if that does not work, there are places of old upon this land that we may look to. Ergandach. Yel’ram.” I heave a sigh. “And even to Ensecré if we must.”
The road will not be easy, and my sphinx will remain in void-induced slumber until we can find a way to undo what has been done. Repairing the Eternity Vessel. It is impossible. I know that. But then, so, too, was cracking the Vessel. Two impossible tasks, and one has already been done.
Together, a naefaerie, an ex-zombie, a freed necromancer, and an addict-turned-witch will find a way to save the humans. Truthfully, it is not the race of man that I care about. It is only one certain man, holding a quarter sphinx in his blood, that I wish to see rise again.
He will rise.
I will see to it.
And then I will tell him that I have fallen in love with him.
What Comes Next?
The journey continues!
NeverSleep, the second book of the Eternity Duet, is available now!
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About the Author:
EverDare was MN author Brindi Quinn’s eighth published work.
Shortly after finishing college in 2010, Brindi began her mad dash into authordom. The Heart of Farellah Trilogy was first to hit shelves in 2011, and she hasn’t stopped since. In addition to her debut trilogy, Brindi’s publications include: Seconds: The Shared Soul Chronicles, a third person sci-fi romance; Sil in a Dark World: A Paranormal Love-Hate Story; The World Remains, a dystopian adventure; Atto’s Tale, the miniseries spinoff to Heart of Farellah; NeverSleep, the sequel to EverDare; The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw, a sexy postmortem tale; and The Ongoing Pursuit of Zillow Stone, a post-apocalyptic series.