She brought us to a stop. I jumped off her and continued my exploration on feet. The air was crisp and clean. I wanted to know everything there was to know about this place. No matter how much I pretended otherwise, something about this place called to me. The same way Grim and Killian did. This was Grim’s home, but something about it felt like mine. I didn’t understand the way I was feeling and might not ever understand it.
Maybe it was only the fantasy of me wanting to be a part of his world that led me to feel this way. But that didn’t matter because I wanted to engrave this place in my mind before I had to leave it.
The vines and roots of the trees moved and shifted under my feet as I walked. And I would have freaked out if this had been anywhere other than Grim’s home. Nothing would hurt me here. I was still careful though; I didn’t want to trip over anything as I went further.
` Then I heard the strange noises. Whispers. At first, I thought I might be imagining it, so I would stop and wait a few seconds before I started again, but the whispers grew louder the further I went. I looked back to Sky to make sure she was still following. She reassured me with an encouraging nod. I nodded back and continued forward.
I was starting to understand some of the voices.
“Human.”
“Light. Light.”
When they suddenly stopped, I stopped walking as well, afraid that maybe I had upset them.
“Finally,” their voices said in unison. They spoke in an awed tone.
“We have been waiting for you,” a single voice spoke.
Some were still chanting ‘light’ all around me. I looked around, but I couldn’t make out anyone. There was nothing but trees. I knew they had to be talking to me.
Then like magic, tiny lights began to appear all around me, like they just came into existence. One floated toward my face and I brought my hand up to touch it. The light popped and I jerked my hand back. A voice shrieked and I could barely make out the tiny body falling from where the bubble had popped. I reacted quickly and moved my palm out for it to fall into.
I brought my hand up to my face and leaned closer. It was a young man, the size of a firefly. If I looked close enough, I could see that his ears were pointed. He wore a green shirt, brown pants, and shoes. I must have been squinting really hard to see him because he said, “Do you mind?” I moved my hand away from my face quickly. “Thank you, your nostrils are quite scary up close.” I wasn’t offended. I might have been if he wasn’t the size of a nostril himself.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am Prince Cadence of the elf clan, Melanie.” How did he know my name? He placed one foot over the other, bringing one arm out while placing a hand on his chest and bowed. A very princely thing to do, I thought.
“You know me?” I looked at the tiny person in my hand curiously.
“Yes, the land has spoken of you for a very, very long time,” he answered. I tilted my head confused.
“The land spoke?” I wasn’t aware the land was a ‘thing’ that could speak.
He smiled at my puzzlement. “We are one with the land, Melanie. It speaks to us as we speak to it.” It was hard making out his facial expressions when he was so tiny, but I was sure he was looking at me like I should understand now. I hated to tell him that I still had no clue whatsoever. But I didn’t understand the way this world worked.
So, instead telling him what I didn’t understand, I went for something more obvious. “Why would it speak of me?” I shook my head slightly as I spoke.
“You have so many questions, yet we cannot answer.” I assumed by ‘we’ he meant all the other lights buzzing around us. I frowned. “You carry the light within you, I can feel, I can see it.” He brought his hand out to point toward my chest before he shook his head. “But I never figured you to be human, I will admit.”
“Oh, you mean the Vessel?”
He laughed and shook his head again. “You know yourself not, Melanie. You are not the Vessel, but you have awakened.” The lights grew nearer, and more started appearing around us until the whole woods seemed brighter. I studied the Prince in my palm. He gazed down at the ground as if he were listening to something before he turned toward the lights. “Sorry, if they frighten you. We didn’t expect to see you here so soon. They are thrilled…” But something about his facial expression seemed off. Almost like he wasn’t thrilled, or maybe I was just being paranoid. But still… he looked worried.
“They don’t frighten me. I’m just confused,” I admitted.
He nodded. “That is to be expected. It’s not yet time for you to be here.” This little guy was making no sense. His eyes traveled over my chest and stopped on the exposed X. His smile completely vanished. “Heavens, so this is the cause.” I brought my free hand up to cover the X.
“Fear marked me as a child.”
“He thought you were the Vessel… a mistake that has messed up your order.” He sounded completely shook up and it fed my worry. I bit my bottom lip. Did he know something that we didn’t? Was I really not the Vessel? My mind was swirling with questions.
Hushed voices fell around me. They seemed to be having their own conversation. One that I couldn’t hear. “What is it?” I asked. The Prince closed his eyes and nodded as if he were listening to all of the voices at once. The whispers stopped and the woods fell back silent.
He reopened his eyes. “Your fate has been altered. Even we do not know what will happen because of it,” he told me, and it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.
Suddenly, I felt like crying. To come this far, to survive everything I have been through, only to still not have a clue what or who I was. I felt like laughing—it was so ridiculous! “Don’t be disheartened, Melanie.”
Then I didn’t know why I started telling him everything. Maybe the thing about strangers was true… maybe people did find comfort in telling strangers everything. “After Fear marked me as a child, I lived in fear of seeing what others couldn’t. That feeling… of seeing ghosts and no one believing me was pathetic and made me feel horrible. I started thinking I really was crazy… I mean, my parents didn’t believe me, why should I?” I blinked away the tears and still didn’t know what possessed me to spill my heart out. “I spent all those years worrying how my parents and others saw me and if I really looked that crazy to them. Then Grim appeared right when things were spiraling even further out of control.” I laughed and shook my head. “And that’s what’s even crazier… in between the chaos and meeting him, everything finally made sense. Slowly, the fear I’ve always carried is leaving me. I no longer feel afraid as I used to be. I don’t worry about the ghosts. I don’t even think much of the demons that are after me… I mean that’s weird, right? I should be a lot more afraid… yet I feel…”
“Awakened?” Prince Cadence smiled. “You feel like you for the first time?”
I breathed deeply. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. I feel more alive than ever before. Someone died because of me and I don’t even know if he’s okay… and I don’t know if I will even survive it all, but since meeting Killian and Grim—” I was lost in thought, but my rambling continued in random. “Do you ever get that feeling that maybe you’re waiting for something in your life? Something amazing. Something that just felt right? Or waiting for everything to finally make sense? That’s what it felt like when he entered my world. I was afraid of him, and everything was crazy when he appeared, but everything also fell into place.”
“You know more than you realize.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke.
“No, I don’t.” My voice fell flat. “You just told me I’m not the Vessel that everyone thinks I am. The only reason he protects me is because of the Vessel. The very reason I’m here. The very reason I can see him every day and you tell me I’m not what they say?”
“We were never meant to meet today.” His expression hardened.
“Why do you say everything in such a cryptic way?” I huffed.
“Because I can’t tell you what yo
u need to figure out on your own, but I speak the truth, Melanie. Your fate has changed because of Fear, whether it can be saved lies within the choices you make.”
I gave him a frustrated look. “How do I even know you’re not feeding me lies?”
“Then don’t listen to me,” he snapped. “Stop being afraid and listen to yourself for once. You have awakened—although, it wasn’t time, you must now figure out what that means!”
“Will you stop trying to scare me?”
“I thought you said you weren’t afraid anymore?” he asked.
“I ain’t like I used to be! But the thought of never seeing this place again scares me. He’s suddenly pushing me away.”
“Your future will be a dark one. You will only experience more grief and loss. You will know heartbreak; you will experience loneliness. The changes have been made and fates already set in motion. It all lies on you now.” Way to freak someone out with all this ominous talk. “The choices you choose and what you do with the hand you’ve been dealt all determine your outcome. Figure out who you are, Melanie Rose and fight for yourself.”
I sighed. “Why am I even sitting here listening to a guy that fits into the palm of my hand?”
“We are tiny, but we know truths. We speak to the lands themselves; something that connects to the Underworld and the human one, that is something they all have in common. Land to travel on and to sustain life. It is everything, yet nothing to no one. It listens to everything and for those that listen, it will tell you only what it wants you to know.”
I opened my mouth, but he brought his hand up. “Whether I speak the truth, is something you must decide. Your choices have already begun, Melanie, choose wisely.”
He only managed to confuse me. What the heck could I be if not the Vessel? I had already decided that I best not listen.
After all the time spent hiding from ghosts and getting attacked by demons, you sort of get a sixth sense when something bad was about to happen. And that was the feeling I was getting now as the woods changed—the air felt different and the silence was maddening. That tingle ran along my back right before the elves set off a call—some sort of alert, maybe. There was panic between the lights. I looked down when I felt Prince Cadence running across my palm. “Intruder,” he yelled. I could tell he was about to jump from my finger, but he paused and looked up at me. “You’re not safe here. Get back to the castle and remember to figure out who you are—” he cut himself off with the shake of his head. “No, find out who you want to be.” He jumped and a bubble of light covered his body. The lights scattered and disappeared.
Twigs crunched under someone’s weight behind me. I turned. “Sky?” I didn’t really expect it to be Sky, but it was a hopeful kind of panic I was experiencing. Vengeance was just as scary as I last saw him. He grinned.
“Vengeance,” I hissed.
“It wasn’t easy to find you.” He stalked forward. “Whatever protection spell he was using to keep you hidden was working until you stepped out of it.” He smirked, and I swallowed hard. Grim must have been keeping some sort of barrier up over the castle so that I couldn’t be found.
I screwed up.
“You have to know the Vessel can’t be taken from me,” I warned him, stepping back. “Guess it wants to stick with me.”
He laughed and continued forward. I continued taking steps back. “I have heard. That doesn’t matter, that’s even better. You see, I need a bride and down in the Underworld if I take you as a bride, I can take claim to that power.” My stomach fluttered with unease. Fear and Vengeance were both disgusting! “Once we become one, you know how it goes… what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.” His chuckle echoed through the trees. He sounded crazy. He was. My body did a violent tremble.
I heard the wind at her wings and knew she was swooping down over me. “Sky!” I screamed. There was no time to climb on her back. She gripped my shoulders with her talons and lifted us into the air. She took us above the trees. Vengeance’s roar carried with the wind and even from this distance—and even over the roaring of the wind in my ears—I could hear him.
I think it was him that whistled—then there was a shriek. I looked above me to see Sky twisting her neck around in panic. I tried to turn myself, but I was locked in her grip. With a lot of work, and me straining my neck and eyes to look back, I saw one of the dragons falling from the sky. Sky decided to throw me up in the air without warning. I screamed, flying high above her. My dress came over my face as I twirled around. I pushed it down in time to see that I was falling back down onto Sky. I had just enough time to brace my legs for the fall against her back.
I took hold of her mane and started searching for the castle. It was a good distance away, but it was in view. I knew we would make it in time, but the dragons were dropping from the sky all around us… I didn’t know what was happening, but Sky was whimpering and swaying back and forth as she watched her fellow dragons fall with piercing cries. My heart dropped into my stomach and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I did know that my choices would affect everyone.
“Sky, we need to go get Grim. He’s the only one that can help them,” I told her. Her blue eyes drifted back to me and nodded. She understood as well as I; we were powerless. We raced toward the castle, but things got worse.
All of the fallen dragons began to rise back up, only they weren’t alone. Vengeance’s puppets rode their backs as they bucked and panicked before their eyes transfixed like they were spelled. They all started turning in our direction.
“I think they’re being forced—or spelled.” Adrenaline raced through my veins. I could feel and see the panic in Sky’s eyes as she looked at the dragons. I rubbed her head. “Vengeance is controlling them.” Still, it wouldn’t be a problem for Sky. I knew she could out fly any of them. “We just have to make it to the castle and you are by far the fastest.” She went in the direction of the castle. The dragons followed.
There was another roar from the trees. It was Rixen and he rose above the trees at an insane, almost impossible rate. Vengeance was on his back and Rixen bucked and thrashed in the air, flipping and crying out in anger. The anger bubbled in my chest as Vengeance smacked and kicked against Rixen as if he were trying to tame him. Rixen’s eyes flickered in and out of the spell. He was fighting it with everything in him. And so far, it was working!
I looked around at all the dragons being controlled. It was a crippling feeling, knowing I was to blame. Rixen continued to fight and hold out from the spell. Sky flew up, jerking her tail away just in time to dodge another dragon’s bite. She flipped us upside down over the dragon and I wrapped my arms around her, praying I didn’t fall off. She went for the puppet on the dragon’s back and tore into its head before yanking it off. The dragon eyes went back to normal and he shook his head, then the rest of his body, like he was getting rid of the spell. The dragon nodded at us before he went for one of the puppets on another dragon.
He was quick and efficient. He managed to free another dragon of the spell. The two now free dragons separated and started helping the others. Another went after Sky and she flew down. I glanced back to Rixen and my eyes widened. Vengeance was beating on him, but Rixen wouldn’t let himself go under the spell. Vengeance eyes lit up with evil intent and there was something shiny in his hand. It was a knife.
I looked back at the castle. It was so close… yet my decision was already made. I turned my face away from the castle. There was no safety for myself if I had to continue to let people get hurt because of me. “We gotta help Rixen!” Sky was more than happy to rear back and change directions. Her body glided with purpose and she took out another puppet as we raced toward Rixen and Vengeance. I knew she was flying faster than ever before to get to Rixen in time, but we still weren’t quick enough. Vengeance brought the knife into Rixen’s side. A sickening wail tore from the dragon as Vengeance took the knife out and stabbed him again.
“No!” I screamed. Blood seeped out of his wounds. Without knowing wh
at she planned, Sky collided into Vengeance. Her talons dug into his shoulders and he roared in anger. She took off with him and I didn’t know what possessed me to jump from her, but I did. I lunged for Rixen, but my aim was off. I slammed into his wounded side and he hissed in pain. I felt bad, but I was desperate to get a better grip on him. I couldn’t, though, I tried to lift myself onto his back, but my hands were coated with his blood. And I slipped.
I was falling. I screamed. I moved my body around in the air to look around. The trees were approaching. There was no way I could survive this kind of fall. And suddenly I was thinking of all the reasons I couldn’t die here.
Then I looked up. Rixen was racing after me. My heart pounded, and I reached out for him. My arms found his chest where I clung to him. He covered me with his wings as we fell. He shielded me with his own body and wings as we hit through the trees and branches. His body thumped against the ground when we landed.
His wings slowly fell open. I scooted out of them and stood up. Rixen lay on his side, breathing hard and uneven. His wound was still bleeding. I bent down to touch him. “You’re gonna be okay,” I told him. I didn’t know if I was lying to him or not. I didn’t know how dragons healed and he was pretty banged up. He needed Lincoln or Grim to look at him, but I wasn’t sure how I could get to the castle with Vengeance parading around with his puppets. Grim should have already noticed that I was gone. He should have definitely realized something was wrong… where was he? “You need Lincoln to heal you.” His eyes were fluttering around like he was having trouble staying awake. His eyes would snap back open and I knew he was fighting the urge to drift asleep with every ounce of strength he had left. “Rixen, I need you to hang in there.” He was too weak to respond.
Something that almost sounded like a rattle caught my attention. I stood quickly and strained my ears to listen. I heard it again. I looked around… chains? I didn’t see anything close by. I started walking away from Rixen and in the direction of the noise.
'Til Grim's Light (A Grim Awakening Book 2) Page 15