Vardaesia

by Lynette Noni

  Not wasting another second, Alex looked to Niida, who nodded once to confirm that she was able to handle the agony of the Hyroa blood for just a little longer. In a blur of speed, the queen took off on the Valispath as they’d planned in the sunroom, with Hunter, Grimm, Jack and Rachel disappearing along with her. Alex caught the objection on her parents’ faces just before they vanished from the library, knowing they would have stayed with her if given the choice—which is why she hadn’t given it to them.

  Niida’s assistance was a godsend, since there was no way Alex would have been able to concentrate on moving all ten of them at once without the queen taking half the load. Even now, the idea of moving just four of them as well as herself was daunting, given how weak she felt from the Hyroa blood. But she pushed away her doubts and dragged D.C. over to where Kaiden and Bear were trying to hold Jordan between them—a useless endeavour, since both looked like they were about to pass out—and that’s when she heard it.

  The sickening sound of an impaling blade followed by Marcus’s pained gurgle that cut off into deafening silence.

  Feeling more urgency than ever before, Alex hastily activated the Valispath around her friends and rushed them out of the library, looking back just in time to see Aven pull Vae’varka out of Marcus’s now lifeless body. And as Aven’s eyes locked on hers, they seared her with the same promise that he gave as he opened his mouth and roared loud enough to shake the city.

  The promise that the next person his fiery blade sunk into… would be Alex.

  They may have moved swiftly outside the palace walls, but Alex knew they were nowhere near out of danger yet. That was partly because D.C. began struggling like her life depended on it, screaming at them and even drawing the dagger from Alex’s thigh holster and slicing Alex’s leg in the process—adding even more poison to her system—before Kaiden, covered in Bear and Jordan’s blood, as well as his own, was able to wrestle it away from her. Together with the equally weakened Bear, the two boys managed to hold D.C. down and keep her from whatever Aven had mentally ordered her to do. At the same time, Kaiden drew out his portion of laendra, handing one flower to Bear and ordering him to chew it as he shoved another into his own mouth. Their healing began instantly, their strength returning enough for Bear to contain D.C. alone while Kaiden hurried to tear open bulb after bulb and pour the nectar on Jordan’s stab wounds, even forcing open his jaw and dripping the liquid straight down his throat.

  All of this Alex watched through blind, unfocused eyes as she concentrated on not letting them fall out of the air—something that was already challenging thanks to the Hyroa blood, but became more difficult when she realised she’d forgotten all about the veeyons.

  With Kaiden only just beginning to get his strength back and Jordan still unconscious, she knew there was no hope either of them would be up to using their transcendence gifts—just as there was no one able to do so for Niida and the others with her who Alex could see a short distance ahead, the five of them about to enter the mass of black creatures.

  “Hold on!” Alex gasped as she reinforced the force field around the Valispath until it was at full strength. She knew doing so would keep them protected from the natural elements such as wind and weather, but she had no idea how it would hold up against an attack from car-sized flying beasts.

  Her panic increased when the veeyons, likely acting on their bound leader’s order, broke formation from their spiralling movement above the city and dove towards Niida’s group and, seconds later, Alex’s. The Valispath moved fast—much faster than the veeyons could fly, but there were just so many of them. Rather than slipping through undetected, Alex and the queen had to actively dodge and duck and move around them, testing all of their remaining focus and mental strength. Alex knew the Valispath could move straight through buildings, but at the first bounce of a veeyon off her force field, she discovered it worked differently with living creatures.

  Up and up they wove through the masses of veeyons that were now rising from their spiralled level and purposefully following Niida and Alex. The ones who were already close enough flew deliberately into the force field, ricocheting off with loud, angry squawks. But while their actions were to them nothing more than like playing on dodgem cars, each jarring attack felt like a stab of pain through Alex’s head as she had to carefully maintain her hold on the Valispath, keeping her friends safely in the air and moving upwards.

  Her concentration wasn’t the only worry. It may have been a struggle, but she was determined to get them to Draekora enough that she could ignore the pain, ignore the sickness, and just get them there. But with the veeyons trailing after them, as soon as they arrived, she and Niida would be delivering a flying army to the floating islands. And if Zain hadn’t yet convinced the free Meyarins to evacuate, they were soon going to be inundated with talons and teeth and venomous green sludge— sludge that, thankfully, could not penetrate the force field, despite the veeyons’ best efforts.

  Alex didn’t know what to do. She had to get to Draekora— she had to free Grimm, because any minute now, she was going to succumb to the poison in her blood—poison that not even laendra could cure. She could already feel her body shutting down, her weakness all-consuming. If she didn’t break Aven’s bond with Grimm the moment she arrived, she had no idea how long it would take for the weaponised spray’s built-in antidote to take effect, no idea how long until she’d be strong enough to perform the Release. And with Roka surviving only from Fletcher’s attempts at CPR…

  She had no choice. It had to be done, and it had to be done straight away. But if they were under attack from the veeyons at the same time…

  She couldn’t think. She could barely keep them on course as they sailed high enough to reach the first islands, and she directed them straight towards the deadened wildflower valley. Jordan was beginning to groan, coming around, but Bear and Kaiden were still struggling with D.C. who was almost frothing at the mouth in her violent frenzy. And while the veeyons weren’t in line with them anymore, they also weren’t far behind, just as they weren’t giving up their chase.

  Finally reaching the island settlement, Alex was halfway to Roka’s tent when she could manage no more. She fell forward, the Valispath dissolving around them as they all crash-tumbled along the ground. She’d known she was weak, but the sudden shutdown of her body came as a surprise, as well as the terror of what might have happened had it been only a few seconds earlier when they’d been in open air. But looking up at the sky from her prone, panting position, Alex didn’t have a chance to consider that for long, because she had another concern. A much larger, more imminent concern that was lunging out of the air and straight towards her.

  She didn’t have time to react. She didn’t have time to attempt the Valispath again, to summon A’enara, to curl into a ball or even just raise her hands to protect her face. The veeyon was directly above her, so close that she could see the intelligence shining in its yellow eyes, so close that she could feel its breath as it screeched at her, so close that she felt the phantom pain of it shredding apart her body before it even made contact.

  But that contact never came.

  Because, with a burst of inky blackness, the veeyon was yanked upwards and away from Alex as talons—much larger ones—wrapped around its torso and shook it like a dog wrestling with a chew toy. With a pained shriek, the veeyon was thrown through the air only to disappear below the edge of the island, its wings unable to keep it in the sky after having been crushed by the punishing grip of the mightier creature.

  There’s never a dull moment with you, Alex.

  Alex was too weak to respond as she looked up at Xira and all the other draekons who were now arriving through the abrassa in black bursts across the sky. Those draekons didn’t hesitate to engage the veeyons in battle, screeches and roars ringing out as beast fought beast in a clash of claws and teeth and fire and sludge. The sounds were unlike anything Alex had ever heard, and in her nearly unconscious state, she felt as if someone was stickin
g needles into her ears. It was enough for her to clamp her hands against the sides of her head, trying to block out the noise and the agony it prompted through her body.

  She just needed a minute of rest; a second of quiet; a moment to close her eyes. Then she’d be able to deal with what was happening around her. She just needed… to… sleep…

  ALEX! Xira screamed into her mind from wherever he was in the sky, jolting her back into awareness. You’re not done yet— GET UP!

  How he could know that when he’d only just arrived, she had no idea, but his yell was enough to make her groan and roll onto her stomach. Her bleary eyes managed to see that Jordan, paler than death but now awake, was helping Kaiden and Bear with D.C., who was fighting even harder than before. It was as if Aven had been counting on the veeyons to take them out, and now that the draekons had intervened, he was even more furious, desperate for D.C. to cause damage on his behalf. Truly, there was no way he could have expected the draekons’ arrival—Alex herself had no idea what Xira and his kin were doing in Medora so soon, but their timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

  Casting her gaze beyond the skies of warring beasts and the land with her struggling friends, Alex tried to focus her blackening vision. She was on borrowed minutes right now, every second leading her closer to shutting her eyes and not reopening them for a lengthy number of hours. She needed to find Grimm, she needed—

  There. He wasn’t far from her, Niida having not made it to the centre of the settlement, either. Alarmingly, Hunter, Rachel, Jack and Niida herself were all lying on the ground next to Grimm, unmoving. She could see Zain rushing their way; she had to trust that her Meyarin friend would look after them while she took care of saving Roka, before it was too late.

  Unable to rise fully, Alex half ran, half crawled towards Grimm, most of her momentum on her hands and knees. She paused her uncoordinated movement only when a wave of nausea hit her so viciously that she bent at the waist and vomited what felt like everything she’d eaten in her entire life. When there was nothing left to throw up, she struggled forward again, until finally she reached the unconscious man and collapsed at his side.

  Summoning A’enara, Alex roughly sliced open his palm and joined it with hers, screaming the words of the Claiming through her mind: Trae Menada sae!

  Despite how weak she felt, her mind was violently flung through to Grimm’s mental space. The resistance was like barbed wire scouring through her brain—an attack that, coupled with her failing body, was almost too much to bear. But then, in an instant, the feeling subsided, just as it had done when she’d overtaken the Claim on Jordan. However, this time she didn’t appear before a representation of Chateau Shondelle, because that wasn’t where Grimm had been Claimed. Instead, she was inside a small cottage. There was a fire burning in the hearth and a meal laid out on the table—the very image of life interrupted. Grimm was there, too, curled up in the corner, his long arms wrapped around his bony knees, his head bowed against his legs. His posture screamed misery and defeat, and when he looked up at Alex, it was with haunted, hopeless eyes.

  And then, Aven was there.

  “That was some escape, Alexandra,” he said, the politeness of his tone unable to hide his fury. “But I’m curious why you’re bothering with Grimm now that my dear brother is dead.” His head cocked. “Don’t look so surprised—I saw you summon the Valispath. There’s only one way that could be so.”

  Her head was pounding, her pulse beating like drums in her temples—not a good sign, since it meant her physical decline was enough for the effects to transcend into her mental state.

  “My blood runs in your veins, does it not?” Aven went on. “That’s how you were able to fool me in the past, how you were able to fool us all into believing you were immortal. Because you broke free of my Claim, and yet, still took part of me with you.”

  Alex had always known Aven would figure it out, but she didn’t have the time or inclination to have a conversation with his avatar-self right now. Looking at him, she could see that he, too, was considerably paler than normal, the Hyroa blood affecting him just as much as her. Perhaps more, since while Alex had the addition of the contaminated dagger graze D.C. had inflicted, Aven had been splashed with a larger dose of the spray— something that only happened because of Marcus’s sacrifice.

  Suddenly grateful that she felt so sick, Alex realised that since she and Niida were no longer able to keep a hold on the Valispath, then Aven wouldn’t be able to manage an immediate arrival at Draekora to join his flying army. That meant she had time, at least, before his Claimed warriors overtook the floating islands. Time enough to evacuate before that happened.

  “I’d love to stay and chat,” Alex said, her voice alarmingly strained. “But we’ll have to continue this next time.”

  Aven’s reply was as quick as it was threatening. “The next time we see each other, we won’t be talking.”

  Alex already knew as much. Just as she knew Aven wouldn’t try and battle her for Grimm’s mind. He’d learned with Jordan that her strength of will overpowered his, that she didn’t need to fight him for it, because she had ultimate control now that she’d uttered the words of the Claiming ritual. No matter how many people Aven had killed, no matter how many hearts he had consumed, no matter how strong his body and abilities may be, he would always have to yield to her will.

  Which was what he did now. If only because Alex quietly reminded him, as she had done with Jordan, that they could stay in Grimm’s mind with Aven forced to obey her every whim, or he could Release the gifted human and they could live to fight another day.

  “I’ll be seeing you again soon, Alexandra,” he said in a menacing whisper, before hissing out his words of Release and disappearing from Grimm’s mind.

  Instantly, the cottage disappeared and Alex was flung back into her own body—a body that was being shaken roughly by a frantic Zain.

  “I’m alive,” she muttered, pushing him away and forcing herself to roll back towards Grimm, who was looking around dazedly, unable to believe what had just happened. His eyes were still haunted, but the hopelessness was now replaced with disbelieving wonder.

  “You—You freed me,” he said to Alex in a barely audible voice.

  “Not yet,” she managed to get out around her shallow, painful breaths.

  Every part of her body was on fire, the Hyroa blood having progressed to feeling like acid eating through her bloodstream. She heard people yelling her name—Zain, Kaiden, Jordan, Bear, others—but it took everything left in her to finish what she’d started, rasping out instructions for what Grimm had to do and say to accept her Release.

  Finally, after she joined their bloody hands once more and all but mentally slurred, Trae Gaverran sae, she felt the new bond between them unravel. It then disappeared entirely when Grimm responded with his uttering of, Trae morras rae Gaverran, and Alex was again left in her own mind, in her own body.

  And instantly, she surrendered to the darkness.

  Thirty-Four

  A brush of fur against her fingers followed by a wet nose and the lick of an even wetter tongue had Alex blinking her eyes open to find Soraya seated at her bedside, looking at her with uncanny intelligence.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” Alex whispered through her dry throat. Had she not already been lying down, she would have collapsed with relief at the sight of the wolf, who showed no signs of the grievous injury she had sustained.

  Alex, too, was feeling considerably better than when she had lost consciousness, her wounds having been treated and healed, the antidote having washed the Hyroa blood from her veins. But while her debilitating weakness and associated symptoms had disappeared, she still felt like she was awakening from a long winter of hibernation, her limbs stiff, her muscles tight, her head fuzzy with sleep. And that was why it took her a moment to comprehend that she was in her dorm room at Akarnae. It was also why she didn’t immediately realise that she and Soraya weren’t alone.

  “Seems I can’t even take a nap
without the world falling apart.”

  Shooting upwards so fast that her vision spun and Soraya jerked backwards, Alex gaped at Roka who stood at the foot of her bed, grinning down at her.

  His bright eyes looked pointedly at her golden skin. “Looks like a few other things have changed, too, Aeylia.”

  Unable to contain a hiccup-like sob, Alex jumped up and lunged towards him with immortal speed, crashing into him with enough force that he had to go back a step to brace against her impact.

  “I’m so sorry!” she said into his chest. “I had to do it! It was the only thing I could think of to—”

  “I presume you’re talking about how you tried to kill me?” Roka interrupted dryly, patting her back in comfort before pushing her away so he could hold her gaze. “Let’s not forget that you’re also the reason why I’m awake, Alex. I think the two cancel each other out.”

  “But I nearly didn’t—”

  “Nearlys don’t count,” he told her. “You did, and that’s all that matters.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Alex managed to pull herself together. “Still. For what it’s worth—”

  “Apology accepted,” Roka said, not making her work for it at all. “And now I need to apologise.”

  Alex’s brow furrowed.

  “I should have given more dedication to your training. I should have been less cautious about hurting you,” he said, and Alex knew he was referring to their time together in the past. “Knowing what I do now, it should have been my top priority.”

  Shaking her head, Alex said, “You had no way to know.”

  “But I did,” Roka said. “You told me yourself how important it was for you to learn to fight. I didn’t listen. I’m just glad that someone else did.” His tone lowered. “Zain, Kyia and Mayra filled me in on what happened with Niyx—back then, and… more recently.” He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Alex. I know that means little now, but for so many reasons, I’m sorry.”