by Lynette Noni
‘Do you know what happens when you eat the heart of a draekon, Aeylia?’
She did now.
Because as one, they fell.
Thirty-Eight
Mortal and immortal alike were thrown backwards as Aven’s power hit them, Alex included. Kaiden’s force field protected her from the brunt of the impact, but it soon dissolved, leaving her watching from the ground as draekons and veeyons plunged out of the sky, slamming into the earth, shaking it with every collision.
Immobile, Alex heard nothing over the ringing of her ears, saw nothing past the stars that began dotting her vision.
Get up, get up, get up, she willed herself, knowing this wasn’t over.
And yet, as she uttered a groan and struggled into a seated position, as her vision cleared and her hearing quieted, she realised that it was over.
Because no one else was getting up.
Everywhere she looked, she saw open, unblinking eyes.
Alex vomited again.
And again.
And again.
Because that’s when she saw them.
Kaiden. Jordan. Bear. Declan.
Dead.
Roka. Kyia. Zain.
Dead.
Darrius. Fletcher. Karter. Hunter.
Dead.
Humans. Shadow Walkers. Dayriders. Flips. Jarnocks. Meyarins.
Dead.
All dead.
Friend or foe, Aven hadn’t cared who he had taken down with his death blow. And from the lack of sound in the Gen-Sec building, Alex knew his power had extended there, too.
Her parents.
Dead.
D.C.
Dead.
The Ronnigans.
Dead.
Everyone she loved—dead, dead, dead.
A field of death surrounded her.
And she alone had survived, all because Kaiden had used his last moment to protect her, to save her.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was barely three feet away, Aven’s power having blasted him through the air and nearly to her side.
Refusing to believe what she was seeing, Alex crawled towards him on quaking limbs, placing her hand against his still warm cheek.
“Kaiden?” she whispered, the sound barely escaping her lips.
He didn’t blink, didn’t turn towards her. His beautiful blue eyes just stared into nothing.
“K-Kaiden!” she cried, a sob leaving her partway through his name. She grabbed his shoulders and gave a gentle shake, and when that didn’t work, she gave a rough shake, jostling his entire body.
Still, he didn’t awaken.
“No,” Alex whimpered. “No, no, p-please no.”
She couldn’t stop looking at him; at all of them. Devastation gripped her. Crippled her. Sitting there with her hands now placed protectively on Kaiden’s chest, numbness took hold, heading right for the shattered pieces of her soul.
This was too much.
This was too much.
She couldn’t—
She couldn’t—
“Now this is what I have longed to see,” Aven crowed, sauntering towards her, his eyes alight with triumph. “The look on your face—that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Alex could say nothing. Could do nothing.
Her heart—
Her heart—
“I’m almost tempted to leave you alive, this torture beyond anything I could hope to replicate,” he continued, closing the distance between them. “But you’ve been a thorn in my side for too many years to count, dearest Aeylia, thanks to your journey through time. It’s no longer enough for me to take away those you love—you must also join them.”
Alex raised flooded eyes to his just in time to see him position his sword above her head. But as he did so, she also heard his words repeat in her mind.
‘… your journey through time.’
‘… your journey through time.’
‘… your journey through time.’
And then she heard another voice, that of the Library.
‘You have always been the master of your own destiny. Now is the time to choose your path and follow where it might lead.’
This was not Alex’s path.
This was not her destiny.
She refused to accept this end.
‘If there’s anyone who can do the impossible, it’s you.’
Athora was right.
She would make sure of it.
So, as Vae’varka swung down to meet her, Alex moved. Not to attack Aven, not to defend against his strike. Instead, she tore away from Kaiden and sprinted towards the Tower, passing body after body as she all but flew across the silent battleground.
Faster and faster, she ran, with death itself chasing her heels. She could hear him, could hear Aven bellowing as he followed mere paces behind, bounding into the building right after her.
But she was Chosen.
She was Called.
And she had the favour of the Library.
So when she opened a door down into the cavern, she did so with the specific intention that Aven would be unable to follow. And when she slammed that door behind her just before she fell through the darkness, the last thing she saw was his stormy face and the promise that he would be waiting as soon as she returned.
Only, she had no intention of returning.
Because she was about to do the impossible.
Athora was waiting for her in the cavern, the hood of his cloak pulled back, revealing his milky eyes staring out from his dark, grim face.
‘I am an Oracle of my people.’
He had told her that once. And now, Alex understood. Before she had ever stepped foot on the battlefield today, he had already seen what she would face. He had already been aware of the slaughter that would occur.
‘My time has not yet come.’
He’d known. All along, he’d known.
Time. Always, always it came down to time.
During her journey to the past, the Library had told her that it would never again offer her a doorway through time.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t capable of it.
She just had to find a way.
Staggering towards Athora, Alex fell to her knees before him, unable to stand against the weight of devastation hanging over her. So much was riding on this, the shattered pieces within her hardly daring to hope, but unable to deal with the finality of any other outcome.
With teary eyes, Alex looked up at Athora and rasped through trembling lips, “Can you help me? Can you take me back?”
Athora just stared at her, his gaze sightless and yet seeing more than she could know.
“Anything,” Alex whispered. “I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes.” She swallowed. “Please, just—please—” She broke off and raised a bloodied hand to her mouth, the pain in her body nothing compared to the agony in her heart.
Athora continued looking gravely down at her as he said, “You were told you would never again be able to take a doorway through time.”
“I know,” she sobbed. “But please—”
“And you of all people know the rules of time.”
Lady Mystique’s voice echoed around the cavern, as clear as if she were standing with them.
‘You cannot change events that have already occurred.’
Alex had forgotten. In her anguish, she had forgotten that her time in the past had contributed to the future… but not changed it.
“No,” she sobbed. “No.”
With a rustle of his cloak, Athora lowered until he was kneeling before her.
“Please,” she breathed. “I can’t—” She choked. “Without them, I can’t—”
Breaking.
She was breaking.
“This was never your path to take, Alexandra Jennings,” Athora told her, his voice soft, almost gentle. And then he recited, “The day will come and be at hand for changes most timely, when hails a girl of mortal blood touched by destiny.”
The prophecy. The real
prophecy. The one Athora shouldn’t have known anything about.
‘I am an Oracle of my people.’
Alex looked at him through blurry eyes, her heart hurting too much to understand.
“‘Changes most timely’, Alexandra,” he whispered to her.
And then he rose again, and as he did so, he waved his hand through the air and a doorway rippled into existence.
“I am a gatekeeper,” Athora told her. “But what you do not know is that I am also a timekeeper. And long have I known this day would arrive.”
Now it was Athora’s voice that echoed around the cavern, words he had spoken to Alex after Lady Mystique’s death.
‘I knew that a time would come when both she and I would be free of this world… Her freedom came today, just as mine will soon follow.’
“Wait,” Alex rasped, beginning to comprehend. “Wait—”
“One chance,” Athora spoke over her. “That is all I can give you. I cannot take you back to where this all began, but today—today you can make a difference. A single change that will affect the course of your future, should you succeed.”
Alex felt hope rise anew, even as she understood what Athora wasn’t telling her.
‘My time has not yet come.’
But now it had.
The cost of such an act—of changing the course of history— Alex knew.
“Wait,” she said again, her voice hoarse.
Athora touched a hand to his face. “Long ago, Aven Dalmarta stole my eyes from me,” he revealed, causing Alex to suck in a shocked breath. “Today, he shall see justice.”
“Wait—”
“You are not the only one willing to sacrifice your life for this world,” Athora told her, stepping towards the doorway. “Remember, you will have but one chance to make things right.” His sightless eyes locked on hers as he finished, “Make it count.”
And then he stepped through the doorway, causing golden light to erupt so brightly that Alex cried out and shielded her face until it faded, leaving a glowing arch behind.
No, not an arch.
A gate.
And above it was a single word written in Tia Auran.
Zelah.
Time.
A Gate of Time.
That was what Athora had given her, surrendering his life by offering the last of whatever immortal power reigned within him.
Athora was gone.
But this Gate—it was his dying gift to Alex. And she was determined to follow the last instruction he would ever give her.
‘Make it count.’
Rising to her feet, Alex wiped her face and steeled her spine, summoning A’enara for whatever she would find on the other side of the Gate, for whatever point in time Athora had created for her arrival.
And without waiting a second longer, she ran straight into the glowing arch.
It wasn’t like when she had been in Vardaesia and had come straight through the other side. Instead, it was more like travelling through the abrassa, her body being pulled this way and that, the pressure pushing against her to the point of pain. But then she was through, the silence of the Gate replaced by battle cries and clashing steel as she became aware of where she was—of when she was.
Because crumbled on the ground before her was Queen Niida, reaching for Aven, whispering to him her final words of forgiveness.
Alex had only a single moment to reorient herself, to prepare for what came next. But she didn’t waste that moment.
‘Make it count.’
So she did.
XIRA, GET OUT OF HERE! she yelled at him, just as Niida toppled and Aven turned his blazing eyes on her.
“You did this!”
This time she didn’t fear him lunging for her, knowing he had something much more catastrophic planned.
Alex, what—
Xira didn’t finish, because she shoved her memory from the alternate timeline at him just as Aven slammed his shockwave power into the earth, sending her flying backwards yet again. But she had succeeded in her warning, and with an almighty roar, Xiraxus bellowed a command to the other draekons, all of whom immediately began to scatter.
But Aven’s veeyon was already dropping from the sky, already reaching with its sharp talons and lifting him into the air.
“No!” Alex cried, scrambling back up to her feet. “SORAYA!”
She nearly sobbed with relief when, in a flash of light and shadows, her wolf appeared, bloodied and limping, but still alive, not yet having received whatever death stroke she had previously endured.
Without needing to be told, Soraya swept Alex up in her power and dropped her mid-air, vanishing again to leave Alex falling, falling, falling until she landed on the veeyon’s slimy back. Gripping with her legs, with one vicious thrust, she sent A’enara straight through the vulnerable flesh of the beast’s neck.
“No!” Aven screamed as the veeyon began to tumble from the sky, screeching loud enough to pierce Alex’s eardrums.
She lost her hold just as its talons released Aven, the three of them freefalling to the ground. But before Alex could summon Soraya again, Aven swiped his blade at her and she was forced to meet him with A’enara, the two of them clashing swords as they plummeted end over end down, down, down towards the lake.
And then into the lake.
There was nothing to break their fall. Such a distance would have killed anyone without immortal blood running through their veins. As it was, Alex felt as if her bones had been crushed from the impact, and she struggled to make her limbs move as she fought her way back up to the surface before gasping in a lungful of air.
Having no chance at fighting Aven while battling the icy lake, but also aware that Soraya’s shadowing ability couldn’t work in water, Alex swam madly towards the shore, knowing Aven had broken through the surface and was giving chase.
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME, AEYLIA!”
As the water shallowed and she scrambled across the slippery rocks leading up to the bank, Alex heard him behind her. He was close—too close. But she was nearly there, fully out of the water now and only a few feet from stable ground.
It was then that she felt his shockwave again, then that she flew forward and landed with a jarring crash atop the slimy shale, then that she rolled over just in time to see him leap towards her with Vae’varka swinging down on a path for her skull, ready to cleave her in two.
It was an attack Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to block, both the power and the speed. Her heart stopped as the alternate timeline flashed across her vision, realising with painful clarity that everything she’d suffered through both then and now had been for nothing. She was going to die, and after her, everyone she loved, along with the rest of the world.
But then the impossible happened.
With a blazing flash of light, Zaylin was there, her own golden sword intercepting Aven’s fiery weapon.
The look on his face was pure shock, identical to Alex’s own expression as she gaped at the Tia Auran, hearing a whisper of the prophecy play across her mind.
If Day and Night combine and fight—
“NOW, ALEX!” Zaylin screamed.
The immortal’s arrival kept Aven in his paused incredulity for barely a moment, but it was long enough to give Alex the opening she’d been waiting for.
‘Make it count.’
Surging forward, she slammed her bloodied arm against the side of his neck where Mayra’s arrow had skimmed him, screaming out both mentally and verbally, “Trae Menada sae!”
And an instant later, she was thrown from her own mind and into Aven’s as the words of the Claiming ritual took effect.
Thirty-Nine
Screaming.
That was what Alex heard as agony unlike anything she’d ever experienced stabbed her mind. Agony from the effort of Claiming someone as strong-willed as Aven; agony from how many others he had bound to him over the years, all of whom he was desperate to keep under his control.
It was agony beyond what Alex could bear
.
Just when she thought she wouldn’t survive the initial spearing into his consciousness, the excruciating pain eased, but the screaming remained.
Alex had only Claimed four people before. Niyx had been on his deathbed, and because of that, their bond had been created with little resistance on his part. Kaiden had been willing, again making the process relatively easy on her. Jordan and Grimm, however, had both put up a mental fight—or Aven had, at least in the case of Jordan, until Alex had understood that her gift allowed her will to supersede his own.
‘When it comes down to you against him, the victor won’t be the one with the swiftest blade, but the strongest will.’
Alex had thought long and hard over Niyx’s words from within the Gate of Lost Souls, until she had realised that it was her gift—her will—that would bring about Aven’s ultimate defeat. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to help her fight him, and not just because of the danger of Vae’varka, but also because, if they had managed to kill him, everyone he’d Claimed would have died with him. There was only one way to free those bound to him—if he Released them himself. But knowing that he would never willingly do so, Alex had been left with only one choice, with only one plan.
She had to force him to Release them. And there was only one way she could do that.
Certain she would be met with opposition, Alex wasn’t surprised when she arrived in Aven’s mind to find him waiting for her, just like when she’d sought to free Jordan and Grimm.
This time, they were standing on the balcony of the Meyarin palace ballroom, overlooking the city that was filled with the screams of Aven’s immortal victims. His human casualties, fewer in number, were inside the ballroom, stacked up in lines of Myrox-barred cages. Calista and Lena were the only ones Alex recognised, confirming that Gerald, the Sparkers and even Signa had been acting upon their own ambitions all along. But the misery in Calista’s and Lena’s eyes—Alex had only seen such depth of emotion twice before: when she’d been inside the minds of Jordan and Grimm. Whatever it took, she was going to make sure no one had to feel such hopeless suffering ever again.
“You can’t be here!” Aven hissed at her on the balcony, his normal composure gone. “No one can stop me—no one! Least of all a disgusting mortal!”
Alex didn’t reply. She didn’t argue or taunt him. Despite everything they had been through, despite everything he had tried to do to her—everything he had done to her, and all those she loved—he had once been her friend, and she had no desire to prolong this moment. She had no desire to torture him as he would her. He wouldn’t see it as mercy, but that was what it was, regardless.