“Oh no, the dragon king is threatening me,” the voice said in a higher pitched voice, pretending to swoon. “Whatever shall I do?” Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s right, you have done nothing to make you fear me. Nothing of worth.”
“That’s a lie,” he growled.
“Is it?” She tiptoed around the room, the eerie green glow following her as she moved. “Who was it who truly saved the realms and brought them together? You, I will admit helped a teensy bit,” she said, holding up two fingers very close together as she stretched out the words, “but that was mostly the Vindicar, was it not?”
Forrest’s jaw clenched, and I saw a flicker of doubt appear in his eyes.
“And when Craig and Kate were kidnapped, who was it who found them?”
“I rescued them both from this foul place,” he snarled.
“Wrong again! You were here, yes, but it was Sabella and Tristan who found them, those two who killed the poisoned stone guardian.”
“Don’t listen to her!” I screamed, willing him to hear me. “Forrest!”
But the doubt in his eyes was growing and his shoulders hunched forward as if he was trying to ward off the horrible truth that had become his life. I kicked and punched, but when that got me nowhere, forced myself to take a deep breath in and out, centering my mind. I was a star and the gatekeeper of the gods. No essence was going to keep me trapped.
“And let’s not forget your last heroic deeds. You failed to protect your people from the monsters without the aid of Tristan and Craig. So much death on your hands, so much blood. You couldn’t even lead the charge when saving the gods!”
“I saved Mori,” he said, but his voice was quieter now. “I helped save them all.”
“Debatable,” the voice argued. “Either way doesn’t matter. You are no threat to me.”
Yes, yes, he was. Forrest was a strong and true leader. He had one of the largest, most compassionate hearts I’d ever seen amongst his own kin, and that of the other races. I might have been chained to a wall for the past few decades, but I could see into the hearts of mortals, see their souls. His was a good one, and he would not be turned so easily. Whatever this essence was trying to do, it had yet to attack Forrest which meant it wanted to possess him, too. Or hurt him enough to take him to Baladon. Either one, I could not allow. Not again. She continued to rant at him about his failures as Forrest stood perfectly still, taking the verbal abuse. I steadied my breathing the best I could and poked around the cage I was in, mentally. There had to be a way out. I just had to find it…
“Now then, shall we do this the easy way?”
Forrest grunted. “Let her go,” he growled. “I will not ask a third time.”
“But she’s not here anymore, haven’t you been listening?”
I shut my eyes, blocking out my sight of Forrest and imagined his face inside my mind instead. Remembered how he looked hovering over me the night he rescued me from Baladon. So much worry and confusion of emotions neither one of us understood yet. I jumped to another moment, briefer, but one I longed to have again. His lips brushing against mine in a sweet kiss. My first. I felt his lips on mine again and my body pulsed with light in this dismal prison.
“You’re lying. She’s here still.”
“You hold onto false hope,” the voice sneered with a cackle. “She’s gone!” The words reverberated off the stone walls and the sickly glow that had once been pure light filled the space.
But Forrest didn’t blink, didn’t shield his eyes. He stared straight at the possessed me. “She’s still here,” he repeated firmly. “I know because I feel her. She’s here, and you will not take her from me.” He lunged forward before the last word was even in out of his mouth and reached for my hands. He trapped them in his and then spun her around, wrapping his arms like iron bars around her body. Around me.
“Mori, I know you can hear me. You have to fight! Fight against the darkness! Do not give in to your fear!”
The possessed me struggled to get free even as I fought to grab a foothold, anything, to get myself away from this essence holding me back. I willed myself to push the darkness from my mind, to imagine myself free of it again.
But what happened when I felt the binds on my cage faltering, was not anything I imagined.
I yelped as I felt myself thrown through the air and landed hard on the stone floor. When I whipped around to find Forrest, I found him still clutching his arms around me, the possessed me. He stared wide-eyed at me then down at the one in his arms, snarling as she gnashed jaws now filled with razor-sharp teeth.
“Move!” I yelled to him and drew on my starlight. I had no idea how long it would last, but I was not going to just stand here and do nothing.
Forrest let go and dove to the side as I unleashed the pure white light of my power against this abomination. It clashed with the green light and an explosion rocked the temple. My feet slid painfully across the stones with the force of the dark essence, but I held on with a yell, pushing back with everything I had.
I hoped Forrest would’ve run, but when I glanced up, saw him as a blur of speed, his growl loud and fierce, he tackled the creature. They both went to the floor. He delivered two solid hits, but then it wrapped its hands around his neck and squeezed. His eyes bulged, and he clawed at its body.
I screamed in fury and launched myself into the fray, tearing its hands free, shoving Forrest behind me.
“We have to get out of here,” he said, taking hold of my hand, his voice hoarse. “Mori!”
“No! I will not let this thing linger here! This is my home,” I snapped, feeling my power rise within me again as my white light combatted with the green once more. “It’s time I purged it.”
“We don’t even know what it is!”
He grabbed my arm and tried to drag me to the door, but I yanked my arm free just as the abomination attacked again.
Each hit made my head spin, but I had not been around Agaris for thousands of years for nothing. I blocked several hits, delivering a few of my own, backed with my natural born power of the star. I burned it each time I made contact, and though Forrest had wanted to leave, he fought by my side, catching my weak spots and together we drove the monster toward the cage. I doubted it would hold it, but I only needed it trapped long enough to destroy it. Forrest kicked it in its chest, and it staggered backward as I slammed the door shut on the cage and melted it into the frame, so it couldn’t be opened. The beast charged the bars, but they held, barely.
“Now what?” Forrest asked, catching his breath and wiping sweat from his face.
“I have to kill it.” My light started to flicker in and out. I was pushing myself far past what I could handle right now, but I wasn’t going to stop. Not yet.
“Bit cryptic isn’t it, killing yourself,” he muttered.
I agreed. Though the beast had sharp teeth and that horrible green glow, it was still the spitting image of me. A me no longer filled with light and love, but darkness and hate. I put my hands together, palm to palm, and drew on my energy that made me what I was.
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“What else would you have me do? I’m not leaving it trapped here. The cage won’t hold it.”
“What are you going to do? Mori, you’re already bleeding! Stop before you push yourself too hard,” he growled furiously and grabbed for my hands, pulling them apart. “You’re going to kill yourself if you’re not careful!”
“What are you talking about?”
He reached up to my ear, and when he brought his hand away, it was covered in blood. “You’ve been weakened, remember? You can’t be using so much power so fast.”
“How would you know this?”
“Because I’ve seen it before, in another. Please, we’ll leave it in the cage and go. We’ll find the others and ensure no one comes back here until we have backup and can clear this place of his presence. It can’t torment you any longer, that’s what we came here to do! You’re free of it!”
“You must play the game,” it wailed as it laughed. “Master demands it.”
“What game?” I asked, even as Forrest told me to ignore it. “No, I want to know what it’s talking about.”
“Nothing important. We need to leave.”
I turned with him, but a burst of green light surrounded us both, locking our feet in place. The temple stones trembled as they crumbled around us, threatening to come down on our heads.
Forrest growled, covering my head with his arms and ducking his own, but there was no breaking free. The light grew darker, and if we didn’t move, we were going to be crushed to death. I would live, but Forrest, he wasn’t a god.
“No, what are you doing?”
I tuned out his complaints and focused on shielding us, doing whatever necessary to keep him safe. My starlight struggled to work, and this time when I used it, my head grew light, and I was dizzy. My stomach churned, and I felt warm wetness at my ears, and more dripping from my nose. Still, I pushed harder, desperate to keep Forrest alive. I would not fail again. Could not.
The beast’s shriek grew louder, and Forrest yelled my name just as my power hit its breaking point and shot from my body like a shockwave. It rolled through the temple and struck against the darkness. The shrieking was cut off abruptly, and I expected to open my eyes and see the temple ruined completely.
Instead, what I saw had my heart plummeting, and all my worst nightmares rushed back to greet me.
“We’re back,” I whispered, horrified. “What… what did I just do?”
8
Forrest
I should never have taken Mori back to her realm. I gave in, believing it was the only way to rip the darkness from her soul. And it had done that, but she wound up facing down whatever essence Baladon left behind in his wake. Worse, Mori’s light had faded completely because of her efforts to try to save us.
And we stood in a very familiar stone tunnel.
“What happened?” I whispered. “Mori?”
Blood wet her ears and covered part of her face; she wiped it away with her sleeve, staining it red. “I don’t… I don’t know… I don’t understand! We can’t be here!”
Shuffling sounded down the tunnel. I put my hand over Mori’s mouth and dragged her out of sight into the nearest dark alcove, pressing my back into the bars of one of the rooms we hadn’t broken into on our first trip here. She was shaking, but she stayed quiet as we waited for those steps to come closer and closer. I was armed with only claw, fang, and fire but if that’s what I had to use to take down whatever was coming for us, then that’s what I’d do. Baladon would not get Mori again.
But the steps moved on beyond where we stood, a minion like the ones we fought before. It was alone and continued on its way without ever slowing to peer into our alcove. When it disappeared around another bend in the tunnel, I let Mori go, and we both sighed.
“We have to get out of here,” I whispered.
“I can’t do anything.” She shook out her hands, but the glow sputtered then went out. “Damn it! I didn’t do this! I swear I didn’t!”
“It’s fine, we’ll figure a way out.”
“How? We have no way to make a damned portal, and I’m too weak to create an orb!”
“Take a deep breath and calm down,” I ordered, but she ran her hands through her hair as she paced back and forth in the small space. “Mori.”
“What? This is my fault, again!”
“How? I’m the one that let you go back there in the first place,” I reminded her hotly. “If anything, this one’s on me. What matters now is getting our asses out of here alive and in one piece.”
“We can’t, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!”
I shushed her and drew her back, away from the tunnel, as far as we could get. “Listen to me, right now. We are in dangerous territory, and this is no time for you to fall apart. We’ll find a way to contact the others.”
“The second we use any major magic, Baladon will sense it. This is his realm! And if that… that thing sent us here, he might already know we’ve arrived. She said this was a game and if it is, we’re going to lose. We can’t take him on alone! We’re mice in a maze, Forrest, that’s it.”
“If that were true then why doesn’t he send his minions to find us? To take us to him?” I challenged.
Her mouth opened, but then she frowned. “I guess there’s a chance it was an accident, a kickback of power somehow. Mine with his essence. It pulled us to him.”
“Does that mean he’s close?” I asked, trying not to sound worried about the notion of Baladon lurking right around the corner. I peered out into the tunnel, but the path was clear. The problem was I had no idea how long this tunnel stretched on, or where we were along it. “Mori?”
“I can’t tell, not as weak as I am.” She grunted in anger and kicked the metal bars, then cursed and sank to the floor in a heap. “Why would they do this to me? Why?”
“Who do what?”
“Put me in this situation! I’m not a true fighter, or a hero. I’m just a failure, and now the gods have abandoned me with no idea of what I’m supposed to do! It’s not helpful,” she hissed, glaring toward the ceiling.
“No, they haven’t.”
“Maybe not on purpose, but I can’t feel them anymore, their presence, or hear their voices. It’s like I’m alone. Completely alone. I don’t know if they’re alive or… or…” She rested her forehead on her knees. The Mori I’d seen that night on the balcony, telling me to have hope, slipped further away.
I crouched down before her and gently lifted her face. “Listen to me, no one has abandoned you. You’ve got me, remember? I’m not about to leave you here so pull yourself together and get up.”
“To what end?”
I took firm hold of her hands and immediately felt that same rush of warmth flow throughout me.
Her eyes widened, and she couldn’t deny she felt it, too.
“To whatever end our destiny leads us, but I will not sit here and wait to be found and killed. Not by that monster.”
She smiled softly but made no move to stand. “We’re trapped here, Forrest. That is the truth.”
“We’ll find a way…” I trailed off as I glanced over my shoulder into the tunnel. “Or we’ll take his.”
“What did you say?”
“We’re going to steal back the orb of the gods,” I whispered, grinning madly.
“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed. “It’s just the two of us, and I am not exactly in any state to be fighting! We can’t, not from him.”
“What other choice do we have? Besides, you were the one who wanted to go off and try to kill him alone. My plan has less chance of us dying.”
She said nothing, but her scowl deepened. “Still sounds like a death wish to me.”
“No, no. It’s a plan. Albeit a bad one, but if we’re going to go down, then we’re going down fighting.” With one easy move, I pulled her to her feet, and she staggered forward into my arms. I held her, willing her to see this plan would work, and we could do this, but those brown eyes, lacking any sign of stars, stared back at me already defeated. “Do you trust me?”
“Always,” she replied instantly. “Though I have yet to decide why.”
I removed my arms from her body. “Stay close to me. Do you know this place at all?’
“Aside from the prison I was kept in, no.”
“Then I guess we’re walking.” I checked the tunnel one more time before we set off moving toward the right, heading in the direction the last minion came from.
If only Craig and Kate could see me now. They would ag
ree with Mori in thinking I’d gone a bit crazy. Usually, it was Kate who came up with these ideas, and I was the voice of reason trying to tell them both how absurd they were. But, as much as I hated to confess it at the time, their plans mostly worked out for the better. Except I had no real plan and if we did run into Baladon, weak or not from Sabella’s attack, we would never leave this place.
And no one would know where to come looking for us.
Mori walked close behind me, whispering curses under her breath every so often. When I peered over my shoulder, I caught her shaking out her hands again, trying to call back her starlight, but it was no use. Her hair was mostly black now, only a few shimmering lights remaining. I wondered if the attack at the temple had damaged her power permanently, but we wouldn’t know for sure until we got out of this place. Being surrounded by so much darkness wasn’t helping. It weighed heavy on my shoulders and probably oppressed what little light she still had in her.
Each alcove we passed, we peered into, checking the barred rooms. Most were empty, but a few held the gods we had not been able to save. Some of them clung to their powers, but others lost their glow and sat dead in their chairs. None of these cages had been breached through, telling me we were in a completely different part of Baladon’s realm.
Another tunnel cut across the main and I looked left, then right, waiting for my gut to tell me which way to go when Mori perked up and pointed left. “This way.”
“You’re sure?”
She held out her palm and shut her eyes. “The orb… it’s calling to me.”
“Can you sense anything else? Guards maybe, or Baladon?”
“No… no, but the orb is this way. It will be heavily guarded.”
“I know.”
“And your plan for getting around those guards is what exactly?”
I shrugged.
She cursed.
“I’m working on it.”
“You might want to work faster,” she snapped.
We were in the middle of the tunnel and stopping meant a higher chance we’d get caught, but I couldn’t stand to hear such anger in her words. “I thought you’d be happy. The darkness has left you alone.”
Stars (Dragon Reign Book 8) Page 11