The thudding of boots on the ground made me turn around. A young Rimian was running toward us, his eyes bulging with what I could only describe as pure horror. Sweat covered his face and drenched his shirt. He stopped in front of Kalla and nearly fell over, but the Nalorean chief grabbed him by the shoulders and held him upright.
“Take it easy, kid,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
The Rimian boy was shaking like a leaf. I worried he might fall apart. “They’re… they’re coming!” he managed, his throat dry, his voice faded.
“Who’s coming?” Sofia asked, a deep frown settling between her eyebrows.
“The Darklings!” the boy said.
Without hesitation, we all made our way up the main road toward the northern edge of the village. The Nightmare Forest loomed ahead with its rustling leaves and moving shadows, darkness reigning beyond the visible rows of trees. At the very end of what could be seen of the forest path, movement registered.
Black armor. Translucent ghoul hides. Trotting Vision horses.
My stomach turned itself inside out as I understood what was happening. “They’ve found us,” I whispered. “The Darklings have found us.”
How could this be? We’d been careful. The village was hidden under swamp witch magic and warded with death magic! This didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t just a group of Darklings, either. At first sight, I estimated at least a couple thousand spilling over the forest path as they made their way toward Orvis.
Worst of all, Corbin was leading them.
Sofia
It wasn’t enough that Corbin had my husband.
Now he’d come for the rest of us, too. Bile rose in my throat while my heart lost its steady rhythm, my pulse racing frantically. It became harder for me to breathe as I held Thayen close and wondered how we might get ourselves out of this mess.
The Darklings were many. Thousands, at least.
“It’s not just the black guards anymore.” Kalon gasped, staring at the incoming convoy. “He’s got Crimson soldiers, too. Silver and gold armor, as well.”
“And so many ghouls,” Soul muttered. “Did he keep them stored in jars somewhere? What fresh hell is this?”
“I don’t know,” Esme said. “How could they find this place?”
Corbin led the convoy from atop his muscular Vision steed, a black leather cape draped loosely over one shoulder. He stared ahead, but he seemed to be looking right through us. They were getting close now, with only a couple hundred yards left before they reached the shield.
“They can’t see us,” I reminded everyone. “Lumi’s cloaking spell and the death wards protect us. I’m not sure they know the village is here.”
That was wishful thinking, and I knew it. Corbin would never have brought so many fighters with him had he not known where he was going. They certainly had an idea, and they were dangerously close to finding us.
My heart shrank to the size of a pebble as I stayed with Thayen. The poor kid had to be scared, too. I was surprised to feel Mira’s hand on top of mine where it rested on the boy’s shoulder. I looked at her and found a reassuring, albeit weak, smile. “You knew this day would come,” she whispered.
“Yeah, just not this soon.”
“What do we do?” Rose asked. We were all gathered on the edge of Orvis, watching as the Darklings approached us. There were too many of them, even with the Seniors on our side. Plus we had a village full of people to protect, many of whom were unable to fight . My critical thinking skills were severely handicapped, my mind sluggish with panic as I held on to Thayen and wished Derek were here with us.
“We stay quiet for now,” Lumi said. “They’ll bump into the cloaking spell any minute. They’ll realize then that they’ve found us.”
“How strong is your magic?” Kemi eyed the swamp witch carefully.
Kailani took a deep breath, hooking her arm through Lumi’s. “The shield will hold them back for a while but not forever,” the younger witch said. “We’ll need an exit strategy.”
“I have my people to evacuate,” Kalla murmured as concern settled on her round face. “I must protect them all. If we stay here, we’re as good as dead.”
“Okay. How do we make our exit?” Rose replied. “Do we take the shuttles?”
“Will they hold us all?” Kalla asked, glancing my way.
I wanted to say yes, but then I noticed Corbin stopping. His eyes narrowed as he seemed to look right through us. He raised his scythe in the air, the quarter-moon-shaped blade glistening as his lips moved. Something happened. A heavy weight came over me. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, as though a great force had come down on us.
“What just happened?” Kailani asked, her voice strained. She seemed uncomfortable. “I feel weird…”
Soul cursed under his breath. “That bastard just locked us in,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“What do you mean?” I whirled around to gawk at him. “What do you mean he just locked us in?!”
“He knows we’re here,” he replied. “He must’ve spotted something that gave the cloaking spell away. He just launched a blocking net all over this entire area. I can feel it. We can’t teleport out of Orvis. Not anymore.”
My knees threatened to give out, and for a moment I thought I’d collapse. But one look at Thayen, and I knew I owed it to him to keep a clear head. Rose prepared her pulverizer weapon, checking her pockets for ammo. “I guess we’ll have to fight them,” she muttered.
“Too many Darklings, and Corbin already has the upper hand,” Widow said.
“Well, you’re a rain on this parade,” Kailani grumbled, hands on her hips. “What in the blazes are we going to do?”
“Maybe we can still use the shuttles,” I said. “We’ll have to move fast to get everyone on board, and then we can—”
“Attention, everyone!” Corbin’s voice boomed through the forest. He was only fifty yards away and wearing a proud smirk as he stared ahead. “I know there’s cloaking magic here. I could see the air rippling. Reapers, I’ve blocked your ability to teleport, and—as I’m sure you can see—I’m taking additional measures to make sure you’re not going anywhere.”
Several Darklings split from the convoy, running all around the cloaking shield as they drew lines in the ground with their scythes. Soul cursed again.
“Crap, they’re doing multiple circles, too,” he hissed. “Corbin really doesn’t want us to leave.”
If we’d seen them coming, we could’ve come up with a faster escape plan. Unfortunately, the Darklings had been one step ahead of us once again. I hoped this was only a bad dream, but pinching myself revealed the hard truth: this was all too real and happening prematurely. We weren’t ready for this confrontation, not so soon after the Dieffen failure.
“Don’t say a word,” Kalla whispered. “Let’s see where he’s going with this.”
Corbin sighed, his nostrils flaring. “I can smell you all in there, you know. I’m not sure what sort of swamp witch magic this is, but rest assured that I’ll break it sooner or later. I know there’s a village here where people are delusional enough to think the Aeternae can live without feeding off the others. That alone is borderline criminal and must be eradicated before other settlements get any similar ideas. The Aeternae drink the blood of Rimians and Naloreans. It’s in our nature!”
He sounded almost angry, as if the very existence of Orvis got under his skin. A slight pulse hit us from multiple angles, and I realized the circles were complete. For the third time in a row, a slew of expletives left Soul’s lips.
“Son of a—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath as Kelara gave him a worried look. He noticed and gave her a brief nod. “It’s not over yet.”
“I know. We’re still here,” she murmured.
“You’re probably surprised to see us here,” Corbin continued, by now understanding we weren’t going to answer his call. “But I knew the Dieffen occupation would catch your eye. I knew you were hiding somewhere in the Nightmare Forest
, but this place is too big. I needed a way to narrow down the search. I had scouts waiting all around Dieffen, hidden and ready to follow you back. I knew you’d be forced to retreat after failing so miserably there. Foolish Reapers, always getting in over your heads.” He chuckled but quickly resumed his serious demeanor. “I’m here for Valaine. I want my daughter back.”
Valaine gasped, covering her mouth as tears spilled from her eyes. Tristan held her close, flanked by Phantom and Morning.
“It’s time for you to die, my darling,” Corbin said, loudly enough for the entire village to hear. “It’s time for you to do your duty and restart the cycle. Five thousand Aeternae have already died. You cannot let our species disappear like this. Come out and do your duty.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Tristan whispered in her ear. “It’s not your responsibility at all.”
“I know,” she replied, struggling to hold herself upright.
“There is only one way that this is going to end, Sofia!” Corbin continued, shifting his focus to me, even though I was nowhere in his sight. “You have the power to stop this. Let Valaine come to me and back off. I’ll let you take Derek back. I’ll even grant you safe passage off Visio if you no longer get involved. Forget about the Black Fever cure. You’re too much of a liability for us to consider you our partners any longer. You’ve done enough damage, and I cannot risk you making things worse. Give me Thayen, give me Valaine, and I’ll give you your husband back. Leave, never to return, and everyone will be happy.”
“That’s a crock of—” Soul blurted, but Widow shushed him.
“Hold on,” he whispered. “Let the megalomaniac speak. This is his opening statement. He’s got us trapped here, anyway. Maybe he’ll reveal something we can use.”
“I lured you to Dieffen because I wanted the Reapers to understand that the Darklings are not to be underestimated,” Corbin said. “We are ancient and blessed by the Spirit Bender. His foresight was unrivaled, and he knew this day would come. We have spent nearly five million years preparing for this confrontation. You, on the other hand, have no idea what you’re dealing with. That’s obvious from how easily you fell when I dangled Dieffen under your noses. All I needed was to get you there, and I knew you’d lead me back to Valaine. I can feel her. I know she’s here. It’s time for her to come out. Oh, and don’t even think about using your shuttles. We have eyes on the sky. We can spot the faint ripples of your invisibility spells now. You won’t get far.”
Nethissis exhaled sharply. “We can’t let him win.”
“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Sofia… we’ve got another problem,” Lumi said, pale as a sheet of paper.
“What is it?” I asked, my anxiety reaching new and impressive peaks. Any more bad news, and I might have a stroke at this point.
“Derek broke the green bead. I felt it, just now,” she said.
My entire world came crashing down around me, and I could feel myself breaking on the inside. “And you can’t teleport out of here with Sidyan because Corbin grounded all the Reapers,” I murmured, the issue coming into focus. “Oh, God…”
My husband needed to escape. We needed to escape. And none of us could do anything because the Darklings had orchestrated this whole thing since before Dieffen. They couldn’t comb the entire Nightmare Forest to find us, since it was such a vast and dangerous place, but they’d known they could track us back here.
“I’ll be damned if I let this bastard ruin our plans,” Kemi said, pressing his lips into a thin line. Mira appeared to agree. Her demeanor was defiant and proud, for she was unwilling to compromise or bow before the Master of Darkness and his throng of fiends.
“We came here to help, and that’s what we’re going to do.” She looked at me, then at Kalla. “Get your people ready. We will work out an escape.”
“How?” I asked. “They’ll shoot the shuttles down the moment we take off. The Reapers can’t zap us out of here, either.”
I wasn’t helping, and I wasn’t providing any comfort to Thayen. I needed to pull myself together. My team needed me. My husband needed me. Our daughter was here. Our friends. We’d come too far, were too close to a shot at victory, to give up now. And I sure as hell didn’t plan on handing Valaine over for the Darklings to continue tormenting her.
Besides, Death needed the Unending now more than ever. Death was the only one who could put an end to all this before the Darklings claimed more lives. Thayen squeezed my hand, signaling me to glance down at him.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, affectionate in his bid to reassure me.
Mira chuckled softly. “The kid has courage, that’s for sure.”
“We can dig a tunnel,” Thayen suggested, and suddenly everything made sense again. The fog cleared, and my mind bristled as I quickly made the calculations in my head.
“He’s not wrong,” I said quietly, looking at Mira.
“I have not spent half my life protecting Orvis to have these monsters destroy it all,” Kalla said, raising her chin. “If I have to dig my way out of here, dammit, then I’ll dig until my fingers bleed.”
Lumi smirked. “No need. You have two swamp witches with you.”
“Plus a handful of Reapers,” Seeley added, equally encouraged. “Digging a tunnel in a ridiculously short amount of time isn’t impossible.”
“We’ll have to make it long. Really long,” Kelara said. “The Darklings might expect us to try to escape on foot.”
But it was Esme who really brought us all together. “We just need to get as far away from Corbin’s blocking spell as possible. Once we do that, the Reapers can teleport us out of here.” She looked at me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Lumi and Sidyan will go after Derek as soon as they’re out of the spell’s range. It’s not over, Sofia. Not even close.”
That was all I needed to fully regain my spirit—the idea that we still had a way to get out of here and to save Derek. As long as there was the smallest inkling of hope, we could beat this.
“Corbin can’t outsmart us all,” Kalon said. “They have darkness and murder on their side, but we have light and justice. That’s got to count for something.”
It did. The Darklings had come to our very doorstep, brazenly demanding our surrender. It shouldn’t have come as a shock, since we’d repeatedly discussed their resourcefulness and ingenuity. They had spent five million years making sure the Unending didn’t even remember who she really was, much less try to break free from her three seals.
But we’d been to hell and back more than once. We’d stared destruction in the face over and over, and every time we had prevailed. We had risen above the flames. We had won.
Survival was deeply embedded within our genetic code. And so was honor. Goodness. Love. Freedom. Our motivations carried more power and grace than anything the Darklings had to throw at us. Yes, they’d found Orvis, but we were nowhere near done.
In fact, we were only just beginning.
ASOV 84: A Memory of Time
Dear Shaddict,
Thank you for reading A Bender of Spirit!
ASOV 84: A Memory of Time releases December 31st, 2019. Not long to wait!
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Bella x
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A Shade of Vampire 83: A Bender of Spirit Page 23