From Spirit and Binding

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  The earth occasionally rattled beneath the soles of my feet, and I hoped that no one noticed, but I knew they did.

  And now, the Fire burned within me, hot spikes that licked at my skin from the inside. I knew if I weren’t careful, it would all come forth at once and maybe hurt someone I loved.

  It had already hurt so many people. I had been a living flame, and I hadn’t been able to control it.

  I was supposed to be the Spirit Priestess, the one to save the world, but I couldn’t even save myself.

  Instead, I had been forced to lean on Easton, the one person who could soothe me enough that I could control all four elements at once.

  Now, he was gone. And I had no idea where he had been taken.

  I knew it had to be connected to what had been pulling us apart before. Maybe Wyn and Teagan and Easton’s uncles back in the Obscurité Kingdom would know. They had so much history between them that they had to at least have an inkling of what surrounded us every time we took a step toward victory.

  Perhaps I would get answers. It was past the time of secrecy and trying to keep me in the dark. I needed to know.

  I couldn’t rely on Easton anymore. He was gone, and I had to figure out how to control my four elements by myself.

  Eventually, I would unlock the fifth.

  Spirit.

  The one that nobody really knew about. Because there were no more Spirit Wielders.

  They had all been murdered by the past kings or pulled from the realm. Some had run, and maybe that was how I came to be. Centuries ago, the old Spirit Wielders had come gone to the human realm and blended. The only Spirit Wielders I knew were the ones from my dreams, and an old man who lived in a cave and spoke in riddles.

  How was I supposed to Wield five elements when I couldn’t control four, and it felt as if I couldn’t even handle one?

  “Lyric?” Wyn spoke again. This time, Rosamond moved closer to me and put her hands on my face.

  I looked into the Seer’s eyes, irises so much like Rhodes’ silver ones but just different enough.

  The soft brown of her skin was currently dusted in ash, and I knew it was my fault.

  When I broke, I had torn down the estate and the castle of the Water territory. No one had died. They had promised me that. Because Rosamond had Seen what I could do, Saw the destruction I would bring, and she had evacuated the building.

  We were all still covered in the remnants of what had been lost because of me.

  “Pull yourself together, Lyric. You can break, but not here. Not now. Soon, we will be with those we need. And we will find the answers. For now, we must leave. We can take the bodies of those we need to with us, and my grandmother will bury the rest. We will remember them. All of them.” Her voice broke this time, and I reached out and hugged her close, her hands moving from my face to around my neck.

  She had lost her mother, her brother, and her father all in a short period of time.

  And while my own heart hurt, I knew I couldn’t be selfish. It wasn’t just my pain here. It was the grief and agony of everyone else.

  We were broken, and yet we had survived the battle. We had won.

  And though we had lost many close to us, I had to remember that we came out victorious.

  As the others had said: we would fight, we would win—no matter the cost.

  Now, we had to look at what we lost and tally the price paid.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t really know what else to do, I wasn’t trained like they were, hadn’t had centuries to gain the experience and the knowledge for cleaning up after a battle like this.

  I did what Rosamond and Wyn told me to do and helped pack what was left. Soon, we had a group of people headed towards the Obscurité Court. It would be a long journey, mostly because we couldn’t use the magic of either of the crystals to go from one place to the other quickly. First, because we weren’t anywhere near the Obscurité Court and had no idea what the Lumière crystal even felt or looked like. Secondly, because the crystals themselves were dying, fading out of existence. Because of that, we couldn’t use their magic to create a portal like we were able to before.

  No, we would have to travel across the rest of the Water territory, through the northern Spirit territory, and then across the other side towards the Obscurité Court.

  We had traveled the opposite way to get here, and we would make our way back. Minus Easton, Rhodes, and Arwin, but with a few Lumière survivors. And those of the Air territory that were coming at the Lady of Air’s insistence.

  “You need a healer, just in case. I’m giving you one. Take my people, even into the Obscurité Court. We aren’t just light and dark anymore,” she said. “We are those who want to save our realm, and those who don’t want change. Who fear survival.”

  We would figure it out.

  Everyone else had things to do, and though I did what I was supposed to and took orders, I still felt lost.

  Where had Easton gone? Who had taken him?

  How were we supposed to find him?

  All of that spun through my mind, and my powers lurched, the Fire at my fingertips too much. No one was paying attention to me. Everyone was busy with what they needed to do so we could go home. So, I staggered away towards the cliff where Rhodes had fallen, and I let out the Fire. My hands were outstretched on either side of me, my elements seeping out of me as I tried to get myself under control. I knew others were probably watching, but that was fine.

  They needed to see who I was, what I was. Because I certainly didn’t have the answer.

  And then I looked down into the rocky crevice just below and saw a bone, a little pebble that had once been part of a person, although it was now coated in bone magic.

  I narrowed my eyes, wondering why it was floating on the surface, and then there was another, and another.

  And then the answer flashed in my mind.

  Rhodes had taken the full brunt of an Air Wielder’s magic to the heart and had fallen off the cliff. But he had taken some of the magic-infused bones with him.

  I looked down, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. And then I screamed.

  Because the bones surrounded someone, and they had brought them to the surface. As I looked down, my scream ebbed, and I gasped, hope springing eternal even as I tried to temper its effect.

  And then the eyes of the man below opened, and the silver stunned.

  Chapter Two

  Easton

  * * *

  Claws dug at my chest as if their spindly fingers were no longer brittle, and instead strong, grasping without mercy.

  I could feel the power of whatever lay beneath the shadow as it dug deep into my flesh and encircled my heart.

  One squeeze, a single moment of time. I couldn’t breathe.

  I tried to move, attempted to pull at whatever tethered my body. It was no use.

  This was my flesh, my destiny, my ending.

  I had known there was something in the darkness waiting for me. I hadn’t known it would be the darkness itself. The absence of light. It didn’t matter that my kingdom had been named for the dark, while my enemy—or the one that should have been my enemy—for the light. This was new, a depth I hadn’t known existed before now.

  I tried to open my eyes. However, it was as if something were pressing down on me, forcing the life from my body even as it took control.

  I couldn’t allow this. I wouldn’t allow this.

  I was the King of Obscurité. I was Easton, the dual Wielder of Earth and Fire. I was perhaps one of the strongest Wielders of my time, and I would not allow anyone to control me.

  Then, even as I thought the words that had been simultaneously the bane of my existence and the strength of my convictions, the fingers that weren’t truly fingers squeezed my heart again. I tried to catch my breath, attempted to fist my hands at my sides. I gritted my teeth and tugged against my bonds.

  Nothing happened. It was as if I were thinking all of these thoughts, trying t
o move, and yet nothing happened. My body was not my own. My mind was the only thing left, and still, those fingers were moving up my chest, across my jaw, and then burrowing into my brain. I could feel them slowly caressing my mind and squeezing, forcing their will upon me as I got lost in the darkness.

  Perhaps I was even the darkness itself.

  The cursed, the demented, the lost.

  Maybe I was the hand of the puppeteer, the one controlling so much of what was happening in my realm. The one I’d thought had orchestrated so much beyond fulfilling a prophecy that I was destined to watch but not claim as my own.

  I wasn’t Easton anymore.

  I was made of the dreams of the darkness, the darkness itself, and the claim of the master who held that hand, that shadow and smoke.

  Then the hands or whatever they were left me, and I fell to my knees, the impact sending shocking pain rocketing through my kneecaps and into the rest of my body.

  That agony opened my eyes, and I could finally see.

  I wasn’t just a thought, a mind, a hapless soul in the cosmos.

  I was Easton again.

  I wasn’t lost, nor was I found.

  I put my palms on the ground, trying to feel the earth beneath my skin. I had always been an Earth Wielder, just like I had always been a Fire Wielder. I had been able to feel the elements around me from the moment I was born. I’d been able to Wield, even if I hadn’t known what I was doing. Like most children my age, I had been bound so I wouldn’t harm myself or others until I learned control.

  Some didn’t come to their Wielding until maturity, but I was special. I was the son of the queen, grandson of the old king, who with the Lumière king had destroyed the realm during the Fall.

  I had that power beneath my skin, running through my veins.

  And all along, I had fought every ounce of pressure and torment that came with being who I was.

  At least, I thought I had.

  I’d never known what it would feel like to not have Wielding within me.

  As I searched for my Earth Wielding to save myself as I tried to protect those under my care, I felt nothing.

  The absence of power was suffocating.

  There was no Earth. No Fire to call.

  Though the power was within me, there was no element to reach out to in order to bond.

  Because as I had taught Lyric, I knew that even though the power was within us, even trying to control us and overwhelm us at times, it was also what we called upon from around us to form that symbiotic relationship with the territories and the realm.

  At the thought of Lyric’s name, that shadowy hand clutched my heart again, and I fell to one elbow, gasping out a breath. I wanted to scream, needed to shout at something.

  But I had no voice, no breath. I had nothing.

  My eyes were open, though I could see only shadow, the purples and inkiness of whatever blackness was in front of me.

  If I could feel the elements within me, surrounding me, yet see nothing in front of me, was I truly alive?

  I had a feeling something had changed.

  Before this, I had been standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at Lyric after we had won the battle but lost so much in the process.

  She had looked at me, seemingly seeing so much within me, even though I knew she couldn’t see the truth.

  Because I knew the truth. There was nothing there for her. There couldn’t be.

  I was cursed. Plagued to know that there was such a thing as hope and love and connection running through my body—but unable to feel it. To acknowledge it.

  She had told me that she was my soulmate, and she knew I had to be hers, too.

  My heart shattered again just thinking about it, that hand squeezing within me.

  I sucked in another breath, trying to control my body, even as it shook on the ground, writhing in pain.

  The curse had taken over the moment I wanted to tell her what I wanted to feel. That moment had proven that I would never be with my soulmate. That I could never love her. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. No, it wasn’t that easy.

  I would know that she was there. She would stand in front of me and bear witness, bare her soul. That was my torment.

  I was cursed to never have her.

  To never truly love her. I could care for her, want her in my life, but never in the way that mattered.

  Never soul to soul, body to body.

  Because she was not mine.

  I’d told Lyric that. I had said the words. And as she broke in front of me, clearly confused and unaware of what lay beneath my skin, something had taken me.

  To where, was the question.

  “I hope you’re done overthinking exactly what’s going on,” a deep voice whispered from all around. I couldn’t tell if the male was in front of me or behind. Or maybe within my mind.

  It was if the clouds and the shadows themselves carried the voice, the whispers.

  Yet it was deafening.

  As the man spoke, it felt as if the sound were sucking all of the oxygen from the room, placing us in a tunnel so I couldn’t hear anything but him. Yet I couldn’t hear him at all. It made no sense. Still, I knew there had to be a reason for it.

  Because I wasn’t in the Maison realm anymore.

  I couldn’t be.

  I looked at the shadows and knew the deafening silence could only mean one thing.

  I was in the Shadow realm.

  The realm that wasn’t supposed to exist. The one among the others that had been a prison for so long. It should have been destroyed in the Fall.

  Most people didn’t even remember it had existed at all.

  As I staggered to my feet, the shadows slid around my body as if snakes slithering along my skin.

  Yes, this was the Shadow realm.

  Whoever was around me had to be one of its prisoners.

  One that had been banished long ago.

  Suddenly, I knew who he was. Recognized that voice now. Knew it from the nightmares I’d survived as a child.

  He was The Gray.

  This, apparently, was my destiny.

  “You’re here because of your curse. And I figured it was finally time for the two of us to meet.”

  I could see in front of me now, and knew where the voice originated from even if it echoed.

  The Gray stood before me in a large cloak, a cowl over his face and the rest of his body hidden so I couldn’t tell exactly how broad his shoulders were or what he looked like.

  He was just the disembodied voice of a man in a cape.

  I knew the power within, though. I remembered the stories, even if I didn’t know if all of them were true or not.

  From the darkness surrounding me, and the fact that I was here at all, I had a feeling that everything that I had heard as a child, even the fairy tales and ghost stories of my past, had only been a hint of what this man was.

  “You’re The Gray,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong even though I didn’t feel that way.

  “I am. The fact that you’ve heard of me bodes well. Although, I feel like this meeting of ours has been a long time coming. At least, where you could truly remember it. You never could remember the times with Lore at my side, could you? No matter. It’s of no concern.”

  My eyes widened. “What are you talking about? Where are we? You need to let me go. I am the King of Obscurité. People will be looking for me.”

  “I know who you are, Easton. Son of Cameo and Zeke. Grandson of Singer, all kings and queens of the Obscurité. Much like you. But they will never find you here. No one remembers the Shadow realm. And maybe that is on them, or perhaps that is what I desire. You have heard of me. Yes, I am The Gray. And this time, now, we speak face-to-face. A time you’ll remember me. Because the events in your realm have finally come to a point where I can have you brought here. For me. The Spirit Priestess is alive, and that means, it is time for the next phase.”

  I tried to take a step forward, but the shadows surrounding me wrappe
d around my wrists and my ankles as if chains held me in place.

  “Don’t you dare hurt Lyric.” I gritted out the words, longing and pain sliding through me even as the emotions were doused by the curse threatening to take control of me.

  “Is that love I hear in your voice?” The Gray asked, almost a laugh in the question. I could hear the smile, but I couldn’t see it.

  “Don’t you dare touch her.”

  “No, it can’t be love,” The Gray answered himself, ignoring me. “Because you cannot love. You can never love your soulmate or be with her. I made sure of that long ago.”

  I froze, blinking. “No, it wasn’t you.” I swallowed hard, my tongue heavy. It couldn’t have been The Gray. I couldn’t be so important to him that he’d do something like this. Whatever this man was, there was one thing I knew. He was a myth. And to be within his line of sight meant death. “It was Lore who put the curse on me when I was younger. Lore, my mother’s knight. He’s dead.”

  “And the curse didn’t break? Odd, isn’t it? I would have assumed the curse would break upon his death.”

  I had assumed that, as well, but I had been wrong. It had been Lore. He’d tried to torture me as a child. Did so much to me under the guise of trying to train me.

  I hadn’t truly known it was he who cursed me until his death when he used the crystal and tainted our realm. He killed my mother and so many others.

  Lore had been my mother’s second in command. He had also been the man who killed my father. Then again, I hadn’t known that at the time. No one had known the depths of his cruelty, depravity, and power. And yet…The Gray had always been worse in my mind, even if he’d only been a legend.

  Lore had wanted power, so he had used the crystal that held our realm together in a perverse way and stole the Wielding from the realm’s people. It had killed some, created Danes out of the others—magic-less beings who were not human, but also not true Wielders anymore.

  Lore was dead. Killed by Lyric after she had saved herself from a mortal blow.

  A wound that I should have been able to heal. I frowned, looking down at my scar.