Dark World (Book I in the Dark World Trilogy) (28 page)

“
And aether? Who is the
elemental for that one and what can they do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Fate scrunched her eyebrows at
him.

“
My master knows, but won’t
tell me anything,” he elaborated. “But I’ve heard rumors,” he said,
kicking a wayward stone, sending it skipping over the dry
sands.

“
Oh? What kinds of
rumors?”

He gave her a sideways smile. “That
she’s not just an elemental…she’s a new race.”

“
New race? Like
what?”

“
Dunno,” he said
lackadaisically, raising his shoulders, then dropping them. “Just a
myth, I’m sure.”

“
Weird,” she said, noticing
an enormous stone hedge coming into focus. “What’s
that?”

He grinned. “The gates of
Necrosia.”

Oh yah.
Her face fell as she gazed at the
barrier guarding the distant metropolis.
Shades.

Monsters

Pain gripped his shoulder blades, the
shackles tearing through his skin like shark teeth, razor-sharp and
unforgiving. Kane cried out, but fought through the
agony.

Despite the torture and vice-like grasp
of the circlets, he rose. Though it was only a few feet off the
ground, exhilaration possessed him. How he’d missed
this!

Dark World’s hot breath rolled over his
body, sending power to his wings. Lifting him.

Warm, sticky blood streamed the length
of his back, his flesh ripping with every stroke of his membranous
wings. But he persisted. Ba’al’s bloody hurricane was falling
behind, barely.

Come on, Kane!

He pushed his body beyond the
limitations. Beyond the burden.

The Crystalline Forest was in reach
now, the glimmering stalks cheering him on. If he could reach the
forest, he could find shelter from the ghoulish red
rains.

Ba’al roared in the skies above, his
battle cry seemingly meant only for Kane.

If I could just get
higher!

If he could climb higher, reach the
canopy of stone, he might be safe. But all too soon, his wings
began to weaken. The shackles bit chunks of flesh from the stems
that held his wings to his back, promising to tear them from his
body if he didn’t stop.

He felt the pull of gravity lure him to
the dry sands, soon to be saturated with Ba’al’s scarlet
poison.

Slowly, his hooves touched the earth
and he again broke into a run. His hopes of salvation dwindled as
his wings folded in on themselves.

I’m not going to make
it!

He considered stopping, to allow the
toxic rains to simply envelop him. What good did it do to fight?
Everything he’d ever done seemed to end in failure. Maybe this
world would be better off without him? Maybe everything he’d ever
done to make Dark World stronger, only weakened it.

Kane made a decision.

He stopped running.

Bravely, he turned to face the deadly
squall, chin held high. The warrior within ordered him to fight
while the soul inside was ready to face death.

The rains, only meters away, raced at
him with renewed lust.

That’s it then,
he thought.
I’ll just allow it
to take me.

His own cowardice disgusted him, but he
realized it was for the best. Maybe he truly wanted to be with his
father again. And Seren. Did the mourning ever truly stop? The
pain? Would the longing for them ever cease? He’d rather just join
them.

And now he was.

The curtain of blood was just inches
away, just moments from ending his misery.

No more. No more
pain.

Kane closed his eyes—and waited for the
rains to wash him away.

Suddenly, he felt a powerful force
seize him. A great strength grabbed hold of him by his waist,
massive talons wrapping the circumference of his torso, elevating
him high into the air.

Ba’al’s wrath quickly fell into the
distance, the deafening howl of his defeat thundered for
miles.

Bewildered, Kane looked up,
face-to-face with the belly of a winged beast. Something had him.
Something big.

A flock of shadowy birds, reminiscent
of eagles, soared overhead. Their bodies hazy. Ghostly. Vale didn’t
seem alarmed, so Fate simply admired them.

This world was so odd, so foreign
compared to the Surface. It moved different. Breathed different.
Like an ocean devoid of water, this realm without a sun, without a
sky, felt...wrong, unnatural, somehow.

“
So, who were you on the
Surface?” Fate inquired as they strolled towards the great
wall.

Vale raised his brows and gave her a
curious grin. “Why?”

She frowned playfully. “Just nosey, I
guess.”

He laughed out loud. “I was just a
teenage boy.” His eyes shadowed over and he looked away. “A silly
teenage boy.”

“
What was your name?” Fate
prodded.

“
Vincent. Vincent
Kavanagh.”

Fate’s stomach dropped. She knew that
name.

“
Vincent Kavanagh! You…your
sister…you were the first teens that went missing in
Edmonton!”

He exhaled, a sad expression consuming
his face. “Your memory serves you well.”

“
Where is Sybil?” Fate
probed, her voice fast and frenetic. She couldn’t believe it! All
those years. All the mystery surrounding their disappearance, and
here he was, flesh and blood before her. Alive. Sort of.

He gazed into the distance, a soft
breeze ruffling his silver hair. “I don’t know, I haven’t found
her…yet.”

Silence fell between them. Fate sensed
his agony.

“
So, she was damned,” Fate
offered quietly, “then you…went after her?”

He nodded.

“
How?”

A sigh escaped him. “I found out who
had…hurt her,” he said, meeting Fate’s stare, “and I begged him to
tell me what happened. What he’d done to her.” His sight locked on
the ground. “And he did.”

Fate set a comforting hand on his
shoulder, the only thing she could think of doing at the moment. No
words would have sufficed. Nothing said could have ended his
sadness.

He continued. “He took me to an
opening in the forest,
sacred land
he called it,” Vale scoffed. “He told me to drink
this…liquid…or he wouldn’t tell me any more. So I did.”

Fate swallowed hard.

“
Then he showed me what he
did to her.” His teeth ground together, heat rose to his cheeks.
“He did to me what he did to Sybil. He damned me…to Dark
World.”

A flood of images suddenly unleashed in
Fate’s mind. Her hands shook with the recollection of her own night
of terror. The moon. The vial of liquid. Frozen before the
moonlight. Sinking into the ground.

And, of course, she remembered Rory
Dean. The one boy she’d dreamed of dating. Her crush. How he’d
seemed so perfect. So worth it.

Fury blended with regret. How could she
have been so stupid? How could she have let him lure her into the
middle of nowhere? How could he do what he did?

“
So now you know,” he said
quietly.

“
Know what?” Her voice
quavered.

“
Why I have to get back to
the Surface.”

She frowned, still not
understanding.

“
Revenge,” he stated with an
evil glint in his eye.

“
On the guy who did this?
But, he’d be long gone. It’s been over a century since…”

“
No,” he interrupted,
shaking his head vehemently. “The ritual promises
immortality.”

“
Immortality?” Fate’s head
began to spin, her skin crawling with disbelief.

His eyes sparkled with frightening
vengeance and she took a step back.

Through sharp, clenched teeth, he
uttered, “He must pay. He must die.”

“
Who?” Her voice hovered
above a whisper.

His eyes narrowed with ferocious
hate.

“
Blake
Dean
.”

Truth

It felt like they’d been flying for
hours, circling several plots of land as though the beast was
screening each spot for signs of danger.

While Kane’s fear of the creature
eating him had subsided, he still wondered what its intentions
were. Where had it come from? Why did it save him from
Ba’al?

Finally, they descended, the peaks of
Shard Mountain rising up from the arid sands.

Here again?
Kane mused. This was where he’d
first seen Fate fall from the sky, wrapped in her silken black
cocoon. A twinge of regret pulled at him. He’d done so many things
wrong since then. He never should have hurt her. Never should have
let her go.

The ground came quickly as the beast
lowered Kane gently to the earth. His hooves crunched against the
dry sands. The metallic scent of Ba’al’s rain was replaced with the
familiar aroma of smoke, courtesy of the surrounding volcanic
mountains.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kane turned
to greet his savior. Surprise washed over him when his gaze met
with an old friend. A very old friend.

“
Arcanum!” Kane gasped, a
confused frown morphing into a smile.

The great dragon bowed his head,
relinquishing a breathy snort that could have been mistaken for a
chuckle.

“
But how? What?” sputtered
Kane, unable to grasp how the creature had gotten free from the
underground palace, let alone found and rescued him.

Arcanum lowered his massive body into a
laying position, copper and gold scales shimmering. The great
bridge below his brow rose and his lips curled gently back, as
though returning a smile.

Kane scanned the length of the mighty
dragon, its large body spanning almost thirty feet before him. As
his membranous copper wings tucked neatly into its side, Kane
marveled at the grace of the ancient goliath.

Kane patted the dragon’s muzzle, still
perplexed at how he’d come so far from home.

Arcanum,
he thought, reminiscing. The
king’s faithful mount. His father had named him only days before
his untimely death, before that, he’d simply called him Dragon. Why
his father felt the need to name him at that moment had always left
an unsettled mark. Was there a covert message encoded within the
dragon’s name? Did his father know of Malus’s evil plan? Did he
know about the uprising of the shades days before it happened? All
questions Kane might never know the answer to. All answers his
father had taken to the grave.

His father’s death. Kane’s body tensed
with the memory of that day. His father’s mutilated remains were
discovered in the royal stables, splayed before the dragon’s pen,
his chest cavity split apart. His soul—gone.

Kane shuddered. How had things gone so
terribly wrong? The demons once had it all: power, magic, and most
importantly, control. Then, in one terrible moment, it was all
gone. Stolen. Taken by the weakest creatures in Dark World: the
humans. Of course, they were no longer weak, timid creatures after
the apocalypse. They were strong, cunning, and riddled with dark
magic.

Releasing a frustrated exhale, Kane
turned his eye to the bowing dragon before him. A smile tugged at
his lips as he considered just how lucky he was that the dragon
happened upon him in his hour of need.

Movement near Arcanum’s shoulders
caught his eye. A figure came into focus, climbing down from his
back. As she reached the ground, her petite, ivory hooves touched
the sands of Dark World for the first time.

Kane wasn’t sure whether he should be
profoundly happy or furious.

“
Hi Daddy,” she waggled her
fingers, giving him an uncertain smile.

He practically ran to her, taking her
into his arms, whispering, “Thank you, Ever, thank you!”

The dragon’s belly rose, dragging in a
long breath, releasing with a deep snore. Her back rested against
the crook of his neck, Ever winced as a twinge of guilt filtered
through her.

Poor old dragon,
she thought,
this may have been
too much for him.

Dragons only lived three hundred years
at best, and Arcanum was well over that. Well, at least his body
was. His soul was even older.

She gave a quick glance to her father
seated across from her, sharpening his already sharp sword. Age had
found its way to his handsome face lately. How she wished she could
help. What did he need? Was there anything that could be
done?

He needs to find the
scrolls,
she
thought decidedly.
And Fate.

One didn’t seem any easier to obtain
than the other. Dark World was a big place, it could take
months—years—to find the shade. Not to mention, she might not want
to come back to Legion. Considering how much her father had upset
Fate, locating the scrolls might be an easier quest to embark upon
after all.