Page 60 of Scourged

The evilness stilled, watching Mariah just as she watched it back. She pulled everything she possessed to her, ropes and weapons of silver and gold coiling like a mass of twisting, winding serpents.

She remembered a time when serpents had almost ended her life. Those were demons of the darkness.

She was a warrior of the light, and she would not be intimidated. She would wield what had once been used in an attempt on her life to exact the retribution singing in her soul.

With that final thought, she unleashed her light upon the darkness.

There was no sound in this void, this plane that existed somewhere between sleep and waking, life and death, the heavens and the earth. But Mariah could feel the battle raging, could feel the darkness clawing back at her light as she blasted and burned and scourged the evil from this place.

Slowly—in what could have taken an eternity, or only a few fleeting moments—the darkness retreated, chased away by creatures of light, an army fashioned from the most feral and vengeful part of her soul.

With one final surge, the wall of darkness snapped and sundered, dissipating like morning mist.

Mariah’s form sagged, exhaustion crumpling her as the last bits of her light chased away the few lingering tendrils of darkness.

With the other side of the chasm cleared, she could see who waited for her at the foot of her bridge of silver and gold.

Another form made of shadows, but these ones were familiar. Comforting.

Home.

Streaks of tanzanite danced within the shadows, the gemstone blue shining brilliantly against the void between their souls.

Happiness cleaved her soul as she raced toward him. Her light refracted off his shadows, a myriad of colors and brilliance arching across this eternal place.

It was beautiful.

She wove two threads of light—one silver, one gold. They wound together until they formed a single rope, a solid massthat could be seen from the heavens far above, in a place that resembled the one of their minds but that they could not yet truly comprehend.

On a swell of power, Mariah pushed that coiled rope of light into the being of shadow and tanzanite. It twisted into him, around him, melding into the very fabric of his being.

Soaring with euphoria, she turned back to the bridge, now spanning between their minds, and sprinted across it, desperate for the touch of the one whose soul she’d now seen. Had now touched.

Whose soul she now knew perfectly reflected her own.

Mariah slammed backinto her body with a gasping breath, her hand still pressed to Andrian’s chest, palm slick and sticky with their mingled blood.

She opened her eyes and was greeted by a clear, unclouded gemstone blue. Not a hint of darkness or confusion or emptiness dwelled in their depths. Shadows snapped in the air above their heads, shadows that danced with corded silver-gold light.

She met that brilliant stare, and the world tilted.

“Mariah.” Her name spilled from his tongue, and the stars pulsed.

It was a whisper. A prayer. A desperate call for salvation. She’d heard her name said like that only once before, just before the Winter Solstice.

He was back.

Andrian wasback.

It hadworked.

“Andrian,” she choked, her voice a sobbing murmur. She wrenched her hand from his chest, grabbing his face, bloodsmearing across his jaw. Her fingers curled into his hair, long and unkempt after their weeks in this gods-cursed castle.

And then she kissed him.

Moons waxed and waned. Stars rose and fell. Waves crashed against a cliffy shore, the wind whipped across wild plains, and plants pushed forth from the earth before wilting and returning. The sun tracked a blinding path across the sky, shadows forming and disappearing in its wake.

The heavens themselves fissured around them.

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