Page 131 of Visions of Darkness

“What we need to do is end that Ghorl,” Pax grated.

“Has there been danger?” Ellis’s voice was filled with caution, though Aria was certain of the awareness in his eyes. The weathered edges of the old man’s face deep and knowing, a chasm carved of alarm and misgivings.

“A man broke into our motel room. I saw him in Faydor, through the Ghorl’s mind. I was awakened before Aria and I were able to bind it,” Pax explained.

“Oh my God. What happened?” Ellis asked.

“I ended him,” Pax spat, venom on his tongue.

Surprise gripped Ellis in a fist of dismay, his pale, pale skin blanching to white. His nod was grim. “It was the only thing you could do. The energy will be greater with the two of you together. Everywhere you go, they will know you are there. They will be drawn to you.”

Pax’s head shook. “No. I don’t believe this is about us. It is about her. It wants her.”

“But why does it want her?” Dani asked, her voice hollow, needing answers to the questions they’d all asked themselves a million times that remained undiscovered.

“Because of this unfound power,” Pax said, completely sure. “It’s a threat to them.”

Timothy ran a hand down his face. “How did she develop it? Never once have we been told of it.”

Uncertainty cut through Ellis’s expression. “As I told Pax, I’d only heard of it happening once, many years ago, before our time. There is only one obscure mention of it in the great book, though it is a reference to a Laven with a greater gift, so I have to assume it is a most rare treasure.”

Treasure.

A blessing and a curse.

“There have to be more teachings on it,” Timothy mused. “Answers that can help. Why would Valeen leave her vulnerable like this without anything to go on?”

“We have not all the answers, my children. We are given what is important—and that is the truth that Kreed birthed Kruen to destroy humanity, and we have been charged as humanity’s guard. Aria has developed the extraordinary ability to wield this power in both places, and I believe Ghorls were bred as a direct counter to that power. The only thing we can do is continue to hunt this Ghorl,” Ellis said. “Fight it. Pray we can put it to its end, and when we do, this critical danger Aria is in will be resolved.”

Stepping forward, Ellis gathered Aria’s trembling form into his arms, hugged her as a father would as he whispered, “Fight with everything you have. You are strong. Gifted. I saw it from the beginning, and I see it even stronger now. I never understood it, and I still don’t, but the one thing I do know is, it floods from you on a current of power.”

Aria lifted her chin to him. A promise that she would. She would give it all.

Then Ellis turned, his voice lifted, the words carried on the breeze. “It is time, my family, to descend on Faydor. Together we fight for Aria. For our sister. Bind the Kruens you come across, but listen, search, seek. If you hear or see anything pertaining to Aria, make it your priority.”

A rumble of agreement rippled through the crowd. Mournful yet determined eyes washed over her, and they came to her, two by two, their fingertips brushing across the backs of her hands and the sides of her shoulders as they passed and headed across the meadow toward the dark energy that pulsed before they flashed through the threshold.

She and Pax slowly trailed behind.

With each step, she could feel chains that yanked at her spirit grow in intensity. The horrors that howled. It grew louder with each step they took, so loud that it screamed in her ears.

“We find it. We end it.” Pax squeezed her hand in a firm grip. She nodded; then they took the last step forward.

Blistering cold streaked over her flesh, and she clung to Pax’s hand as they fell through the consuming darkness. The vast desolation that slayed. Horrors screamed louder.

Aria and Pax slammed to the barren floor, making impact with Faydor.

They didn’t hesitate, rushing headlong into the voices.

Struck by the instinct to fight. To hunt down the wicked and end them at their source. Ignoring that it was excruciating. Pain licked across her flesh as the voices howled.

Lightning cracked across the darkened sky, so close above that Aria felt the electricity quicken and the hairs rise across her flesh. They ran beneath it, over the barren plane toward the evils that intoned.

They ran through the abyss, through the disorienting maze of depravation, in the direction of where they’d tracked the Ghorl the night before. Their ears keen, their hearts manic.

Nothing.

Nothing.

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