Page 53 of Visions of Darkness

Stretching out his hand, Ellis helped her to stand. “Did Pax tell you?” she begged.

“Yes,” he answered.

He watched her with the love of a father, and she surged forward and clung to him as she begged for understanding.

“Why?” She wept against his chest. “Why me, Ellis? I don’t want to die.”

But she knew that was what this was, wasn’t it?

A death sentence?

Ellis lost his breath in a large gush, and he wrapped her in his frail arms, which somehow remained so strong. “No, Aria. No, it doesn’t have to be that way. It is not carved in stone. You have to find the strength inside yourself to fight it.”

“What am I fighting?” she begged.

His expression grew grim and he spoke with caution, as if he didn’t want to be the one to give her the horrible news. “Timothy and Dani witnessed a Ghorl. They believe it might have been speaking ill toward you. But you cannot let it win. Just like your life as a Laven, this specialpower you’ve been given can be both a blessing and a curse. You have to choose which it is going to be.”

Oh God. A Ghorl. No.

She’d believed them to be nothing more than a mystery. Tales of terror. How could she stand against this?

“But I’m only a girl.”

He rocked her, his voice hushed against the top of her head. “Yes, you are a girl. A woman who has been given a powerful gift. One few have ever known. You have always been more, sweet child. Since the moment you awoke in Tearsith, I knew there was something more in you. Something different.”

He untangled her from him so he could hold her by the sides of her shoulders and peer into her eyes.

“Isn’t this enough?”

The sacrifice she’d already made?

The life of a Laven was punctuated with pain and isolation.

With wounds and scars, both physical and the ones imprinted on her soul.

Fated to love a Nol that she could never have.

She understood the call. Respected it. And she was willing to give.

But this? It was too much.

An albatross.

The hands of that vile man a millstone wrapped around her neck.

“Come with me,” Ellis told her, taking her hand and leading her across the meadow to the stream. He swirled his fingers through the crystalline water and murmured, “Look, Aria. Look and listen.”

Through her torment, she got to her hands and knees and peered into the crystal-clear depths and turned her ear to the breeze that whispered through.

“Aria.” She heard her name like a breath. A murmuring from her soul.

Confusion bound her, and she glanced at Ellis, who knelt at her side. “What’s happening?”

“Valeen is alive. Present in this nature. If you listen hard enough, it is said you can hear her.”

“Can you?” Her voice was cragged, her disbelief thick.

His head barely shook. “No. But you can, Aria. Maybe there is something in you that goes beyond who I am.”

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