Page 98 of Of Blood & Stone

He stopped.

“Do it for me,” he whispered as he stroked her hair, “Show me what life you will bring to Druenia.”

Sylzenya didn’t question the request as she dismounted his body. He looked at her expectantly as she kneeled in the soft grass. A clear orodyte sat in front of her. She dug a hole in the ground and placed the empty stone in it, covering it and sealingit with her hand. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as she ushered Aretta’s power.

It answered her.

A sharp sting ran along her back as golden sparks lit her hands, her arms, her entire body. She called upon life, a sprout poking through her fingers, curling into a flower. Yellow petals unfurled with flowing grace. Sylzenya smiled wide as it opened itself towards the sun.

Towards her.

But as she lifted her gaze, her heart stopped.

Elnok no longer stared at her with those shimmering green eyes. Instead, he laid crumpled in the grass, his body naked and thin, his flesh a cruel color of jaundice.

“Elnok!”

She crushed the flower under her feet, rushing to his side. Falling to her knees, she held his head in her lap, his eyes sunken and lined with deep purple.

“You…” he struggled to say, his arm reaching for her face, his fingers dry and cracked, “You did this.”

Her stomach dropped.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head furiously as she brushed his thin black hair away from his face, “I didn’t mean to, I swear?—”

“You don’t bring life,” he choked, red blood dripping from his mouth and onto the earth. “Druenia’s been dying, and it’s your fault. You’ve taken from us.”

Panic gripped Sylzenya’s chest as the green grass and colorful flowers faded into dust. Breaths shortening and heart pounding, she turned. The lake was no longer filled with water, but cracked with brown dirt. Warmth turned into unbearable heat as the sky took on an orange hue, bathing the dead meadow and dried lake in what looked like charred smoke.

“Elnok,” Sylzenya whimpered, tears forming in her eyes, “I didn’t mean for any of this. Please, you have to believe me.”

But he said nothing in return, his hand falling to the earth, eyes fluttering shut.

Sylzenya’s throat burned as she screamed.

“It is finished,” a grating voice echoed from behind her.

She turned to find the High One in his white robes, his long hair floating above him in the shape of a crown.

Not the High One.

Distrathrus.

“Help me,” Sylzenya pleaded as she held Elnok’s dead body in her arms.

Distrathrus dug into the earth, pulling out the orodyte stone that now glowed bright with yellow light.

“You’ve done well,” he crooned as he crushed it in his hand.

But the stone didn’t shatter; it became liquid, flowing to the earth and coating the ground in orodyte serum.

“Please,” Sylzenya begged, “Save him!”

Distrathrus laughed, the sound echoing all around her as if he was not one, but many.

“You are truly Estea’s most renowned Kreena. Aretta’s mostdevout,” he said as he swiped his finger in the serum, creating a strange pattern. “If it wasn’t for you, my plan would’ve taken another century to achieve. I’m grateful, for now we get to behold this beauty you’ve brought to the world.” He lifted his yellow gaze to hers, motioning his hands to the death that lay before them.

“This wasn’t my doing,” she breathed.

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