Page 75 of Celestial Bodies

Julen looked at the stone. It looked like a barrier, like a glowing rock that blocked some sort of tunnel or portal to another side. Nothing else in the place seemed like a way out, only endless blackness.

Julen thought of Dacias.What if I never see him again?The thought of living without Dacias was worse than any pain, any prison, anything he could imagine. The crystal may be blocking the way out.

He thought of his father. Would he be able to inhabit Julen? He clenched his fists and imagined bashing his father’s face with a piece of that glowing stone. He couldn’t allow his father to do that. A sick feeling squeezed his stomach just thinking about it.

Julen began to step closer to the crystal. Anjular gripped his wrist. “You mustn’t.”

He looked at her intently. “It feels like a way out.”

“Yes, but it’s horrible. It could kill you. It almost killed Iacuora.”

Julen looked at Iacuora, who averted his gaze and looked at the floor.

Julen looked back at the crystal. He had to try. Julen gently released Anjular’s grip from his wrist and closed the space between him and the gem. As he approached, the streaks of lightning ripped through it, illuminating the space around him and hurting his eyes.

When he finally reached it, he saw his reflection. For a moment, he thought perhaps it wouldn’t show him what Iacuora had described. Maybe he was truly as powerful as Anjular said.

Julen gazed at his reflection in the stone; he raised his hand and inched it towards the crystal. He pushed his finger against the crystal, and, to his surprise, it penetrated the outer layer. The inside of the crystal was filled with a thick liquid similar to the sludge but purple. He pushed further, his entire hand breaching the crystal. Suddenly, a throbbing pain took hold of his head, like a python wrapping around his brain, squeezing with the intent to pulverize it. A thousand screams rang out at once in various pitches, like one endless shriek coming from every being in existence.

The wailings from the stone intensified. Julen looked at his reflection, which slowly morphed into a monstrous version of himself.The green eyes narrowed and looked at Julen with disdain. Its skin turned clammy, and its size became enormous. The dark curls morphed into black tendrils slithering about his head. All at once, there was silence. Then the stone released a bolt of lightning and an inhuman snarl that rattled through Julen’s bones.

There was a presence that enveloped him. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there, looming over him and filling him with despair, pain, fear—every awful feeling Julen had ever experienced in his life. Then came a scream, something human. Just one this time. He felt several hands gripping his body. The Multarmirus clung to Julen and pulled him back away from the stone, and Julen realized the scream was his own.

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Chapter 33

Dacias

Save him. Do something. Not him. Take me. Not him.

Dacias thrashed at the stones, plunging his hands through seams and yanking them away. The weeping wounds on his hands and arms were nothing compared to the agony burning his heart to ash.

Not his brother. Not the man who had stepped up to be the father he needed. Not the man who supported him without question.Not Klorin. Not Klorin.

Souzie’s cry came from anguish so deep that it ripped at her voice, the emotion causing multiple tones as if her voice had fragmented, like her shattered heart.

Their blood stained the rocks as they continued to pull each boulder away, but what would they find? Dacias knew if he found the crushed body of his brother, he’d never recover, yet he needed to see him. He needed to touch him. Even if it was for the last time, he had to rest his hand on his big brother’s broken body and thank him for being the man Dacias could only hope to become someday. He couldn’t see through the tears anymore, but his body moved instinctually, gripping the rocks and boulders and tossing them away like they weighed nothing.

Another tremor began. The ground rumbled beneath them. Dacias hadn’teven noticed until Souzie tugged at this arm.

“We need to get away from here!”

She dragged Dacias away from the chasm filled with debris. The force of the quake intensified, and the rupture in the ground expanded. As the crack widened, the pile of rubble began to fall. Dacias looked on in horror as the ground separated, the volcano furthest from them inching away. It was as if the Mother Planet had heard Dacias cursing her and decided to match his rage as punishment.

Souzie backed away, but Dacias stayed put. The ground had opened. That meant Klorin’s body had fallen to the pits of the planet’s core. His sight turned the color of blood, and he screamed again. He didn’t even get to see Klorin’s body one last time.

Dacias ran to the opening. Souzie shouted curses behind him, but he ignored her. He would dive into the planet’s core, dammit, and drag his brother’s body out and give him the proper burial he deserved. He would say the last rites of the dead and give him an honorable Rugirean burial because that’s what his brother deserved.

The split in the ground widened, and Dacias nearly tumbled over the edge in his haste to approach. What was he even doing? He’d lost his mind, pickled by grief. He was behaving like a lunatic, but he couldn’t stop. The veins in his neck nearly ruptured as he screamed for his brother’s body to return to him. He looked down and gasped.

“FUCKING HELP ME!”

Klorin clung desperately to a jagged outcrop of rock jutting from the chasm’s side, his hands bleeding as he struggled to maintain his grip. Dust covered him, and blood dripped from his head, arms, and legs. The ground beneath him trembled, slowly opening wider with each passing moment, threatening to send him plummeting into the abyss. Dacias stood frozen, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. This couldn’t be real.

“HELP ME, DAX!”

Dacias fell to the ground, holding his hand out to Klorin. “Grab my hand!”

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