Page 2 of Return of the Darkness
“Sonos is far more than a man. He is a god, he is my partner in life, and the father of my children. I created Kazaar’s strength from the last of Sonos’ essence, and now I do not even have that, because Caligh thought killing him would release your power.” Sitara trailed her long nail along Elisara’s neck and hooked it under the leather cord of the talisman. “I cannot continue to exist without him by my side and neither can any of you. This world crumbles because Caligh took him, and soon, you will see that. Minds will awaken. Memories will return. Soon, you will discover you are nothing but a piece in the game of power, and I will not lose, Elisara. Not tohim.” Sitara held the talisman in her palm while the shadows continued restraining Elisara. “Now, I want to try something I’ve seen elsewhere. This may hurt a little.”
Elisara had no time to ask questions as Sitara turned the talisman with a determined glint in her eye and forced it into the centre of Elisara’s chest, splintering bone. The once cool stone burned as Sitara held it in place. Elisara screamed. With watering eyes, she glanced downwards at the blood bubbling around the stone in her chest. The goddess’s hands were cold and unyielding as one held the back of Elisara’s head and the other forced the stone deeper.
“The quicker you accept your power, the quicker we can defeat Caligh.” Sitara gritted her teeth as Elisara struggled against the pain searing in her chest, rushing through her shoulders and down her arms, all-consuming. “This should amplify your powers and overcome the barriers you’ve unknowingly had against you.” Elisara bit her lip to refrain from crying out. A flurry of images flickered past her: people she did not recognise, places she did not know. “Let it in, child.” Sitara pushed harder, and Elisara was certain her chest would crack in half. Clenching her eyes shut, Elisara’s head pounded at the flickering images and colours in her mind until one finally slowed, and her focus sharpened, settling on a vaulted stone hall with no windows. Eerie statues of winged creatures lined thehall on pillars. She did not recognise them.
“This one,” Sitara said. “Pay attention.”
Elisara grunted, trying to control her breathing beneath all the agony. There were two men: a man who resembled Keres, and another man with flowing black hair, who dipped a sword into a steaming, bubbling iron pot swinging above ravenous flames. The sword hissed and fizzed as he withdrew it. The Keres-like man squinted and flinched when the sword spat at him.
“This is it. The poison is imbedded in the metal,” said the man with flowing black hair.
“Perfect. Now we know it works. Do this one next, Orphian.” Turning to the wielder of the weapon, he handed over a golden sword Elisara knew to be the Sword of Sonos.
“The poison will kill anything, no matter the weapon it laces. Are you sure you want to use this one, Sulien?” Orphian asked, bowing his head under the man’s glare.
“It has to be this one. This sword will do far more than kill.”
Elisara screamed and opened her eyes; darkness crept into the edges of her vision as scenes continued flying past her, flashing images of vast turquoise oceans, dark and towering stone cities, and purple banners in a city of white.
“Do you understand?” Sitara asked. Elisara’s eyes rolled back, but Sitara steadied her chin with one hand, tightening her grip. “Do you understand?” she shouted. Elisara tried to focus on the goddess, but everything was a blur. Murmuring under her breath, Sitara’s shadows began twisting up Elisara’s arms and neck, wrapping around her throat and caressing her temples. Elisara tried to move her arm and push herself up, but her body was numb. With each passing moment, her eyelids grew heavier and her breathing shallower. Her eyes drooped and the many visions slowed. “Focus, child,” Sitara hummed.
Elisara’s awareness sharpened as she heard voices she would never forget. She tried to cry out for them, but her voice failed as the vision slowed to highlight her parents, younger than she hadever seen them. Her father’s smile lines hadn’t yet settled as he gazed into the blanket in her mother’s arms, cooing and wiggling his finger. Her mother moved with the blanket, entering a room Elisara recognised as her own in Azuria, but with a crib instead of her fourposter bed. A display of dangling silver snowflakes circled slowly in the breeze above the crib. When Vespera lowered the blanket into the cot, Elisara recognized the infant as a younger version of herself.
“She is beautiful, Vespera,” Arion murmured, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. Vespera kept silent but nodded, smiling.
“Elisara. How did you choose the name?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“It came to me in a dream.” Arion stooped to plant a kiss on his daughter’s temple before leaving the room. Despite her clouded state, Elisara choked at the tenderness she so desperately missed from her father. Vespera hummed a familiar lullaby, watching her baby sleep; Elisara had heard the melody most nights as a child. The humming abruptly stopped when a shiver passed through Vespera, who glanced around the room, pulling her shawl tighter around herself. The air appeared to thin, as if something was capturing the space and drawing everything towards it.
“She is indeed beautiful.” An ethereal voice floated through the room. Elisara instantly recognised it. Vespera whirled, looking for the source. Backing up against the cot, she instinctively reached towards her baby to protect her from the intruder. A flame flickered to life on her free palm. “I am not here to harm her, Vespera.” Slowly, Sitara stepped from the shadows cast by the stone archways in Azuria castle.
“Who are you?” Vespera demanded. Flames erupted in a circle around the mother and child, trickling from Vespera’s hands. Sitara stepped into the moonlight. Like the four gods in the Neutral City, her body was a glowing apparition. The goddess blinked, and the flames dampened. Vespera twisted her hand in a desperate attempt to summon more fire, but nothing ignited.
“I am Sitara, Goddess of Dusk.” Her voice softly echoed through the room as shadows twisted up her arms. Immediately, Vespera bowed her head, prompting a smile from Sitara. “Your daughter is destined for greatness, Queen Vespera,” Sitara whispered, silently padding bare foot over the stone to the opposite side of the cot. The goddess reached in, gently removing the blanket from Vespera’s sleeping daughter. The queen shifted forward, gripping the edge of the cot as the goddess stroked Elisara’s forehead.
“She will likely marry a prince.” Vespera flashed a tight smile at the goddess, who scoffed.
“She will do far greater than a prince in this kingdom. She will achieve far more than marriage and children.” Sitara touched the onyx talisman at her neck—the same one now burrowing into Elisara’s bones—but something was different. It was not solid onyx. A shimmering substance glistened within. Sitara turned it over, summoning shadows in one palm until it faded and left a small dagger behind. “She will bring war, change, and peace. Eventually, she will restore everything. This time, it will work.” Sitara thrust the dagger into the back of the talisman, and a small fragment flew free, freezing mid-air amongst the shadows. “We have all the timings correct this time, all the right players, all the pieces in place.”
“I do not understand—” As Sitara waved her hand, Vespera stopped talking. Sitara handed her dagger to the shadows, where they held it midair. She glanced at the small black fragment floating above Elisara.
“Eventually, you will understand your role in triggering the prophecy,” Sitara murmured to the queen, fixing her eyes on the black fragment. Furrowing her brow, she closed her eyes and splayed her palm across her chest, murmuring words in another language until she tilted her head back. Slowly, she withdrew her hand, and a thin trail of light followed with it, pulsing like a living heartbeat. Her essence. Sitara flourished her fingers, and thethread of her essence wrapped around the black fragment, cradling it. Sitara reached down and picked up the sleeping baby, yet the movement stirred Elisara from sleep. Vespera frowned as she tried to move but found she could not. Her chest rapidly rose and fell, and her eyes widened, looking manically between the goddess and her daughter.
“Shhh,” Sitara hummed, reaching for the dagger held by the shadows. “You will be my greatest child, Elisara.” Sitara poised the dagger against the baby’s arm. “With you, I get him back.” The baby shrieked as the dagger pierced her skin, drawing one short line down her forearm. Vespera’s eyes widened with panic, unable to move while watching her child bleed. With a wave of her hand, the floating, essence-encased fragment drifted towards Sitara and the baby, hovering above the blood. “This won’t mean anything until we meet again, child. But make the most of life until we do,” Sitara whispered, pushing both her essence and the fragment into the open wound. Infant Elisara stopped crying, and her eyes flickered to black momentarily before closing. As Sitara wiped her thumb over the wound, it slowly knitted itself together.
Padding across the moonlit floor, Sitara approached Vespera and handed Elisara back. Hugging her daughter close, Vespera hurried to the far side of the room, away from Sitara. She raised her hand to create a barrier of fire against the goddess, but Sitara was before her in seconds, clutching the queen’s wrist.
“You won’t remember any of this.” Sitara’s voice softened, like she genuinely regretted the pain yet to come. “I am sorry this will end your life, Vespera, but Elisara is the best chance we have.” Sitara glanced back at the baby and gently traced her forehead. “You are his star, Elisara, and together, you will rule the skies.”
The vision washed away, tearing Elisara’s mind apart as she opened her eyes to meet Sitara’s glistening ones.
“Please understand,” Sitara murmured. Elisara tried to shift her focus elsewhere in the throne room, fighting against the final vision forced upon her. She blinked as someone struck ahammer against a black sword, similar to the material of the talisman and fragment within Elisara, before they encased it in a muted silver. Women in dark-hooded cloaks circled the blade, chanting under their breaths as diadems on their foreheads glinted under the moonlight. They positioned their blood-coated palms skyward as wisps of black shadows circled the space, bodies, things, and creatures—Elisara could not discern it all. One moment they were there, and the next, the chanting stopped. The shadows clinging to the sword faded. Looking at the figures, Elisara noted a pendant around each of their necks, the symbols matching the front of Sadira’s Wiccan book. There was something different about it, though, with the lines curving in different directions. A man handed a black stone to another man, whose expression was grim as he held out his palm and furrowed his dark eyebrows above even darker eyes.
“That was all that was left of the material,” he grunted, pocketing the onyx stone now embedded in Elisara’s chest. The vision flickered, and Elisara’s head drooped forward.
“No!” Sitara shouted. “No, we aren’t finished.” The many images had vanished until Elisara could only focus on the black onyx stone in her chest. Blood still bubbled around it. Sitara grunted, yanking it free. Elisara had no strength left to scream as it clattered against her chest. Instead, a final image of Sitara remained, planting the dull grey sword, hiding its true material on the Unsanctioned Isle. The piercing cold of the stone sent Elisara crashing into reality, and she blinked the water from her eyes and raised her head to face Sitara. She met fury.
“That wasn’t nearly enough! You must know more to understand everything fully!” Sitara screamed, backing away from Elisara to pace the stardust-covered floor. Elisara collapsed against the marble throne, inhaling deeply as she processed what had happened. She tugged the talisman aside to rub her chest. Only a small circular scar remained, yet it was perfectly concealed by the large onyx stone—the only trace of the lives and visions thathad bombarded her mind. Elisara’s skin crawled, and something moved within her as a wave of anger overcame her. She glared up at Sitara through her lashes.
