Page 70 of Moon Raven Rising
“Let me get you out of here. Something is happening in the caves. It's not safe to be here!” He exclaims, tugging painfully at my arm, but as I look further up the field, I see a swirling vortex of purple and black that makes my stomach fall.
“Soren—Alaric! Soren is wielding dark magic.” I gasp, and as I make eye contact with my brother, I then turn from the chaos that surrounds us to face Trent. “I can’t leave. You told me that you would understand and accept my choices in life and in battle. This is one of those times, Trent. I need to be here for Alaric.” I see the conflict across his face, but he finally nods and grips me by the back of my neck and pulls me into a passionate kiss. When he breaks the contact, his eyes bore into mine.
“Until the moment I take my last breath, it’s you.” Trent doesn't linger. He jumps into action, bringing his sword down as more chaos explodes around us. When I turn to face my brother, he too is running into action. He pulls his twin blades from the sheaths at his back, and blow after blow, he clears the space in front of him, lethal and relentless. I run after him, and when I catch him by the arm, the ground around us trembles.
A stone of white rises like a pillar from the earth, the walls coming up to follow, encasing us in a room of blinding white. Alaric holds his onyx blades at his sides, dripping with blood, staining the magically immaculate white marble floors in red,and he steps forward. The man he approaches has his back to us, but I can see the pain in my brother’s face as he gets nearer to both the man and the granite slab altar. I run up behind, reaching for him once again, and while my hand wrapping around his wrist causes him to look me in the face, his words surprise me.
“This has always been my purpose.” He says as his jaw flutters with the clench of his teeth. Concern sinks between my eyes as his arm falls from my grasp.
“As it has been mine.” The man says as he turns around, and my breath hitches as I realize who it is as Alaric prowls toward him like a demon who has come to reap his soul. “The unkindness is full—the rising has begun. Though I know you have always been my son, I’m sorry that I could not be your father. My sacrifice brings you life; now it’s you who must bring balance to the realm. You are the shield in the night, with your dark blades—end this fight.” The man’s voice echoes through the empty room, only Alaric there staring back at him. Alaric shakes his head, refusing the man’s words and what they mean. He swallows hard, the bob of his throat as visible as sweat runs down the sides of his face.
Declan says nothing else but nods, and Alaric begins to lift the blade in his right hand. The sharp point hovering over his father’s heart. The other blade in his left hand falls to the ground with a resounding echo, and his knuckles around the remaining blade blanch with how hard he grips the hilt. His nostrils flare, and tears roll down his face—my own heart nearly stops watching the scene unfold. I know I can't stop this. I can feel the fates turning like gears with each movement he makes.
“I’m sorry,” he says, keeping his tear-filled eyes locked with those that mirror his own pain. Though it happens in the blink of an eye, time seems to stop as he plunges his sword through the chest of his father with a visceral cry of agony.
Alaric falls to his knees as Declan smiles and drops before him. His hand rests over Alaric’s, pressing the blade against his bloody chest. Then his eyes track up over my brother’s shoulder and then land behind me. I turn to look at what caught his final moments. Soren and Thames come through the battlefield like a tornado of darkness, but the feel is nothing like Dax’s shadows. They feel even more wrong than what Thames started with.
Soren is crazed; his eyes are completely black as he approaches. Cano rushes up, lifting his sword at his father, and Soren blasts him in the chest, sending him skidding through the dirt, taking out Fae left and right in his wake. Soren laughs maniacally as his eyes clash with Declans.
The darkness emanates from Soren in a relentless cloud and shutters a spec of white glowing bright at the center of his chest. His eyes drop to the pinhole of light and go round, and his mouth falls open. Nothing could prepare me for the horrific sound that comes from him. Radiant, piercing, and glaring light breeches the darkness that surrounds him. A bolt of white hot lightning flaring through his body as he arches and trembles. His skin growing paler with every second the light burns through him, until he is reduced to nothing but ash. His body combusts as fate takes its payment for the darkness he has cast on the world. When I look back to where my brother is, he is swaying on his feet. The ground before him also covered in gray ash, and I realize in this moment that this is what he meant when he said it was up to Alaric to end the fight.
Thames, though; she stands there watching the snow and ash mixture twirl and wisp away on the wind. A furious billow of shadow magic balls at her fists as she looks around as though she is searching for something—for someone. When she turns fully and her eyes catch on me, she narrows them further and lifts her hands to throw the wicked darkness at me. I counter with my air magic, and though her shadows look deadly and menacing, theydon't hold up to my god’s given magic. They fall away when I knock her to her ass. I run for her, flicking the throwing knives from my wrist until I finally reach her and I hold a blade to her throat.
“Where is your bitch queen?” She hisses through clenched teeth.
“No where of your concern; hopefully she forgives me for this though…” I lean down closer to her face and she sneers back up at me. “ I know she would have wanted the honor.”
“Fuck your queen!” She yells in my face, and before she can say anything else, I slide my knife across her throat and I watch as she chokes on her own blood.
Chapter fifty-four
Osiris eagerly takes thelead into the caves. Raelle looks over her shoulder, concern furrowing her brow, but she follows behind him, leading me by our joined hands. I take up the back of the line so I can keep an eye on both of them. The tunnels that were revealed to us, once lit by the glowing white magic, have now darkened to pitch, and the further we travel, the more rampant my heart beats.
Regardless of the feeling Raelle’s magic is giving her, we don’t truly know what this tunnel is leading us to. What the chamber is going to hold other than the stones Osiris is so adamant about retrieving. The only reassurance I have is the king’s bond he offered in place of his word. The bond, at least I know, is more binding, but that doesn't mean he can't break it.
“Osiris, don’t go too fast; we have to stay together,” I growl out as the prince begins to pick up pace creating a gap between us. We walk silently for what feels like hours, and no matterhow much I try, I can't seem to block out the memories of being locked in the prison as nothing but a shadow trapped in the dark.
“Do you feel the magic?” Raelle whispers as she looks back at me again, snapping me out of my own mind, and I nod. The sense of power in the air is so oppressive it makes it difficult to breathe. I think anyone would be able to feel its presence.
As we continue through the labyrinth, the source of where the magic is coming from becomes more and more evident. The tight tunnels open up to corridors of echoing darkness. The walls become illuminated by glittering silver, like walking through the night sky. The stars watching as we enter their realm.
Osiris stops suddenly, his lip curling back with a growl. Raelle slows, and I pull her back into my chest as we slowly approach Osiris, where he has seemingly been halted by an outside force. His hand is outstretched and frozen in place, and sparks of white are steadily zapping his skin as he grunts, pushing forward.
“Step away, prince.” Raelle’s voice is loud in comparison to the deafening silence and snaps Osiris from his mission to advance. He staggers back, rubbing his hands together at the center of his chest. His sneer still in place, but much softer now as he looks down at my queen. She turns in my arms, pressing her hand to my cheek, and my brows dip as she tries to pull away.
“What are you doing? The magic… The barrier—it was hurting him.” I hiss as I pull her back to me.
“Dax, don’t you hear it?” Her eyes widen as she looks around the cavernous space we stand in, and I follow her gaze. I don’t hear anything. Nothing but my own pulse in my ears, thinking about her walking away from me again. I shake my head as I continue to pull her to me, and she resists. “Trust me.” My jaw clenches as I fight my instincts to keep her protected, knowing that I need to trust and support her decisions.
When I finally relent, she reaches up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my lips. My eyes automatically close as I breatheher in and push my fingers into her hair at the base of her skull. When she steps away, I instantly miss her warmth and watch her as she presses her hand to Osiris’s shoulder, offering a silent boost of strength, and then moves to the barrier. As soon as she approaches it, the magic wrinkles like ripples in a mirrored lake when disturbed, but instead of obscuring the image like a lake surface, the door that it was hiding is revealed.
The door itself is crafted of pure onyx stone glistening in the low, star-like light around us. Its surface is smooth other than the jagged center, and the more the foggy magic clears, the more it resembles the scales of a dragon.
“This is it. The chamber.” Osiris tries to step forward again, but a whistling wind snaps through between us and Raelle. My vision is taken from me the moment the wind hits us and Raelle—is gone. We are left with nothing but the sound of my piercing scream as I throw myself at the door that swallowed her whole. Be damned with the consequences. I don't care if the magic attacks me; she cannot be taken from me again.
“RAELLE!” I slam my shoulder into the door, but it doesn’t budge; there is no sound from the other side and no magic barrier keeping us away from it any longer. “FUCK!” I curse as my knuckles are busted and split against the hard stone. Spinning on my heel, I turn my rage on the prince.
“This is your fault!” I bellow, curling my hands in his leathers and pulling him into me so we are facing chest to chest.
