Airel: The Discovering (Airel Saga Book Two)

Chapter VIII

STAN STOOD HUNCHED OVER, his lips wet with blackness, a smirk on his bruised face. I could see the glowing red stone dangling around his neck.

“You are an abomination, a curse…”

“…and I am here to carry out my orders.”

His voice had a chilling duality. His bloodshot eyes twitched back and forth like those of a whipped dog.

Kreios. I searched for him frantically.

Kim struggled to her feet and scrambled to my side. “You must have a death wish, you creepy little man.” She was trying to look tough. “Airel will tear you apart.”

I elbowed her in the ribs and muttered under my breath.

I swept her behind me with my arm and instinctively crouched into my fighting stance. She doesn’t know what she’s saying and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Kreios had told me to run if I ever met Stan alone. I figured the Seer was with him; that was why he had two distinct voices. My spine tingled as my body poured adrenaline into my fear.

“Come here, girl.” Stan’s eyes glowed red even in broad daylight, his pupils cat-like and piercing. He held a length of heavy chain in his hand.

“You really think I’m just going to go with you?” I could hear Kreios coming. I stepped forward to try to fend the villain off, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“You’re crazy,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to signify my courage. I could feel everything; every beat of my heart, every fiber of nerve and muscle in my body. I was a crouched panther ready to unleash raw fury—and deep within me, I could feel She gathering up all the frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and crushing powerlessness I had felt ever since I had begun my change, distilling it into hate for the evil one that dared to stand before me. I wanted to kill for the first time in my life, and what’s more, I was ready to do it—couldn’t wait to begin.

When Kreios landed, it was a seismic event. There was maybe twenty feet of open space between me and my attacker, and Kreios landed right in the middle of it, cracking the earth deeply, making the boulders shudder. The swirl of light that danced around him looked like angel wings, but the light moved around his body as if it was protecting him. His jaw clenched.

He held no weapon in his hand. He was clothed still in the same simple white robe he had worn for my training. “This time, brother, you will bow… or I will take more than your wing.”

The Seer laughed maniacally, extricating himself out of Stan as if his body was a used container, kicking him aside when he was through, sending the heavy chain he had been brandishing into the grass. Kreios lunged in attack, and the thing backhanded him in one movement. Kreios flipped over, righted himself, and hovered in the air.

“Airel. You must take Stan; it is the only way.” He looked at me, and in his eyes was strength and trust. You must walk through the door, child. Walk through it and take that which awaits you there. It is your destiny.

This is getting real. And it was getting hard to believe.

Time stood still in that moment of my existence. My eyes wide open, there appeared before me, somewhere or somehow between the real and the supernatural, a door. This was the door from the stories in the Book. It was made of a single piece of wood and stood apart from everything. There was no handle, no hinges. I looked at Kim; she was frozen and didn’t seem to be able to see me. The trees were stuck, motionless. I reached my hand out to the door, and as I did, it opened to me.

I could only believe one thing as it swung open and revealed what was on the other side: this was the Sword of Light; the Sword of my grandfather, an angel of El, who had once lived in paradise, heaven, in the company of God Himself.