Path to Destiny

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

I had only seen Ashad in memories of darkness and bloodshed. It was just past Tekin and bordered the northern Arian mountains, yet I had heard of it only in the oldest fables. No map I'd seen had marked Ashad as a country. Nothing went beyond the dangerous mountain range that made up Aria's northern border. It was as if the Elementals scourged Ashad's existence from Etheia's history.

As the laikana swerved in the sky, using both her wings and her body to flit through the air like a long, lithe snake, I stared at the ground beneath us. Mountainous rocks rose into the sky like spears, a warning against whatever trespasser dared to travel on foot.

I touched my head to the laikana's scales and closed my eyes. She showed me images of a flood of inky darkness slinking over a meadow of purple flowers. This image was the land Mikkel destroyed: Ashad. And this was also where the Elementals battled him.

And where I killed my people.

Eden's voice rose from the depths of my mind. Ever since the laikana emerged from the tree, Eden had said nothing. And now she finally admitted the truth. He turned the whole country into shadow soldiers, didn't he? I whispered to her in realization.

Without my knowledge, he turned Ashad against itself through changing one person at a time. Civil war broke out in the villages. The king and his beloved son turned on each other, like Jada. They were possessed, enveloped in rage against the other until they became mere shadows. Eden sighed. And now you see the result.

I looked over the laikana's feathery scales to see the spiked rock give way to blackened land stretching far into the distant mountains of Aria; equally far behind us, the snow-capped mountain holding Mestol loomed like a grave sentinel.

The land beneath the laikana was so burned with fire—or darkness—that nothing moved beneath us. The afternoon sun clouded over, sending a shadow across the already darkened land.

Does he still reside where your mate sealed him? Eden addressed the laikana.

White mist blew from her nostrils: It was an angry agreement. She could sense Mikkel there, in a dark valley...beyond. The laikana's way of measuring distance was confusing, but she knew he was deep.

Set us down in front of the Rift, then, Eden commanded in a clipped tone. I sensed an undercurrent of apprehension in her words.

The laikana swooped toward the ground. The force of the wind blurred my eyes as she tilted upward, stopping before she hit the ground. She snaked close along the burned land, using the momentum of her dive to speed us forward. There was nothing except for black as far as the eye could see.

The feeling of dread overwhelmed me suddenly, abruptly, powerfully. The laikana swerved to the right, avoiding passing over a sheer drop-off. I gasped as she flew along a valley deeper than anything I'd ever seen. The craggy split in the earth stretched endlessly in two directions. Through the laikana, one name formed in my mind to describe this horrifying crevice: the Great Rift.

The laikana settled down in front of the valley, and I hesitated. The silence was deafening. No living thing—no crow, vulture, or dragon—breathed in this desolation.

What were we supposed to do now?

Get off the laikana, Lannie, Eden instructed.

"Um," I said, "no."

Abruptly, Eden materialized directly in the air beside me, grabbed my arm, and yanked me off the beast. I cried out sharply, but she caught me and set me on the ground.

"What are we supposed to do?" I cried, feeling the death seeping through my feet even as I stood on the ground. "I don't..." I felt the words die in my throat. I didn't feel the fear so much as see it in my legs: They shook so violently I could barely stand.

"I don't know how to save him," I got out.

"We must try." Eden sighed, and I noted her patience was likely thinning. She did not reply. She merely stepped forward to peer down into the valley. She stood at the base of the craggy edge and knelt to the ground. Her hand scooped a pile of black dirt that sifted through her fingers. She watched it fade away into the wind like immortal black sand.

"Hello, Eden," a dull, monotonous voice whispered.

The cry of horror was in my throat when I whirled to face the speaker, but it never came because two tendrils of darkness wrapped around my neck.

My feet left the ground, and all I could see was the bitter swathe of clouded sky above me. Eden's violent cry of shock was cut short by the ringing in my ears. The world was going dark, and my senses were dimming. Dread overcame me—it filled me, consumed me, sinking into my skin like fire licking across my arms, slow and agonizing.

The darkness was devouring me.

"Mikkel," Eden's voice thrummed through the air and into my mind. It was clear, commanding, and powerful. But I knew her better than anyone, and I heard the slight tremble in her words, the facade she put up. "Let her go, Mikkel."

The tendrils around my throat tightened and snaked over my arms. I took a shallow, choking breath. The clouded sky above me spotted with black and gold and green as tendrils of darkness weaved around me like spider legs.

I wasn't choking, yet I was. I was suffocating from the inside out, as if my lungs were over capacity, filled with air I couldn't breathe, air I couldn't feel. Every breath I did take was tampered with a heavy dread; it was like breathing in smoke, knowing it was killing you, knowing it was the only thing keeping you alive.

Eden said something I couldn't hear; she was getting desperate. Where was the laikana? I felt her presence—frightened and angry—but it was obscured by the growing darkness around me. I couldn't escape it; the darkness had frozen me in place.

"I will take everything from you," a deep, rumbling voice said behind me. The words of Therin echoed in my head once more. I will take everything from you, Eden. He'd said this in a voice that was not his own. All this time I thought that had been Therin. But no. It had been Mikkel, the Shadow controlling Therin.

Mikkel, sickened from Eden's betrayal and stricken with jealousy over her. He never knew how to express his emotions, and when it came to telling Eden the truth—that he loved her—he had waited too long. That cursed Zephyr stole her from him. From me.

I felt the thoughts enter me without warning. They came like a flood, infusing my bones like the darkness.

For the first time in my life, I heard Eden scream. It was a ragged, brutal thing full of emotion and rage.

But my ears stopped hearing and my eyes stopped seeing, and all I could feel was darkness.

***

A/N: Let me know what you think of the chapter in the comments below!

Thank you for bearing with me on the late updates. I just got married, so it's been super busy. (Follow me on Insta at abbyjewettwrites for pics eventually!)

Look out for a chapter next week!