Path to Destiny

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I stopped near the fallen pillar in the ruins, waiting, listening. A sudden wind howled through the broken stones like a beast unleashed from its confines. Sand particles skittered across my feet in an eerie golden mist.

I took a hesitant step forward. There was a minuscule tremble in the ground. Small, but big enough to be noticeable.

The ruins felt as though they were alive. Titus said he sensed the shaman's power here.

And that meant magic. I closed my eyes and focused. I spread out my senses, remembering the last time I entered the realm of magic to save Titus's life, back in Eremith when I bound his chains of fate and the unicorn healed him.

The realm immediately came into focus when I thought of Titus, as if an inseparable cord bound us together. I gasped upon opening my eyes.

A strange glittering mist coated the ground. It was colored white and curled around the elven runes sketched into the stone. The mist sank deep into the crevices of the sand. Above, the sun was obscured by a thick, shimmering haze. I couldn't feel heat or wind in this realm. It was a realm void of feeling. I turned in a circle, and everything I saw was coated in this strangeness. I veered off the path abruptly, and the glittering haze trembled, alive with power, seething, reaching for me.

I broke into a run, vaulting pillars and ducking under archways. The white mist could not keep up with my movements. I looked down to see my body glow with a strange blue light -- the same light that appeared whenever Eden materialized.

I wanted to laugh. I was impenetrable. These magical ruins dared to challenge my wit and determination? It was an easy challenge for the ruins, of course, but the ruins underestimated my greater fear of the nocturnal creatures that prowled the Baluan Desert at night. I would not be stuck here at night!

I sailed across the sand, between broken pillars and collapsed archways. I was as light as a feather. Suddenly, I didn't know where I was going or how I would get back to the camels. The world became a blur as everything shot past me. I was nothing. I flew into a vast expanse of nothingness and everything all at once.

Something latched around my wrist. I glanced down to see what looked like a thick red thread encircling my hand and threading around my arm. I scratched at it irritably. What was it doing on my skin?

Abruptly, it yanked me down faster than I could take a breath. I didn't have time to scream as worlds rushed past me. And all at once, it stopped and the world ripped open like the break of dawn.

I was falling from the ceiling of a vast cave filled with stalactites. Wind rushed around me as I plummeted toward a crystal floor.

I stopped inches from the floor. Gently, my body lowered to the cold ground. I immediately rushed to stand up, but all I could do was roll over on my back. Even my head was motionless, and my eyes were uncoordinated.

What in Aria's name just happened?

"You took quite the journey."

My head lolled to the side as I tried to face the speaker. The room blurred before me. A sparkling rock towered to my right, while an expanse of flat crystal sat on my left. Where was this voice coming from?

"Whaerhaeraerhaea," I said. Then I groaned. My mouth was incapable of speech. It felt as though all the energy had been sucked out of my muscles.

I saw the edges of a sand-colored robe flutter near me. I couldn't look up. All I could see were sandals beneath the garment. I still could not move my head.