"Then let us fight together to preserve it, but do not bury me like a relic," I plead.
Athanis looks exhausted in this dream, wiping blood that trickles from his nose. "A mere priest such as I cannot stand against a saint so corrupted. This great evil is no longer mortal at all, but an entity—a wicked force we could never have prepared for. I pray my people find a safe future in the land of humans, for only the gods know how this blight will end. But until that day…Kaenon, the survival of this research was Thalo's final wish."
Thalo was the director of the fae laboratory. He fell to the dark conquest of this land along with many others weeks ago. He oversaw my procedures and treated all with great respect.
That fae was much like a father to me.
If my survival was his final wish…
My dream begins to change once more. There is a sudden desperation to it—as if the one influencing my dreams is eager to get to the end. My memories skip forward until my last waking moments replay with frightening realness, forcing me to feel all the horror once more.
"Athanis!" I shout as the priest stumbles toward me.
I lay in the sarcophagus, unable to move from the magic my friend has placed on me. But he did not cast it on me cruelly. This lab is under attack. Unnatural darkness dims this room as the screams and magical incantations of other fae scientists trying to defend their work echo out in the halls. Their precious scrolls and records have been gathered into this room, along with the other two sealed sarcophagi.
I am the last altered one to be hidden away, but I ache to fight instead.
Athanis is terribly injured. His robes conceal the damage, but blood drips, staining his every footstep before he collapses beside my sarcophagus. With a shaking, crimson-stained hand, he withdraws something from the pockets of his robes and places it on my chest.
It is a leather bracelet intertwined with dark metal and symbols. I have seen others like this on fae who mourn their loved ones, who wish to see their spirits again in this plane of existence.
"There." His face coils in pain, but he fights to speak. "Keep this with you so you may behold me on the other side. Do not lose it when you wake."
"Athanis," I growl, struggling against the magic holding me here. "Let me out! We must get you healed and fight this?—"
"It is done, Kaenon. The scientists will drag this laboratory to the depths of this realm with their magic, and you and the others will be preserved. They will do anything to prevent the Entity from reaching this chamber. Your fate will not end here, my friend. Y—you…" He pauses to rasp for breath, smiling slightly down at me through his pain. "I promise, you will thank the gods for the fate they hold in store for you. And Syntyche willing, I shall be there to see it for myself."
I protest again as he fights to draw another labored breath, but there is a terrific detonation somewhere that sends tremors through my very soul just before this room is plunged into darkness. I feel a sudden drop within me, as if this entire lab is falling from a great height.
Screams and chanting still echo in the distance, but Athanis begins casting in the holy tongue. I have only learned a few words of the holy tongue from my friend, so I only understand some of it.
"Wild…thee…warrior mighty…"
He is chanting more divine words I do not know, but I can no longer hear them. I am helpless, falling once again—but this time it is into a deep slumber.
No!I try to scream.
Heavy darkness seals around me like a vice, pulling me into this nothingness.
I know what comes next—the sea of dreams. The endless waiting, perhaps never to be found. I am buried alive, the slumber clouding everything in my mind.
Stop this! Help me! Someone please help?—
My wordless plea cuts off as this unnatural, eternal sleep abruptly splinters, freeing me and the beasts within. The dreams end as the top of my sarcophagus slides away. The heavy magic lifts, my eyes flutter open for the first time in gods know how long, and I finally focus on…
A green sky. Warped air.
Screaming, sounds of bloodshed, and chaos.
There is confusion in this place I have awakened, but then a warm, sweet scent curls around me and?—
Gods of my ancestors.
Gratitude and disbelief halt the breath in my lungs.
This scent belongs to one who is meant to be mine. I recognize it at once as the scent of my mate, drawing me further into this strange world and further from that hellish sea of dreams. Before the fall of my people and before I was sealed away, I ached for the one or ones who would complete me.
That one is here, somewhere.
