“What am I?” I asked, hating how my voice cracked.
“Not what,who,” whispered the dark-haired one, head tilting slowly.
“Whoam I?” I whispered the question.
“Maraveth.” A bone-chilling smile spread across the cracked stone lips of the blonde one.
“The last. The first. The Soul Relics are yours,” the other whispered, layered over the other. The cave spun. My stomach dropped.
“She could be the saviour of realms,” the dark-haired one murmured, voice strangely soft.
“Or the destroyer, if she does not save her Fated Mate,” the other cooed, overlapping and sickly sweet.
Their voices laced like venomous vines, one always curling around the other, never truly separate. My knees buckled. I swayed, sweat dripping down my neck. One of them laughed gleefully. “Maraveth, your fate is a tangled web.”
“That’s not my name,” I whispered, the words shaking. “I’m Lyra Meridian. Daughter of King Vaylor. Princess of the Mortal Kingdom.”
Their laughter crawled across my skin like insects. “You are none of those things, Maraveth.” My nails dug into my palms, deep enough to sting. I understood now what Solasmeant about their riddles. They were not giving me answers.
“The Mortals need to join the Fae. The Hells are rising.Youare Maraveth. But you are also Lyra. Unite the fractured Kingdoms with vows, or all will be lost to the heat of the sun,” hissed the other from behind, leaning in as if to scent me. Her words bled from the empty cave. I spun, but there was no one there. They hadn’t moved from the lava, and yet they wereeverywhere.
“These are not answers!” I cried out. I had come here for information, yet all I had were more questions.
“Listen closely, Maraveth. Time is running out and you are depleted of water,” the blonde taunted. “And our heat makes you weaker,” the other hissed. They joined hands, glowing brighter than before. The heat pressed unbearably against my skin, my mouth as dry as sand.
“Three Relics of fractured soul…”
“…forced by a lover scorned.”
“Scattered to guard… to hide… to stall…”
Their arms rose in unison and fingers tipped in fire. Their heads snapped backwards, their voices rising, screeching.
“One to wield…”
“…One to wear.”
“One that bridges two broken hearts.”
Their eyes burned brighter, and small rocks skittered down from the roof of the cave as the stone beneath my feet trembled.
“Only you can stop the sun, because you broke it.”
A tear traced down my cheek before I could stop it. I didn’t understand, but something in me did.
One laughed, a gleeful shrill that made my ears sting while the other seethed.
My hands were shaking and my mouth turned dry. I couldn’t tell if I was frozen by fear… or by fate itself. Their words echoed long after their voices stopped. A large crack split open in front of me on the ground, molten liquid bubbling up from it as though it were reaching for me. I spun on my heel, running through the shaking cave as debris rained from the roof. I ran from the suffocating heat and into the cold embrace of the Mourning Woods.
The Fire Fates’ laughter haunted me with every step.
Outside the cave’s entrance, coolness enveloped my body like an odd comfort. My steps faltered, and bile rose in my throat. My hands grasped my knees, my stomach tensing. A heave tore up my throat, but nothing came out of my soured stomach. Absently I wiped at the tears trailing down my overheated cheeks as uncertainty threatened to burn me alive.
I took a deep breath to steady myself and almost gagged again as the smell of decay hit the back of my throat. Rot clung heavily to the cold, stagnant air as I glanced around me at the dead trees, covering my mouth and nose with my forearm. I stilled instantly. Creatures from nightmares stalked through the shadows, twisted mockeries of what once might’ve been men. Their black cloaks swayed with each movement as they walked without sparing me a glance. Fear brought me to a sudden stop as one passed through the flickering light of the cave. Bone jutted through torn skin, their flesh sagging in loose folds, rotting and half-melted against splintered ribs. Their eyes glowed with unnatural hunger, blazing like coals in hollow sockets. Some crawled, dragging their mutilated bodies behind them with clawed fingers slick with old blood. Others stalked upright, skeletal frames wrapped in the remains of human skin, their teeth exposed in lipless, eternal grins. In their hands, they carriedswords forged not of steel, but of sharpened bone, stained dark with ancient gore. The air reeked of decay, of death left too long in the sun. And still, they kept coming… a legion of the damned, pulled from the veil’s thinning grip.
A soft whimper left my lips, and I took a small step backwards. A snap broke through the heavy silence, my foot breaking a dry twig.
Unearthly glowing eyes snapped towards me. Jittered noises bounced between them, raking my nerves raw—some warped form of communication I wasn’t meant to understand. They moved towards me, weaving through the dead trees with steady strides.
