I took a deep breath, letting the anxiety go. I’d been lucky enough to be surrounded by people that believed in me, enough for me to learn to believe in myself. I wouldn’t forget that now.
The primordial evil might be big bad and ancient, but so was I, and it was time to remember the woman I used to be.
It was time to become her again.
Chapter 2
RETURN OF THE LOSER
Once I’d given Kalani and the brothers the name of the mountain range where the camp was based and assured them that we would be safe there for a while, the journey passed in silence, an unspoken agreement to wait until we landed to swap tales.
There was too much time to think, to consider all the ways I could fail now. Evil sat on the throne. It had its claws in every Asura in the sky world, and I had no idea how far his influence could spread.
Could he control the Asura stationed on land? Could he control the pari, the rakshasa? Chandra had been unaffected, despite being Asura, and Kalani and the stone-faced brothers were untouched.
But would it stay that way? Could I trust them?
Would he corrupt me too?
Although I hoped my companions might have answers, I doubted that they would. This force, this ancient evil, predated everything and everyone. If I wanted to learn more about it, I’d need to find someone just as ancient to tell me its story.
All I knew was what Chandra had recounted, that it couldn’t be killed, only contained. That there was a dagger that, when plunged into the heart of the vessel, would trap the force within it. A dagger that needed to be wielded by someone with strong Deva blood.
Me.
I’d been prepared to do it, to stab Araz in the heart, when I’d believed he was gone. When I’d been certain that his soul had been incinerated. But now I knew different. He was still there. Trapped in his body.
I had to find a way to get him out. To save him.
There must be a method that could free him from the clutches of evil. If I could call back the Deva, then surely they’d have an answer.
Yes, that would be the plan. To find a way back into the sky world and activate the obelisk. The one that could summon back the old gods. My heart sank a moment later as I recalled where I’d come by the knowledge about the obelisk. The primordial evil had spun the tale, using it to get me on board with his plan to storm the sky world. What if he’d lied? What if there was no obelisk?
By the time the Ustara Mountains came into view, the sky was tinged gray. The journey had taken significantly longer when not by thunderbird.
“How do we get in?” Kalani asked, snapping me out of my thoughts and into sharp focus.
I’d looked down on this range mere hours ago, but now, in the gray light of dawn, everything felt off. It took a moment to acclimatize and realize that we were approaching from a different angle than when I’d left.
“It’s to the right. Follow that valley and you’ll see a hole in the mountain, like a cavern.”
Kalani took the lead, and the brothers followed. I clung to her, peering around her shoulder at the winding valley below the jagged mountains. This area was a desolate wasteland of spindly brush. Lifeless and unforgiving. No wonder no one had thought to look too closely for the camp, not that they would have found it while an ancient elemental ward kept it hidden.
But I’d shattered that ward in order to escape and go after the primordial evil, and now that I’d failed to stop him from claiming the throne, all the people in the camp were in danger.
What if he came back to finish what he started?
Gods, my mind was filled with questions with no clear answers. I hated that.
The cavern came into view below. A few hours ago, the dark aperture had been filled with rainbow light created by ancestral djinn energy spilling from four crystal pillars to converge in an orb that held the soul of King Raknara. My father in a past life.
I’d been named Vayelle then. A princess. A warrior.
I needed to tap into that part of me now more than ever.
Kalani took us down into the cavern, landing smoothly to one side of the softly glowing crystals.
They still contained the souls of kings long dead. Beings who had walked beside Iblees in his last incarnation as Ilyarien.
