Page 121 of Wraithwound

Chapter

Sixty-Eight

Black and white flames exploded inside the cave, melding into silver. Lena was instantly blinded by the flash of light. The creature shrieked and thrashed as the silver flames licked up its back. Before she could register what had happened, she was thrown across the cave as the creature slammed into her. Lena scrambled to stand, still gripping the dagger in her hand. But by the time her vision adjusted, it was gone. She searched the cave wondering if it had fled when a stinger descended from above. Time slowed as she watched the needle-like appendage lower before her, aimed for her stomach.

“Enough.”

The voice that slithered through her mind was not her own.

Her world erupted in a cloud of glitter black, and Lena was thrown for a second time, slamming into a wall of her own making. A wall in her mind. Once again, Lena found herself trapped in her own consciousness, having been relieved of control over her own body.

Lena felt her body shift. She stood taller, her shoulders back and chin lifted. Lena’s nails extended, veins crept up her neck, and her field of vision widened. The details in the cave became painfully clear.

Runa located the creature and stalked toward it, easily avoiding strikes from its stinger and pincers. Something like ancient rage pulsed beneath the calm and precision that fueled her movements. She blasted the creature with a dark force akin to wind or shadows. The monster crawled up the wall, barely dodging the other blasts she sent after it.

Lena could feel the pleasure Runa derived from toying with it, knowing that she could end the creature at any point. It sprang at her from the ceiling of the cave, but Runa had already anticipated its attack. She tilted her head, taking in the pincers before she used the dagger in Lena’s hand to slice them off with movements so quick she would have missed them had it not been her own body delivering the strikes.

Sinking into a crouch, Runa pulled her arm back and flung the dagger straight into creature’s head, the blade embedding itself dead center. Still, the creature attacked, jabbing its stinger toward her. Runa sent a blade of shadow that cut the stinger from its abdomen. Green blood poured from the wound, and it whirled around frantically, shrieking as it did. Runa held up a hand and clenched her fist. The animal shrieked louder, as a hole slowly appeared in its abdomen and its flesh began to melt.

When it was done, Lena stood frozen inside herself. Runa inspected the rest of the cave before turning her gaze to Cross. It was then that Lena noticed the black aura that had formed around his prone form.

No.

Runa’s apathy rippled through her and yet she walked toward Cross and knelt in front of him. She sniffed his neck, apathy turning to curiosity and then something like vague familiarity. Then, she stood and strode towards the exit of the cave.

“No. Wait. No! You can’t leave him like that! You have to help him. We have to help him!” Lena shouted.

Runa stood at the ledge and peered upward. A glittering black cloud materialized around her. No. Not a cloud. Lena could see in her periphery that they were wings. One mighty flap, and they were soaring upwards towards the edge of the cliff above.

No. No. No.

“What are you doing? Go back! We have to go back!”

“I will admit I was curious how you would manage with the warrior’s absence,” Runa answered. “But I’ve wasted enough time watching you fumble about. Sleep, human. Your time is done.”

“No, you can’t just leave him like that!” Lena screamed.

“He’ll be dead soon enough. There are matters of greater importance than the life of one human,” Runa said.

Lena couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t think. Numbness began to spread in her chest, threatening to pull her under. But this time she decided she wouldn’t go. It was the way Runa had dismissed him, his suffering, his life. So reminiscent of the way she had dismissed others in her own life. Their concern for her, their interest in her well-being, and their own suffering.

“NO,” Lena roared, and her legs obeyed. It was only for a moment. She felt the stab of worry and then the vague sense of amusement that coursed through Runa before she pushed through Lena’s resistance and continued.

But it was enough.

Lena ran through every detail she could remember from waking up with a wraithwound and what followed, about her behaviors when she lost control, Henry’s interventions, and finally the one thing Henry had advised her to do.

“Look to the eleuth.” Wyn. Lena thought of the furry creature that risked its life to defend her, to warn her, to be at her side. Lena thought of how she seemed to understand more than a wild animal might. The connection to her family, her grandfather, and how that came to be.

Love. Lena thought of the love the animal showed her and the love she showed it. She focused on that . . . but, no, no, that wasn’t the answer. That wasn’t the direction Henry was guiding her in.

She racked her brain for smaller details, but what about them? What about the eleuth? Beyond its connection to Lena and her family, beyond their history, it was a wild animal.

All the while Runa stalked by the stone pillars, headed northwest, in the direction that would put her on a path to head up the mountain. Runa had every intention of clearing this realm . . . and then what?

“Where are you going?” Lena asked. Runa tilted her head, considering, she realized. “Answer me! I’m not going to sleep; I will not go willingly. I will continue to rage at you until you answer me!”

Runa snorted. “Our worlds are colliding. Have you not inferred that from all you’ve seen? Until I arrived here, we did not know why. How? It must be corrected.”