Forged In Fire (Witch World Series Book 2), page 23
Her clothes were dirty and singed, her long hair—a mess. And yet, he’d never seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life. If not for the rock smashing nearby and waking him out of his stupor, he could have easily stood there for hours, just watching her.
Ciaran jumped onto the bridge.
The moment his feet touched the wooden plank, the air darkened and buzzed, breaking into myriad miniscule particles. It gathered around him like a swarm of annoyed bees, forming a circle that adjusted to his pace without touching a single hair on his head. The mass churned, screeched, and moved like a tornado, with him caught in the eye of it.
Desiree wasn’t as lucky.
The black particles stuck to her wings like wet ashes on the skin. And it wasn’t long before feathers began raining down on him.
“Faster,” he yelled, bursting into a run.
Desiree kept up with him easily, but she was still under attack, her body straining and arching unnaturally. The feathers kept falling, and at times, in between the sound of his boots pounding, he could swear he heard her whimper.
“Land!” he shouted, trying his best to be heard through the noise. It was accumulating. Growing. The farther they went, the louder the screeching got.
“Can’t … might be compelled to fall … and not spread my wings.” Her voice was barely audible.
For the next countless miles nothing changed, except that his muscles were being pushed beyond their rational limits as he sprinted, his body threatening to dissolve into a puddle of limbs. By the time he noticed the end of the bridge, Desiree had shed a ton of feathers, and the possibility of them plummeting straight to the bottom as fast as a rock was becoming almost inevitable.
“If you can’t hold me, let me go!” he yelled. He didn’t want to take her down with him. Both of them didn’t have to die today.
But instead of agreeing with him, she yelled back, “Stretch your hands out to the sides!”
Ciaran smiled at her stubbornness and did as she asked. Maybe they would make it. Maybe his last steps didn’t have to be his last ones. He stretched out his hands, and when his feet found the last inch of the plank, he jumped.
*
The moment Desiree saw Ciaran go over the edge, she dived after him. She wrapped her arms around his chest, and spread her wings in the hopes of halting the descent. But the force of Ciaran’s fall proved too strong for her to withstand. Her hands slipped from around his body.
She tried again, feeling the ground speeding towards them, though there was nothing but blackness around. The adrenaline raced through her veins, and the second time she caught him, she locked her arms in a vice grip.
She spread her wings again, felt the sudden lurch, but this time she managed to hold on to him. She bit her lip, and flapped her wings, finally able to push upwards. Still, it was a struggle. Her breaths came in short, labored huffs. Tremors raked her body, but she kept looking forward, telling herself she was strong enough to fly him right across Zcuran. The Vortex of Shyau was nothing.
The distance would have been nothing, but the Vortex was not. It lived and breathed in the form of thousands of souls that had been eaten away until there was nothing conscious left. Until the victims became the killers.
The deadly particles swirled, hungry for a taste of what had been taken from them, and Desiree was afraid that her strength alone would not be enough against the sheer numbers of them. For when they attacked, they did it with unwavering determination, fusing together into a shifting, live fabric that covered her wings like resin.
It wasn’t just feathers that fell. It was blood. Hers. His. Her nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin as her hands trembled from the tension. She dived again, in order to evade more of the flesh eaters—but of course, they chased her.
With every meter traveled their trajectory became more erratic, going up and down until she could no longer control it. What started as evasive maneuvers ended in her frantic efforts just to keep them in the air. It felt like she was dragging him through the canyon, not carrying him.
She had no idea how she managed to find the strength, but she flew until the other edge was almost within their reach. Then, a dark cloud of particles formed a wall before them—the swirling mass calm and harmless for the breath of a moment.
“Get ready,” Desiree warned, before plunging through it.
A ferocious storm descended upon them, eating away what was left of her wings. Their huge, now almost naked frame was not enough to keep them in the air much longer.
She felt Ciaran shift, pulling at the rope around his chest, but she paid little heed to that. She held her breath, and pushed on, determined not to fail in the last few meters. They were so close…
But suddenly, one of her wings snapped, and gravity won the battle.
“I…” She spasmed violently as the pain surged through her.
Clumsily, Ciaran spun the rope. Desiree saw the release and followed with her eyes as the grappling hook soared through the air and disappeared over the edge. Next thing she knew, the rope tensed as the metal claws sank into the rock. The rope slid through his hands, searing his palms, but he managed to squeeze tighter, until they were caught mid-air. Their bodies jerked, and swung, hurtling straight for the rocks.
She held on to his back with her hands wrapped around him like ivy as they bounced off the wall of the cliff a couple of times, his legs taking the brunt of the impact. And as soon as they settled—now dangling some hundred feet below the surface—Ciaran began climbing.
The feat seemed doable. At least until thousands of tiny particles attached themselves to the rope, and the threads started snapping, unravelling.
She could feel his muscles straining as he tried to hasten their ascent, but the looming certainty was impossible to ignore. They were not going to make it.
“Grab the rope,” he told her without taking his eyes off the frizzled strings that were sure to snap at any moment.
His tone made her forget the rope, and look at him.
“Ciaran!?” she croaked, not recognizing her own voice.
She realized he knew the particles were after him, not her. The only reason why she’d been attacked was because they saw her as his escape. But now—with her wing broken—she was useless.
The chilling sensation she felt spread all over her body. “Whatever it is you’re thinking … don’t.”
“Now!” he yelled instead.
“Don’t you dare!” She shook her head, refusing to obey. The rope might hold her till she reached the top, if the particles went after him, as she knew they would; but the scenario was unacceptable to her. “We’ll find a way.”
“I know,” he assured her as he grabbed her hand, and placed it on the rope. It jerked again as another thread snapped, and her fingers curled around it out of reflex.
“I’ll find a way up. I promise.” He planted a kiss on her neck.
“No!” she yelled, trying to grab onto him again, but it was already too late. He let go.
Chapter 26
The falling wasn’t so bad. It was the landing that sucked, Ciaran thought as his back broke with the impact. The upside—at least he didn’t feel a thing. The downside—he couldn’t even try to defend himself from those small things that latched onto him like mosquitoes on a sweating horse.
The buzzing noise in the complete darkness was driving him insane, yet he couldn’t do a thing but lie on the rocks waiting for pain to return. He would have laughed at the irony if he was capable of it.
A part of him had always known he would end up in some pit because of her. He just never imagined he would jump into it himself. And not regret it. Not if she was safe.
Just you wait… he told himself, mostly because he was powerless to do anything else. He had no wish to speculate on how much damage the particles were inflicting on him, and whether he would ever wake up from being completely paralyzed. As tortures went, it was not the worst one to endure.
Suddenly, the numbness vanished as if it were a dream he wasn’t even sure had happened; and the pain roared, sinking its talons into him. He would have fallen to the ground twisting and shaking from the agony, had he not been flat on the ground already. And to think he’d waited for this…
The world phased in and out of focus, but his consciousness never left him. The viciousness of the sensations sliced through him, squeezing every last thought from his mind. He acted on instinct—he crawled until he found the cliff, and putting his back to it, tried to brush off as many of those flesh eaters as possible. His fingers came up wet, with his blood.
He fought and fought, but it seemed like a lost battle, at least until the injuries sustained in the fall healed, and his mind cleared a bit. He needed to start climbing—maybe then…
He stretched out his hand in an attempt to find a ledge and push himself up, but when he finally managed to grope one, his fingers slipped. Ciaran was unable to draw his body up. The ledge was too small, and he was too weak.
Ciaran took the daggers out, figuring it might be easier if he used them like pickaxes, but the moment he unsheathed them, the buzzing noise turned into a high-pitched screech. It almost seemed like the sound was ripe with pain.
Confusion settled over him, and only strengthened when the pain, lancing his very soul, lessened. He took a deep breath in, knowing this would hurt, and powered up Dragonspirit. He didn’t have energy to spare, but he had to know what was going on. The unknown was killing him.
A faint light appeared on the symbols of the blade. It fluctuated, but was enough for him to see into the dark; enough for him to understand—those particles had to be souls, and they were afraid of Naxus.
Just to make sure, Ciaran swiped the dagger through the air, and witnessed the particles scattering in all directions, as far away from the weapon as possible. Those that were touched were sucked into the blade.
Ciaran exhaled with relief, and swiped the dagger a few more times, until not a single one of those things remained on his body. Finally, he scrambled to his feet, and after taking a few more moments to gather his strength, began climbing.
*
Desiree would have continued screaming, had she found her voice—but all she could do was stare at the blackness below, as she dangled on a shoestring’s width of the rope. Her eyes still saw the image of Ciaran falling. It etched itself into her brain. And yet, it didn’t feel real.
She had the hardest time swallowing. It felt like her heart had plummeted into the abyss—her own physical pain forgotten. And still, it didn’t feel real.
She couldn’t believe he’d done that. She couldn’t comprehend what had possessed him.
She shouldn’t have grabbed the rope. She should have… The stinging behind her eyes returned… She hated the feeling.
She hated this impotence. Hated her stupid wings. Mostly, she just hated, because it meant she could be angry. With him. With herself. With this whole situation. She was more comfortable with anger than with the feeling that was flooding her senses.
Logically, she knew that the fall couldn’t kill him. Well, not for long, anyway. But logic and emotions rarely coincided. She was at a loss as to what to do—her broken wing useless, her powers yet to return.
The gates that kept her powers locked had been ripped wide open when Zared’s men tried to get inside her head, but she could not consciously access them yet. It would take days.
The rope was not long enough for her to reach him, nor was it sturdy enough to hold her much longer.
For a moment Desiree considered letting go, but even her anxiety-addled brain knew it to be a colossal mistake. She would be injured ten times worse, unable to heal while under constant attack from those damned particles. She needed wings to descend. She needed them whole, and she needed them now! Yet it took an eternity for the bone to start knitting together.
Too long! She gritted her teeth in exasperation. The Fields of Paar were their only hope—a place devoid of torture, a place where she should be restored faster. She looped her legs around the rope, and started climbing. The effort she had to put into employing her exhausted muscles succeeded in keeping her emotions at bay. For a second or two.
The moment her fingers sank into the sand, her muscles quaking from tension, she realized that even if the bone-frame of her wing had healed, the feathers were not about to reappear miraculously. It would take days for them to regrow. Days … for her to be able to keep herself up in the air. And with the added weight…
Desiree tucked her wings in, struggling to contain the scream of frustration building up in her chest. She tried to remind herself to breathe, as she was suffocating. Heat rose in her, and she was half-amazed nothing was burning. Nothing—except nausea at the thought of Ciaran’s soul being torn apart.
She had to find a way to get down.
Desiree clambered to her feet, desperately trying to find something—anything—she could use. All she noticed was a small pond and a forest, a sky full of fireflies illuminating the area, but not a damned thing that would make a difference.
The air was saturated with such tranquility, she had an urge to blow something up. And the culprit wasn’t even anger. Anger was nowhere to be found. It was fear. It ceased to be a liquid mass flooding her senses. It transformed and settled like lump of lead in the pit of her stomach.
Once again she had to remind herself to breathe. Crippled, she was no good to anyone.
She brushed her hair out of her face and went through every single object she could see one more time, in the end deciding to venture into the forest. If she remembered correctly, there should be one of the Paar’s oaks nearby.
Often used as a last resort, due to its heavy price, the tree’s roots could transform into almost anything one demanded. It was a powerful tool she could use to help her descend.
Desiree never imagined she would be willing to pay a price as high as her powers or memories for anyone other than V, but the image that was stuck in her head of Ciaran in agonizing pain—closer by the second to losing everything that made him him—had her tearing down the path.
“Leaving without me?” The low, raspy voice made her jump and skid to a halt. The words sounded rough around the edges, yet the tone was so painfully familiar, she could never have mistaken it for anyone else’s.
Desiree swiveled, and her gaze landed on a tall figure. All covered in wounds—the first skin layer almost non-existent—he stood holding daggers in both hands. His chest heaved with hard, fitful breaths, and in response, hers constricted.
“H-how?” she stuttered, yet to awaken from an utter state of shock. She felt numb. All the emotions that had plagued her evaporated in a flash. No one had made it out of the Vortex of Shyau before. It spat out the pieces only when it was done gnawing.
“Naxus…” He opened his mouth, but she didn’t let him finish. Desiree ran, all but knocking him to the ground, every fiber of hers demanding proof he was real, tangible, not a figment of her imagination.
Without thinking, she threw her arms around him, and felt his muscles tense. Ciaran didn’t utter a sound, but she knew. She felt it under her fingertips. The knowledge drove a knife straight through her heart, making her stumble backward.
Instead of using the space she offered, Ciaran dropped the daggers and pulled her in, right against his chest. She closed her eyes, giving in to the sensation, and for a second, one tiny second, she let herself be ruled by the strong heartbeat she felt under her palm. It became her own. Erratic. Deafening. Consuming. Her body wasn’t even hers anymore. It knew nothing except the man she clung on to.
Gently, he laid his forehead against hers, and let out a shuddering breath. The shaky sound ricocheted through her bones a million times louder, clearing the haze. Desiree blinked, and just as fast she was dragged back into the maelstrom of unbridled emotions.
With Ciaran here, alive, she told herself she was done with fear. Anger, on the other hand, wasn’t done with her. It latched onto her with the teeth of the hellhound.
“What on earth were you thinking?” The words whooshed in a violent surge, her head snapping back. “You’re lucky I don’t have my powers yet, or I would set some serious fire under your ass.”
“So I gather you missed me?” he smirked, ignoring her outburst completely.
“Ciaran!” Desiree gritted her teeth, not knowing what to do with her hands. They craved to shake him and caress him in equal measures. Which only added to the state she was in.
“I was trying to pro—”
“To protect me!?” she exclaimed incredulously, her voice rising higher with every syllable. “Those things are deadly to you. Not me!”
She couldn’t help it—she jammed her finger into his healing chest, determined to drive the point home. “I’m the immortal here, not the other way round!”
Her statement was met with a long, heavy silence that descended over them like a shroud. The bemusement flickering in his dark chocolate eyes drained, his body went stone-still, and a hard mask replaced his features. The silence was broken only by Ciaran’s sharp breath, which he released painstakingly slowly, as if striving to find his inner calm.
“Thank you for reminding me,” he pushed through his locked jaw. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Ciaran didn’t wait for her response. He turned and walked away, leaving Desiree in another state of perplexed shock. She didn’t know what to feel anymore. Her emotions were so conflicted, it felt like her nerve endings had fried. She stood on the edge of the cliff, wondering what had just transpired, or why she felt the need to apologize, of all things.
The answer was slow in coming. Piece by piece, like small drops of water—harmless and unnoticeable at first, but with the power to dissolve a rock eventually—it hit her.
The particles buzzed below her feet—the noise increasing the longer she lingered. It seemed like a distant whisper compared to the voices inside her head. Desiree closed her eyes, not wishing to look into the abyss anymore, even though she’d been staring into one for as long as she could remember. Closing her eyes, however, didn’t render her blind.
