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“What is he?”I demanded.
“A powerful being from another realm, and an atrocity in this one. He does not belong here.”
“And you couldn’t have warned me about him? You couldn’t have said anything at all?”
“I could not before. Now that you know of his existence, it is not considered interfering if I discuss him now.”
I lifted my head slightly to urge him to continue.
“We do not know where he comes from or how he came to be here, but he did not get here on his own. And the darkness he possesses is a foul magic, one of corruption. It is unnatural to this realm and is disrupting the balance. What your kind calls the Glaev.”He lowered his head beside me.
“And that’s why it…”I didn’t want to say it. I had never heard of a Spirit guardian dying while their Worthy was alive.“Where did you take him?”
“I left what remains of him in Hylithria, where his soul will rest.”
“What is Odarum’s magic? It seemed to be the only thing that affected Daegel. And I think Kya has it too.”Seeing her manifest her gifts from Odarum filled me with pride, even though it came too late to save the Spirit.
“It is Waalu, energy. Pure energy.”
Deres’s words came to mind,“magic is energy”. If Kya possessed energy and Daegel possessed dark magic then—
“I have to get back.”But first, I needed to find the book in the rubble. Assuming it survived.
I shifted my wings and flew over the palace to the other side to one of the terbis wielders helping to clear the rubble.
“Warrior Zeá.” I dipped my head in greeting.
Her head bowed. “Lord Ryker. I’m sorry about the palace. But don’t worry, we’ll get it fixed up in no time—”
I lifted my hand. “My only concern is that everyone is safe. It’s just stone. And my home is with the people, not the palace.” She smiled at that. “However, I do require your help.”
“Of course. Anything.” Zeá straightened, her brown eyes bright and eager.
“I need help in finding a book. One in particular. It would have been in the library and where we’re standing is about where it would have been. I’ll need you to move the stone out of the way so that I may find it.” It was going to be a long and hard task, trying to dig out a single book, buried within the remains of an entire library.
“Lord Ryker,” Zeá shouted.
She had been moving the broken stone of the palace out of the way for hours in the dark, creating a hole down to where the library would have been, without complaining about the cold despite the harsh wind and snow building up. I had kept a fire going near her, but with her getting closer and closer to the books, she insisted I put out the flames in fear that I would burn the parchment.
I crawled my way back up the pile of rubble where I had been moving what pieces I could and placing items that could be reused on the ground below.
“What is it?” I asked when I approached.
Zeá was crouched down in a hole of her own making. She stepped aside to reveal that she was standing on a pile of books. We continued to move the stone away. Other warriors tried to help, but I insisted, and ultimately had to order, that they attend to the citizens and do what they could to help.
Finally, after pulling up hundreds of books, Zeá pulled out the dark book and handed it up to me. I thanked her before heading back to the cave with the book tucked under my arm as well as a couple of others that we had pulled from the pile. The wind and snow obscured my vision, but I had flown that way so many times that I could practically do it with my eyes closed.
Mavris had fallen asleep and was resting in a chair that he had pulled up to the side of the bed. Kya looked as if she hadn’t moved, and I was grateful that she was still sleeping while her body healed but I had hoped that she would be awake when I returned. I desperately wanted to hear the sound of her voice, her laugh, to see her smile, needing to replace the last sounds of her screams of agony and pain. After waking Mavris and escorting him to another alcove to sleep, I returned to the bed and fell asleep with my mate safely tucked against me.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Kya
Everywhere hurt when I woke up in Ryker’s arms. My head, my muscles, my veins, and my heart. For a blissful moment, when I first opened my eyes, I didn’t remember the day before. I didn’t remember seeing the bodies being consumed. I didn’t remember Odarum dying to protect me. I didn’t remember being struck with my own poison-tipped arrow. I didn’t remember wishing I would die rather than endure the pain to live. In that fleeting moment, it was just me and my mate, warm in bed. Until it all came crashing back down on me, and I felt like I was drowning under the weight of it all.
And I could feel everything, more than I had ever before. I could sense everything around me in a new way. I could sense the flow of the river through the mountain, the heat of the walls around me, the power of the storm outside. It was almost overwhelming.
I needed some air so I slowly slid out from Rykers embrace, careful not to wake him, and headed for the mouth of the cave. I walked through the chamber and into the tunnel, the padding of my bare feet echoed off the walls and the air felt cooler the closer I got to the cave opening. Snow piled on the ledge of the cave mouth and even in the darkness of the storm I could stillsee flurries of snow drifting past through the mountains where I had learned to fly. Where Odarum had taught me.
