And that was the last thing she heard before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and all turned black.
Thirty-Five
“She’s going to be all right.”
“I know she’s going to be all right. I’m the one who told you that after I shoved enough laendra down her throat and over her stomach to last her a lifetime’s worth of stab wounds.”
“I didn’t need you to tell me—I can feel it. It’s slow, but she’s healing.”
“I can feel it too, draekon. More than you, I’d wager, since I doubt you’ve just experienced the phantom skewering of your small intestine. For the record, it’s not as pleasant as it sounds.”
“That doesn’t sound pleasant at all.”
“You’re a quick one, Xira.”
Alex groaned at the buzzing voices, wanting them to disappear so she could stay asleep, preferably forever.
“Aeylia? Can you hear me? Kitten, I need you to open your eyes.”
A gentle hand patted her cheek, lightly tapping against her skin. She wrinkled her nose at it, wanting it to go away and let her rest.
“That’s it, time to wake up now,” the soft voice said, turning harder to finish, “so I can kick your ass for letting Aven stab you—and therefore, me—in the gut.”
With a gasp, Alex’s eyes opened as recollection of everything that had happened flashed through her mind. She bolted upright, thankful when Niyx’s reflexes made him move fast enough to avoid a collision between their heads.
Sucking in heaving gulps of air as if she’d been underwater for too long, Alex couldn’t hold her weight and collapsed back to the ground. The hulking face of Xiraxus immediately blocked out the view of the dark sky above her, his concern evident in his eyes.
“You’re okay, Alex,” the draekon said soothingly. Then he corrected, “Well, actually, you’ve lost a lot of blood—too much. You’re really weak, so try not to get too worked up or you’ll faint again.”
“And wasn’t that a load of fun, carrying you up here on the Valispath and trying not to pass out myself from your injuries,” Niyx added in a mutter.
“How—How—” she panted out, but she didn’t have the strength to finish her question verbally, so she called out to Niyx in her mind, stunned and dismayed when she felt the connection between them firmly back in place.
How are you still bonded to me? she asked him. I Released you! I said the words! I did exactly what the book said to do!
“You did everything right,” Niyx said out loud. “But for a Claiming bond to be truly severed, the recipient of it has to be willing to be Released. When I felt the initial uncurling of the bond after your words, I needed to have said, ‘I accept my Release’—but I didn’t. It was me who wouldn’t let go of the connection between us. That means your Claim on me is still effective.”
Well, there definitely hadn’t been anything about that in the book she’d read.
Alex’s face scrunched up in confusion. But… Niyx, why would you… She took a shallow breath and tried again. Didn’t you want to be Released?
He offered her a quirky, one-sided grin. “Turns out you’re a riot to be around, kitten. Like a one-stop entertainment shop. Who would willingly give up that kind of fun?”
I don’t have the energy for what you consider ‘humour’ right now, Alex told him. Please, Niyx. I don’t understand.
His face turned serious and he helped her up into a seated position leaning against Xiraxus’s front leg. The move cost her, with pain surging through her middle and her vision dotting at the edges, Niyx wincing along with her. When she was able to focus again, she discovered they were situated at their lookout atop the Golden Cliffs. Hours must have passed since she was last there, since the moon had now well and truly risen in the sky.
“You can’t be here,” she managed to gasp out, looking at Niyx with wide eyes. “They think you’re one of the Garseth. You need to get as far away from here as you can before they come looking for you.”
“There’s nowhere I can go that will be far enough away,” Niyx returned quietly. “And since you’re so determined that I try to escape, I have to presume that, in your future, I don’t.”
Alex couldn’t hold his gaze, but that in itself was telling.
Niyx released a sigh and nudged her shoulder gently, calling her focus back to him. “You’re very weak, Aeylia, but you’re not safe here. Aven may have fled, but if I know him—and I do—he’ll still be nearby, at least until he can no longer find sanctuary in the city. Xiraxus is confident that he now has the strength to return you to your future, so you have to go with him. Tonight.”
Alex nodded, knowing it was time. She’d already caused enough damage. For all she knew, a sneeze gone wrong could start the Medoran equivalent of the bubonic plague next, so good was her luck of late.
“Will you answer my question first?” she begged hoarsely, needing to know. “Will you tell me why you wouldn’t let me Release you?”
“Aeylia, I’d just learned that my best friend had turned into a raging psychopath,” Niyx said quietly. “I’m smart enough to realise that merely by association, I’m automatically labelled as a traitor, and no one will believe otherwise since I did willingly attend the Rebel meetings he hosted, with plenty of witnesses to testify to that. No one will ever believe I was only there to make sure Aven wasn’t planning anything too foolish.”
Niyx shook his head, angry with himself. “Along with all that, you’d just told me it’s him you have to defeat to avoid the destruction of this world.” He raised an eyebrow and finished, “Do you really think I was willing to risk you dying here in the past if it meant that was the future we’d be heading towards?”
“How did you know I’d be in any danger?” Alex asked, certain she hadn’t given anything away earlier about going to face Aven inside the palace.
Niyx’s expression was as dry as his tone when he replied, “Aeylia, you told me not to follow you. For future reference, that’s a dead giveaway.”
With a furrowed brow, Alex asked, “You’re right, I did tell you not to follow me. I ordered you, actually. You shouldn’t have been able to—”
“I didn’t follow you, not technically,” Niyx broke in. “I merely decided I wanted to walk around the palace, and I just happened to visit every room until I accidentally stumbled upon you. Loopholes, kitten. There are always loopholes.”
Alex closed her eyes slowly, feeling so very tired. But a sudden resolve came over her and she opened them again. “Niyx, you have to let me Release you from the Claim.”
“I have to do no such thing,” he returned. “Someone has to make sure you stay alive long enough to save the future. Who better than me, since I can feel everything you feel? Even your draekon here only gets impressions of your emotional health, not your physical. It’s win-win for you, between the two of us.”
“Niyx, listen to me,” Alex said firmly, hating herself for it but doing it anyway. “You will accept the Release of my bond on you.”
When the familiar tug didn’t come with her command, Alex frowned and Niyx let out a self-satisfied laugh.
“Sorry, kitten, but I’m not actually Claimed by you anymore, we’re just bonded by blood. Consider it a promotion. All the benefits, none of the puppeteer work.”
Alex looked at him in alarmed puzzlement.
“You Released me from the Claim you had over my will,” Niyx explained. “But in choosing not to accept that Release, I maintained the connection between us. Since that was my choice, it gave my free will back to me while allowing us to keep all the other bonuses, like me sharing your death and us violating each other’s minds.”
Alex’s lips twitched at his wry words despite her better judgement. But she forced herself to sober and said, “You don’t understand, Niyx. If you don’t let me Release you properly, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen when I get back to my time. Your future—”
“Ah, so I am in your future?” he cut in. “That’s good to have confirmed, at
least. But don’t tell me anymore. I’m guessing from the way you’re looking at me that it’s probably best if I don’t know what joyous times await me.”
Alex pulled a face at his blasé attitude, frustrated that he wasn’t taking her seriously.
“Hey,” he said in a deliberately soothing tone, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “I get it, okay? Or I don’t, and that’s okay too. But either way, you have to accept that this is my decision, and I’m sticking with it. Let me do the noble thing here. Light knows, this is a rare event for me.”
Looking into his clear eyes, Alex knew he wasn’t going to yield, so she did the only thing she could in her exhausted state—she nodded.
“Good,” he said, squeezing her again then letting go. “Now—”
With an almighty shift, Xiraxus moved out from underneath Alex, causing her to sprawl onto her back with an exclamation of pain as he spread his wings out above them.
“They’re coming!” the draekon hissed, his eyes glued to the horizon, seeing something that their Meyarin sight couldn’t detect. “We must hurry!”
“Up you get, Aeylia,” Niyx said at once, leaning down to carefully pull her up into his arms. She had no idea how he was managing to lift her weight with such ease or overcome the pain of the stab wound that was taking much longer than normal to heal. All he did was wince slightly as he manoeuvred Alex until she sat atop the draekon. Meanwhile, she was struggling to remain conscious and not throw up from the sheer agony of the wound.
“It’s because of A’enara,” Niyx said, reading Alex’s pinched expression at the pain they both felt as he hastily wrapped a strap of coiling black traesos around her torso, securing it like a seatbelt in a loop across the front of Xiraxus and back again. “The laendra needs more time to combat the effects of the blade. The wound has sealed, but you still need time to heal.”
Alex nodded, mostly in an effort to try and keep her eyes from closing, and said, “Same thing happened to me last time I was stabbed by A’enara. Fletcher said I nearly died then, too.”
“You survived that, so you can survive this,” Niyx said brusquely. “I’m not kidding, kitten. I’ll kick your ass if you die and take me with you.”
“I don’t think it’s humanly possible to kick my ass if I’m already dead,” Alex mumbled, exhaustion overwhelming her.
“Good thing I’m not human then,” came Niyx’s light-hearted response. “Now, pay attention,” he said, tugging on the traesos bindings. “This is so you don’t fall off halfway across the abrassa when you pass out—and you will, considering your current state of specialness.”
“Be nice,” Alex slurred out.
“When you get to your end, summon A’enara to cut through the traesos and—”
Alex shook her head and interrupted, “Can’t do that. Aven stole it from me. I can barely lift my hand right now, and I definitely don’t have the energy to call it back.”
“Aven stole it from you here, Aeylia,” Niyx said, an urgency to his tone as he looked uneasily out over the cliffs. “Right now he can claim ownership of the blade, and given time, he’ll be able to manipulate it in small ways, like changing the length and summoning it short distances. But you’re bonded to it, and since you arrived here with it in your possession, when you return to your time, it’s your weapon, not his.”
That was true, since Alex had technically already taken it from him in her time. The Aven of the future definitely didn’t have A’enara in his ownership anymore.
“So, I cut through my bindings…” Alex prompted, aware in the back of her sluggish mind that they were pressed for time.
“With A’enara,” Niyx continued, his voice hurried now. “The Bringer of Light can pierce through anything, even the purest of darkness. I would have strapped you in with Moxyreel, but since traesos is a substance pulled directly from the abrassa, I think it’ll secure you better for when you faint again.”
“Stop making me sound like such a wuss.”
He flashed a grin. “No offence, kitten, but as amazing as my training skills are, all this”—he gestured towards himself—“can’t be taught. You’ll have to stick with your wussy status until you can prove me wrong.”
Alex opened her mouth to respond, but Xiraxus interrupted, “They’re almost upon us—we must go! Now!”
His words shook some sense back into Alex and she looked down at Niyx with growing dread. “Go, Niyx. You have to get away from here.”
Niyx ignored her. “Get her out of here, Xira. I’ll hold them off.”
“What?” Alex gasped out. “Niyx, no! You have to go!”
But her words were drowned out by the flapping of Xiraxus’s enormous wings stirring the trees around them and sending loose rocks scattering over the side of the cliff. With a heaving push, he launched off the edge and into the sky just as Alex witnessed a dozen Zeltora arrive and engage Niyx in combat.
Niyx! Get out of there! she screamed as Xiraxus pushed upwards, flying faster and faster, the force of the wind shooting pain through her tender body.
I’ll never forget you, kitten, Niyx replied, and she watched the sheer number of his attackers overcome and drag him onto the Valispath, which Alex knew would offer a one-way ticket to the prison, Taevarg.
Niyx… she whispered, unable to finish as her mind was clogged with emotion.
I’ll see you soon, my mortal friend, he whispered back to her, unknowingly repeating the words he’d said to her once before—long into the future. But not as soon as you’ll see me.
That was the last Alex heard from him before a familiar inky darkness surged into existence in front of her, blacker than the night sky, blacker than any black she’d ever seen.
Hold on, Alex! Xiraxus called. This is going to be rough!
Alex. Alex, wake up.
“Alex! You have to wake up!”
WAKE UP, ALEX!
With a shudder, Alex came to, her eyelids fluttering open to find she was slumped over Xiraxus, held in place on his back thanks to the traesos bindings.
She looked around in confusion, seeing that they were perched on top of the Golden Cliffs again, but without Niyx or any Zeltora in sight. Summer was now replaced with a thick snow blanketing the ground and dusting the city in the distance. It was also the middle of the day, rather than the moonlit night from which she’d fled. One thing remained the same, though—her thin, silky formalwear, leaving Alex frozen to her very core.
“Xira?” Alex slurred out through chattering teeth.
“Alex, you have to hurry,” he said, his voice sounding anxious. “It was harder to wake you than I anticipated.”
“’s okay, Xira,” Alex mumbled. “’m just tired.” And ridiculously sore, she thought, her shivering frame aggravating the throbbing in her stomach. That said, the agony had lessened considerably, the previously excruciating pain now replaced with what felt like a whopper of a bruise across her midsection as opposed to a blade still twisting through her insides.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Alex, really I am. But I’ve been here too long—the abrassa is closing. I don’t have much time to return home. Aven is still nearby and will have seen our return through the Void. And in your state, you’re in no position to face him. We both need to get out of here, and quickly.”
A bolt of adrenaline shot through Alex and she pushed herself upright, ignoring the pain in her stomach and the biting cold. She didn’t hesitate to summon A’enara, overwhelmingly relieved when the weapon materialised in a blaze of flames.
Wasting no time, Alex sliced through her bonds. The mere touch of A’enara burnt up the traesos coils entirely, disintegrating them before they could even reach the ground.
She quickly slid down to the snow, wincing as the move jarred her wound. She then looked up at Xiraxus, realising with sudden grief that this was likely the last time she would ever see him.
“Don’t be upset,” he said quietly, sensing her heavy heart. He lowered his large head to her face, his fiery blue eyes as soft as ever. “Do
you remember the oath I swore to create the link between us?”
Alex shook her head, trying to control the urge to give into her sadness.
“It translated to, ‘Heart I give you, soul to share, strength and mind, both here and there. Forever and always, vaeliana.’”
Alex did remember that from seeing his memories, uttered in the lilting, musical language that she now knew belonged to the Tia Aurans.
“Forever and always, Alex,” Xiraxus repeated, nudging her gently. “Both here and there.”
Gritting her teeth against her welling tears, she wrapped her arms around his snout, barely managing to circle him halfway but still feeling comforted by their embrace. “I’m going to miss you so much, Xira.”
“And I you,” he said. “But we are bonded, now and forever. No time or distance can change that.”
Heedless of her pain, she squeezed him hard, throwing all of her love into the hug before letting him go, conscious that time was of the essence.
“I hope to see you again, my friend,” he said meaningfully to her. And then with one final rub of his head, he crouched down on his haunches and leapt off the snowy cliff and into the sky, opening the inky abrassa and disappearing from sight.
Thirty-Six
Drawing a broken breath, Alex knew she had to move before Aven caught up to her. He was likely furious, having lost his only chance at securing a draekon—unless, of course, he knew another Tia Auran willing to be captured in order to make sure Alex’s journey to the past led to the events of their current time. As annoyed as she was at Lady Mystique for giving no warning of the catastrophic outcomes she would be responsible for, Alex still hoped the ancient woman could escape from Aven’s wrath unharmed. All she could do was believe in Xiraxus’s faith that ‘Aes Daega’ was capable of handling herself.
A crashing in the bushes reached Alex’s heightened hearing, the sound still far away but loud enough to remind her that she shouldn’t tarry. She summoned the Valispath, only to find that she couldn’t summon the Valispath. Thinking that she perhaps wasn’t concentrating hard enough, she tried again, but to no avail. When her third attempt failed, she realised with a jolt of horror that now, thanks to Aven’s disinheritance, his blood was invalidated—the blood in her veins—and now neither of them could access the invisible rollercoaster.