Page 59 of Forsaken Secrets

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Kaiya

Lynk stopped us just outside a small hallway. What had been char marks along the walls a few rooms back were now melted and warped swaths of stone.

Whatever destroyed the library had started beyond this hall.

My heart raced. If we were very lucky, down that hall were relics that could save Aunt Grace and I. Hopefully, they'd been fully tempered and hadn't reverted back to their wild forms like that tree in the temple.

Lynk stepped past me. "It looks clean, but stay alert. Those wraiths had to have come from somewhere."

We walked through the darkness for a few feet, and then the hallway opened into a large area dimly lit by a violet glow.

The stench was the first thing to hit me — that sickly sweet smell of death and decay.

Gagging, I looked around. The edges were too dark to see much, but scattered all over the visible stone floor were ghouls … dozens of them … in different stages of decay.

So this was what happened when they didn't feed …

I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat.

"Don't touch those," murmured Lynk, sidestepping one that reached out with a rotting arm.

He withdrew his shadow-wrapped blade and took off its head, then repeated the process with all the other ghouls in our way.

"What's making that light?" I asked when he was done, stepping over a decapitated corpse to get closer.

At the center of the purple glow was a small dome-shaped iron cage sitting atop a tall rod.

My jaw dropped. Inside of the cage danced a spryke. The opalescent spikey ball of energy was writhing and bouncing around. It couldn't be any larger than my fist!

"Well, now we know why those wraiths were out there," Lynk muttered.

"How? What's a spryke doing back here? I thought they were extinct!" The questions poured out of me as I stared at the sad, trapped creature.

"They keep wraiths away," Eli replied, voice soft. "After the Fall, when the bonded mages started turning into wraiths, the Kings hunted the sprykes to extinction. They were the only thing to keep towns safe … at least for a little while." Eli stepped past me and walked up to the creature, inspecting it and muttering to himself.

"So how'd this one get here?" I asked.

"That's exactly what I'd like to know," Lynk said from beside me, jaw tight in the purple shadows.

"Shouldn't we set them free? We're here and who knows how long they've been stuck!"

Lynk's eyes narrowed as he turned back to me. "You will do no such thing. That little spryke has been stuck in here for so long, they've likely gone completely mad. You see that darkness around the edges? That's the void twisting them. If they were free and chose to kill you, you'd be dead in seconds."

Curious, I walked up to the cage, reaching out with my korra. Lynk was right, of course. Their korra was twisting, but the inside was still pure.

They hadn't turned yet.

It made me sick to think they'd been stuck in that little cage, tormented by all those damn wraiths! "What about you, Eli? Surely you could help?"

He shook his head. "This spryke has been tempered, Kaiya — tamed and molded into a relic for whoever left it here. There's nothing we can do for them."

My heart ached as I stared at the small bundle of purple energy.

"Please — I must — freedom." The small voice in my head was light and airy, neither feminine nor masculine.

I stepped closer, reaching out a hand towards the cage, remembering how free that tree in the Druid's temple had looked. If I could just open the cage …

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