Page 147 of Requiem of Silence

And so he waited. It seemed that the battle was at a stalemate for the moment. Aside from the attack on Mooriah, the TrueFather had yet to give a command to his amassed troops. He must still be locked in verbal warfare with his sister, the way they’d been when Darvyn had left them at the port.

Kyara had only been down for a moment before she stirred, and Darvyn’s heart began beating again. She rose, looking up at him. Her gaze was somehow different. Something new was there—something more purposeful than he’d seen in her for a long while.

She appeared shell-shocked, but stood on stable legs. Tana, however, remained on the ground, unconscious. Kyara frowned down at the girl, a look of regret overtaking her. Then she firmed her jaw and faced the wraiths, who were still in a holding pattern. But not for long.

A dark spot in the sky grew in size as it drew closer. Darvyn’s mouth dried as he saw the True Father approaching, flying through the air. Had he already taken Oola’s or Jasminda’s Songs? Guilt assailed him, he shouldn’t have left, but he’d had to get to Kyara.

The True Father hovered, looking smug as he observed his army. He had every right to be, there was only Darvyn, whose Song had no effect on these new kind of wraiths, Kyara, and a dozen Raunians against thousands of the dead.

“The time has come.” The floating man’s voice echoed over the cemetery. “I will end this war once and for all. Leave no survivors but the Singers.”

A screeching sound rang out and the wraiths lost their vacant expressions and snapped to attention. Darvyn clenched his fists. He’d been a soldier practically his whole life, fighting uphill the entire time and he would fight for as long as he could.

But Kyara caught his eye and shook her head slightly, the start of a sad smile on her lips. He frowned. “Embrace the Light,” she whispered.

Overhead, the portal, dark and ominous, suddenly cleared of the spirits that were still pouring forth. The shimmering, dark tear in their world was pierced by a bright light.

Blinding and beautiful, it speared his retinas so that Darvyn could barely make out what was happening. But the solid beam began to quickly splinter into pieces. Arcs, like the Earthsong lightning Yllis had taught them to create, shot out of this new light and down toward the ground of the cemetery.

It was as though the sky had opened up and the darts of light rained down, just as the spirits had moments before. But there was much, much more light than there had been darkness.

Each ray hit a wraith and when it made contact, tiny explosions of light completely erased Darvyn’s vision. He shut his eyes. Behind his lids the radiance intensified. It was like staring at the sun at noon. Brightness creeped into the corners of his eyes and he covered them with his hands to keep it out. Still it burned, not true pain, just an uncomfortable sensation that left him feeling buzzy. He winced, ducking his head into his elbow to avoid it.

And then it was done.

He actually felt the force retreat and blinked his eyes open, waiting for the afterburn to dissipate so that he could see again. What he finally saw made his jaw drop.

No wraiths. No spirits. The afternoon was gray again, the normal mundane clouds were pregnant with real rain. The cemetery was littered with corpses. Some recognizable as people, newly deceased. Some mere skeletons, with wisps of hair sticking to their skulls.

They had fallen where they’d stood; bones and decaying flesh stretching out as far as the eye could see.

Overhead, the portal was still there, a hole torn in the sky, but nothing emerged from it. Silently, it held the potential for doom,but for now remained empty. The True Father was nowhere to be seen.

Kyara stood beside Darvyn, gripping his hand in her own. He wrapped her in an embrace, squeezing her tight to him. He wasn’t certain if it was relief he felt or more apprehension. But he forced himself into this present moment. Pulled himself back from Kyara to look at her face.

Her breathing was rapid, she had yet to come down from the adrenaline of battle—of whatever she’d just been through. But she held him tight and brushed her lips against his.

They kissed, grateful to be alive. While the hole in the sky looked down on them.

The ferocity of the wraiths that the True Father had unleashed upon the Earthsingers was even greater than before. Jasminda spun out of the way as a chunk from a ship hurled toward her.

The group of Raunian fighters engaged in hand-to-hand combat, forming a protective circle around Jasminda, Oola, and Yllis, but swarms of wraiths slipped through. The Raunians were quickly overwhelmed and began to fall, one by one.

Jasminda worked on healing them, in between fending off the volley of attacks, but splitting her focus was dangerous. Even with the massive power boost from the obelisk, pinpointing the Earthsong attacks so as not to hit one of their allies was difficult. As soon as she cast a wraith away from her, two more took its place. Her attention was drawn everywhere at once just to maintain her position, much less make any headway.

She gasped for breath and deflected a bombardment of wickedly sharp iron fence posts, when a sudden brightness in the sky stole her focus. Darts of light flooded her vision; she squeezed her eyesshut when it became too painful to keep them open. She couldn’t say how long it lasted, but when the light receded and she opened her eyes, the wraiths were gone.

Dozens of bodies lay littered across the ground, transformed back into their original hosts. Mostly Elsirans, but some foreign-born residents of Portside had been caught by the spirits. Almost all were alive, but badly injured.

After another nervous glance at the sky, Jasminda hurried forward to heal them. Broken bones and internal injuries took up the most of the cases. She worked quickly, trying to get each person past the critical stage, knowing there would be others who could take the victims the rest of the way. An Elsiran woman had a severe head injury that was worrisome. Jasminda took an extra minute to ensure there wasn’t further damage she’d missed, when a groaning man stole her attention.

He rolled over onto his back and Jasminda stumbled. Zann Biddell lay there, bleeding from his nose and mouth. She finished her work on the woman and moved to him. Crouching down, she assessed his damage. His eyelids fluttered before opening.

“Master Biddel, can you hear me?”

He moaned and held a hand up to his head.

“Be still, I’m going to see to your head.”

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