Page 110 of Synodic

A dark fear loosened around my heart as the people from the crypts fled to the throne room, searching for any escape from the crumbling caves.

“Rayal, you’re alright,” I said, not wanting to leave Rowen’s side but lifting my hand to hers.

“We must get you back to the village,” Nepta interjected. “I cannot protect you here.”

I glanced at the droves of prisoners rushing out of the cave Nepta had blasted open. “I can’t leave. These people need help.”

“They are free now. We must go. I cannot protect you away from the village,” Nepta urged. “The cave will hold until everyone has escaped. I will leave the warriors behind to ensure the crypts are emptied. But you cannot stay here. It is you who holds the Alcreon Light. Protect it.”

Rayal squeezed my hand. “Go. We will be well now, thanks to you all.”

I was skeptical of leaving. There were still so many souls fleeing the crypts, crying in relief as stars twinkled through the false sky that had been their reality for so long.

Rowen’s hand landed on my shoulder, offering a warm comfort that flushed and radiated throughout my body. “Keira, I know many of these people. They are strong. They will find their way home.”

Nepta waved the point of her cane, stirring the air until a swirling corridor of light emerged from the fabric of space.

“Why does yours look different?” I asked, not quite ready to go through another tunnel I couldn’t see an end to, but I also marveled at how she managed to conjure such a thing without breaking a sweat.

“There is a difference between asking and taking the energy that flows around us, a difference between accepting what is given over forcing what is not,” Nepta explained as she motioned for me to step through.

I looked back at Rayal, immensely grateful for all she had risked for me. She nodded with a slow, affirmative blink—a quick eclipsing of her sun-bright eyes. “Go.”

I finally agreed, and one by one, we walked through the shimmering pool of light.

40

Upon returning to the timber-canopied village, a place I thought I would never see again, Nepta turned to me with thoughtful eyes and asked, “Is there anything you need, child?”

The sight of the burnt wreckage charred my soul, and even though it wasn’t near the devastation I had pictured in my mind, my throat choked on guilt-ridden ash. I hadn’t been able to stay and help the people of the crypts, but there was no reason I couldn’t be put to good use here. “The village. I need to help clear up the damage,” I said, weary to the bone yet still finding the determination to take a step toward the debris.

“First a bath, then you rest,” Rowen interjected firmly, reaching for my arm to stop me. “The village can wait until tomorrow.”

“I’m the one responsible for this,” I said with what defiance I could muster as I swayed on my feet.

“You will not bear such a weight, child,” Nepta demanded. “Not when you are the reason still so much of it stands. You summoned a bolt of lightning that brought rain down upon land and flame.”

Utterly perplexed, I looked to Rowen.

“You started a rainstorm, Keira,” he said, his green eyes gently caressing my face. “You smothered the fire before it could fully take root. If it weren’t for you, there would have been no village to return to at all.”

I remembered wishing through my tears there was something I could do, anything at all, and then a large flash of light engulfed me before Caeryn swallowed me with his dark magic powered by Ninette’s life-force.

I couldn’t believe I had started a storm. Would anything ever feel normal again?

In a trance, I turned from everyone and everything as I made my way to the private bathing suite. I’d received and experienced so much in such a short amount of time, I couldn’t process it all. It was too much to take in tonight.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I would unravel the strangeness of my abilities. Tonight I needed to wash the horrors of the crypts from my skin, although I doubted the filth of it would ever leave my mind. But whatever horrors I’d faced had been worth it to free the prisoners from Aliphoura’s underworld.

Once inside the bathing chamber, I undressed out of the once exquisite Celenova dress, turned to nothing but filthy scraps. I couldn’t rip the cloth from my body fast enough, careful not to look too closely at the stains of dried blood.

I climbed up the pebbled staircase and gradually entered the basin of swirling bath water, feeling the cleansing liquid rise up my ankles, thighs, hips, and shoulders. I let the water soak into my sore and weary limbs with a shuddering breath. Rowen may have healed me, but still, a toll had been taken on my body. The memory of the torture was a physical suffering, no easy thing to rid my mind of, and the extinct breaks in my bones left a phantom pain that might never go away.

Not to mention I had almost extracted everything out of myself to summon that blast. I had no control over the Light inside me, and until I did, I was a massive liability. I’d almost brought the crypts down upon us all.

But now here I was out in the open, something I thought I’d never experience again. I still couldn’t believe I’d escaped from the jaws of rock and crystal that had nearly become my tomb, my final resting place.

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