Page 10 of A Baron of Bonds
There must be something. Some sign of struggle, some reason she had left this place. Again, my thoughts turned to her in pain somewhere, dragged off by some creature, or fallen with a broken leg and bleeding.
Figuerah gave her last command and the lumens sprinted across the field, circling around one spot in the middle. The black lumen I rode looked at me before raising his massive head to howl through the rain.
I ran to him as he caught another trail, leading all of us in a straight line to the edge of the trees. Ahead, something white lay in the clover and the lumen picked it up in his mouth.
My knees hit the ground in a squelch, and I recognized a piece of Karus’s torn dress. Some relief swept through me, though new questions arose.
I turned to the black lumen and he panted, spitting the rhyzolm onto my hand.
“Good boy,” I muttered, patting his snout before he rose his head to howl once more.
I stood and closed my eyes, squeezing the stone tightly. Its cool surface hummed, and I almost cried out, thankful that my love was not dead.
“What is it?” Moira buzzed in my ear as Clairannia and Figuerah caught up to us.
“It’s the rhyzolm. She left it here for me to find.”
“Can you sense her? Can it lead you to her?” Moira flew to the top of the lumen’s head, landing there and petting him softly.
“Yes. She is alive. I cannot tell if she is hurt, but I know she is alive.”
I turned north, scanning the tree line, knowing I had quite the journey ahead.
“Well, where is she, Revich? What direction has she gone?” Figuerah asked in exasperation.
“She is north of here.” I mounted my lumen, needing to get back to the Fortress for supplies. “She is nearing the boundaries of Hyrithia.”
Chapter 10
Karus
“Karus!”
My name from Revich’s lips pierced the space of what was the absence of light.
In my first step through the Blightress’s portal, his desperate call revealed my mistake. His anguished roar pierced my heart while the relentless chill of doubt settled into my skin.
“Revich?” I turned, not knowing which direction in the darkness that engulfed me.
He yelled my name again, and I screamed his.
I should not have done this.
“Revich!” I cried again, no longer hearing my own name in the abyssal black.
If this really was a portal, I had not transported to the other side.
I had been through two in my lifetime. Both had been green, both had transported me instantly across a span of distance I did not know.
I looked down to my hands. I could not see them. I closed my eyes and the place I stood looked no different. I felt the tears threaten to fall and took a breath. Opening my eyes again,I reproduced my orb of light, whispering, “Illuminare” and stepped in the direction I hoped was forward.
The cold of the void seeped through my skin, through my soaked dress that had hardly begun to dry in the blighted tunnel. I took what strength I had left and steadied my heart.
I felt pulled, yanked in many different directions since I’d entered the portal. I turned my head, unwilling to turn my feet, convinced that I needed to decide on a way that was forward.
It was all dark. It was all the blackest of space in the utter deprivation of light.
I walked on, nothing changing, no sign of anything but vacancy.
