Page 54 of Legacy of the Heirs
Nyzaia nodded, though her hands trembled.This may put me off heights,she thought while regulating her breathing. She turned her head to examine the wall and found a different opening. It was far bigger than the previous, large enough for Nyzaia and Farid if they squeezed in. She scanned the spot, using the lava as a torch as the sun began to fade. A glint of metal caught her eye on the farside of the opening. It was a streak of metal ore, as if someone had carved the rock and poured the metal inside it. In the centre was a small broken piece.The talisman.
“I think I see it!” she called to Farid, who began lowering himself towards her. She reached for the opening, trying to pull herself close enough to hook her leg over and climb in.
“I can’t quite reach!” She shouted over the gushing lava crashing into the river below.
“Wait! I will be there in a moment!” Farid yelled. Nyzaia reached again, the temperature scorching as she attempted to slot her arm under the gap. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she pushed her body to its limits, her muscles burning as she attempted to hook her foot for purchase.
“I have an idea!” She lowered her leg and took a deep breath before pushing away at an angle, swinging sideways in the hope of creating enough momentum to make the distance.
“Nyzaia! Wait!” Farid shouted, but she pushed again with a forceful swing. It worked. “Nyzaia! Your rope!” Farid yelled, hurrying down the wall to reach her. She looked up at the rope as she tried to haul herself onto the ledge. Her eyes widened. A glow slowly blazed across the rope and worked its way down. Nyzaia waved her hand to distinguish the embers, but no fire was left to latch onto. The rope blackened and frayed before she could make the final push into the opening. Then it snapped.
“Nyzaia!” Farid cried as she plummeted with the flow of lava towards the scorching lake below.
Nyzaia screamed and tried not to flail her arms as her body rotated with the force of falling. A sea of orange blurred before her: the setting sun, the canyon rocks, the scorching lava. She focused on nothing as she fell through the air, the flow of lava seconds away. Nyzaia summoned all her strength and willed the lava to part—anything to avoid plunging into it headfirst—but nothing worked. Would she survive this? Was a connection to the God of Fire enough to keep her alive? Something hit her then, and Nyzaiascreamed as flames engulfed her and a force sent her flying. But Nyzaia was not propelled into the lava river to be met by death; she was thrown into darkness.
Her body screamed in pain as she hit a hard surface. Fire blazed around her, though it was not her own. It retracted, pulling away, and when she opened her eyes, she faced a dark wall. She did not understand how she was alive. Her eyes adjusted to the cave-like space, lit by an all-encompassing glow. Nyzaia blinked, grasping a hand to her side as she slowly turned her body towards the source of the light. It was not her own flames lighting the way nor the lava flowing from the opening. It was Farid. He knelt in the opening, panting. His pale blue eyes glowed in the darkness, a sign of power. But it was not his eyes Nyzaia focused on; it was the glow emitting from the blazing, feathered wings protruding from his back.
“Please do not tell anyone.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Larelle
Darkness had become the new normal, weighing on Larelle’s chest. She had tried to conserve her breaths for what she believed was three days now, provided her counting method was correct. A slither of light had broken through a crack in the piled rocks to her left three times: three moments of daylight from the world outside and three days without food. Her only source of water was what she drew from the rocks. They had left her there to die. The hard ground was moist and seeped through her dress; she had torn it several times on the first night and grazed her hands as she sought a way out of this makeshift prison. Her slow shuffles and stumbles around the small space confirmed her suspicions about where they kept her.
When the creature took Larelle, dragging her from her daughter, Alvan, her home, and all she had, Larelle was certain this was the end, which was why she named Alvan her successor. Forever a forward thinker, even under the notion of death and panic. Larelle also learned about her drastic fear of heights that night, scrunching her eyes shut as the creature soared from Garridon.
Larelle was unsurprised when she felt the familiar call of Nerida’s waters, but their landing soon after came as a shock. Her body jostled in the creature's claws as it flung her against the slippery rocks. She had assumed it would drop her somewhere to die—or kill her itself—not land on one of the rocky islands protruding off the coast of Mera.
Larelle quickly understood the creature’s intentions as it advanced with a growl and backed her into a small opening at theback of the cave. When she was inside, it pushed and gathered rocks to block her exit. Yet, in doing so, it showed the creatures to be smarter than they appeared—calculated. Such information would prove of use should she ever escape. How else would it know to trap Larelle? She was yet to understand its motives, but surely, they did not want her dead if they kept her here alive.
During the entire first night, she heard it. Its claws scraped outside the cave as it growled to itself, and when that first slither of light shone into her prison, it had sniffed once at the rocks separating them before she heard the flap of wings fading into the distance. It left and had not returned since.
She hoped to have found a means of escaping by now or a way to use her power. Instead, she was plagued with the look on Alvan’s face when she was taken—the twisting of his features as though a dagger pierced his chest. His scream rang through her mind as he insisted she would not die. Screams of sheer agony. Then, her mind flitted to Zarya and the fear her daughter would grow up without a mother.Alvan will look after her.
Larelle stiffened as a thud sounded outside, followed by a growl—twogrowls. It had returned, but it was not alone. She pushed her hands against the floor, forcing her body to slide up the wet wall. Yet there was nowhere for Larelle to go should the creatures come for her. Her heart thundered, but she kept quiet and listened for anything that might help. The growling stopped.
“I swear to Makaria, are you a fucking fool?” hissed a deep voice in an accent she did not recognise. It came from the other side of the rocks.Makaria?Larelle heard a scuffle and then a thud against the wall outside. “What were you thinking by taking one of them?”
“What was I supposed to do?” barked a higher, younger voice. Larelle’s eyes widened. People stood outside. “They waved that sword around, and I didn’t want to turn out dead like the others, or worse, trapped—”
“Shhh!” snapped the deeper voice. “You do not know whatshe could hear.”
“She might not even be alive!”
“What do you mean?”
“After I left her here, it took me two days to get back and find you, which is a reasonably long time without food and water.”Back to where? Had he been in Novisia? And then left?
The deeper voice, likely belonging to the superior, sighed.
“Let me get this straight.” His voice changed, a menacing undertone in his words. “You took a queen of their kingdom, hid her in herownrealm, and then left her to starve?” Silence was his answer. “It is like you are asking to be a part of this war.”
Larelle shuffled, straining to hear more. She did not recognise the voice.
“Please! We became a part of this war the second he called in the debt that was owed and had us hunt for that damned sword.”
Endless questions whirled through Larelle’s mind: the war, the sword, these people, and the debt they owed.Pushing closer to the rock, she turned over his words. “I left her here,”he had said,but since when could the creatures speak?
