Page 81 of The Dragonrider and the Void
Focusing all her concentration, Lark reached for her bonds. This time, she didn’t try to be subtle. She pulled hard on both connections, drawing energy from White Eye and Nix simultaneously. The pendant at her chest flared with heat, and Lark felt a rush of power unlike anything she’d experienced before.
The runes on the walls blazed to life, green and silver light filling the chamber. Where the energies met, that same purple luminescence formed, growing brighter with each passing second.
Outside, the guards began ramming the door. The blockade groaned under the assault, the hinges straining.
“Hurry,” Lark urged, pressing her palms against the wall where the runic patterns converged most densely. The stone felt hot beneath her touch, nearly burning.
The power built within her, these dual energies no longer fighting for dominance but merging to become something new. Lark guided it into the runes, feeling them respond to her control.
At the center of the chamber, the air began to shimmer. A disc of light formed, its edges pulsed with that same purple energy. Through it, Lark caught glimpses of a landscape unlike anything in Sataran, trees with crystalline leaves, a sky painted in colors she had no names for.
The door splintered at the edges as the battering ram struck again.
Almost there,Lark thought, pouring more energy into the gateway. But something was wrong. The portal was forming too rapidly, growing unstable. The edges flickered, the view beyond blurring.
“What’s happening?” she whispered, feeling the energy beginning to spiral beyond her control.
The pendant against her chest grew painfully hot. In a flash of flame, Nix materialized beside her, her form stronger than before.
“The gateway is unstable,” Nix shouted over the rising whine of magical energy. “The bonds are too strong. We need to?—”
The door crashed inward. Guards spilled into the chamber. Behind them, Lark saw the Archmagus, his eyes widening at the sight of the portal taking shape.
“Stop her!” he commanded, raising his hands to cast a counterspell.
Everything seemed to slow. Lark saw the guards rushing toward her, the Archmagus’ spell forming at his fingertips, the gateway fluctuating wildly before her.
It’s now or never,she thought.
With a final surge of will, Lark channeled everything she had into the gateway. The runes flared blindingly bright, and the portal stabilized for a single heartbeat.
Lark didn’t hesitate. As the guards reached for her, as the Archmagus’ spell shot toward her, she launched herself forward into the swirling purple light.
The gateway closed behind her with a thunderclap of discharged energy, cutting off the shouts and the chaos of the Vermillion Keep.
For a timeless moment, Lark felt herself falling through nothingness, tumbling through a void where reality itself seemed fluid. Colors she had never seen before washed over her, sounds that had no source echoed in her mind.
Then, with jarring suddenness, she hit solid ground.
Lark lay still, her breath knocked from her lungs, every nerve in her body tingling painfully as if she’d been struck by lightning. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she found herselfstaring up at an alien sky. Deep purples and blues swirled overhead, peppered with streaks of luminous silver where stars should have been.
Slowly, painfully, she pushed herself to a sitting position. The shackles that had bound her wrists were gone, dissolved in the passage between realms. Around her stretched a landscape both beautiful and unsettling.
Crystalline trees rose in the distance, their translucent leaves catching light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The ground beneath her was covered in what looked like grass, but each blade shimmered with its own inner light, changing color subtly as she moved.
“We made it,” came Nix’s voice from beside her.
Lark turned to see the fire fae standing tall and vibrant. Here, in her own realm, Nix’s flame burned brighter than Lark had ever seen it, her dress and hair rippling with red, orange, and gold energies that cast dancing shadows on the luminous ground.
“The fae realm,” Lark breathed, struggling to take it all in. “We’re actually here.”
“Yes,” Nix said, her expression a mixture of joy and concern. “But we have a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“The gateway collapsed behind us. It was unstable, formed too quickly.” Nix gestured to the empty air where they had emerged. “I don’t know how to get us back to Sataran.”
Lark stared at her, the implications sinking in. They had escaped the Vermillion Keep, yes, but at what cost? They were now trapped in an alien realm, with no clear way home.
