Xanth was mortified, what Lillian had just revealed to them could not be the actual truth, or could it? Had they been hunting and killing Khione women for naught? For thousands of years they had kept this sacred duty of resorting the seal over Osyron with the blood and life of pure breed Khiones, if their deaths had been in vain and the whole thing had just been exaggerated, then they were responsible for it.Xanth gasped again when he thought of Lyra, right now she was on a journey with Ryder and he was oblivious to this new revelation. He was going to kill her at Fang Peek.“Lyra…” He said out loud, both Lillian and Iris looked at him but both with very different facial expressions. While Lilian looked at him with a knowing smirk, Iris looked at him in annoyance. Xanth ignored her.“But how are you so sure about this?” Xanth asked Lilian, he wanted to make sure everything she had said was the truth and not that she was saying it to help Indie. The witch after all, wanted Osyron free
Lyra winced when Ryder tried helping her put on the coat. The huge gash on her shoulder had begun to heal but it was slow in healing, Ryder believed it was because she was weak now. She sat with her back against a tree trunk, the extinguished fire pit was to her left and Ryder was to her right on one knee beside her. The expression on his face was set and serious and he frowned slightly but he never for once met her gaze, she suspected that he was trying to avoid doing that and she wondered why. Was he angry at her again? Even if he was, he had never really avoided her gaze.“Can you walk?” He asked her, still not lifting his head to meet her eyes. She pursed her lips in a thin line and nodded slightly, her eye brows furrowed in pain as she tried to stand, he placed one hand around her waist and the other held her hand as he helped her to her feet. When she was standing upright, he let go of her and took a step forward.“We have to leave this place.” His voice was harsh like he was b
Xanth sat uneasily on the chair in Lillian’s small but warm house and opposite him sat Syrana, Kye could not sit and Iris busied herself by the window keeping a keen eye on the rest of the Khiones who had positioned themselves outside to guard the place. Xanth had one elbow propped on the table and his head resting in his palm, his head felt light and his thoughts swam in his head making the feeling even worse, what he had just been told today felt more than a bomb shell.He sighed heavily.Kye leaned on the kitchen counter with his arms crossed and a tight frown on his face, he wished he could unhear what he had heard, he wished desperately that it was not true but he trusted Syrana so much that he could not doubt her, it has to be true.It was true.“You’ve known this for how long now?” Kye asked her to which she sighed and looked up to Xanth.“Not long, I only suspected a while but it’s true, I could not deny it.”“My mother,” Xanth choked as he spoke and lifted his head up to face
“I’m freezing!” Lyra shouted out to Ryder who was walking on ahead of her. He stopped and turned around to look at her and then he gave a sigh. Of course she would be freezing, she barely had any clothes on. She had ripped the dress to make it shorter, had no shoes on and the only thing worthy of keeping the cold at bay was the thick cloak he had made her wear.“We are nearing the edge of the forest, into Zagaroth Mountain, it is always cold there. Erstonia is far up North and always covered in ice and blizzards.” He told her.One eye brow came up and she shook her head. “Okay, and? How does that help me right now?”The cold came from the ground to her exposed feet, she curled her toes in response and hugged the cloak tighter around her body now regretting why she had disposed of those worn out muddy shoes but then wearing wet shoes was way worse than being bare feet. She sighed.They could see the sea of white snow just past the trees ahead of them and Lyra heaved a sigh of relief th
The snow this year had come earlier and fell more, so much so that it had already built up to two feet in depth. The sun was high above their heads and it offered a little bit of warmth even though it was far felt, Tezani sat upright on her horse right behind General Mavrek who was leading the small group journeying away from Kilead, to the north in the direction of Fang peek.The reason they were journeying there was to meet up with Ryder and to find out why the sacrifice had not happened because just the other day they had felt a tremendous tremble, the earth had quaked and there was a low rumble like a groaning sounds. The people had been terrified and the elders had been agitated. She remembered she had been in bed with the general in his room just as it had happened and right away he had called for a meeting with the other generals and the elders.The tremble had meant one thing and one thing only; Ryder had still not completed the sacrifice, some even wondered if he had made it
Finding Axeris and Khiones together was an impossible sight except if one race was dead and the other was alive and standing over the corpse, but finding Axeris and Khiones working together was more than impossible yet it was where Iris, Xanth, Syrana and her Khione warriors found themselves in as they made their way through Oerth forest.It was very obvious and clear that the tension hanging in the air above them was heated enough to melt the snow and chase away the cold - which it literally did - but the party had a common goal and working together would help them in achieving their common goal faster, and the faster they achieved that goal, the faster they could be away from each other. But in the small tensed group, none was more disgusted than Kye.It was an irritation he didn’t bother to hide.“How long do you think it would take us to get to the other side of the forest?” Xanth asked Syrana as he slowed down to walk beside her.“Whenever we get to the other side, we get to th
“To be honest, we never actually had the thought of seeing you here.”“We assumed the proud ruler of Astaroth would never leave his kingdom except if he was going into war.” they chuckled and so did Ryder but without any joy. “But here you are, in the flesh and bone and blood!”It was far from being a party, and it was even lesser than a get together as they were only four men in the extremely large room. Borox led them, he ruled these band of outsiders, exiled from Erstonia and forced to take shelter within the cold caves of Zagaroth mountains. But here, he had built for themselves a fortress, and here, he was know as the king of the exiled.He trusted only two other people, and they were present in the room with him and Ryder. It had been hundred of years since they had had the pleasure of hosting Ryder, and although they were merry about it, Borox could not deny the uneasiness about Ryder. The feared Lord of Astaroth was troubled. And what could trouble an Axeris more than the fast
Iris still walked with a limp, the wound had sealed up but she still felt the pain on the inside. She was angry, that much was very obvious to see and she walked ahead of the group, nobody spoke, they all walked in silence, Syrana and Xanth walked behind Iris, Kye and the other few Khione warriors that had not been picked off by Indie walked behind.“Iris,” Xanth called out. “You don’t have to be stubborn about allowing Syrana help you with the injury you have.”“What injury do you speak of, Xanth?” she threw over her shoulder.“Iris…” he called again but Syrana placed a hand on his to stop him, and then with a smile, she said.“If she won’t admit to having an injury, then she doesn’t need my help, Xanth.”Iris scoffed. “At least we have a smart one among us.”Xanth frowned at Iris’ remark, he could not understand why she was being this hostile, maybe it was the fact that she had been seemingly humiliated by Indie, or ti was the fact that she had done it through a possessed Khione war
“Ryder…” Xanth called calmly as he quietly approached Ryder who was kneeling down by the edge of the ledge. The fiery pit had grown cold and was quiet now and the cave was slowly losing the heat, welcoming the cold.“She is gone,” Ryder said softly and lifted his head up to the cave ceiling. He let out a sigh, folded his lips, and raised his eyebrows, his eyeballs darting from left to right as he felt tears coming. His heart ached terribly and his body shivered. “She is gone,” he repeated with another sigh.Xanth turned around when he heard footsteps running, only to see Syrana and Tezani. Syrana looked at him asking him questions with her gaze, but he just blinked once and looked away from her. She sucked in a breath and her body crashed into the cave wall, she clutched on to her dress around her chest area and slowly fell to the floor as tears pooled out of her eyes.“Lyra…” she sobbed. “My baby girl.”Ryder turned his head to see who had just come into the cave and he saw the white
His wound refused to heal and he was losing blood fast, he groaned and leaned on the horse as it slowed down to a gallop, approaching the mouth of the cave. His body felt extremely weak and he wondered what indie must have applied on that sword she stabbed him with that was stopping his body from regenerating.He groaned as he fell off the horse and onto the hard, hot ground. Never in his life had he felt this way, and he hated it, the feeling of being vulnerable as he was now. He knew that if anyone was to come for him, to kill him, they would succeed in that, he couldn’t even muster the strength to use his powers.He managed to get on his feet, leaning against the cave walls, he stumbled further into the cave where he found Borox, sitting up and propped against the cave wall with a small knife wedged into the side of his neck.“Borox,” Ryder called and went to him, crashing on the ground on his knee beside him, he took the man’s hand and had genuine pain in his eyes. The pain of see
They had all heard the noise, the loud bang from far behind, toward their far left and they had turned just in time to see a mushroom of fire rise up and then die out. The noise had spooked the horses and they stopped riding.“What was that?” Tezani asked no one in particular.“The wizard maybe,” Xanth replied. “But a blast of such magnitude? What is he doing?”“Practicing spells?” Syrana chipped in. “Prepping for a battle.”They both turned to look at her and Xanth’s heart fell, if they could not find Ryder in time and get him to perform the sacrifice with Tezani, then Osyron would break free of his prison and it would be bye-bye to the world as they knew it to be.“What if we can’t get to Ryder in time?” Tezani asked Xanth as if she had been reading his mind.He let out a breath. “Can you go back to Mavrek?”She shook her head and looked down at her horse, she didn’t want to go back to him. She couldn’t. She hated herself for still loving him when all he had ever done was lie to her
“They are close now,” Vixra said as she galloped on her horse. She had Pythias riding beside her, Royn and the rest of the warriors rode just behind. “I can sense the girl.”She pulled out the bow hanging on the horse behind her and an arrow, she let go of the horse’s reins but still managed to stay perfectly positioned on the horse. She positioned the arrow in the bow and drew it as far back as she could, closed her eyes and whispered a spell then released the arrow to fly. Without delay, she drew another arrow, whispered the same spell, and let it fly as well.She flung the bow to the side and gripped the horse’s reins, taking control of the animal’s movements. Within seconds, Ryder and his team were within sight. Vixra smirked when she saw that Lyra had been knocked down to the ground, one of the arrows had pierced the horse she had been on, and the other arrow had struck Ryder in the shoulder, causing him to fall off his horse as well.“Do not let them escape!” she yelled out the c
The group traveled in silence with Lyra at the forefront, Ryder just tagging behind her, Borox and the rest of his men followed behind. They had ridden way past the city of Beor and were far away from the Erstonian castle so it was safe for them to just allow the horses to walk for a bit.The landscape was slowly changing the further they journeyed, the snow here was lesser, and from a distance, she could see mountains different from the ones she had been used to seeing in Erstonia, these had no snow covering them and nothing grew in the ground around them.“Fang Peek,” she whispered and felt a chill run down her spine. Fear engulfed her as the weight of what she had agreed to do rested on her heavily. In only a couple of hours, she would be dead, Ryder would head on back to Astaroth and life would continue for them just as normal.She thought of Xanth, the man was softer than Ryder, and a lot more understanding, and yes she would miss him dearly. The last time she had seen him was we
The girl is still alive.The thought rang in his head as he entered his chambers in the castle, one wave of his staff and he had his doors locked with a spell.“The girl is still alive!” he yelled and flung his staff away, it collided with the wall without making a noise and came back to him, floating in the air beside the wizard. He took in a deep breath but was unable to calm down, he thought he had dealt with everything that would hinder Osyron from rising. He thought it was finally all over.He paced the length of the room, from the window to the door, back and forth, deep in thoughts. He stopped abruptly and walked to a part of his room where a he curtain was hung over a wall, he reached behind the heavy curtains and slid out a huge, ancient mirror. The mirror held no reflection and was just black, he reached for his staff which was floating beside him and placed it to rest against the mirror so that the red jewel touched it.With a pin he pricked his index finger, placed that o
“So,” Borox walked up to Ryder atop his horse and took hold of the reins. “No detours anymore, I’m guessing?”Ryder glanced over at Lyra, who was being helped to mount her horse. She had agreed to the sacrifice and with that, he knew a part of him had died. He shook his head to respond to Borox. “No, no detours.”She sat on the horse and picked up the reins, adjusting the fur cloak she had requested for to protect herself from the cold. They all stood by the cave’s entrance, looking out, she, Ryder, Borox and about a dozen of his men were ready for the long ride to Fang Peek.“Erstonia lies in between this place and Fang Peek, is that correct?” Lyra asked Ryder as they eased their horses outside of the cave, behind them, Borox followed with his men.“That is correct,” Ryder answered her question. He could feel her coldness towards him and he hated it, the not caring attitude she had now developed was something he was sure he would never get used to. But then he sighed, he would not be
The night was long. Long and quiet.Tonight she had been made to sleep in her own tent instead of having to share one with General Mavrek, the warrior that had delivered the message to her had said it was because the General would be having an all-night meeting with the men in command of each section of the troop, but she knew it was because he had just killed someone in there and the blood was still fresh on the ground, and the smell of blood was still very heavy in the air. She was sensitive and would pick up the scent in an instant.But she was grateful she had not been made to stay with the General in his tent tonight because it might have been more difficult sneaking out of his tent. She didn’t wait for the morning, she didn’t even know what time it was, all she knew was that she had waited for everywhere to be quiet. It was easy staying awake as sleep had eluded her after finding out Mavrek’s plans for her.She felt heartbroken and betrayed because truly, she did love the Genera
“There has not been any earth tremor for days now, has Ryder completed the sacrifice?” General Mavrek asked Iris as she crashed into a chair in his tent, gulping down cup after cup of water. A day’s journey in the cold and snow-covered land had nothing on her, as her body could withstand some levels of extreme temperatures, but her body could not go on without water. She had not thought of that really.She had stumbled into Mavrek’s camp as they were making their way up to Fang Peek, and Mavrek had been shaken, expecting to see Ryder coming up a distance away with Xanth. But after a couple of hours with no sign of either men, he began to relax a bit.Iris looked away after her last cup of water, she had heard his question but what could she say in reply? That the girl they had all their hopes on was dead? That they should go home and prepare for war, promising death by the hand of the bloodthirsty god, Osyron? “We encountered some complications on the way.”“Complications?” that conf