She ran.
The forest was dense, and thick with darkness, and although she could see no light ahead or could not tell why she was running, still she could not stop, so she kept on running. Her feet were bare and her cloak was heavier, it restricted her and she felt like someone was constantly pulling on it, causing it to choke her whenever it was pulled. She should unclasp it, yes, but she didn’t. all she wanted to do was run.
“It comes for you, Lyra of Dragonsbane.”
Someone pulled at it again and she choked. She gasped and panted.
“Your destruction calls for you, Lyra.”
Another pull, and then she felt something pierce into her foot. She screamed in absolute pain and tumbled to the ground. Her foot was stuck and she could not move, but the urge to keep going was too great to ignore and so she started crawling, but her foot would not move.
“Osyron calls for you.”
And she screamed.
She bolt
She gasped and screamed in pain.The pain she felt was immense as the blade tore through her abdomen, going in and coming out the other end. Her eyes were wide, she looked down to her abdomen where the blade had gone into her and her hands came down to hold on to the blade, she looked up at Ryder’s face and saw that he had a surprise look on his face. Surprise, shock and regret. She groaned and leaned forward into him, causing him to snap back and he quickly pulled the blade out of her and then dissolving it into the dark mist it was formed from. He caught her in his arms.Eris gasped and yelled as she fell into Ryder’s arms, both of them slowly falling to the ground. Anger welled up in him and he reached out for Lyra, pulling her away from Ryder but he snapped, his eyes turning black as he pushed him away with so much force that he sent the man flying halfway across the yard.Lyra trembled in his arms, one hand pressed against the wound and the othe
Xanth watched him.He stood in front of the man that had snuck into the castle and tried to seat Lyra away from them, he had found the man tied up and held by one of the guards, and together they had brought him here, to the lowest parts of the castle where the dungeon was. The man was tied up in a chair and unconscious, stripped of his armor and leaving nothing on him save for the very thin shirt he had underneath, which was now stained with blood resulting from his bruises which was caused by Ryder when he had flung the man across the yard with one hand.Xanth could imagine that the man suffered from a few broken ribs, broken or cracked or grazed, whatever, but the pain could not be denied. He had a bucket of cold water and a towel beside him where he stood, he knew that he would need to wake the man up before Ryder got here, because he would definitely come, and he would be expecting to know some answers, answers he was supposed to get from the unconscious man.
He needed to calm down.That much he knew, that he needed to calm down but then everything was irritating him and causing him to be restless, even the simple task of climbing up the stairs annoyed him and rather than just walk up the stairs, he could not help but stomp his way up. He paused and sighed when he got to the last stairs, rubbing his temple with this thumb and index finger. Everything was a mess, he was used to chaos as he was always the bringer of it, but this was something else, it started with Lyra and ended with Lyra. Ever since she got here, ever since the burden of the year of Osyron came, it was all a mess.Hopefully, this would be the last. He would have to do as his uncle had suggested; for him to go look for another Khione and not put all his eggs into one basket. He walked down the hallway, making his way to his room where Lyra was, as soon as everything here was settled, they would go out across the kingdoms in search of another Khione, he didn&r
She gasped when she woke.It was pitch black dark when she first opened her eyes so she laid there a bit so her eyes could adjust to the darkness. The moon was high up, throwing its bright light into the room through the open windows. She had dreamt of that lady again and this time, it had been more disturbing than the last time and she had been having the dream repeatedly for eight days after the incident with Ryder and Eris.Eris, she wondered what might have happened to him, since then she had not heard a word about him.She threw the covers off her body and got out of bed, wincing slightly from the pain in her abdomen. She had to be stitched up, and thankfully they had done that when she was unconscious because she would never be able to bear with the pain. Xanth and the physician had told her not to stress so much so that she does not stretch the stitches, and Ryder had told her that is she did, they would have to stitch her back up. And this time she would
The morning came quickly.Lyra was up early, and so was Xanth who was already used to waking up early. He was with Lyra in the front yard, teaching her and helping her master her new found magic art because Ryder had said he was best suited to being her teacher than anyone else. Maybe it was for the fact that he was half Khione and half Axeris; the spawn of the former ruler of Axeris, Lord Dixon d’Croix, Ryder’s father, and his Khione mother who he only knew as Naphtalia, the Khione female sacrificed in the previous year of Osyron.Or maybe it was because Ryder could not bare to have Lyra out of his sight and with someone not on his list of trusted people. Whatever the case, he had appointed Xanth to be in charge of her training.She giggled loudly, her pleasant voice rang out across the front yard and anyone could tell that see was having herself some fun training with Xanth as her teacher. She was summoning balls of white energy at random and
The sun was high up in the sky and blazing down but the weather had gotten chilly. Winter was coming, they could feel that in the air.Iris and Ryder sat on their horses and stood side to side, neither of them saying a word to the other, or planning to. They waited for Xanth and Lyra so they could be on their way towards the Eldham border where Ryder had planned to cross into Rocheveron after he must have settled the issue of land dispute, and he would settle it his own way.Xanth approached Ryder, Lyra walked close to his side, she had her head down, not to the ground but she didn’t look up to meet Ryder’s gaze. Both her hands had been bandaged and by the pained look on her face, anyone could tell that the pain from her burned hands still stung something painful.“Could we delay for a day or two?” Xanth asked Ryder as he walked up to him, patting his horse’s head. Ryder frown and looked down at him.“Why?”
They had been on the road for two days.And for two days she had been riding with Ryder as per his order, and not that she did not find it quite comfortable because then her hands could rest from pulling on the horse’s reins, but being so close to him. Being that close to him. For the two days they had spent on the road, Ryder had been beside her at all times, changing and dressing her injured hands with a frown on his face always, and even the simple task of feeding which she could do herself without much needing to stress her hands, she was not allowed to. Ryder would not allow her to.His behavior towards her confused her and for the first day she tried hard to adjust to his new attitude, but with the death stares Iris shot at her at every given opportunity, she knew better than to get too comfortable with Ryder’s behaviour. Xanth on the other hand was indifferent and he didn’t see anything quite wrong with what Ryder was doing or how he was behaving.
It was utmost and total chaos.The wind had picked up fast and drastically, and accompanied by the encroaching darkness signifying that night time was near, it seemed like a god had been finally let off his chains after years of wrongly suffering and coming for vengeance. And it came in all its might for the Rocheveron army camp.The energy surrounding him was as black as the night, and as thick as ink. It swam in the air around him and moved as he did, dispersing dark shadows of himself per second. They had only one purpose here, and that was to bring destruction and death to the camp of the enemy in whose side of the line Ryder now stood. But he knew what he was doing, he was not blinded with the power he wielded, nor did he allow the necessity of crossing into Rocheveron overwhelm his control.He was not totally about destroying the camp, but to instill just the right amount of fear and a bit more so that he would be taken seriously without having to repeat his wor
“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