VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

29.0 || Of Possession and Dark Ones

EVA

RACING THOUGHTS WERE NEVER fun company. Waking nightmares and "what-ifs" whipped Eva's mind faster than any vision while she paced the floor of the common room.

It must have been her seventieth lap, she thought, certain that her constant back-and-forth padding would leave ruts in the carpet. She tried to remind herself how brutally Mystia would slaughter her if she left any kind of markings on the floor, hoping it would slow her anxious strides, but even Mystia's wrath wasn't enough to calm her.

How could it?

All she could focus on was Emrys and Mystia racing for the Barrier, not to mention whatever fate Bobbi had stumbled upon. If Eva wasn't awake from the caffeinated brews her companions had pumped into her, Emrys' morning commune was enough to keep her from sleeping for an eternity. His horror-struck expression plagued her memory, eyes dazed and skin paling at whatever monstrosity had appeared in his vision.

While Eva was thankful for his resolve to protect—and hopefully save—Bobbi, she couldn't help but wonder what repercussions his choice would have. It had concerned her days prior when his fight with the Corrupted Dreadfiend left him weary and battered. Now, it seemed like he couldn't put on his socks without visible weakness. His constant downhill progression was concerning without another trip across the Barrier... or, heaven forbid, another battle.

Eva shuddered as she thought about her last dream, where Emrys hung from the Guardian in decaying shambles. How long would it be before his ashes consumed him?

She shook her head. Pacing and thinking the worst weren't going to solve anything.

Breaking away from her rut, she snatched her discarded book from where it rested half-open on the coffee table. Maybe staring at four different walls and attempting to read more than two words would do her some good.

Though she started down the hallway, planning to make herself back at home in Emrys' bed, she stopped the moment her hand came to rest on the doorknob.

The familiar thrum of magic brought gooseflesh to her arms.

Guilt strangled her chest. Though she tried to tune out the pulses emanating from further down the hall, its call gnawed at her until she removed her hand from the knob and continued toward the final door.

Every step toward her room intensified the magic's dominance. She could feel it all across the Sanctum, beckoning for her to return to it—to become one with an object she wished she had never touched. How the others didn't feel it, too, she didn't know. All she knew was she couldn't enter her own bedroom with her companions watching her every move. But, with the two of them making a break for Earth, there was no better time to examine the item. To figure out why it wailed for her touch ever since she first laid eyes upon it.

Eva followed the power's hum to the bookshelf at the far corner of her room, where a leather-bound book stuck out just enough for no one else to notice, yet easy for her to find when the time was right.

The textbook was well worn, covering various governmental figures who'd ruled over Astraela for the past century. It was something Thana would've had no interest in, and Eva had been surprised to find it in her room until she had peeled back the front cover to find the pages hollowed out. The makeshift box housed numerous small trinkets that Thana had collected over the years—little treasures that Eva was certain the others never knew about, but that she remembered from her dreams. At the very center, nestled carefully within a pile of tri-colored Emulan bird feathers, was the source of the magical thrum that haunted her day and night.

Thana's Runestone.

Eva's throat tightened as she thought about the pain her thievery had caused Emrys. It was the last connection he had to the woman he loved, hidden under his nose by someone he trusted. He had nearly driven himself mad the first day without it when he upturned his entire satchel in search of his most precious possession. It made her sick to her stomach to hide it from him, knowing that if something happened to him on Earth, he would never find closure.