A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 24

YUVEN

Neven.

Ripples of disruption sang underneath a thin layer of gold-speckled ice, followed by a melodic song of a sleepy lullaby. Hark, it screamed out in the roar of Evyriaz's ascension of a chorus. Through layers of blackest tar into white-feathered grace. Nails dragged along bumpy mountain rock, in the distance ooze dripped from a bulbous mass to birth a Derelict; formless maw wide open as it bloomed underneath the water and snapped the image in half, into threefold puddles of blood, and the song died. A glaive, studded with sapphire scales clattered to the ground underneath his feet, burnt to a crimson crisp.

Fly higher.

Blood pushed against his throat, and with every breath it slipped down into a thick cascade, but he forced himself to take each step into the darkness. Lost. Alone. Worst of all, confused. Questions threatened to leave him for dead, but he repeated the names, over and over, bringing himself closer and closer to the edge of life.

Fenrer.

Metal shaped by the teeth of walks fluttered with the arrows of memorized war. Molvasolevu, Evyriaz — no, Euron, called him. Wolf of the Dawn. Back against the obsidian stone, scared of his own little shadow, he forced his attention into the light, where Fenrer Pyren, a young Hanekan boy no older than he was, held out his hand into the abyss without hesitation and without trepidation even when the emerald grass below bled into black blood. His features melted into a fuzzy recollection, but no, no, his memory couldn't fail him. Fenrer Pyren. Fenrer Pyren. He repeated the name, even when jaws grew from the grass and chewed on the shattered memory of an outstretched hand which fell into the sea, past his own, and an intense, world-ending light came to life with a final gasp, screeching at the pain he beset upon it as it melted the shadows. Even when his own mind played the question of the event ever happening at all.

Higher.

He drew out a shaky hand to try and disrupt the cascade slipping down his chin and leaving a sticky texture on his shirt. It turned his skin into a formless abyss, pulsating veins of serrated teeth crawling around his arms. He dragged himself forward, his boots skidding across the rockdust underneath his feet. Higher. He had to get higher. Fly higher. His fingers dragged against the wall of lava-carved chambers. Go higher. I don't even remember how I got here. What was I doing? As he questioned, the caustic flow continued. No, keep saying their names until it's your last word! Do not let the abyss take them too. You swore an oath. You swore. You promised! Don't forget it now!

His knee hit the ground as he tried to gasp for gurgled breath, trying to free his tongue from the spiderwebs clinging around his cheeks. Fever waves slipped down his shoulder blades as he tried to grasp for sunlight, for her hand he wanted to follow into the unknown future. A lone, gray-splattered feather fell into the blood trail at his feet when he tried to shake out the burning haze. If I lay down here, I will never get back up. He forced himself off his knees and continued onward, abandoning the feather to its swallowed fate.

Maria.

The high point of the sun.

Would that I was able to have hope, to have faith, to believe. But this world has shown me nothing but its fangs. Tears escaped down his cheekbones and coursed through the crimson mud. I have to get higher. Out of here. Out of this familiar darkness before I destroy everything. Cobbled marble scrunched under his feet. Spires of splendorous alabaster cracked at the leash of formless tendrils swirling around him, up into a sphere of death along the lines of the cradle. A laugh escaped his bubbled throat, into a gasp for life, and another push through the tide. It chewed and stuck to his toes, and he faltered, though the Fenrer Pyren born of unwavering, unyielding conviction continued through as if it was nothing but a meaningless puddle. His own steps followed his Oathbounds darkened dogma. I have not your strength of gigantic spirit. I am but an Avaerilian, a dying wyvern unable to fly. Yuven followed all the same, pulled along by a forceful storm. How?