The Rider's Legacy

Part One | Ruins

Part One | Ruins

Chapter One | Dust

First, it was the ash in my throat.

It was choking enough to shock me awake. I woke clawing at my throat, panic hijacking my mind. It coated my tongue, layering my throat which itself burned savagely. 

There was only darkness here. Darkness sealed around me by slabs of stone. I couldn't feel my affinity; the shadows that curled affectionately around my arm were gone . The heaviness inside my head, the warmth of the bond that twined inside my soul. Gone.

I was back in Naughton. That had to be it. My mind was scattered, pain shredding against my hips, my bones. There was water ebbing from above. Drip, drip against my head.

Acheron, the iciness of the water as it blasted against my skin. Harsh enough that I thought it was shred my skin to ribbons. Amon, his knee on my back. Laughing.

No.

I blinked.

No. Amon was gone.

Second, it was the pain.

I shifted against the rock that cocooned me, a keen cry slipped through my gritted teeth. My ribs throbbed in protest. Some were broken, I was sure. I could feel it with every whistling breath. The hand that clawed my throat, crushed beneath a brutal hand.

Blood ebbed from the corners of my mouth.  Amon was gone. I felt the mark of his fresh wounds on my body. The torn bindings and weeping wounds. The shattered hand. My torso, flaming hot and like a lightening rod that arched up my spine every time I moved.

The whip marks on my back. Fresh and sharp – but now that pain helped to keep the dullness at bay and kept my mind sharp enough to think.

"Nethore?"

I called but my head felt too big. Too empty. An echoing cavern with only my voice reverberating back. Just like Naughton. Panic tightened my chest. Amon was dead. I was in Ithrall.

Amon's blood was on my hands.

"Nethore?"

My affinity was worn. Every piece of strength had been wasted on severing the ancient magic that kept the academy island afloat. I couldn't sense anything beyond my own body and the knowledge that there was a great mountain of stone above me.

"Nethore?"

The bond was silent and still. Beyond the panic that pinched my chest, a dawning horror began to fester. No.  Nethore was alive. We stayed together at the end. We should be here again. Together...

"Nethore?" I croaked; my throat was still full of ash.

I reached my mangled hand upwards, towards the chink of light. No,  more than a chink. Light streamed through it, the gap wide enough to let me worm through. If I could work my body through it. I had to find him – I would find him.

He had cocooned me here. Kept me safe. I would find him.

As I moved, the echoing silence of Ithrall seemed to be shattered. The stone and metal around me were stationary as I began to shift upwards, wriggling my body gently upwards and pausing every few seconds to check for sounds. A trickle of falling dirt. A groan or squeal of metal. Some warning that the coffin around me was going to cave in.