The Raven and the Wraith Book 2 (Completed!)

The Raven and the Wraith 2 Chapter 13

The Raven and the Wraith 2 Chapter 13

I was about to ask Chan how he'd known what I was thinking, or trying to do, but then we passed through an ornate archway into a completely round room and my mind went blank.

The room was round, even the floor was curved, like a perfect sphere had been carved out of the tree. And the entire surface of the room was a silent, flashing, flickering storm of seething red. Like bloody lightning bolts of savage power were chasing themselves throughout the room, embedded directly into the walls, so bright they lit them up from within. 

"Melikah's Heart." Chan breathed, his cat eyes stretched comically wide in wonder.

I would have laughed at the look on his face any other time, but I was too busy gaping about like him. Unlike him, though, I was not frozen in wonder. I was gripped tight by skeletal fingers of purest dread. My instincts were a screaming, fraying chorus of demands to act. To run. To hide.

Then the rippling Power around me coalesced into images. A young boy, striding confidently into a dark forest of haunted, gnarled trees. He moved with the unwavering confidence borne of the sheer inexperience of youth. And I knew unquestioningly that he was walking into Deaths open arms.

The Woods were not natural. They were darker than they should be. And everything, every plant, every stone, every insect I could see were huddled, wretched things. Warped and possessed of a merciless hatred.

The boy stopped momentarily, his head swiveling as he scanned his surroundings. And my breath locked in my throat as I finally caught a clear look of his face.

"No!" My voice was a dull croak of denial.

I didn't want to watch this. I wanted to shut my eyes, I wanted to turn away, run away. To hide forever from this memory that wasn't mine but still belonged to me.

"Rahvin?" Kiera stepped closer to me, her voice heavy with concern.

I twitched in surprise when she placed her small hand in mine. I couldn't tear my eyes off the scene unfolding before me. A scene so detailed and rippling with perfect familiarity that it felt like I was living it, more than just watching it. Her touch had momentarily reminded me this was not my reality.

"What is it? What do you see?" She asked.

My keen nose caught the faintest whiff of leather and dark, fierce herbs. I knew she was holding a pouch of Razorlash in one hand. Ready to defend me. It brought me a moment of warmth while I struggled to keep my heart from freezing solid. It gave me the strength to continue.

"I'm watching myself die." I said. To my own ears my voice sounded like gray stones being scraped with iron. 

The image on the walls had gone chaotic. I watched as the boy was surrounded by DraelKin. I watched him fight, a raw savagery to his every motion, a lethal whirlwind, spraying the woods with  dripping crimson wherever he darted in and out of the battle lines.

I watched him fight with his complete heart and soul. And I saw him overcome by the sheer numbers, the boiling, writhing masses bearing him down. Tearing him apart in the jaws of Despair.

I blinked once, then again, as I felt tears trace tiny lines of ice down my cheeks. I remembered that day. I remembered walking foolishly into Possum Hollow. I remembered fighting through wave after wave of DraelKin.

I remembered the moment I had known I was going to die. I remembered giving in to that unthinking killer inside, then. That moment was forever etched into my memory.

Because in order to give in to that merciless predator inside of me, I had to give up what it meant to be human. I had to die.

And now, here in this tree, I had watched how my other half had died that day. Now I understood what Melikah had meant when she said I was a Child of Two Worlds.