Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

but then so much more rushed inside. It was like opening the windows inside a home, once stagnant before a breeze created allowed the fresh pure air inside. And this air was all power.

As I sensed this incredible surge I began to gain an understanding of its character: it was the force held within the sweet scent of flowers, the wind as it carried molecules that made breathing possible and the clouds up high that held so much energy that it could be both calm or thunderous. It also came from below, from the chlorophyll in the blades of grass, from the fauna wriggling within the ground, from rich minerals, dense stones and then also, leaking through their wooden beds, from the hearts of the deceased. Ariel was right, there was quite a bit of this energy here, all free for the taking and invigorating as it entered my form.

I felt a whiteness sing as it danced through all aspects of me, nursing my injuries and giving me strength enough to raise my sword into the air and high above my head. As I did I saw light fill the voids in my wounds that was so potent that it even replaced my lost torn form.

"Whoa." I heard Ariel murmur. "Now that's a sword!"

"Hey, Ariel." I called to wherever she was hiding. "So to survive I need to destroy this thing, right?"

"Yeah, that's right. Show us your will to live."

"Fine," I smirked, "then I'll cut it to ribbons!" I roared as my feet galloped over the grass with speed that became suddenly impossibly fast.

Sensing white flash from the soles of my shoes I was projected forwards and closed the distance to the shade so quickly that it never had a chance to evade. The shade chose to through two arms out in front, shaped into spears and made a perfect position to block my attack.

Once the shade was in a range of two meters I swung down, connected with its two bladed arms and cut right through. The heavy momentum continued down and with the ease of cutting into butter the monster was sliced into two perfectly symmetrical halves. When the tip of my claymore fallen to the ground it was amidst a rain of black crystals.

"Whoa!" I heard Ariel repeat, only that it wasn't actually her voice, but another's.

I turned then, dragging my sword on the ground behind me and viewed three girls standing six or seven meters away, a safe distance from the length of my blade. At first I thought I was seeing Ariel's twins as all three possessed platinum blonde hair and silver eyes, but then I noticed the differences. They had different statures, both the other two were taller than Ariel, one had a round face with wavy hair that reached her waste and the other had a long, slender face and figure, with medium length hair pulled back into a ponytail and eyes that resembled the upturned shape of a cat's. But all three were young, all just teenagers like me.

"How the hell can you even lift that thing!?" The girl with the round face exclaimed, pretty pale eyes glistening with excitement. "That's incredible!"

"So, I take it that you're all daevas." I glared. "And that all this time the three of you have been hiding as you watched me suffer?"

"Oh, look at her!" The round-faced one cried cheerily. "She's pissed!"

"That's right." The cat-eyed girl affirmed. "And you did very well, I'm glad I got to see it."

"See it?" My hands trembled around the blade's hilt. "See what, my blood?!"

"Bethanie!" Ariel pleaded. "Please calm down, look, you're not even bleeding anymore."

"I don't care if it's stopped. Why did you have to put me through that pain?!"

"Well what the little temper-tantrum we have here." The round-faced girl said with a tone that was far too giddy.

"Listen, precious." The cat-eyed one opened out her hands as if to show that she was no threat. "It's not like we were just watching you for kicks. We took a step back so that you could find your erosreaver..."

"Hold on!" I leered. "Did you just call me precious, is that a joke?!"

"Bethanie, please try to understand!" Ariel cried passionately. "We were doing this for you! You can't find the form of your light unless you really think that you're going to die! That's why we held back!"

The round-faced one licked her smiling lips. "And what a show that was! You know the part where you say, Ariel, that if she keeps whining like a baby then she deserves to die - that was hilarious! My God I struggled not to laugh at that one!"

"For Christ's sake, Dorothy, shut up!" The cat-eyed girl screeched. "You're not helping here! We're trying to win Bethanie to our side, if you remember? Jesus, keep acting like this and she won't hesitate to stick that sword up your arse!"

"Oh? Is that right?" Dorothy refuted. "Well I'd like to see her try. You know," her silver eyes flashed back to me, "I really would like to hear the music of that battlefield."

"You're hopeless, Dorothy." Cat-eyed exclaimed. "This is why we told you not to come but you just showed up anyway..."

Dorothy rolled her eyes. "I'm just having a little fun, but if the long-sword chick here doesn't get my jokes I'm sure Shirley Temple will explain I mean nothing by it, isn't that right, Ariel?" And here Dorothy reached across and pinched Ariel's cheeks so that their rosiness increased.

Ariel slapped her hand away. "Quit it, Dorothy! Jacqueline," Ariel pleaded toward her other companion, "can you please take her away and babysit her for a bit. She's ruining everything! Like always."

"Yeah," Jacqueline nodded, "she is." Then she turned to me and smiled apologetically. "I wish I could get to know you better but it looks like I'm gonna have my hands full so I'll just leave you with Ariel. And, I know that all this looks pretty... overwhelming but I promise, we care about you greatly. You did well today, you proved your value as a daeva and soon, I have no doubt, that we'll be fighting side by side for this world."

Then she grabbed Dorothy's wrist and began to pull her away along with the round-faced girl's ouches and whines.

"Are you serious?" Dorothy moaned as she was being led away. "But I was well-behaved! I was just trying to have a little fun. I wasn't going to start anything, honest!"

"Sorry about her." Ariel apologised frowning. "Seeing as to what we were planning I wanted to have Jacqueline here to back me up, just in case I wasn't quick enough but of course as soon as Dorothy caught wind of it she just had-to-tag-along..."

My hands were still stiff around my sword's hilt. "Backup hey? So that girl Jacqueline could pass you the popcorn right at the climax of my death-scene!?"

"No! Of course not!" She shouted. "To save you!"

"Humph, that's pretty funny, considering you said that if I couldn't even defeat a single shade than I would have been useless to you. That my life would cease to have any meaning." I repeated evenly.

"No, Bethanie! Can't you see, I had to say those things, so that the seed would sprout and you could find your erosreaver! It was the only way that it would materialise, it could only come if your soul accepted this fate and loosened its hold on your body. It was the only way you could complete your transformation as a daeva!"

"The only way, huh?" My hands still gripped the sword that hung heavily on the ground behind me, its tip driving into the soil of some unknown person's grave. "This was the only way you could use me as your warrior, your pawn in this war you have."

"Oh, Bethanie..." Ariel sighed. "Yes, yes it's true. I forced you into that position to make you a warrior in a battle that you needn't have fought. I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't want to bring you into this world, I didn't want to bring anyone else, but the unseen war still wages and we desperately need more fighters on our side so, when you said you wanted in I... let you." There she crumpled to the grass and stared into its emerald leaves with melancholy.

Even though it was resting on the ground I was really starting to feel the weight of the weapon in my hands. This caused my grasp to slip but as I felt the white blaze within them I managed to quickly reset and harden my hold. "You said you had that girl, Jacqueline, for backup. Well, if you and her were in my corner then why did I get so beat up? Why was I made to suffer so much?"

Ariel sighed heavily. "I know the pain that you are feeling, I know because I was once in your position too. I felt all the lashes, the stabs, but now, that's all over for you. Don't you see, you're an awakened daeva now! That means that you're so powerful that physical injury ceases to have effect over you, anything that harms you you'll simply heal from!"

The sun was lowering in the sky and again I saw strange wonderful rivers of light begin overhead. I looked back across the distance where Ariel sat and stared at a black tombstone. I gazed aside at my arms and legs that, whilst besmirched with blood, showed no wounds at all. To someone who didn't know what had just transpired it would have merely appeared like someone threw red paint onto me. Nor did I feel any lingering burn there, I was completely recovered.

"So that was it? That was my trial for power?" I asked, my hand still refusing to let go of the heavy heavy sword.

"I'm afraid..." The girl hesitated. "Yes. But you must know that even though I said those things back there I never would have allowed you to die! I like you, Bethanie, I really do! I already think of you as a friend so there's no way, even if it meant you failed in your evolution, that I would have allowed that thing to really harm you!"

"So... you were really protecting me the whole time, but to allow my... erosreaver, was it? To come," I questioned as I turned a brief glance at the ebony and red-lined blade whose hilt I still held within my hands "Then I needed to believe that I was doomed. I needed to feel... absolute desperation."

"You needed a powerful emotional stimulus to draw the light out and the only way to do that was to make you believe, make you terrified of your impending doom. And you had to fight that overwhelming emotion all at the same time."

I smirked as I stared at a broken tombstone ahead of me. "Yeah, okay. That makes sense, pain is the currency of this world after all. You lose and you pay but at least here I finally receive some goods."

"Only now a daeva, but you've led a hard life, haven't you, Bethanie?" Abigail enquired gently.

"What does it matter? That life's over now." I responded dryly as the sword hilt slipped from my grasp but before it flattened to the grass it disappeared in a shimmer of white dust.

The girl smiled at me, silver eyes glistening that I realised were holding onto thick tears. "Thank you, Bethanie, thank you, thank you for believing in me. I promise, that we'll be friends forever. You'll see."

"Yeah, alright, friends."

Eventually Ariel asked the question as she gazed at a black marble tombstone. "Catherine Starr, it says here that she died two years ago at the age of forty-two. Would that make her your mother then?"

I closed my eyes, the one thing I had energy left to clench. "Yes."

"Oh, I see. Then she's probably your reason to wanna fight so hard. Because of her death you want to battle the darkness that claimed her."

It wasn't a question so I didn't answer. Instead I sighed as I