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

all slow motion then as I watched the tree fall. Its very thick trunk was collapsing hard and fast whilst Eric was still running right into its path, his eyes fixated only on me. I called out to him, Stop, no, it's going to hit you! But again that remained unheard, the boy's ears no doubt deafened by the explosion around us.

If I didn't do anything, if I allowed him to keep running towards me, then he was going to be struck by that tree and if Dorothy was right then it was going to play out as one of those outcomes where Eric dies.

"No..." I whispered just as I launched into the fastest sprint my body was capable of. I was running, he was running, we were both heading towards a middle-ground where that destructive tree was falling, neither one of us slowing.

It all happened in moments really so it was only a couple of seconds until we approached one another and there I forcibly pushed Eric away. As he fell back I saw a confused and agonised expression on his face before destruction fell.

Instantly I was transported into a world of darkness, but afar, at someplace reaching ahead was a glowing light.

My erosreaver... I thought as an imagined hand reached out for it. All I needed to do was grab it and then I would awaken as a daeva-lux and be given all the offensive power one possessed but also the healing capabilities. To be saved all I needed to do was connect with it.

But the further I reached the further away that light stretched.

"No..." I whimpered towards it, whether out loud or in my hollow mind I couldn't be certain. "No, come to me. You have to come to me!"

I strained that imagined arm, reached with all my cognitive might, but the light kept receding as its immaculate glow faded.

"You have to come back!" I ordered it. "You're meant to make me awaken, I'm meant to be a daeva!"

But it didn't, it just continued to retreat, as if it didn't want anything to do with me. Then I realised that of course it wouldn't, for I was dying.

Just like that, I either thought or said. Am I really going to die like this? I never even felt the blow. All I know of were his eyes, his terrified eyes as he stared at me.

That light drew further away, so far that it became no more than a pale speck I felt tempted to squint at.

Oh, I get it now. Dorothy really did pity me because she saw this outcome, she saw all of them. And despite seeing the ones where I lived she directed me towards the one where I die because she knew, she knew that this is what I wanted, this is what I preferred. If it had to be an absolute choice between me and Eric she knew what I would have chosen and that was what led me to this place. She knew that I would give my very life to protect the person I cherished most, to who I loved most.

Damn, and I so enjoyed living.

As I stared into my eternal darkness at the distant almost imperceptible light I slowly retracted my imagined hand and smiled.

Only one of us could be saved but knowing that it was him I knew that I could settle easily into whatever existence or non-existence that followed.

As the light ahead finally melted into total blackness I managed just a few last statements that I knew were only transmitted by thought.

So long as you remain in this world then it will be forever beautiful. Live, Eric, nurture your family, your brother. You're capable of so much brilliance. That I know and through your glow I believe that a part of me shall never die.

Good bye, Eric... I love you.  I always have.

Chapter 31

 

Bethanie

 

Dark descended quickly, inordinately quickly, as if some cruel hand of fate was leading us to doom all the faster. The storm that descended meagre minutes after sunset seemed a testament to that. Though rain pattered heavily on my school uniform, though my every footstep seemed to land in puddle or mud, though the scene ahead was so thick with falling water that I could scarcely see a meter ahead, I did not falter, I did not slow, I had to reach there in time. I had to save Abigail.

I was alone in my mission, the other girls having run back up the mountain as I had but in all different directions. Lara had told me that they couldn't hold Abigail as a priority, not when hundreds of shades were released across Skyward Mountain and draining the souls of its people. If they focused on just one girl then countless others would die in her place. Lara told me that she understood my need to protect my friend and urged me to go find her. To do it quickly and then join the hunt to clear through the shades. It would be of a great benefit for me if I could eliminate some as soon as possible.

The other two girls were not in same agreement, Vanessa simply cursed, her opinion one of confusion, Rebecca however, she was against me looking to save Abigail. If Abigail's death meant that the end of the world could be stopped then we should let it happen. Fortunately Lara was on my side, she held the belief that Abigail's death would end only one of Raziel's plans and he would think of another method. And in addition to that, she was also a person, someone who was good and still connected to the light so that meant she was worth saving regardless of its consequences.

Fists, composed of black glass, clenched by my sides as I ran. It was surprising that I could still move my body with relative ease given how much of the stiff foliage that covered it, but it appeared that the way they clung to me was not too different from chain mail where they both linked up and through my skin to one another. It was gorgeous artwork, one that would even have had Abigail gushing at its intricacy, even though it spelled near death. But she would gush at it, for I would find her soon and she would be alive, she would remain that way. Her death simply was not an option.

Along a road I ran, the bitumen black but shining amber underneath the streetlamps. A shade soon became visible at the edge of that street, facing a long drive that led up an estate. As I neared the being turned and tilted its head quizzically at me. It ceased its movement and seemed to sharpen up its arms but refrained from attack. After I had run past I received the sense that the shade had refaced its original directive towards a house I had not seen.

Go quickly, Riesel's words replayed themselves over the slapping of my feet on the wet surface. The calamity that is about to befall her is imminent and only you can save her from her fate, Bethanie.

He didn't tell me what threatened her, though I demanded the information desperately, but he did tell me the where and that was a small way from the top of Skyward Mountain. Close to the lookout but about fifteen minutes walk down from there, along the sole road that led up to it. Abigail would not be alone, another would be with her but only one would I be capable of saving. The fates of both of them would be determined by me, whether I arrived there in time and whether I could do what was necessary.

Another shade was on the road, this one however proved to be a little more interested as it swung a speared limb at me. I ducked my head under it, called my blade and swiped across at it, missing it but directing it away. A moment later I dropped my sword and allowed it to turn to dust, my feet moved much faster without that burden. The whole time I kept running forward, light flashing from my feet, so the next time the shade had a go at me it missed by a wide margin and failed to reach me again.

I kept on running, water soaking through my impractical mary-jane shoes, to my short cropped white socks and right through to my pruney skin.  It wasn't cold though, nor uncomfortable, sensations like that had no reason to be appreciated when my heart was only set for one goal, one need and my daeva-heighten body knew well enough not allow distractions to encroach on that.

Another shade, however this one was completely disinterested in me for it had someone else to attend to. A girl I did not know but who wore the same school uniform as me had collapsed down on the footpath. She was young, looked to be only first year of high school and was completely motionless. Her aura was dull, almost as grey as if her body held no soul at all, but whatever was left was fading fast through this one shade.

Understanding that a single shade should not be able to take the entire life-force of a person I continued to run, but the dim pallor had me slow. Then I remembered how no more than eight shades drained the auras of an entire food court. They managed to steal so much aura in fact that four people had died that day. The shades may have previously been only able to take a part each, but things were obviously changing now, they were growing stronger and that meant that this girl really could be drained to entirety. No wonder the others were so worried.

My feet kept following the road, passed the girl and shade duo, made ten more paces before my conscience got the better of me.

Skidding, water splashing from my shoes after the sudden stop, I summoned my claymore from the world and slashed backwards, right over the top of that unconscious girl.

The shade leapt away, its hands white as if that showed the metaphorical crumbs to the cookie jar it was just helping itself to. It shivered its arm, reformed it into a pointy stake and drove it straight at me. Crystals broke away from halfway down its length. Having cut through the arm I swung my massive blade back the other way and lopped off the thing's head.

After a quick dash back its upper body quivered before producing a new pea-sized nut skull. It formed with just enough time to see its legs fly away from its top half, the severing point made right through where a human heart should have lurked.

Crystals fell onto the street, signalling the end of the shade and in a similar complement I watched one ebony flower disintegrate into dust over a knuckle on my right hand. But ninety percent of my body was still etched with this floral pattern, the absence of just one flower doing little to give my situation a reprieve.

I turned back to the unconscious girl and made a silent promise to come back and see her home once Abigail was safe and then took up