From the Embers (The Born in Flames Trilogy) (26 page)

Chapter 23

The Ritual

“HOW MANY LEVELS ARE THERE?” I asked, trying not to panic. “And don’t shrug,” I rushed out before she had the chance to.

She rolled her eyes and then rolled onto her back, pulling the paper out of her robe. I couldn’t tell if the thorns were bothering her or not. “It doesn’t specify, but I think three,” she said, her tone falling like the deflating of a balloon.

“We can’t just lie here,” Fenn griped. He had begun picking at the thorns as well. I turned on my elbows to help him get out what I could see.

“Obviously,” Zane added, his voice sounding muffled. He was resting his forehead against his propped up palms, facing the ground. He looked up at me. “So let’s just get up and go. We can take out anyone…anything that gets in the way.”

“Don’t be hasty,” Lexi shot back at him. “If you try to walk around, you’ll be attacked.”

Despite Lexi’s warning, he jumped to his feet and started walking away from us. I gestured for Fenn to follow and jumped up. Lexi stood slowly, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“We have to keep going, Lexi,” I said as I slowed to match her pace.

She ignored me and stomped forward.

The grass seemed to take on a life of its own as we padded forward, wrapping around our ankles, trying to hold us down. We hacked and slashed with our daggers, hoping another opening would appear and take us to the last level. But our hopes were short-lived.

The Lost popped up from out of nowhere. One appeared right in front of me, snarling and reaching his grimy hands out to grab me. I punched him in the jaw and in the stomach, and then kicked him to send him flying backwards.

Another approached Fenn from behind as he fought one off from the front. Panic jolted through my system, fueling my muscles with strength. I ran and jumped onto his back, throwing off his balance. The Lost thrashed and growled, trying to pitch me off, but I wrapped my arm around his neck and snapped.

Lexi used her power to take out three more, frying their souls with her light. Zane stood up from one he had freshly put down and smiled crookedly at her. She smiled back for a split second until more showed up followed by an echoing, unfamiliar laughter.

I scanned the area, searching for the source of the sound, but I couldn’t find anyone but the Lost. The laughter picked up, surrounding us, closing in on us. It left me feeling robbed of breath and of sense. Bodies of the Lost continued to rise, each appearing with every horrible note of laughter.

We stopped fighting. There were too many to count. They stalked towards us, encircling us with our backs pressed to each other.

“Keep tight together,” Zane instructed, crouched and ready with his dagger gleaming outwards.

“This can’t be happening,” I said. The laughter continued on, blaring inside of my mind. Images of every horrible thing I had ever seen sliced through my mind. Blood spilled from my loved ones shaded my vision. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t…

“Stop it!” I cried out, my hands shielding my ears. Tremors rippled through my body.

When I opened my eyes, the manic laughter had ceased and the remaining Lost had disappeared. I waited for any sign that something else would show up in their place as my pulse throbbed behind my ears.

“I smell a Fate’s power,” Lexi said, nose lifted. She looked over at me, eyes drilling into mine. “They know we are here.”

“If that’s true then what we should really be worried about is that Saeth knows we are here,” Zane pointed out.

“He can’t possibly want to help his son after all that Zordon has done to them,” I grunted, tucking my dagger back into the sheath around my waist.

“We don’t really know what happened. What if Zordon never actually locked Saeth up?” Zane prompted. “Or what if this was all a part of their plan?”

“What ifs won’t change our circumstance,” Lexi said, lips pressed into a white slash.

The ground rumbled beneath our feet, a hole opening in the center of the area. With nowhere to run, we grabbed on to each other and waited.

Something started to rise. I unsheathed my daggers. My hand clenched around the hilts, ready for a fight. The vile creature dug its fingers into the ground and pulled itself the rest of the way out.

Lexi gasped. “A Reap Demon.”

“Reap Demon?” I was almost hesitant to repeat.

“The one who collects and tortures the souls of the Lost,” she said, a tremble in her voice.

The Demon rose to a staggering height, towering over the four of us and making the Lost look like small ants. Its body was made of smoke with sharp, curled horns protruding from its forehead. Red eyes glared down at us. It placed its hands on its hips, blocking us from going any further, then threw its head back and laughed.

So that was where the laughter had come from.

“What now?” Zane mumbled through the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes on the Demon.

“It seems we have to gain access to the next level through him,” Lexi explained.

“And how exactly do we do that?” Fenn inquired nervously.

The evil red eyes of the Demon gleamed down at us, waiting for us to make a move.

“I’m thinking,” Lexi said, wincing from her own words. “Take this.” She pulled something from her pocket. It was the Stone of Immortality. “You will need it for the final spell.”

I clutched it tightly in my hand, vowing to not let go.

“This is just great,” Zane said, cursing. He took a deep breath, his fingers flexing and then cracking at his sides. Without a word, he took a step towards the Demon, ignoring our calls for him to come back. He made it about two feet before being flung backwards by the force of the Demon’s smoking hand.

“Zane!” I cried out, turning to run for him, but a large fist of smoke smashed down in front of me, preventing me from moving any further.

“Fenn!”

He was by my side in an instant, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me around the enormous hand in Zane’s direction. Another large fist slammed in front of us.

We skidded to a halt and fell to the ground in a tumbled mess of legs and arms. We tried to regain our footing to run in the opposite direction, but no matter where we ran, the Demon’s fist was there, stopping us.

“All right!” I finally yelled as I turned to face him. “What do you want?”

The Demon didn’t speak. I don’t think it could speak. He just stood there staring at us with the threat of more to come.

“Aurora, look! An opening,” Lexi hollered as she tugged Zane back towards us. He clutched his arm to his side, his face gray.

I turned back to the Demon where Lexi pointed and found the hole the Demon had crawled out of. It had to be the way to the next level. He was the test.

“But how?” I said to any who would listen.

Fenn grabbed my hand. “We make a run for it,” he whispered to me.

I glanced back at Lexi and Zane who were running but not covering any distance. Some unseen force was preventing them from making progress.

“We can’t leave them,” I said, searching his eyes. Truth clenched around my heart.

“We have to,” he said clearly, sadly. He turned back to Lexi. “Throw me the spell!”

A look of pale shock crossed her face, and then replaced by understanding. She knew we had to go without her. She stopped running and let her light build up, summoning all of her power. Despite the force that held her back, she was able to conjure the paper into Fenn’s hand.

Fenn looked back at her, pulling in a slow, regretful breath, and then grabbed my hand and tugged me towards the opening. We ran faster than we ever had before. He put both of his hands on my waist as the Demon took a step back, swinging his hand into the air, ready to smash us.

“Now!” Fenn yelled. He threw us towards the hole. I slid through the prickly grass directly underneath the Demon and lifted my hands up the minute the hole pulled me down. My eyes shot up, searching for Fenn who appeared a split second later, free falling beside me.

“We’re almost done,” he said encouragingly. He reached through thin air for my hand. I took it for reassurance and squeezed.

Our feet lightly landed on a hard surface. Fiery pits of lava and rock had formed. Something moved beside us. We jerked our heads to the right. The Shadows. Swirling around us, they took on forms of various human bodies.

“Let’s get moving,” I said.

“We have to be close,” Fenn said as we carefully hopped from rock to rock, trying to avoid the flowing lava. I tried to focus in on my dragon sense, but it was blocked. There was nothing but darkness and Shadows.

“Do you see anything?” I asked.

“No. You?”

“No,” I said, growing weary. “How are we going to get Lexi and Zane out?”

“She will get them out. She is a Celestian,” he said. But something in his tone didn’t sound so sure. She wasn’t able to get us out when we were all in there together.

“But—”

He cut me off. “Don’t. We have to stay positive. We’ve come this far. We are finishing this.” The will in his voice was powerful.

A blast of lava shot up in front of us, preventing us from moving any further in that direction. I felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. Fenn’s hand tightened around mine as he pulled me close. More lava burst up into the air, surrounding us in a circle. I closed my eyes, tapping into my power. This was my element to control.

When my eyes opened, I focused on the lava, sending every bit of my power into it. The walls of lava faltered, but they fought back using magic older than me.

“The magic here is strong. Intruders are not welcome,” I said to Fenn, dropping to one knee from the woozy feeling in my head. With effort, I shoved the pain away. I had to be stronger. I had to get us out of here.

I focused on the task. It was a power drain to fight back, but I refused to give in. I stood back up, told Fenn to get back, and pushed harder, taking a step toward the lava.

My hands flew up into the air, and slowly I lowered them, demanding that the lava follow. The lava slowly dropped, moving back into the rushing pools around us.

“Let’s go,” I said determinedly, grabbing Fenn’s hand and pulling him forward.

He gaped at me. “Do you know how hot you are?” he asked in admiration. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face and curved around his smile.

“Sweltering in this level,” I said in mock seriousness, wiping my own sweat off my face.

He chuckled.

I smiled to myself, not paying attention to where I was stepping. “Fenn!” I cried out as I slipped on a pool of condensation. I tried to grab on to something, but the rocks were too slippery.

“Rory!” he shouted, reaching for me.  I spread my wings just as the bottom of my foot was about to hit the lava, and flapped with all my might. I threw my arms around his neck the moment I landed. He held me up while every muscle in my body shook.

“Are you all right?” he asked, checking me all over.

I nodded, too worked up to speak. With renewed caution, we jumped from rock to rock for what felt like forever until something small appeared in the distance. We hoped that whatever it was, we wouldn’t have to fight it. As we drew closer, the shape grew familiar.

“It’s here,” Fenn said, pointing to the cauldron in the center of the rock in front of us. “This is where Zordon was created.”

“Figures,” I muttered.

We hopped over to the rock and huddled around the cauldron. Fenn took the paper out of his shirt pocket and carefully unfolded it, his hands trembling.

“The blood of Zordon must go first,” he instructed.

The vial was already in my hand, prepared for this. I lifted it over the cauldron and unscrewed the lid, dumping the tainted blood into the empty cauldron. The sound of the drops hitting the bottom sent chills down my spine. I dropped the vial into the lava, anxious to be rid of it.

“Now your blood,” he continued, watching me closely. I shifted back into my human form and took the offered dagger from him, and then slid it across my palm. Across the same scar his mother had given me over a year ago. My blood spilled into the cauldron, followed by small, curling wisps of smoke that rose from the mixture.

I waited until I thought there was enough, and then whispered, “Mendaro,” watching my skin seal itself shut. I handed the dagger back to Fenn.

“My turn,” he said. He didn’t hesitate, dragging the blade across his palm and holding it up over the cauldron. The steam grew higher, the air filling with the smell of rotten eggs. I turned my face from it.

“Now we must read the spell together while holding the Stone. It will channel the power of a Fate,” he said. “You think we should hold hands?”

“We should both hold on to the Stone.”

“Right,” he said, clearing his throat and coming around the cauldron so we could both see. He counted to three, reached out for my hand with the Stone, and then we said the words: