The Trials of Ildarwood: Spectres of the Fall Page 2

  Staring at a single spot in the woods behind them as her stomach tightened and her limbs went numb, Evalina prayed that she had somehow been mistaken. Yet she knew that her prayers were all in vain when a pair of blinding white lights burst out from the shadows of the forest and settled upon her carriage.

  “What’s wrong?” Levara asked, still holding her youngest brother tightly in her arms.

  But Evalina did not respond to her daughter. Instead, she merely placed her bare hand against the Ildarwood frame of the carriage and whispered, “Run!” An instant later, the family’s Ildarhorses accelerated from a fast-paced walk to a full and breakneck gallop, and so the race was on.

  “We just need to make it to the bridge,” Evalina whispered to herself. That was her only focus–nothing else.

  All the while, Levara, Rennie, and Aiden stared out through the back window and watched as the lights drew nearer and nearer.

  “Can’t you stop him?” Levara asked her mother.

  “Only if he gets closer,” Evalina replied, “but if we’re close enough to stop him, he’s close enough to stop us.” Peering through the downpour up ahead, she managed to spot the most distant possible point of light at the end of the road. “We’re almost there!” she shouted, but seconds later, a radiant sapphire glow illuminated the forest as the vines on the Ildarhorse behind them began pulsating wildly with alarm.

  Desperate to shield his eyes, Rennie shouted, “Wait! It’s just an Asterguard! Doesn’t that mean it’s safe to slow down?”

  “Not tonight, it doesn’t. It means we need to go faster,” Evalina insisted, though not to anyone in the carriage. That was all the instruction their Ildarhorses needed to pick up their speed once more, sending all five passengers–and their luggage–bouncing into the air with every pothole they struck.

  “Why aren’t we stopping?” Aiden implored.

  “We can’t stop,” Evalina insisted. “We have to get to Ranewood.”

  “Why?” her children demanded all at once.

  “Not now! We just can’t let him catch us.”

  With each passing second, the Ildarhorse rider inched closer, but still the family’s carriage raced toward the safety of the Old Ildarwood Bridge up ahead. “Faster,” Evalina whispered. “Faster, faster, faster!”

  “I don’t think they can go any faster!” Levara shouted, struggling to protect Torian.

  “I don’t understand,” said Rennie. “Shouldn’t he have caught up to us by now?”

  “He doesn’t have to,” Evalina answered as she stared out through the front window. Up ahead, another rider in Ildarglass armor sat high atop an Ildarhorse in the rain, and the instant Evalina spotted him, his Ildarhorse lit up too.

  Desperate to think of some solution as her stomach twisted itself into knots, Evalina hastily considered her options. She knew they could not go back, and the road ahead was clearly blocked, so only one course of action remained.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, Evalina rose to her feet and pulled a sturdy wooden suitcase to the center of the carriage. Standing upon it, she poked her head out through the hatch on the roof and peered out at the riders in both directions. Though the Asterguard behind continued to follow at a distance, the one up ahead was only getting closer.

  Convinced that she had no other choice, Evalina reached into a small pouch on her belt and withdrew a handful of gems with a glowing green substance swirling within. They were her last ones, she lamented, but they were her only chance at escape. So with every last ounce of power she could muster, Evalina launched the stones with unnatural speed toward the Asterguard up ahead, and with a blinding flash of emerald light, they exploded in the darkness and sent a deafening CRACK! echoing throughout the woods.

  “What’d you just do?” Rennie demanded as the carriage barreled past the injured rider and careened onto the Old Ildarwood Bridge.

  “I promise I’ll explain everything as soon as we stop,” Evalina insisted as she fell back into her seat, water dripping from her hair and cloak.

  The family’s Ildarhorses slowed to a more reasonable pace once they were safely inside the forests of Ranewood, though Evalina remained surprised that no Asterguards had been assigned to protect the border. They must all be in the city, trying to restore order, she thought, though that only made her more suspicious of the two she had just evaded. Finally we are safe.

  KABOOM!

  Without even an instant’s warning, the carriage tumbled violently off the road before finally coming to rest on the precipitous edge of the North Ranewood River. Along the carriage’s path, debris, luggage, and passengers had all been strewn about, including Evalina and her two eldest children.

  Several long, agonizing moments passed before Levara began to muster at last. She stared at the splintered remains of their carriage, then followed the burning remnants with her eyes in search of her family. Not far from her was Rennie, who clutched a broken arm and wailed with pain each time he touched it. Then, beyond him was Evalina, who had landed in a patch of wild shrubs.

  A deep sense of dread filled Evalina’s heart as she too rose to her feet, desperate to focus her vision. In one direction, she saw their burning carriage perched precariously above the river. In the other, she saw Rennie doubled over in pain. But then she spotted Levara, who struggled to stand while Goldenfire flames burned with impunity in the rain and turned pieces of their carriage into ash.

  Goldenfire? Evalina wondered before realizing what had happened. There was no other possible explanation. Her family had been attacked.

  It was in that moment that a figure fell from the sky and landed on the road behind Levara. Dressed in glistening Ildarglass armor as dark as pure hatred, he approached his first target with a slow and measured gait. With eyes like rounded rubies set aflame in a bottomless well of shadows, he bore two massive Ildarglass wings and wore a helmet of sinister design, giving him the stark appearance of some birdlike agent of death.

  Seeing this monstrous visage, Evalina struggled to scream to her daughter, but the words could not escape her mouth. With the wind so forcefully knocked out of her, she felt as though she had fallen into some deep and terrifying nightmare where she could not manage to call for help. All she could do was watch in horror as the figure pulled an Ildarglass sword from its sheath and pointed it directly at Levara.

  For a moment, Evalina felt as though her heart had stopped. In front of her, her daughter stood in dire peril. Behind her, her youngest boys were trapped inside the burning remnants of their carriage. She had no time to think. She had no time to act.

  In that instant, her eyes met her daughter’s, leaving Levara to wonder why her mother looked so pained. Then Levara saw her mother turn away, and she experienced a pain so wrenching that her screams could have awakened the dead.

  Desperate to block out the noise, Evalina clenched her eyes shut, though even that was not enough to stop the screams from tearing through her soul with just as much intensity as the Ildarglass sword piercing deep into the soul of her daughter. Seconds later, a powerful yet invisible shock wave knocked Evalina to the ground, and a sudden heartbreaking silence fell upon the woods.

  With no time to grieve, Evalina struggled to her feet once again before stumbling over to the remains of her family’s carriage. Desperate to search for her youngest sons, she was forced to recoil as Goldenfire flames seemed to sense her presence and surged in her direction. So many years had passed since her Trials that she had very nearly forgotten how to respond to such a threat. Then some vague recollection gave way to an instinctual response, and before Evalina even realized what she was doing, she found herself reaching toward the carriage with both hands and summoning the Goldenfire flames into her palms. Screaming from the torment, she forced herself to fight through the pain. She needed to. And with every second that passed, her emerald eyes grew brighter, until finally the flames upon the carriage were gone.
r />   Falling to her knees, Evalina had only a moment to recover before tearing the broken hatch from the carriage roof and glimpsing inside with a fearful panic. There, she mercifully found her youngest boys both alive and with souls intact, though both were crying and covered in blood. They crawled out and latched onto their mother with a grip just as intense as her own desperation to hold on to them. With tears streaming down her face, Evalina knew she needed to be strong. She had no other choice. Yet even as she prayed for someone to save them, she knew she could not count on prayers anymore. All she could do was defend the children she had left, even if it would cost her life, or worse.

  “Run! Now!” she ordered, her eyes darting back and forth between Torian and Aiden. “Go into the woods, and don’t come out unless you see an Asterguard, or until I tell you it’s safe, okay? Do you hear me? The Asterguards in Ranewood are good. You can trust them. Okay?”

  As she spoke, Aiden cried, still frightened beyond words, while beside him, little Torian’s trembling face was stained with dust and blood and tears. Still, both of them nodded obediently before running into the safety of the forest. Only Torian stopped to stare back at her in the hope that she might come with them. Never before had Evalina seen his face so overcome with grief, and it broke her heart to think that she might never see him again.

  “Go! Now!” she shouted before drawing her Ildarglass sword and turning to face her attacker.

  Mustering the very last vestiges of strength she had left inside her, Evalina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The time to face her enemy had come. Opening her eyes again, her emerald glare shot directly at the man in Ildarglass armor.

  Only a few steps had he taken since plunging his sword into Levara’s soul, and now that he finally had Evalina’s full attention, he took the opportunity to wipe away the shimmering silver substance that glowed upon his blade. He relished every last drop of the power that it gave him.

  “Get away from her!” Evalina demanded, but in response, the figure began to walk toward her eldest son next. “Don’t you dare!” she shouted before drawing a second sword from beneath her cloak. Unlike the first, however, this one was made of polished steel, and so threatening was its appearance that the man in the Ildarglass armor paused at first sight of it. He had already destroyed a soul that night, but perhaps even he would not be willing to take a life–or so Evalina dared to hope. Then she gasped with heartache as she watched the figure pull a long steel dagger from his belt and resume his menacing march.

  “Leave him alone!” Evalina shouted, moving closer as her hands began to tremble.

  In response, the man merely lifted his dagger into the air to ensure that Evalina could see it clearly before he knelt beside her injured son.

  She had run out of time. She had run out of options. And so, without another moment’s hesitation, Evalina rushed toward the man, screaming, “I said leave him alone!” She felt no pain in that moment, and no sense of fear held her back. All that remained in her heart and in her soul was an unwavering determination to protect what was left of her family–or at the very least, die trying.

  Much to her dismay, the man in the Ildarglass armor seemed to welcome the challenge as he readied his weapons for a fight. Colliding with such intense fury that thunder rang out into the night, Evalina and the armored figure swung their blades at each other without the slightest remnants of mercy. Back and forth, they matched each other’s attacks. First she had the advantage, then he–steel on steel, Ildarglass on Ildarglass–with each strike echoing out with its own distinct and terrifying sound.

  Yet only when a rumbling in the distance caught their attention did the two finally stop and stare each other down.

  “You see that?” Evalina called out as frigid flashes of sapphire light lit up the skies. “They’re coming for you! They know you’re here, and they know what you did! You just better hope they get to you before I do, you sick son of a—”

  But the man in Ildarglass armor had no interest in her threats. While Evalina was distracted, he channeled all his hatred toward her into the palm of his right hand. He needed only an instant after that to unleash a volley of obsidian shards in Evalina’s direction. In response, Evalina dropped her swords and forced all the spectral energy she had absorbed minutes earlier to surge outward from her palms and form a barrier. With every last ounce of concentration she could muster focused on protecting herself, she cried out as each shard of pure hatred collided with the shimmering emerald shield. With each successive strike, blinding flashes lit up the night until at last darkness reigned again.

  Only one shard needed to slip past the barrier to hit its mark, and when it did, Evalina fell backward onto the ground beside her son. That was all the man in Ildarglass armor needed to see. Then, in the blink of an eye, he vanished into the skies, leaving chaos and suffering in his wake.

  All the while, Aiden and Torian watched from the shadows, their faces lit only by the flicker of a few lingering golden flames until at last flashes of sapphire reclaimed the night. Never before had the two boys felt quite so powerless.

  Origins of the Eight

  Three Years Later

  I

  The Ones We Love

  Tannus Ambers awakened at dawn every morning, just as soon as the first golden rays of sunlight slipped in through his bedroom door. His first task was to check on his grandmother, who was always so happy to see him. In truth, her smile was all he ever needed to get through the day.

  “You’re still alive?” he joked sometimes.

  “Oh, don’t sound so disappointed. It’s still early,” she often replied.

  On days when she could get out of her bed, he would change her sheets, add greenwood to the fire, and make sure she had a filling breakfast–always something healthy, despite her frequent protests. Without fail, each day she would invent some new and clever way to distract him so she could sneak some unhealthy morsel onto her plate, and though he always knew what she was up to, he would sometimes let her succeed. Those days were few and far between that winter, though, for even as the days grew longer, her strength seemed only to diminish.

  “You goin’ out again today?” she asked one morning in particular.

  “Someone’s gotta keep you fed, old lady.”

  “I can feed myself just fine.”

  “Good, then I don’t need to come all the way back here just to make you lunch.”

  “Well, naw, I didn’t say that. I just don’t want you gettin’ rusty. You only just figured out how to cook my eggs just right, and I can’t have you forgettin’.”

  Tannus could not help but smile in response. Though he knew she would not be around much longer, he also knew she might just be stubborn enough to live forever–an equally terrifying prospect when he thought about it.

  “You want anythin’ from the market?” he asked once she had finished eating.

  “Bacon!”

  “We can’t afford bacon. What else do you want?”

  “If we can’t afford bacon, then I want butter. And pick up some salt. Those eggs taste like chewed-up paper without it.”

  “You can’t have any more butter or salt–doctor’s orders.”

  “Aw, for the Heavens’ sake, then why won’t you just let me die?”

  “You remember when I was really little, and you used to buy me socks for my birthday instead of toys?”

  “Of course I do!” she shouted defiantly. “I’m old, not senile!”

  “Well, consider this payback,” he replied, hurrying outside and closing the door swiftly behind himself before she even had a chance to respond.

  The Ranewood marketplace in the center of town was over an hour’s walk from the cottage, leaving Tannus with precious little time to waste if he wanted to get back to his gram before her next meal. Though he always hated leaving her alone for too long, he knew how cranky she would often become if he did not take at
least a little time for himself.

  A secret path through the southernmost edge of the Ildarwood forest made the trip into town a great deal faster than the long, boring walk along the town’s wandering dirt roads. Though Tannus knew the Ildarwood was off-limits to all except those taking part in the Trials, that had never stopped him from exploring as much of its outer edges as he could since he had run away from home two years prior. In his mind, not even the Ildarwood could be more dangerous than Silvermarsh City that first year after it had fallen, and although he had had more than a few close calls during his adventures within the boundaries of that great forest just a mile or so from his grandmother’s door, he remained unconvinced that the risks he faced within could ever outweigh how truly alive he always felt once inside.

  Besides, he reasoned, he had already turned twelve the summer before, and he would therefore be bound to the Ildarwood soon enough. The first day of spring was little more than one week away, after all, and once that day finally arrived, Tannus would officially become Ildarbound. Yet one small comfort did he find in knowing that his best friend, Dustane Dulane, would at least be along for the journey.

  Like brothers they had become in the year since they had first met, and so similar were they in appearance that it was not at all uncommon for them to be mistaken as such by all who were none the wiser. And though both sported shaggy blond hair and shared the same endearing twinkle in their bright silver eyes, Dustane was by far the fairer in every way–including the lighter shade of his almost platinum locks.

  Always the more cheerful of the two, Dustane was not at all like his usual self when Tannus found him moping beside an old stone well that sat high upon a hill just inside the Ildarwood. Fascinated by the relic since the day he had discovered it, Tannus often wondered what it had looked like long ago, when it had first been erected in that place. After all, time had not been gentle to it, and neither had the massive Ildarwood tree growing beside it. After decades of living side by side, the tree had nearly consumed the well whole, leaving only one side free and a narrow opening at the top.