Once he had been allowed the space and appropriate materials it was easy for Teramyn to lock onto the Vott. It hadn’t even taken all that long which surprised him considering how much damage it seemed capable of. He expected more of a fight really, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. It was just another chore to hold it in place while they trekked across the city to the outer limits where the girl was hiding it.


    When they arrived he wasn’t quite sure what to expect so it was with open fascination and awe that he exited the cab of the little passenger tevvy and approached the burbling mass. It was a swirling, angry storm of black trapped within a shimmering iridescent bubble. It crashed and exploded against the walls of the bubble to no avail.


    Sahayna arrived in the tevvy just behind him and he heard the whirring hum of other machines as they gently sent down far behind him. The entire council had followed despite his and Sahayna’s rather gruesome descriptions of what the Vott had done to others. They were curious, disbelieving. Nobody else dared come any closer though.


    “What is that?” he heard the gasps and murmurs spring up behind him as the others emerged and saw the huge dark orb. He turned back to face them. He saw Sahayna there, looking on from a distance. He didn’t need his fen to sense the concern rolling off of her when it was so clear on her face.


    “This!” he pointed sharply at the roiling orb behind him now. “This is salvation. This thing is a source of unlimited fen. Properly harnessed this will allow us to once again access the realms of the fae.” He spoke in a booming voice to the people that were present. It certainly wasn’t how he’d envisioned accessing the power for the first time. Everything had been so carefully planned out for the rituals on the beaches of [Doss], there had been oracles and acolytes and everything.


    Now he just had to work with what was available.


    “Teramyn!” Sahayna called out. She came forward, stepping toward him across the distance. He waited for her to come to him, right up to the edge of the bubble. She looked past him, at it, taking in the swirls of color that sometimes burst forth from the dark mass. It was mesmerizing, twisting in and out of itself forever on. Sparkling under the driev lights and the light of Ahraan. She looked at him again, eyes pleading but for what he didn’t know.


    The orb let out a whislting shriek that brought everyone to their knees. Tears were slipping free in response to the awful, wailing noise. When it finally stopped, Teramyn recovered first, pushing himself back to his feet quickly. He would not lose this opportunity now that it was right there.


    He reached his hands out in front of him and with all the force in his body he tried to compress the orb. He made crushing motions with his hands trying to use his fen to subdue it into one small point. It felt like it was working, it seemed like it was working. The orb was becoming  somwhow darker and smaller, crushing down into itself.


    A light burst forth from the orb, blinding everyone in its wake. Teramyn found himself temporarily stunned just like everyone else. A cold white light bathed over everything, washing the color away and in a snap everything began to fall away.


    Teramyn felt the change, felt the intense pull of the orb as it began to devour and he released his fen, all of it. A torrent of energy rang out around him like ripples in a pond. It rolled in waves away from him, kicking up dust and scattering small objects. It had the council members and onlookers on the ground. He didn’t even know they were there anymore, focussed solely on the orb, on the Vott.


    He needed to get closer. He needed to absorb the energy of it if he wanted to live on forever. He would harness the energy within himself. He didn’t remember telling his hands to do it but he felt his fingers snap once and then the noise and commotion of the background fell away. A shimmering dome came down and encapsulated him and the orb. Once enclosed it was as if the world outside suddenly stopped moving, frozen in place where they stood. Sahayna stood there, stricken look frozen upon her face just beyond the barrier.


    There in the center of the space was the screaming churning orb of black. Teramyn looked back to the frozen figures outside the barrier and then back to the orb. He pushed himself up. He’d come this far afterall.


    He went all the way the orb, drawn in by it’s screaming melodies. He went until he was close enough to touch and then he reached out and did. He placed his hands against what turned out to be a freezing, solid surface. A burst of heat flooded through him at the touch, only just at the point of contact thought. It was a confusing sensation. Curious, he pushed his own fen out to meet it and subsequently into the orb and a shockwave rocked him as the orb began to vibrate and sputter in place, seeming to sping out of control. He quickly withdrew his hand but suddenly the orb retracted inward, collapsing into an almost imperceptible spot before exploding back outward in a shower of sparks.


    When the dramatics had subsided, there lay two bodies in a heap, a man and a woman. Teramyn recognized her immediately, the woman from the temples. The one who’d stolen his God.


    For a tes they did not move and Teramyn was about to move closer when Mezalie’s eyes snapped open and she sprang up, nearly tripping over herself in her haste. Her eyes were black and when she opened her mouth an earshattering noise fell from her lips and Teramyn clapped his hands over his ears on instinct. The man on the ground did not stir.


    The noise came to an end adn neither one of them moved. Teramyn felt his skin prickle in the presence of the Infinite Creature. The only thing that could have prepared him for the feeling of its presense was that of the Ivellacht Vaille, and that was only in dreams. It was impossible to tell where exactly the black pits for eyes were looking but Teramyn felt like they could see much more than there was to see.


    He did what he had trained to do for ages and he bowed. He slowly lowered himself to his knees and placed his hands upon the ground, flat and wide like two starbursts.


    “It is with honor and reverence that I am in the presence of your essence,” he finally spoke. The creature did not move, or blink, or do anything to acknowledge that it had heard him. He held his position for several more tes. When still there was no response, he got back to his feet and heistantly, he approached Mezalie.


    He stopped less than an armslength away, reaching into his robe pocket to withdraw a blackened, heavy stone. He pressed his thumb over the carved sigil on it and he began to speak a hymn in the old tongue. It was only then that Mezalie did suddenly move, her head snapping just slightly to the side. It unnerved him so much he nearly lost his grip on the stone. He paused, not even daring to breathe for several tes as he waited for any other reaction. It was only then that he noticed her unnatural stillness and its uncanny effect.


    Finally, he continued, reaching down to wrap his hand around Mezalie’s wrist. As he spoke the place his hand touched began to heat, until it nearly burned. A black veining pattern began to form around their joined hands. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Suddenly Mezalie blinked several times, shaking her head once before slowly taking in her surroundings with unfocussed eyes. Her head hurt. She blinked once more for good measure and her mind suddenly took in the man standing in front of her- Teramyn. She immediately tried to recoil only to find he had her wrist in his hand. She instinctively yanked, twisted and flailed her arm, trying to break free.


    “h-” she tried to scream at him but found she couldn’t make a noise. Whatever grip he had on her was firm. He was talking, he was saying something that sounded like a hymn but she had no idea what. She saw black branching veins spreading up her arm and up his. She tried with renewed panic to rip her arm away but she found that her body felt slow and heavy, it wasn’t responding to her commands and when it did it was syrupy and uncoordinated. Her strength was sapping from her. She took a deep breath, because she could still do that.


    “Stop. Stop. Don’t do this to me.” she mumbled, trying to stay focused on Teramyn but he seemed to be getting taller or she was getting shorter. It wasn’t until he was lowering down as well to follow her that she realized she was on the ground and hey, LoVelly was there too.


    “I’m not doing this to you.” Teramyn finally said to her, softly. “You were never supposed to be a part of this. I needed a vessel and you were it. I’m honestly sorry that you had to endure this but this is bigger than you. It’s time for you to rest.”


    He continued his hymn.


    “Lov’.” Mezalie barely whispered out. He was so close she could touch him if she could just lift her arm. “LoVelly.” It was no use, the man did not stir.


    What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t do anything. Why wasn’t the creature fighting back? Why had it done so all those other times but not now?


    No.


    No.


    She’d already lost everything but somehow this felt worse.


    Maybe it didn’t matter, a little voice in the back of her mind said. Maybe she had suffered enough finally. Perhaps it was time to rest.


    What would it mean, for something like her to rest? She already did not breathe, or sleep or eat. Her body did not function like a living thing so what would it mean for it to die? Would she still find herself in the faul awaiting the next thing or would she be endlessly trapped in an unusable body? And after that? After the rot and decay took that? What then?


    Her mind was spiraling in freefall as she felt the enormous exhaustion start to trickle into her.


    …


    …


    It was with a great deal of surprise that the fog began to recede. Instead of pushing her over into whatever lay beyond she found herself becoming aware of herself again, of the ground beneath her, of a sound above her. It took a dib to realize that she could lift her head and when she did she was in no way prepared for the wide, frantic stare she caught on Teramyn’s face. He coughed once, a wet, bubbling sound and she saw the dark blood mixed in with the spit that dribbled past his lips. Teramyn’s own head dropped down to look at his chest and only then did she notice the shining, wicked, blade that protruded there, black droplets decorating it.


    Teramyn took a shuddering breath and violently coughed out the exhale, blood splattering everywhere. Shaky hands came up to delicately touch the end of the knife, as if to check its realness. His eyes locked with Mezalie, mirrored looks of confusion.


    A boy appeared right before Mezalie’s eyes out of thin air, his hand still on the hilt of the blade from the looks of it. His eyes were as round as saucers like he, too, couldn’t believe what had just happened.


    The moment broke when the boy yanked once to pull the blade out. It did not pull free the first time and he had to pull twice more before it came free from the man’s back, the sound of fabric tearing in the process. Teramyn hacked and sputtered before he fell to the ground completely, blood and spit spraying on each breath.


    Teramyn tried to inhale but it sounded wet and became an even wetter cough as bubbles of blood tinted spittle fell from his lips. He inhaled short and sharp before hissing in pain. He turned to her, still on the ground just an arms length away. Then he wheezed as he turned to look up at the young man with the dagger with a kind of disbelief she knew had to be genuine.


    “Carmis…” he wheezed and coughed up another bloody mouthful, spitting into the dirt beside him. “You don’t…know what,” he gasped, “what you’ve done.” He paused, heaving for breath and there was no denying the pooling darkness spreading from his chest.


    Mezalie had thought the attacker was a young man at first but now, seeing his pale, freckled face and his slightly shaking hand gripping the dagger, he was only a boy. She hadn''t seen where he''d come from; he''d simply materialized. She saw his eyes flick down to the blood left behind on the blade and she thought she saw a moment where his lip wobbled.


    “I’m sorry.” he hiccuped. “I’m sorry I didn’t know what else to do.” The tears began to fall, hand shaking in earnest now. “I couldn’t let you do that.” Those words were firm despite his tears. Teramyn just stared at him for a long moment, Mezalie wasn’t even sure he was going to say anything else, just listening to the sound of his horrid breathing.


    “You’re short-sighted,” he wheezed, “but you’re young. It’s not your fault.”


    The boy did not seem moved by his words, holding still as a stone, perhaps in shock. He looked down at the blade in his hand again and then his hand jerked and he flung it down, away from him. It came to rest right in front of Mezalie, close enough she could see the sigils etched into it. She found herself trying to read them and surprised herself by recognizing the Kargeine from one of the books she’d had LoVelly looking through.


    LoVelly.


    She remembered LoVelly there next to her. With newfound clarity and strength she reached her arm out to shake him. He was still breathing, she could tell by the fluttering of the hair that spilled over his face.


    She felt her ears pop and her eyes snapped up to see the same kind of iridescent, shimmering dome from the temple, starting to dissipate from the crown down. When she looked back the boy was gone, like he’d never been there but Teramyn’s body and the knife were still there, blood stained.


    As the bubble dropped slowly down, Mezalie tried to think about what was going on. Where was she?


    She blinked.


    There were people on the other side of the bubble. They were moving and she could see them now. There seemed to be quite the commotion going on outside and she was terrified. She barely had the energy to lift her hand to pat at LoVelly again, urging him to action. They needed to get out of there.


    She didn’t notice the darkness creeping in until all she saw was tunnel vision and she felt herself going dark. She wouldn’t be able to hold back the monster. She wouldn’t be able to save LoVelly, or herself.


    She thought she saw hands come into her field of vision but she was swimming in confusing images that didn’t make any sense to her. Her equilibrium shifted suddenly- and was she being carried? She wasn’t sure because at some point her eyes had slipped closed. The last thing she remembered trying to do was form the sound to make LoVelly’s name.


    She couldn’t lose him again, she just got him back, she thought to herself. Whoever was carrying her had to know that she needed LoVelly.


    …


    …


    Somone was calling her name.


    She was far too tired to answer.