A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

53. Karus

Chapter 53

Karus

This would work.

It had to.

There were no other options with a chance at real success.

I’d be alright.

He’d be alright.

Pompeii would be alright.

Each echo of my steps across the stone halls sounded with the odd shuffling of the twenty Growers following behind me.

I didn’t look back.

I only moved forward.

Rev’s fear permeated the air, and I knew I was not the only one to feel it.

Our long, strange line of humans and fae finally turned and entered the massive corridor with a few short steps down to the doors of Viridis.

My green light expanded across the stone as I approached the black doors wound in trails of copper. They rose too far into the corridor for me to see their end.

I turned to explain how to enter Viridis, finding two Growers approaching the doors as if they already knew.

I addressed them, not sure if they could really understand me, or if Moira would need to interpret. “To enter, you must…” I trailed off as they ignored me completely, and each lifted their tangle of woven arms to the doors, one on each side.

I stepped back, witness to another of Viridis’s secrets gone untold for centuries.

Their branches and vines grew, trailing up the stone, following the copper pattern. A variation of green leaves unfurled from each vine as they rose beyond what my eyes could see.

I glanced back to Revich who was just as surprised as I was while Moira watched as well, nibbling on her fingers.

We waited in bated breath as the doors came alive with each Grower, becoming one creature, one fae. I heard the click, the resounding evidence that the doors to Viridis were in fact ancient and sentient. A breeze, familiar in warmth and scent, lifted my hair and the doors pushed inward.

Viridis was still alive.

And it greeted me in the embrace of an old friend, never forgotten, ever a part of me and who I had become.

I’d bring it back today.

I was even more sure of it.

A dark expanse of tunnel formed beyond the doors and the Growers began to step inside, taking the lead.

“Did you know?” I started, Rev’s hand closing over mine.

He shook his head in a rare silence, a small tick in his jaw.

We walked forward, following the Growers who seemed at this point to know more about Viridis and where it lie in Felgren than we did.

I expanded my light to shine above us, lighting the entwined tunnel which was narrow, barely wide enough for Revich and I to walk side-by-side. We stumbled over the branches wound below us, never stepping on a forest path. Peering through the woven thicket of twigs and vines, I saw glimpses of the Blight outside.

“I think…I think we’re in Felgren.” I glanced at Rev, his face the same hardened features as he eyed our path ahead. “You told me once that Viridis is in Felgren somewhere. And the Blight broke in through the door that leads to the forest.”

He nodded, eyes straight ahead as we moved.

My boot caught under a vine and he was there, strong arms wrapping around my chest, grabbing me before I could fall.

I laughed lightly, pulling hair from my face and grinning at him, catching the sadness in his eyes which sobered me immediately.

If there was any time I faltered, it was then.

If there was a single moment I truly considered turning, running, with his hand in mine from this choice, it was in that moment of sorrow and fear across his face. It burrowed itself into the dull of his eyes, the straight line of his lips, the furrow of his brow.

I turned immediately, facing our path forward again, knowing myself. Knowing that if I saw that look once more, I would not have the strength to continue. Damned be Viridis, damned be Pompeii’s life, and damned be the considerable guilt we’d both have to face.

We continued for five minutes which led to ten, leading to ten more. With every step forward, the rustle of new growth met our ears as the Growers in the front of the line grew their tunnel of life through the forest and through the Blight itself, proving their vast power.

The scent of the Blight could not be drowned out, meeting our noses as the unmistakable fetor of death.

At last, we came to the door I had met once before. The same old wooden door Heimlen had used to show me the Blight for the first time. The door that led from Felgren to Viridis. It lay at an angle, only one of its hinges remaining. The Growers expanded their tunnel to form a wide opening of branches, revealing the thick, thorny vines of the Blight that trespassed into the dark hall, which led to the second twin door in Viridis.

Moira’s screech began as she spoke to the Growers.

“They want to start here. Obviously. They said this leads to Viridis and that your sun can destroy the Blight starting here. They will follow you and regrow your library as you go. If this works, they can return to this door and cover it with their growth, which will hold the Blight off from coming back in. At least for a short time. Until you can help them destroy it all.”

I pursed my lips and nodded, stepping up to the doorway, blocked completely by the obsidian mass of thick, spongy wood.

I held my hands out in front of me, an orb of cascading green held above my open palms.

I glanced over my shoulder, gathering strength to look at Revich one more time.

His gaze bore into my soul, begging me to stop, pulling on our bond so tightly, it strained on his end with thoughts of hesitation streaming down our tether, hitting my heart with full force.

I took a deep breath and turned to Moira, all twenty Growers watching me with spaces for eyes on their heads, eerie and fantastical all the same. “I can do this. We can do this together. It’s our one chance.” I swallowed firmly, lowering my voice slightly. “I just need enough time.”

“I understand. They understand, too.” She nodded toward the Growers, waiting for me to begin.

Without looking back and risking loosing what little confidence I held, I spoke clearly into the woven space protecting us from the Blight. “ Simulair Solum. ”

The sun burst into life, the orb of magic now warm and glowing, the Blight around us reacting immediately with that blood-curdling hiss.

I positioned the simulated sun close to the thickest vine, massive and strong, letting the sun loom next to its surface to watch as the light swept its way through. Crackles and pops resounded as it broke the vine down the center, cutting it off from where it led into Viridis.

Having a clear path forward, I closed my eyes and inhaled, taking Revich’s words with me.

I breathe, you breathe.

I breathe, you breathe.

The sun grew, swelling to the size of the doorframe, destroying the Blight ahead as it went.

I could hold this.

It was heavy. It was weighing on my strength, but the weight was manageable. I stepped forward, the Growers shuffling behind as I entered the Blighted corridor. The ever present sizzle of the Blight in its own demise echoed off the stone as it recoiled and fell to dark ash around me. I picked up my speed, following the beat of my heart. Once again, I was destroying the very life of what the Blightress had sent to destroy Felgren.

I broke through the second door, meeting Viridis in full. Its life was hanging by a thread. Its breath snuffed out from the horrifying pulse of the Blight that wound through its once-gilded halls, entombing what was life, and beauty, and knowledge.

I ran, not daring to look back, unable to turn my head for fear of the faltering step I could not risk to take.

The Blight was powerless against my onslaught of sunlight as it fell into a recess of decay and ash that it deserved. Grotesque vines fell from the grove of trees in the central courtyard and tumbled down the hallways that rose above me. The sound of their destruction echoed in the glass dome high above, but I could not afford to look.

Anger, wrath, rage—each state of being bloomed in the sun I held as it grew and I could no longer focus on controlling its size and weight. I could only focus on the heat I produced myself, my own rampage through these halls, furious at what had been taken from me.

This was for more than Pompeii or Viridis.

I hoped the Blightress lay writhing somewhere as I hurt her.

I hoped she was in utter agony, feeling all the Blight feels, seeing all the Blight sees as the one she claimed as hers destroyed the very essence of who she was.

“Karus!” I heard Revich’s call somewhere behind me.

I needed more time.

I widened my arms, filling the space with the sun I grew in the power I sourced from Felgren.

As the Blight hissed around me, it was replaced with life.

The Growers were proving their worth, continually replacing the abhorrent vines with blooms of red and yellow. With leaves unfurling in a brilliant green from the branches of the birch trees.

I laughed, a sound unheard in all the death and regrowth as I watched Viridis return to itself, imbued with life, and joy, and endless knowledge.

I took my final steps forward to face the thirteen monstrous trees I had grown. I filled my lungs again, the air a brew of decay and summer—Viridis newly returned warring with what now passed into nothing around us.

“It’s almost over!” I shouted, hoping Rev heard me as I lifted the sun high into the dome above, its heat radiating upon my face. I moved it out of my way, so that it would not burn my hands and cheeks as it did the last time I’d held it this long.

I needed to see its brilliance lay waste to the final threshold of what grew in Viridis.

I needed, more than anything in that moment, to witness the destruction of what I myself had produced—the pulsating mound of fruit trees I had summoned months ago in my grief for Viridis.

I hadn’t wanted to think about it.

I hadn’t wanted my thoughts to linger on why or how I had been able to grow my own version of the Blight.

I faced those thoughts then though, coming to terms with the Blightress’s truth that her power resided in me.

But as the trees began to fall, each one splitting down the middle, spurting black liquid down the white marble steps and igniting in a fire I did not mean to produce, I accepted the truth of myself.

I was a part of her.

I held immense power that came from her.

I was, in some way, bonded to her .

And I would wield that power she’d given me to her end.

I would devastate all she was and had now proven herself to be, sending her depraved growth to burn and crumble into nothing more than ash and soot at my feet.

I could destroy what I had produced.

I could prove that I was not her .

I could show myself that I would never succumb to the wrath I held inside.