Page 63 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)
City of the Soul
HE OTHERS GATHERED to watch them go. Ryson had explained the plan in detail, but still, there was little more certainty in it than there had been before.
Dae had reluctantly shown himself. Stubborn in every way, though he consented to bid Clea farewell on the chance that Ryson’s tale was true. Iris, in her understanding of the histories, confirmed both the truth of the venture and the risks of it that lay ahead.
The rift was opened on the top floor of the castle, and Clea and Ryson looked back at their audience after providing final farewells.
She then looked out at her city, seeing the flags of Virday, Ruedom, and Loda risen on the city walls, seeing the Kalex settlements beyond, knowing that even then the Insednians rested in the woods with the beasts, and the fabric of her world, though imperfectly stitched, was stitched together.
They had discussed the plan and discussed contingencies in case it failed. Dae had consented to take the throne in her stead and be her steward in her absence. Clea looked at everyone a final time, looked at Ryson, and slid her hand into his before they stepped through the rift.
The world on the other side was not so different, though ancient in all ways.
The buildings vast, and Clea held her breath as they settled atop one.
Ryson stood silently beside her as she beheld the world so rich in the tapestry of the woods.
This place, this city, had once been grand, full of magnificent towers, villas and statues, all now broken down and covered with forestry.
“It’s larger than Ruedom,” she breathed as she took in the layers of partial walls, not fully closed in, never fully built.
This city had been a city without walls, spreading long and vast across the world, in areas of the Wraithlands forgotten perhaps even by the beasts, and yet something seemed to lurk here.
Clea glanced over as Prince’s mask materialized. He was silent with a kind of reverence. Ryson, too, was completely without words as they looked across this vast world. She remembered that Salanes had once been his home.
She watched his face and wanted to ask questions, but this didn’t seem like the time for curiosities, and so as they made their way through the city ruins, she filled her eyes with every sight, every empty house overgrown with greenery, every overturned wagon, vast cobblestone street, and spiraling tower.
There were walls of creeping vines, ancient plazas sunken into pits of darkness, statues half-eaten by moss and clawed by unseen hands.
And yet the city breathed. The shadows moved. Eyes gleamed from windows long abandoned. Beasts stirred in the ruins—twisted things of horn, feather, bone, and darkness—but none attacked, stayed by Ryson’s presence.
They made their way to the city center, and Clea recognized this as a ceremony of sorts, realizing that if Ryson had wanted to bring them closer at the start, he could have. In all reality, he likely knew these trees and had wanted to walk among them again.
They arrived at what seemed to have once been the city center, now all wreckage. The beasts watched in eerie silence as Clea and Ryson passed by.
It was as if the entire city, the beasts, the stones themselves, knew why they had come. And who they were.
Clea shivered under the weight of those unseen gazes.
At the heart of Salanes, they found a door. Massive. Carved from black stone veined with gold. Half-swallowed by vines, half-buried by time.
“Death waits behind golden doors,” she chuckled breathily at the sight.
“We can turn back,” he said, looking down at her before his eyes glanced at Prince’s mask hovering at a distance beyond them both.
“No,” Clea said, and shook her head. “Let’s do this.”
“It will be quick,” Ryson said and approached the door slowly. He drew his weapon—the cursed blade bound to him by blood and loss—and pressed it into a hollow at the center of the door.
He paused, looking at the weapon meaningfully before he whispered, “It’s time, Vanida. Farewell.” He then twisted the weapon powerfully.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened, and then Clea watched in awe as the soul seemed to drain from the end of the weapon. The doors broke open, splitting on either side and leaving the key in the center post.
A cold rush of air swept out, carrying the scent of dust, ruin, and something darker — something waiting.
The walls fell loose and collapsed in all angles, shattering.
All that remained at the center was a single stone coffin, coated in chains of gold and frost. Vanida’s soul continued to drain from the weapon and fill cracks toward the coffin, sinking into the chains that were laid across that final resting place.
Clea hesitated. The air cooled dramatically.
The hair at the back of her neck rose.
Prince’s mask shuddered, and she heard the hiss like an echo across the city before the coffin cracked in half.
My body. The voice washed across her with a chill and then Prince dissolved completely. A dark wind circled them, sucked violently into the coffin with a howl.
Thank you, Princess , he said. I always knew you could do it.
The coffin trembled.
A heartbeat later, it exploded.
A shockwave ripped through the clearing, sending vines and rubble hurtling outward. Clea threw up an arm, shielding her face as debris rained down around them, but Ryson had formed a dome of flickering curses that wrapped them both.
From the shattered remains of the coffin, something began to rise.
A figure—impossibly tall, impossibly thin—peeled itself out of the darkness. Its hair was long and silver, cascading down its back like a shroud. It had no face. Only a smooth, pale mask of flesh, featureless and cold.
Its arms elongated as it moved, hands shifting into cruel shapes—blades, claws, whips of sinew and bone.
The air thickened, pressing against Clea’s lungs like a wet cloth. Massive, silver eyes opened on its fleshy facade and down its arms.
Ryson drew the weapon from the post and split it into two pieces, the hook and spire. They were weapons meant to fell a great evil, the evil that had first tried to break their world in a search, only to mend its own emptiness.
Its struggle was reflected in cien, reflected in the struggle of every Venennin, creatures who embodied its nature. The beasts rose from their hiding places with howls and roars, contorted souls screaming in discomfort.
Looking at this beast, she watched the god of the Venennin, the heart of cien manifested in physical form. At last, Prince had returned to his body, the body he craved with such depth that no other bodies could satisfy him.
In the moment, Clea was unsure if they’d taken a step toward saving the world or destroying it. She saw what had felled the four heroes all those years ago, dragging them into the darkness of their own despair.
“Stay in the wings,” Ryson said firmly. “This is going to take both of us. I’ll create an opening.”
“An opening for what?” she said back, her hands at the ready.
The creature turned its head toward them and smiled—a terrible, knowing smile that split its featureless face in half.
Then it moved.
With a shriek that tore through the stones themselves, it lunged—straight for Ryson.