Page 23 of Light Locked #1

Sacrifice

C LEA AWOKE WITH a start and struggled from her bed as Althala burst in, a torch in her hand. Breathing heavily, she rushed around the tent. “We have to get out!”

Althala was wild with fear, and Clea noticed the blood on her hands as screaming erupted outside. She rushed from the tent. Grim reminders of her mother’s death awaited her outside.

Kalex were running and screaming. They carried burning torches that illuminated the blood-splattered snow and disfigured bodies that scattered the campground. A hoard of reaping shades tore through the campsite. They leapt from tent to tent, rummaging and killing.

These camps were supposed to be safe.

Clea raced toward the closest foe, bare feet reddened by the snow.

The first reaper she encountered had its head shoved into a nearby tent, fumbling as shrieks sounded from inside.

Her body was hot with the potent mix of adrenaline and the ansra it stirred. Clea slammed her hands into the first reaper and split its essence into a scattered rain of ashes .

Another charged for her. Clea ducked under its claws and pulled herself into its chest with another blessing. It died with a shriek. She’d managed to kill eighteen of them when she’d first escaped from Virday. Her mother had felled over a hundred.

The greatest documented hordes had as many as three hundred shades. That was why Veilin so often traveled in teams.

She rolled up her sleeves as three more charged for her.

She would go much higher than eighteen tonight.

The first dove and she struck, diving under the cloud of ash to meet the second with equal ferocity. The blasts of light would draw the rest in, and in the wake of the screams of the Kalex, ones she’d healed the day before, her fear was cloaked by rage.

Clea whipped around for another kill, only to find it already gone. Ryson was standing in its place, scythe drawn.

“Let’s go,” he demanded.

More screaming erupted, and Clea noticed a shade was nearing Althala’s tent.

The light from her torch still bustled frantically inside.

Clea charged past Ryson as she shouted Althala’s name.

The reaper whipped its head toward Clea.

It raised its hand to strike her, and she slipped down into the snow, blessing its ankle as she threw herself under its legs.

It exploded over her, and Clea scrambled up just as Althala left the tent.

Two screams, one after the other, sounded in the distance.

Clea turned her head, facing a place on the far side of the camp.

The commotion was interrupted by a chilling silence.

Clea narrowed her eyes in the darkness, unable to make out an enemy where the screams had come from.

She glanced at Ryson, but he was focused in the same direction, seeing perhaps what she could not.

“Clea!” Althala approached, drawing Clea’s attention. “Here!” She thrust Clea’s bag into her hands, Althala’s research folder poking from it along with Clea’s boots. “You must go!”

A roar echoed from the distance. It was unlike any sound Clea had ever heard. The earth trembled with the vibration of it. “Please, go. Don’t waste what strength you have left on us! The Kalex here can fight! You must continue your journey!”

Ryson’s bandaged hand took hold of her arm. He turned her toward the forest, leading her with a vice grip.

“We can’t!” She wrestled against his hand, digging her feet into the snow.

“We can’t fight here, Princess.” He whipped toward her. “Hurry up!”

“Yes, we can! We have to! They need help!” she shouted back.

“We’ll die! Don’t be a fool!”

She snatched her arm from his grasp, and put distance between them. “ We’ll die? What about them?”

“They’re dead already, and we can’t afford to join them. We won’t survive what’s coming. Can’t you feel it?” he snapped .

Ryson’s cold words, spoken even before Althala, only fueled the fires of Clea’s determination.

A second deep roar echoed from the end of the encampment. The ground shook beneath her feet. More screams guided her eyes to the far end of the camp.

“Oh,” Althala gasped in horror.

Wings like a black canvas unfurled across the distant sky, swallowing the stars. A single red eye burned through the darkness.

“Go,” Althala said, but Clea continued to stare at the beast.

“Go!” Althala shouted and began to push her.

Ryson took the opportunity to reach for her, but as he did, an arrow came spiraling from the shadows and struck him in the shoulder.

He lost his grip on his weapon and stumbled as his hand came to his shoulder.

“Ryson!” Clea shouted. She rushed to support him as he tore the arrow from his shoulder, dropping it as he fell to one knee. Her eyes followed the path of the arrow. In the shadows stood a Kalex archer. Althala rushed toward the Kalex, shouting for him to hold off his attack.

His grip tightened on his wound as blood seeped through his fingers. Clea attempted to lift him to his feet as another roar echoed. “We need to escape now,” he demanded.

She lifted her hands to her neck and began fumbling with the clasp of the medallion .

“What are you doing?” Ryson asked, standing back to his feet.

“I’ll give you the medallion. You’ve got to take it away from here so I can fight at my best. I will meet you when the battle is done. It possesses slowly. We will have plenty of time, and you’re capable of transporting it. You already have,” she said.

“I’m not taking that thing. Clea, look at me!

” he said with a vigor that commanded her attention.

“I want you to understand something, and understand it well. I won’t touch it, because you have to take it.

I’m not giving you a choice. I’m not letting you stay.

You can blame me for their deaths. I don’t care. ”

She stopped fumbling with the medallion. The silver in his irises burned with honesty that filled her with dread.

“You have to hurry!” Althala shouted, stumbling through snow toward them as another roar echoed.

Clea looked over at Althala and then back at Ryson pleadingly.

Ryson cursed. “By cien, you can drop it off in the woods and I can guard it, but I’m not going to touch it, all right? Just hurry.”

Clea didn’t hesitate, but took one longing glance at Althala and followed Ryson into the woodland. She ran with all the energy she could muster, tugging at the medallion until she slipped it off her neck.

“It should only be for a few minutes!” She huffed after him once they were a decent distance from the village.

“I just have to help them!” she said between breaths, shouting over the sound of their footfalls.

“We can evacuate the women and children, and the warriors can distract the beast to create an opening for me to kill it!” They broke past the tree line.

“Without the medallion, I’m sure I can beat it!

This should be far enough,” she shouted, and they slowed to a stop.

She searched for a place to hide the medallion.

“Clea,” Ryson said as she began to lift herself into a nearby tree. “We have to keep moving.”

“Yes, I know, I’m moving as fast as I can!” she shouted back, foot slipping against the bark.

“You aren’t going back,” he replied coolly.

She lowered herself from the tree, looking at him with the medallion in hand. “Yes, I am.”

“It’s not a battle we can win. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“How can you say that?” she said in disbelief before shaking her head. “I’m going.”

He placed himself between her and the route to the Kalex village, weapon still drawn. His wounded shoulder bled, but he showed no pain. “I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t do this.” She moved to pass him, but he blocked her way. She tried to weave past his other side, but he grabbed her arm and jerked her to a halt.

“I said don’t touch me!” She yanked away from him. Her hand tensed as a blessing formed in her palm. “Don’t make me do this, Ryson. ”

“I’m protecting you. You’re not thinking,” he hissed.

“I don’t want to be protected right now!

The camp was supposed to be safe! They’re usually safe!

” She set her hands against the ground, and a blessing exploded around Ryson like a cage.

She raced past him, but his hand locked around her shirt and yanked her backward again.

She fell hard against a tree, breath forced from her lungs.

Ryson locked the scythe across her chest, the blade splitting the bark beside her and holding her in place.

She flinched against the cold steel flattened across her chest.

“So, that’s it then?” Ryson hissed, hovering over her.

She gritted her teeth as he pressed the weapon harder against her shoulder, their faces inches apart.

“One tragedy and you lose your head? This is the forest, Clea. This is it!” he shouted. “You have a responsibility. That means sacrifice! Maybe I don’t know honor, or integrity, or whatever else you Veilin preach, but I know sacrifice!”

She kept her teeth clenched, intent on resisting him, but his words weighed heavier on her with each passing second.

“They won’t escape.” She pushed out the words on a strained whisper. “The camp was supposed to be safe. Why not tonight, Ryson? Why wasn’t it safe tonight?”

Beneath her anger now whispered the fear, the fear of her own guilt.

“Don’t make up reasons if you don’t have to,” Ryson replied. “I picked the night. I left you there. I’m forcing you to leave. ”

“They won’t escape.”

“And that’s why we can,” he replied. “Why we must.”

A monstrous dread inside her ravaged the hope she’d had for justice.

“The beast in that village was stronger than me, stronger than you, and stronger than any warrior living there. If anything, we have to use the village as a distraction so that we can escape. That’s the only purpose it could serve at this point.

You can go back and all of us can die in vain, the medallion lost, or you can move on,” he explained.