Page 2 of Return of the Darkness (The Lost Kingdom Saga #3)
“Can you find him?” Elisara asked. While she had little left to live for, perhaps she could learn to defeat Caligh and enact her revenge, seeing as she was created from Sonos’ essence.
“That is why I am counting on you—all of you.” Sitara crossed her legs and planted her clasped hands on her knee.
Her warm smile vanished as she pursed her lips.
“It will be harder with Kazaar dead, but not impossible.” Elisara flinched at the bluntness in which she said his name.
Sitara peered sideways at her. “You do not have time to mourn, child.” Anger bubbled up within Elisara, who shifted against the pain in her limbs.
“You feel it, don’t you? The power I planted within you. ”
“You?” Elisara asked, confused. She never realised the goddess could control Sonos’ essence. Sitara scoffed.
“Have you not worked it out yet?” Sitara pointed at Elisara, beckoning the shadows closer.
Elisara did not flinch, although the darkness felt different without Kazaar nearby.
“It was never him, child. He is a part of it all. You all are. But he is not the one with my power. Caligh lied to you to release your pain, and with it, your power. Or so he thought.” Sitara clenched her fist, and the shadows creeping around Elisara’s wrists tightened, holding her hands captive against the white marble.
Elisara tried to pull her arms free, but the shadows only tightened with her attempts, ropes that burned into her flesh with every twist of Sitara’s command.
“What are you doing?” Elisara asked, shoving back against the throne as Sitara rose and leaned in until she towered above her, consuming the space. At Elisara’s feet, stardust stirred and merged with Sitara’s shadows, creating a furious blaze of darkness and light in chaotic plumes.
“I have waited too long to reach this point for you to ruin it with your grief.” Sitara’s mood shifted, and her smile darkened with her eyes.
“I want him back. We need him back to restore everything. There is far more you don’t know, but you will begin to.
And if you think I—or my children— will sit by while you squander our only chance of fixing things over a MAN!
” Elisara flinched. “You are sorely mistaken.” Sitara’s delicate hand was far bonier up close as she reached for the talisman around Elisara’s neck.
The large black onyx stone appeared to stir with shadows beneath the goddess’s touch, calling to its power.
The talismans enhanced power, so what would become of Elisara if Kazaar’s talisman did the same?
“Says the goddess telling me I must find a man for her,” Elisara spat, and Sitara narrowed her eyes. The shadows tightened further around Elisara’s arms, like claws finding purchase in her skin; they could tear her arms right off if Sitara willed it.
“Sonos is far more than a man. He is a god, he is my partner in life, and the father of my children. I created Kazaar’s strength from the last of Sonos’ essence, and now I do not even have that, because Caligh thought killing him would release your power.
” Sitara trailed her long nail along Elisara’s neck and hooked it under the leather cord of the talisman.
“I cannot continue to exist without him by my side and neither can any of you. This world crumbles because Caligh took him, and soon, you will see that. Minds will awaken. Memories will return. Soon, you will discover you are nothing but a piece in the game of power, and I will not lose, Elisara. Not to him .” Sitara held the talisman in her palm while the shadows continued restraining Elisara.
“Now, I want to try something I’ve seen elsewhere. This may hurt a little.”
Elisara had no time to ask questions as Sitara turned the talisman with a determined glint in her eye and forced it into the centre of Elisara’s chest, splintering bone.
The once cool stone burned as Sitara held it in place.
Elisara screamed. With watering eyes, she glanced downwards at the blood bubbling around the stone in her chest. The goddess’s hands were cold and unyielding as one held the back of Elisara’s head and the other forced the stone deeper.
“The quicker you accept your power, the quicker we can defeat Caligh.” Sitara gritted her teeth as Elisara struggled against the pain searing in her chest, rushing through her shoulders and down her arms, all-consuming.
“This should amplify your powers and overcome the barriers you’ve unknowingly had against you.
” Elisara bit her lip to refrain from crying out.
A flurry of images flickered past her: people she did not recognise, places she did not know.
“Let it in, child.” Sitara pushed harder, and Elisara was certain her chest would crack in half.
Clenching her eyes shut, Elisara’s head pounded at the flickering images and colours in her mind until one finally slowed, and her focus sharpened, settling on a vaulted stone hall with no windows.
Eerie statues of winged creatures lined the hall on pillars. She did not recognise them.
“This one,” Sitara said. “Pay attention.”
Elisara grunted, trying to control her breathing beneath all the agony.
There were two men: a man who resembled Keres, and another man with flowing black hair, who dipped a sword into a steaming, bubbling iron pot swinging above ravenous flames.
The sword hissed and fizzed as he withdrew it.
The Keres-like man squinted and flinched when the sword spat at him.
“This is it. The poison is imbedded in the metal,” said the man with flowing black hair.
“Perfect. Now we know it works. Do this one next, Orphian.” Turning to the wielder of the weapon, he handed over a golden sword Elisara knew to be the Sword of Sonos.
“The poison will kill anything, no matter the weapon it laces. Are you sure you want to use this one, Sulien?” Orphian asked, bowing his head under the man’s glare.
“It has to be this one. This sword will do far more than kill.”
Elisara screamed and opened her eyes; darkness crept into the edges of her vision as scenes continued flying past her, flashing images of vast turquoise oceans, dark and towering stone cities, and purple banners in a city of white.
“Do you understand?” Sitara asked. Elisara’s eyes rolled back, but Sitara steadied her chin with one hand, tightening her grip.
“Do you understand?” she shouted. Elisara tried to focus on the goddess, but everything was a blur.
Murmuring under her breath, Sitara’s shadows began twisting up Elisara’s arms and neck, wrapping around her throat and caressing her temples.
Elisara tried to move her arm and push herself up, but her body was numb.
With each passing moment, her eyelids grew heavier and her breathing shallower.
Her eyes drooped and the many visions slowed. “Focus, child,” Sitara hummed.
Elisara’s awareness sharpened as she heard voices she would never forget.
She tried to cry out for them, but her voice failed as the vision slowed to highlight her parents, younger than she had ever seen them.
Her father’s smile lines hadn’t yet settled as he gazed into the blanket in her mother’s arms, cooing and wiggling his finger.
Her mother moved with the blanket, entering a room Elisara recognised as her own in Azuria, but with a crib instead of her fourposter bed.
A display of dangling silver snowflakes circled slowly in the breeze above the crib.
When Vespera lowered the blanket into the cot, Elisara recognized the infant as a younger version of herself.
“She is beautiful, Vespera,” Arion murmured, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. Vespera kept silent but nodded, smiling.
“Elisara. How did you choose the name?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“It came to me in a dream.” Arion stooped to plant a kiss on his daughter’s temple before leaving the room.
Despite her clouded state, Elisara choked at the tenderness she so desperately missed from her father.
Vespera hummed a familiar lullaby, watching her baby sleep; Elisara had heard the melody most nights as a child.
The humming abruptly stopped when a shiver passed through Vespera, who glanced around the room, pulling her shawl tighter around herself.
The air appeared to thin, as if something was capturing the space and drawing everything towards it.
“She is indeed beautiful.” An ethereal voice floated through the room.
Elisara instantly recognised it. Vespera whirled, looking for the source.
Backing up against the cot, she instinctively reached towards her baby to protect her from the intruder.
A flame flickered to life on her free palm.
“I am not here to harm her, Vespera.” Slowly, Sitara stepped from the shadows cast by the stone archways in Azuria castle.
“Who are you?” Vespera demanded. Flames erupted in a circle around the mother and child, trickling from Vespera’s hands.
Sitara stepped into the moonlight. Like the four gods in the Neutral City, her body was a glowing apparition.
The goddess blinked, and the flames dampened.
Vespera twisted her hand in a desperate attempt to summon more fire, but nothing ignited .
“I am Sitara, Goddess of Dusk.” Her voice softly echoed through the room as shadows twisted up her arms. Immediately, Vespera bowed her head, prompting a smile from Sitara.
“Your daughter is destined for greatness, Queen Vespera,” Sitara whispered, silently padding bare foot over the stone to the opposite side of the cot.
The goddess reached in, gently removing the blanket from Vespera’s sleeping daughter.
The queen shifted forward, gripping the edge of the cot as the goddess stroked Elisara’s forehead.
“She will likely marry a prince.” Vespera flashed a tight smile at the goddess, who scoffed.