Shades of Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #16) - Alexandra Ivy Page 0,82

you.” The words were clipped, as if Keyrah was still furious after all these centuries. “If you had been a human you would have been dead before I could reach you.”

Chaaya frowned. She didn’t remember. Either she’d been too young or she’d blocked it from her mind. That would explain why she’d been so disturbed when she’d entered this strange dimension to find Greta waiting for her.

“What did you do?”

“I told Greta that she could leave or die. There was no other choice.”

“She left, I assume?”

“Yes.” Keyrah nodded, the gold of her crown glinting in the muted light. “I heard rumors that she’d joined with a human wizard who shared her fascination with forbidden magic.”

Chaaya returned her attention to the spear. Why would her aunt be so desperate to get her hands on it?

“Maybe she hoped the spear could give her powers,” she murmured her thoughts out loud. Then she gasped, turning her head to stare at the immobile woman. “Or she had her own vision.”

“Why do you say that?” her mother asked.

“She claimed that she lured me here because she needed my spear to escape. She might have foreseen her entrapment and realized her only hope was to have the spear with her.”

“You’re right. It’s quite possible.” Keyrah stepped toward her. “You need to leave, Chaaya. Now.”

Chaaya nodded. Her mother wasn’t going to get any argument from her. The sooner she was away from this place, the better.

She pointed toward the firepit. “You have to release Basq first.”

“I can’t. Not without also releasing Greta.” The older woman grimaced. “You must leave him behind.”

Chaaya was shaking her head before her mother stopped speaking. “No way.”

“Chaaya, no one understands the agony of sacrificing the one you love more than I do—”

“No.”

Keyrah made a sound of frustration. “You can’t allow Greta to return to the world.”

“What does it matter?” Chaaya stubbornly demanded.

A pained expression rippled over Keyrah’s face. As if Chaaya was forcing her to remember something she preferred to forget.

Chaaya knew the feeling.

“During her time with the wizards, she discovered the magic of raising the dead,” she abruptly revealed.

“Zombies?”

“That’s the human name for them.” Keyrah’s lips pressed together in intense disapproval. “Demons call them abominations.”

Chaaya ground her teeth. She understood the dangerous magic of the dead. The mer-folk had endured a ruthless tyrant who’d used a zombie medallion to control the Tryshu. But she didn’t care. Not if it meant leaving Basq behind.

“I won’t sacrifice Basq.”

“Then you condemn the world to Greta’s madness,” her mother said with blunt simplicity.

Chaaya winced. There was a bitter irony in the realization that she was faced with the same choice that had cursed her mother. She either sacrificed the person she loved, or she condemned the world to evil.

“There has to be a way,” she rasped.

Her mother…faded. She could still see the shimmering outline, but she was no longer the solid form she’d been just a few seconds earlier.

“Chaaya, I can’t stay any longer,” she warned.

“You’re leaving?”

Chaaya thought a sad smile touched Keyrah’s lips. “Unlike you, I truly am dead.”

A wrenching sense of loss cascaded through Chaaya. “I won’t ever see you again?”

“No, but we will always be together. You are in my heart, daughter. My love will never waver, never end.” There was a last flicker of movement, as if she was holding out her hand. “And I am so very proud of you.”

“You might not be so proud if I release a horde of zombies on the world,” Chaaya muttered.

“You will do what is right. Because that is who you are,” her mother insisted.

“Who am I?”

“A hero.”

Chaaya shook her head, watching her mother slowly disappear. “I wish people would stop saying that.”

Chapter 24

It was the crackle of flames that warned Chaaya her mother’s disappearance had shattered the spell that had frozen Greta. Whirling around, her gaze first landed on Basq, who was shaking his head as if he was disoriented. Could he sense that he’d been wrapped in magic?

“Well, Chaaya?” Greta snapped. “What’s it going to be?”

Squaring her shoulders, Chaaya met her aunt’s fevered gaze. Her emotions had been in turmoil since the second she’d stepped into the portal to chase after Brigette. She’d been angry, frustrated, terrified, and at the same time giddy with joy to be sharing her journey with Basq. And most unexpectedly of all, at peace with her past.

Now all those tumultuous feelings drained away. She wasn’t numb. Just…determined.

She knew what she had to do.

“You win,” she said.

Basq’s eyes narrowed as he glared at her in disbelief. “No, Chaaya.

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