Never Yours ✔️

Ch. 50

Arysa didn't have a lot of time.

But she couldn't do this alone.

She found him lying on his back on the floor of his bedroom, glassy eyes on the ceiling, feet bare.

"Demian, I need your help."

But he wouldn't look at her.
"So did my father."

"Demian, I think I can beat him."

And this time, Demian sat up and spun to face her, and the blank defeat vanished from his features.

"How?"

Arysa held up the slip of paper, unfolded to reveal scribbled writing in the old language, half-drawn runes, and ink blots created out of frustration.

Demian got up and frowned at it. "What is that?"

"It's the recipe." Arysa breathed. "For the undead soldiers. This is where he figured out how to do it."

"It's scrap paper."

"Exactly." Arysa turned the page towards her, eyes dancing over the letters and the drawing. "It's jumbled and confusing and a mess of unconnected thoughts, but it's here."

"What is?"

Her eyes lifted to his and they sparkled with unsuppressed excitement.

"The way to bring back the dead."

His brows wrinkled.

"Demian," She breathed, "He figured out how to raise them from their graves. But he never realized that this," she held up the paper, "is also how we put them back."

Arysa knelt in the center of the throne room, scrawling runes and symbols across the floors with the black chalk she'd whipped together from the array of herbs and minerals in Lara's room. Lara, herself, sat in front of the throne, her eyes closed, casting strength over Demian and Velicity who stood by the doors, swords drawn and ready. Rivet paced the edges of the throne room, drawing runes on pillars to reinforce the shield he'd put around them to block anyone from being able to sense the Mystic pooling in this room.

Arysa's veins had flashed black the second she'd set the chalk to stone, and they rippled through her as though they followed the movement of her blood. They did not fade, and Arysa could feel the power burning through her.

She knew this might be that one push that would send her tumbling over the edge, but it was the only way. And if it was, if she lost herself, Rivet already knew exactly what she wanted him to do.

The Mystic kept her hands steady and her mind clear, and her heart thundered with adrenaline, both from the power and the fear. The sweep of her fingers and the curve of her lines decorated the floor with an array of black art, but she did have the time to appreciate the intricate abstract design that flourished under her fingertips.

She focused only on the next rune, then the next, then the next. And when she reached the last, and the chalk slicked across the floor, the final line clasping to the first like hands finalizing a deal, she held her breath. The Mystic swarmed inside of her like a hive of bees, begging to be released, but she withheld.

She could not get this wrong.

Rivet stilled, his hands raised towards a pillar, but it was Lara who spoke.

"He's coming."

And silence, broken only by their hearts beating in their ears and the sharp intake of their breaths, weighed on every person in the room.

Arysa stood facing the throne, the runes circling round her bare feet, Demian's crown held between her hands.

The symbolism was just as important as the Mystic itself.