AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And Ixa begins running, headed straight for the girls.
As he moves, a familiar feeling slithers over me, oily yet suffocating. “The Idugu,” I whisper, hoarse. If I wasn’t certain before, I am now. I turn to the others. “Whatever those things are, they’re connected to the Idugu.”
“Which is why the mist snatched all of us boys first.” Keita curses under his breath as he urges his gryph on.
The male gods have been dead set on vengeance since we escaped their temple three months ago, and Keita is the primary target of their wrath. After all, he’s the one who burned their temple to dust.
“HURRY!” I shout, abandoning all pretense of quiet. “Get the girls through the columns.”
Half have risen and are swiftly removing their masks, horror on their faces. But they’re not what worries me. It’s the other girls. They remain kneeling, lips moving in fervent prayer. One of them, in particular, a lanky adolescent with the same dusky skin and midnight-black hair as the others, seems to be intent on keeping her companions in place—even the ones who want to leave.
I sigh. There are always girls like that, girls who believe so desperately that they’ll get the lives they’ve been promised if only they sacrifice everything that they are.
That’s how those who have power retain it: by promising they’ll share some of that power if a chosen few obey whatever commands they have been given.
I spur Ixa on. “We have to get them away from here!”
“Deka.” This call comes from Lamin, whose eyes are busy surveying the area as he keeps pace with me. “We might not have time to rescue all of them—”
I cut him off by pointing. “Whatever those flying things are, they’re proxies for the Idugu. And those girls are designated sacrifices. So if any of them die before we reach the gate—”
“The Idugu will be able to manifest here.” Lamin nods his understanding, urging his gryph faster now.
I glance back at the beasts, trying to gauge how much time we have. They still haven’t left the vicinity of that mountain, that strange blue light illuminating their massive leathery wings as they fly in aggressive circles around it.
“Why aren’t they comin’ for the girls yet?” Britta’s puzzled question echoes my thoughts.
I squint at the creatures, trying to answer the question, until finally I spot the pattern. “The darkness—they’re not moving past it!”
“But those stars over there are already dimming,” Keita says, pointing to the area just next to the cracked-open mountain, where the stars flicker dully, as if holding on to the last of their power. It’s the same with the patch of stars just in front of them.
The moment they turn black, the creatures fly toward them.
“A path!” I gasp out my horror. “The dimming stars are a path.”
Even now, the creatures are winging closer and closer, slick black bodies gleaming in the darkness. That strange blue light pulses from what look like scales on their sides, as well as the single, gigantic circle that vibrates and thrums in the middle of their chests. Their hearts, no doubt. It’s the only weakness I can discern. They have no eyes to gouge out, no mouths that I can see. But they must have mouths somewhere. How else to explain all those half-eaten skeletons littering the sands?
I keep my eyes trained on the creatures, marking their progress, as Ixa makes his way to the obsidian floor, where the girls are still arguing among themselves.
That is, until we emerge from the darkness.
As they stop to gape at us, I hurry Ixa over. “We have to leave. Now,” I say brusquely.
But instead of rushing toward us in relief, the lanky girl I noticed earlier just looks up at me. Then she notices the boys riding beside me. She quickly lowers her gaze, her eyes fixed respectfully to the ground. I bristle with annoyance. One thing about Otera that hasn’t changed: women are always desperately subservient to men, even ones they don’t know.
No wonder so many of them are so easily taken advantage of. They’ve been primed their entire lives to not only tolerate abuse but to also expect it as their fate.
“Evening greetings, travelers,” she says, her trembling voice the only indication of her fear. “Who might you be?”
It’s ironic, actually. Even in a situation like this, she still retains her manners.
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” I say, urging Ixa forward once more. “What matters is we have to leave before those things come.” I point at the creatures, which have now moved to the patch of darkness a few steps removed from the obsidian floor.
“What things?” another girl asks with a quiver. She appears to be the oldest—a plump, frightened little wisp of about thirteen or so.
Her large brown eyes worriedly search the distance, but it’s clear they see nothing. Being human, she can’t see the creatures from so far away, even though they’re approaching ever nearer, that awful sound echoing from their chests.
A few minutes more and they’ll reach the obsidian floor.
