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“Hope for what?” I asked.
The female, Sayah, spoke, “Our lands are dying because we have been disconnected from the realms. Our magic is fading. The strength of the shadow people has dwindled until only a few bloodlines can control, move in, and be the shadows.”
She waved her hand, and the landscape changed rapidly, showing me images of her home, each one ash and barren, no crops, no water. People starved in their shacks, and their leaders were powerless to help.
I swallowed thickly. The realms were full of suffering, but seeing it so closely was never easy.
“I’m sorry to hear the isolation from the interlinked dimensions has had such a terrible impact on your people,” I told them genuinely.
Kaatu nodded. “It happened slowly. We managed at first. But we are on the brink of death. We need help, and our seer saw you.”
“What can I do?” I asked. If they needed a savior, I would be that for them.Perhaps it will show my fathers I am also the right savior for the titans.
“Bring our portal back,” Sayah urged. “Heal it. Allow our realm to connect with the human one once again. You are mated to the soul pair of healing, and you can return our portal to how it was before the fall. Heal our lands.”
I paused. There were multiple issues with their request.
“The human realm has been without your portal for many years now. We will need to assess the dangers of reconnecting it before I agree to anything.”
“We are a victim in a titan civil war, and now our lands suffer because of it. Our portal was not supposed to be destroyed. It will be as it was and always should have been,” Kaatu argued.
I shook my head. “My soul mate and her witch are of the human realm. It’s in their interest that I look out for things that could worsen the situation there.”
Sayah began whispering in a language I didn’t understand. Kaatu didn’t take his eyes off me but listened intently. The secrets made me wary, but I stood firm, determined not to show my apprehension.
Finally, Kaatu said, “My sister makes a good point.”
“And what was that?”
He gave a sheepish grin. “Now that we are so close to saving our realm and our people, it would kill me to wait any longer.”
The guard and princess disappeared suddenly, and Kaatu strode forward, his form flashing back to shadow. My heart stuttered, and I backed away, only to be tripped by the dreamscape changing. Kaatu disappeared, but I saw a blackened spot on the ash ground rushing toward me. I scrambled away, but the ash turned sticky and held me still.
My vision turned red again as panic rushed through my veins like a drug. My fangs dropped, but they were no use against my foe. I’d never been more helpless.
The shadow blot reached my head, and as soon as it touched the skin of my cheek, pain burst across my face like an ink spill. It spread to my mouth, nose, and eyes and seemed to deepen, penetrating my mind.
I gasped and clawed at my throat as I woke up in my bed in Akar. I felt wild, hissing and growling as pain laced through me, my instincts screaming at me to defend myself, but my enemy was … inside me?
A dark chuckle echoed in my mind. Kaatu. I screamed, the violation of it all too much to bear.
The door to my chamber slammed open, and Darshaw charged in. “Baelen, what in Darkness … What is wrong with you?” He gasped as he took me in. “Your skin.”
I glanced down at my hands to see my skin mottled with black patches, then looked back up to my uncle as pain whipped through me and I collapsed to the floor. Only I didn’t touch it. My body seemed to fall through it.
Then next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to see the ash ground, which I recognized as Ombra.
What just happened?I winced as I sat up to look around.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Kaatu’s voice drew my attention to the corner of a cave. He sat on a bundle of collapsed rocks.
“What did you do to me?” I croaked around, my still drawn fangs.
“Being the king of shadows means I can live in any shadows.” He smiled sinisterly. “The shadows of a mind, of a heart. I can also travel through shadows which is how I’ve brought you here.”
My mind whirled, and my blood boiled. I growled, “You took over my body and made us travel in shadows, across realms?”
“I thought an akari-titan half-breed would be made of sterner stuff, but I’ve been waiting over a day for you to wake.”
