Kael Voidwalker's Arc

Chapter 2 of 10

The crow led Kael three days through the dead forest. Skeletal trees rose black around him, split by violet cracks that swallowed the light. Twice he heard things pacing him in the mist. His aura still burned like a torch in a cave. He could feel it leaking off his skin, cold and loud, calling every hungry thing in Oblivia. He needed to smother it or he would not last another night. The crow stopped above a clearing and screamed. Below sat a caravan of black wagons, quiet as a graveyard. A small figure stood in the mud waiting, no taller than a child, wrapped in a patched black cloak. Kael reached for his knife. "You can put that away," the child said. The voice was old, dry, a man who had lived a hundred years. "I heard you coming since yesterday. So did worse things." This was no child. The wagon folk behind him kept their distance, eyes down, giving the small figure a wide berth in the mud. "You know what I am," Kael said. "You shine," Rook said. "New Voidwalkers always do. They burn bright and then they get eaten." He turned and walked toward the wagons. Kael followed, because the alternative was the forest. Rook led him to a still black pool ringed by carved stones. Faded violet runes glowed on the rock. The water did not move at all. Beside it lay a rough gray shard, tall as a forearm, cut by hand into a rough point. A dark seam ran down its center. "Hold it," Rook said. "Then put it in the water." Kael picked up the shard. The cold hit him at once, the same cold as his own magic, like grabbing a live wire. He knelt and pressed it under the black surface. The pool woke. Something long uncoiled beneath the water and pushed against his hands. Violet light climbed the runes on the stones. "It will take your beacon," Rook said. "It will also want more." The shard pulled. Kael felt his aura drain into it, the pressure in his teeth easing for the first time in days. Then it kept pulling, reaching past the aura toward the thing that made him a Voidwalker. He gripped harder and pushed back, holding the line, giving the stone only what he chose. His bad eye flared. His shadow lagged behind him on the mud. He wrenched the shard from the water. It was warm now, dark and quiet, his aura sealed inside it. The clearing had gone silent. No pacing in the trees. He tied it against his chest under his cloak. "You're muffled," Rook said. "They can't smell you now." Kael breathed out. "And the worse thing? What wanted more?" Rook was already walking away. "It followed the shine here. It knows this place now." He did not stop. "You should leave before dark."