Life Beyond the Temple Page 24

  Chapter 25

  “MARTUN, MARTUN, what is going on now?” Jaysun turned around the corner and smiled when his gaze landed on me. “Look, our little friend has come to play.”

  “Martun,” I whispered. “Martun, why?”

  “Martun, why?” Jaysun mocked in a high voice.

  “Why? Why? You killed my sister. She’s dead, and I’m here because of you. How dare you ask why! How dare you question the rules the Old Ones had laid out for us! You are not all-powerful, Casey. Your arrogance killed the only family I had!” he shouted.

  “I tried to stop her,” I whispered.

  “She wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t gotten the idea in her head! If you hadn’t decided to see if you were better than the laws! If you hadn’t created it, it wouldn’t have happened! It’s your fault she thought you could do it! And they took her! Not you! They took my sister, innocent, grieving, the one who trusted you! They took her, and left you,” he snarled.

  “I didn’t ask them to!”

  “You let them! You didn’t stop them! You didn’t try hard enough!” he shouted back. “She’s dead, and you’re standing right there, in front of me like you’re so much better than the rest of us! Like you’re better than the rules!”

  “I never thought that!”

  “You broke them every chance you got, and the Old Ones never even touched you! You were too precious for that! They needed you! They didn’t need the rest of us. We were just pawns for them, but you? You were so much more! They left us to rot while you were put on a pedestal! Your grandfather was the head Council member, you were a prodigy, and you could break the rules without a scratch! The rest of us were ignored by the Old Ones! They didn’t give a damn about anyone but you!”

  “That’s not true!”

  “I heard you talk in your sleep! You had been having dreams for months before she died! You knew you were safe! That your time was coming!”

  “She didn’t give me a choice! She was going to do it on her own if I didn’t help! I thought that I could stop the Old Ones from hurting her!”

  “You could have stopped her! You could have stopped them! Don’t tell me you tried. You’re weak! And yet they chose you!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “The hell it wasn’t!” he screamed at me, taking a threatening step forward.

  Cinder was standing behind me. I could feel him breathing. He was tired, scared, and worried.

  I didn’t say anything until Jaysun stepped forward, clapping slowly. He held his arms out, “Without Martun, I wouldn’t be where I am. Without you, Martun wouldn’t be here. Do you see how this is all your fault? Do you see why you are the cause of this?”

  Don’t think about that. Find out what you need to know. Focus on the problem at hand, Cinder said.

  “Where’s Regan’s family?”

  “Your little girlfriend’s family? Her older brothers and her parents?” Regan struggled against the tape, but eventually her head dropped. It was like she just gave up in that one moment. “They’re not dead. Not yet. Don’t worry about that, though. It’s not important.”

  “Let Regan go at least. This isn’t about her. This is about me and Martun and you,” I said, looking over at her. “Just let her go.”

  “This is about all of us. And your other little love. I’m betrayed by the only person I loved, and two people are willing to give their lives for you!” Jaysun sneered at me. “I’m willing to make them. You don’t deserve it all, Casey. You don’t deserve so many people’s love. The one woman I loved, and she tore me to pieces and married another man.” He laughed darkly, “Well, tried to at least. This isn’t just the three of us. It’s all of us.” Jaysun’s way of thinking was twisted. It only made sense in the strangest way. It was an insane man’s way of thinking.

  “You don’t need to hurt her,” I said, stepping forward.

  “You think I made a deal with a demon to let him into my body in exchange for my power so that I wouldn’t hurt everyone I felt like hurting? No! I did this because I want to destroy those who do these things!”

  “Jaysun—”

  “Don’t call me that. Don’t! You have no right to use that name! That name is dead! I am just the Necromancer! I am not that name anymore!”

  “Jaysun—”

  “Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  I took another step forward. “People don’t need to die.”

  “People always need to die.”

  I could feel myself get lifted into the air. “Jaysun!” I don’t know why I yelled his name. I felt like a mother yelling at a child who wouldn’t listen.

  Jaysun threw his hand out, and I watched the window burst open. “People always need to die,” he growled as he threw me out the window.

  I reached my hand up, like I would be able to stop myself, but I couldn’t. My Life Force wasn’t working. I don’t know when I used it all up, but I didn’t have the energy to do anything, let alone stop myself from falling.

  I was lucky I wasn’t higher up than I was. I hit the ground, hard. I couldn’t move. I just lay there groaning and struggling to stay conscious, but I wouldn’t be able to hold myself awake for long.

  It was good that I didn’t have to.

  Cinder came barreling toward me and skidded to a stop in front of me. I painfully reached up and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Ston, was the only word I could focus on well enough to get out, but he understood. Take me to the ones who can help.

  I wasn’t able to stay awake to see him pick me up.

  WHITE WALLS.

  Bright lights.

  “Jaysun,” I mumbled, not able to stop myself from speaking aloud. I was still in pain, like my real body was, and I was so dizzy and only semiconscious.

  “You need not worry, child, it is not him.”

  I looked up, my vision blurry, to see an old man in white robes and a long white beard. He had transparent blue eyes.

  “You’re one of the Old Ones.”

  “Yes, child. I am the one who told you to go on this journey.”

  The Old Ones only spoke to the living when they needed to, and then it dawned on me. “I’m dead,” I whispered.

  “Not yet, child. We have suspended your living body until your determined friends have healed you. You are stable in the world of the living for now.”

  I started to stand up, but a wave of nausea hit me, and I just sat back down. “What happens next?”

  He shrugged. “What do you need to happen next?”

  “I need to save Regan. I need to kill Jaysun. Protect the people.”

  “And Martun?”

  I looked away. “I should have never brought him back. He doesn’t belong here in the world of the living.”

  “You’re right. He lived the life he was meant to, and his death was at the right time for him. He is one of the few who dies at his time, too many young ones die before their time. Not all souls are so angry when they come back to the living.”

  “It happened before?”

  “Not yet,” he said, looking off into the distance.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ve changed the future, Casey. Every action you’ve done has shaped a new future. A future that I can see. There will be more attempts to bring back the dead. None of them will work, except one, many many years from now where we must replay this scenario.”

  “Replay?”

  “History repeats itself, especially the history that is never revealed to be what it truly is. In a thousand years or so, we will need to keep another girl alive after she makes this same transgression. She will be like you in many ways, Casey. Brave, caring, strong, smart, and willing to do anything to protect those she cares about. She may not succeed, though. How your final hours of this battle play out will change everything yet again. We are not sure of any future right now because you keep changing it. Everything you do, every action you do without thinking changes the future yet again. Whatever
you do, Casey, make sure there is a future to have. You must live, or everything is lost. You must defeat Jaysun, or we will be lost. The demon Jaysun is going to bring into this world plans to build the bridge between the Veil and the demon world, and the human world. The Old Ones will pass, and the demons will come into this kingdom and corrupt it. We need you, Casey, not just the humans, but everything needs you to succeed.”

  “No pressure,” I said, smiling weakly. “How do I do that? I can’t. After the deal with that demon, he’s stronger.”

  “Not by much, Casey. There are ways to attain more power, but that is up to you. You are the shaper of the new world. You must make your own decisions.” He looked away. “Come now, your friends are waiting for you.” I stood up, and he held his hand out to me. “Do not forget your past. It can help your future.” I took his hand and closed my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I SHOT up, coughing and trying not to vomit.

  “She’s awake.” Liam sounded relieved.

  “Of course she is. She’s tough as nails,” Cam said, her voice shaking like she didn’t know what to believe.

  “Everybody move back, I need to check her out first,” Ston grumbled.

  His dark fingers wrapped around my wrist and those vibrant purple eyes scanned me over quickly. “Hey.” My voice sounded like sandpaper. I grabbed the glass of water beside me and drank it eagerly.

  “Welcome back,” he said, focused on my pulse.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We thought we lost you, and then you just… stopped declining. You—”

  “Stabilized,” I finished.

  “Yeah. Cinder brought you to us, but we don’t have the connection you do with him. We didn’t understand his damned barks.”

  “I found Regan. Jaysun’s got her. And Martun.”

  “Martun?”

  “My old roommate from the Temple. It’s a long story.”

  “Regan told us after you left. The boy you brought back to life. She said that you probably thought you were going to get us killed too, like his sister, even though it wasn’t your fault.”

  I nodded. “We have to save her. And her family.”

  “We can’t right now. You’re too weak, and after healing you, Cam and I don’t have much to spare.”

  I bit my lip and slipped my gloved hand into the inside pocket of my jacket and felt the little plastic bag. “There’s more than one way to get power,” I whispered.

  Ston looked up at me. “Casey, we don’t know what it does.”

  “We do. It’s an amplifier.”

  “We don’t know side effects.”

  “I made the damn thing,” I growled. “Regan needs me. A few little side effects don’t faze me. I need this, Ston. I can’t just sit around here, waiting to recuperate and still not be strong enough. I’m not sitting back and letting him do God knows what to them!”

  Ston blinked a few times, like he was shocked. “Casey, we don’t know if this will help. We don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll do anything to save Regan and this whole city. I’m not just sitting back and watching this all happen. I’m going to stop him.”

  Using up the little Life Force I had, I filled the glass with water and I dumped the white powder into it and watched it dissolve.

  I drank it all in three gulps and set the glass down.

  I closed my eyes and took a few breaths.

  I could feel it coursing through me, filling my veins with sheer power. My Life Force regenerated quickly, and I could feel the power building up around my entire body. I looked down at my hands and saw the faintest trace of an electric blue line, like the ones Ston had on his body where the highest concentrations of Life Force was.

  “Are you coming?” I asked, looking at Ston and Cam.

  Cam nodded slowly. “Right behind you.”

  “I better go, make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Ston grumbled.

  “I’m not going to be left out of a party,” Liam said, shrugging.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  “How are you going to get there so fast?” Cam asked.

  I swung myself onto Cinder’s back, feeling energized from the Clerstan. “My trusty steed will get me there. I’ll see you guys soon.” I smiled and leaned forward.

  Let’s get out of here, Cinder said, his muscles bunching as he got ready to leap forward.

  Before they hurt Regan.

  We won’t let them.

  I narrowed my eyes at the thought. Never.

  He leapt forward, and we sprinted down the stairs and out the front door into the dimly lit street.

  Night had fallen and a full moon was high above our heads. A bright light in the middle of the pitch-black.

  We stood a chance.

  The odds were against us, but we stood a chance.

  Chapter 26

  ARE YOU sure you’re ready for this? Cinder asked.

  Do I have a choice? I raised my hand up to touch his side. He was breathing slowly, calm now.

  We could wait for the rest of them.

  Don’t have the time. They don’t even know exactly where to go, they’re moving slowly. We have to do this now.

  Cinder nodded, understanding. Then let’s go, I guess.

  He padded up the stairs beside me, neither of us rushing now.

  When I came to the third floor, the door was cracked open for us.

  I pushed it open and looked over at Regan, who was tied to the chair still. Jaysun was smirking and leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. Martun was glaring at me from an armchair beside him.

  “Martun was hopeful that you died. We couldn’t find your Life Force for a while. And then, just like I said, you came back, but you didn’t just come back. You came back much more powerful. Did you finally use my little gift?” Jaysun asked.

  “It doesn’t matter what I did,” I growled.

  “The Old Ones kept you alive, didn’t they? I should have known they would.” Martun sneered at me.

  “It doesn’t matter what they did. It doesn’t matter what happened earlier.”

  “Of course it matters. That’s why we’re here, right? The past,” Jaysun said.

  “We’re here because of what you’re doing now. We’re here because of who you’re hurting now.”

  “Who would that be?” Jaysun asked mockingly.

  I pointed to Regan. “She’s just one of the many you’ve hurt. Her brother. Her family. My friends. An innocent boy in Haven. I don’t care who you are or why you’re hurt. I don’t care about the why. I care about what’s happening now. About what you did to these people who did nothing to you!” I snapped my fingers and the duct tape that held Regan down was cut. “I’m done letting you do this! I’m done watching you hurt people I care about.” I looked over at Regan and said, “Get out of here.”

  She paused in taking off the duct tape. “No way in hell. I came with you as your protector; I’m not leaving without making sure you’re safe.”

  “Dammit, Regan! Go!” I needed her to leave. I didn’t know what would happen. I needed her to be safe.

  “No!” she shouted, and I knew I’d lost the battle with her.

  “Stay back, then,” I said before turning back to Jaysun.

  “Are you finished yet?” he asked, seemingly bored.

  “Does it matter?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. Your journey will end here anyways.”

  “Maybe. I guess we better get started,” I said.

  Martun wasted no time in standing up and sending a ball of fire at me.

  I sidestepped quickly and slid my left foot forward and watched a wave of water come from the ground. I had never felt so powerful, so in control of my Life Force. Whatever I desired happened.

  Jaysun stuck his hand out and it turned to ice before reaching them, while his other hand pointed down to the ground. I moved back when I felt the floor move, and a wooden spike shot through the floor.

  �
�That all you’ve got? Making a deal with a demon and that’s the best you can do?” I shouted as I reached a hand out toward Martun, and lightning exploded from my entire arm, covering it in white, jumping electricity.

  Martun could barely get up a sand wall in time, which turned to glass before him.

  He stepped around it and sent a powerful stream of water at me. I turned so my back was facing him and lifted my arms above my head, raising a wall of fire behind me. I closed my eyes and listened to the hiss as the water turned to steam.

  Martun wouldn’t just leave it at that, though. He wouldn’t just stick with the predictable.

  I quickly moved to the left as a wooden spear that Martun sent at me caught fire passing through my protective flame. Martun then blew away the flames with a gust of wind.

  “Come on, Casey! Where’s all that famed power?!” Martun shouted. “Where’s that reason the Old Ones love you?”

  Let me help, Cinder whined.

  No, I need you to keep Regan safe for me.

  He didn’t say anything else, but I could feel how conflicted he was. I was glad he stayed back to help me keep Regan safe. I didn’t know what would happen next, and I needed someone to protect Regan when I couldn’t focus on her completely right now.

  A shard of metal came at me, but I moved too slowly and felt the sharp stab of steel in my arm.

  It took a lot out of me not to scream as I yanked the metal out and tossed it to the floor. It was coated in a dark red, and I could feel blood trailing down my arm. It was bleeding heavily and didn’t take long at all for it to make it to my fingers and drip off onto the floor.

  I grit my teeth and grinned. “Good shot.”

  I rolled my shoulder and flexed my bicep where I had been hit. It hurt like hell, but I could move it, and that’s what mattered. I could have healed it, but healing takes concentration, which would take my attention from the battle.

  My hair whipped around me as I conjured up the wind around us.

  Wind is smooth.

  It is ever changing.

  It is timeless.