MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The spring water surged upward in a column of impossible light.

Lindsey gasped as the air was torn from her lungs. The temperature plummeted so fast that frost formed on the stones, on her skin. Her knees wanted to buckle, but the sheer weight of the presence filling the chamber kept her frozen in place.

The shadows moved.

They poured into the room like smoke, pooling at the center of the circle. The darkness took shape. First a suggestion of form, then something more solid. Broad shoulders. A tall frame. The outline of a man who had not walked as flesh and blood for eight hundred years.

The lantern went out.

In the absolute darkness, two points of light appeared. Eyes that glowed with spectral fire. They fixed on Lindsey with an intensity that made her want to run and lean closer all at once.

The figure solidified. She could see him now, illuminated by his own ghostly radiance. He was tall, perhaps six and a half feet, with features that would have been devastatingly beautiful if not for the rage that twisted them. Dark hair fell to his shoulders. He wore the remnants of ancient armor that bore the crest of Veridia's founding families.

A warrior's build. All controlled violence and deadly grace.

But it was his eyes that held her. They burned with fury and something else. Recognition.

When he spoke, his voice was not sound but a vibration that traveled through the stones, through her bones.

"You dare."

It was not a question. It was an accusation, a judgment, a promise of punishment.

Lindsey found her voice, though it came out as barely a whisper. "The city is dying. The Whispering Blight..."

"I know what plagues this city." His form flickered, becoming more solid. The air around him crackled with energy. "I have watched from my prison as the souls are devoured. I have felt every death." He moved closer, and despite his ghostly nature, his presence was overwhelming. A pressure that made her lungs seize. "And you think to command me? You think to bind me to your will?"

"I think to save them." Lindsey's fear transformed into anger. "You were sworn to protect Veridia. That was your sacrifice. Your choice."

"My choice was made in a different age by a different man." He was directly in front of her now, towering over her. "The Guardian you seek died with his city's honor. What remains is the consequence of that death. A ghost. A weapon. A warning that should have stayed buried."

"Then why did you answer the summons?"

The question seemed to surprise him. His form flickered, rage warring with something else on his face.

"Because you left me no choice. This ritual you have performed, this abomination, has created a bond that cannot be severed." He reached toward her, his hand stopping inches from her face. She could feel the cold radiating from him, see the energy crackling around his fingers. "You have made yourself my anchor. Every moment I exist drains your life force. Every breath I take is borrowed from you."

Lindsey's stomach plummeted. "The codex did not say..."

"The codex was written by fools who thought they could control what they summoned." His hand dropped. "You have bound us together. I can feel your fear. Your desperation." His lip curled. "You have doomed us both."

"No." Lindsey stepped forward, ignoring the way the cold burned her skin. "You can save them. The children falling to the Blight, the families watching their loved ones slip away. You have the strength to stop it."

"Strength." He laughed, and it was a terrible sound. "You know nothing. This plague is not natural. It is crafted, deliberate, designed to feed on the very thing I represent."

"Then we find another way."

"There is no we." His form began to dissolve, breaking apart into shadow and starlight. "I will not fight your battle. I will not be your weapon. You have summoned me into a curse, and I condemn you to bear it alone."

"Wait." Lindsey reached for him without thinking. Her hand passed through his dissipating form, and the contact sent a shock through her entire body. His ancient rage and bitter loneliness flooded her senses, so vast it threatened to drown her. "Please. They are dying."

"Everyone dies, Scribe." His voice was fading now, scattering with the shadows. "You have simply ensured we will die together."

Then he screamed.

The sound was not human. It echoed through the chamber, through her bones, through her soul. His form snapped back into solidity, and he clutched at his chest as if something had struck him.

Lindsey looked down at her bleeding palm and saw it. A mark that had not been there before, burning into her skin like a brand. The anchor sigil.

"What have you done?" He turned on her, his face contorted with pain and fury. "What have you done?"

"I saved your city." Lindsey met his burning gaze. "Whether you want to admit it or not."

He moved faster than thought, suddenly inches from her face. When his eyes met hers, her vision doubled for a heartbeat, and she saw herself through his gaze. Small, mortal, glowing with a light that made him ache.

"I have a name, Scribe," he said, his voice like frost. "Though I have not heard it spoken in eight hundred years." He leaned closer, and she could smell ozone and old stone. "I am Justin Blackwell. And you have just made the worst mistake of your life."

His form flickered between solid and ghostly, caught in the bond she had forced upon him. The anchor mark on her palm burned brighter.

They were bound now. Scribe and Guardian. Soul to soul.

Justin's head snapped toward the door, his form solidifying instantly. "Get behind me." It was not a suggestion. "Now."

She heard it then. Skittering. Clicking. The wet sound of something dragging itself down the stone steps.

"What is that?" Her voice came out as a whisper.

"Your plague," he snarled, positioning himself between her and the doorway. "And it knows exactly what you have just done."

The chamber door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and shadow.