“Neither do you,” she replied.
“Oh, but my business is none of yours, dearie. I suggest you take that needle of yours and walk away before you regret ever setting foot in this realm. You should’ve stayed in Pur—”
“You’re a criminal!” Myst cut him off, her tone sharp and clipped. “You will pay for this treason!”
He laughed again. The air was so thick, I could barely breathe. Personally, I was only thankful we didn’t have any clones to deal with on top of the shadow monsters. I’d had enough of these skirmishes. We didn’t have enough information to win a battle, that much I could tell simply by watching this strange dialogue between Myst and Haldor.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But sooner or later, you won’t be around. And I will get to your living friends. I will tear them apart, one by one. And they will no longer bother us,” Haldor said.
“What did we ever do to you, anyway?” I asked as my eyes burned with a mixture of anger and fear. I certainly didn’t deserve this horror, nor did any of my friends and family. We needed answers more than anything, and I could only hope that we’d get some from this deeply frightening moment. The light from Myst’s sword could only protect us for so long. My energy was not without end, and Jericho’s fire would wear out, too, if Haldor insisted on sticking around. “Why do the clones want me dead? What is this place? Who made the clones?”
Haldor’s blue eyes were on me, and I didn’t like having his attention. It felt as though I was in the crosshairs of a deadly weapon. “You must die, half-Daughter. You will, soon enough. Maybe not now, since your new friend here has a slight advantage. But later. Maybe tomorrow or the day after,” he said, then looked at Thayen. “I’ll kill you too. You will not leave this place alive. You have my word on that.”
Thayen brought a hand up, and it caught Haldor by surprise. I saw the blue fires widening with shock. Something was happening. Something that stunned even Myst, who gave Thayen a troubled look. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Your glamor works on this guy?” Soph mumbled, eyeing Thayen with curiosity. He offered a faint nod, his brows pulled together as he focused on the grip he’d managed to get on Haldor.
“It’s weird, though,” he grunted. “He feels… raw. Too much soul in him… I can’t describe it any other way.”
“Why… you little bastard!” Haldor snarled, and Thayen cried out in pain, then dropped to his knees. He clutched his head with both hands. Soph and I were beside him in a second, trying to figure out how to help him. His nose was bleeding profusely, and he’d lost the color in his cheeks. “Don’t ever pull that stunt on me again, or I will turn your brain into mush!”
“You tried to bend his spirit,” Myst managed, utterly astonished.
“Emphasis on tried,” Haldor grumbled, gradually fading into the darkness behind him. I heard his shadow monsters scuttling back, following his lead. “I’ll be back for you, little mice. And no one will be able to protect you. Not even your light.”
From this point onward, I knew things would only get stranger and more difficult. Haldor would definitely return with reinforcements—including the clones—but first, we had to make sure Thayen was okay.
“He’s not well,” Soph said, giving me a scared glance. “His nosebleed won’t stop.”
“What’s happening?” Thayen managed, his voice trembling as he watched the blood pooling on the ground. “This isn’t right…”
“You cannot bend Haldor’s spirit. Not without destroying yourself,” Myst sighed.
I cupped Thayen’s face with my glowing hands and allowed my healing energy to flow through him. I came upon mountains of pain and anguish. His soul was suffering because of the spiritual contact he’d made with Haldor. What the hell was that guy?
“I’ve heard of it before,” Myst said. “But it will never work on Haldor’s kind. Or mine, for that matter. We’re more than he would be able to handle.” She paused to look at Thayen, whose agony was fading as I worked my way through his spiritual injuries. “I’m sorry you’re hurting like this.”
Dafne clicked her teeth. “You need to start talking, Myst. You can’t leave us in the dark like this.” That statement was metaphorical, as the light from Myst’s sword was still shining brightly, keeping the darkness at bay. The heavy silence from earlier had returned, but I believed Haldor when he’d said he would come back for us.
Soon this place would be crawling with worse things than his shadow monsters. The clones were dying to get to us, and we were nowhere near our intended destination. We had a long way to go through the redwood forest and we were smack in the middle of enemy territory, lost in a world so much like our own yet totally foreign. Our objectives had not changed. Only our circumstances.
Myst sighed again as she dimmed the light on her sword before sheathing it. I looked up at her while Thayen healed under my hold, his breath gradually returning to a slower rhythm. “We need your help,” I told Myst. “I don’t think we’ll survive without you.”
Perhaps I was lying, but it didn’t really matter. We would do better with someone like her on our side. She didn’t seem to know much more than the rest of us, but she definitely knew enough to help us navigate this strange realm. She’d been here longer. I could tell by how she surveyed the area, not with the doubt of a stranger but with the dread of an experienced trekker of these redwoods. She knew Haldor, too, and his shadow monsters.
What were the odds she’d stay with us?
Astra
“You’ll have to,” Myst said.
That wasn’t the answer we’d been hoping for. With her sword sheathed and her strange blue eyes gazing out into the darkness of this strange place, she was preparing to bid us farewell.
“This isn’t right. You definitely know more than we do,” I argued. “At least tell me what Haldor is. The better we know this enemy, the greater our odds of survival.”
She gave me a stern look. “You’re not supposed to know about us. My existence shouldn’t even concern you, let alone his.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Thayen said. “You’ve been incredibly helpful. We deserve the truth, don’t you think? This is obviously not something any of us have ever dealt with before.”
Myst seemed conflicted. I accepted the secrecy part, though I didn’t really understand it. We weren’t supposed to know about her or Haldor, sure. But they’d come to us. That privilege was done and dusted. She wanted to tell us more, but she abided by rules unknown to our kind. In the end, despite our pleas, Myst just sighed and gave us one morsel we’d already tasted. “They don’t like the light. None of the shadow creatures. Fire. Lightbulbs. Magic. Whatever illumination you can throw at them. It weakens them.”
“Can they be killed?” Thayen asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Goodbye.”
Before we could say another word, she vanished. Simply faded away into the twilight like a distant memory. For a second, I worried I might have imagined it all. But that would’ve meant we’d experienced some kind of mass hallucination, since Thayen, Soph, Jericho, and Dafne had seen Myst too.