Chapter 83 When the Dark Calls My Name

Chapter 83 When the Dark Calls My Name
(Aria’s POV )

The Devourer moved like a shadow that had learned to walk.

Its edges flickered, unraveling only to stitch themselves back together with threads of starless night. Every step it took crushed the ash beneath it into nothing, true nothing and erasing sound and breath and light in its wake.

My lungs seized.

Lira gagged beside me, choking on air that suddenly had weight. The echo the wolf whimpered, hackles raised, its great body trembling in a way that made the fear inside me twist sharper.

Kael lay limp in my arms, his gold light sputtering like a dying ember.

The Devourer tilted its head, studying me and not my body, not my face, but the light inside my ribs. The goddess’s light.

“Mother,” it crooned, its voice a hollow echo, like a cavern calling back your own scream. “You hid yourself in flesh. Clever.”

Inside me, the goddess recoiled, her power coiling into a tight, trembling knot.

Do not speak.

Her whisper sliced through my skull, sharp as moon and forged glass.

Do not draw his attention further.

“Too late,” I muttered.

The Devourer’s shape stretched, suddenly towering, its edges blurring into the storm and the dark sky.

“Come out,” it said softly. “I want to see the face of the one who buried me.”

“I’m not her,” I said, voice shaking.

Its head snapped toward me so fast the world seemed to jolt.

“But you carry her.”

It stepped closer, and the basin’s runes died under its feet, one by one, snuffed out like candles.

Panic surged. Move, every instinct screamed. Run, flee, hide...

But the goddess inside me held my limbs still.

If you run, she hissed, he will tear the seal from your throat. If you stay he might hesitate.

“He doesn’t look like he hesitates,” I snapped.

Lira reached for me, her hand trembling violently. “We need a barrier. Something. Anything.”

The Devourer’s attention flicked to her.

Her breath choked short. She collapsed, palms slamming into the ash, choking on invisible pressure.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted.

The Devourer paused.

“The mortal speaks.”

Its mouth, or the suggestion of one had twisted into something like amusement.

“Does the Mother allow this little body to pretend at courage?”

My heart hammered. “Touch her again, and I’ll....”

“You’ll what?”

The sky rumbled with its voice.

“Burn me? You carry the light that failed. The light that feared me.”

The goddess trembled harder, a shiver of terror racing down my spine.

She was afraid. Truly afraid.

The Devourer leaned closer, its form bending over me like a collapsing night, swallowing the moonlight.

“Give me the flesh she hides in,” it whispered. “And I will be gentle.”

My stomach lurched. “No.”

“Then I will take it.”

The Devourer reached for me.

A claw and if it could be called that it made of pure void swept toward my chest, aiming for the glowing threads beneath my skin.

The goddess screamed inside my skull.

The echo, wolf leapt between us.

Its massive body slammed into the Devourer’s arm.

For a heartbeat, one beautiful, impossible heartbeat and the Devourer was pushed back.

Then the void erupted.

A burst of darkness swallowed the wolf whole. Its yelp stabbed through me, a sound so raw and familiar I felt it in my bones.

“Storm!” The name tore out of me.

The wolf reappeared several feet away, thrown like a broken star, skidding across ash until it hit the far wall of the basin and didn’t rise.

“No... no, no.... ” My vision blurred. I tried to step toward it, but Kael’s weight anchored me.

The Devourer drifted forward, unbothered. Its presence thickened the air to sludge.

“The echo is weak. The vessel is gone. Only you remain.”

Kael stirred faintly in my arms, voice a cracked whisper. “Aria… don’t… let him take…”

He didn’t finish.

His breath hitched, shallow and fading.

My vision tunneled. A cold fury began to rise and not the goddess’s, but mine, raw and human and sharp enough to cut.

“Stay with me,” I whispered to Kael, brushing my thumb along his cheek. “Please.”

His eyes fluttered. Gold dimming.

The Devourer watched, curious.

“Attachment,” it mused. “That always was your flaw, Mother.”

My blood boiled.

“Stop calling me that!”

Silver surged through my veins with fire and ice all at once. The ground under me cracked. My skin glowed brighter, threads of light spiraling outward.

The goddess hissed.

Do not unleash it! You cannot control....

But it was too late.

The Devourer lifted its head.

Its voice dropped to a reverent whisper.

“Ah. There she is.”

Power punched through me, exploding outward in a violent pulse that shook the basin. Ash spiraled into a storm. The Devourer’s darkness recoiled, forced several steps back.

Lira shielded her face, crying out.

Kael’s body collapsed against me as the light bled through every pore in my skin.

The goddess fought me, trying to reign it in, trying to guide it, and mold it, but I shoved back.

This power was mine too.

My mouth opened, and my voice layered with hers with a perfect, terrifying harmony.

“You do not command me.”

The Devourer froze.

Then, slowly, its shadowed edges flared, unraveling into tendrils that whipped through the air.

“Then prove it.”

It lunged.

Shadow met silver.

Night collided with moonfire.

The impact shattered the ground, flinging Lira backwards and sending ash geysering into the sky.

I screamed as darkness pierced my aura, pushing past the light, reaching deep into my chest and into the glowing seal where the goddess hid.

The goddess writhed inside me.

He means to rip me out through you. You will die.

“I don’t care,” I gasped.

Silver flooded through my arms, pouring into a shield that sparked and cracked under the Devourer’s assault.

The Devourer leaned closer, its face inches from mine, its voice a whisper made of winter and graves.

“You cannot protect her.”

“I’m not protecting her,” I snarled.

I thought of Kael collapsing in my arms.

Of Storm’s echo thrown like a broken thing.

Of Lira trembling on her knees.

Of every death, every loss, every sacrifice this goddess had demanded....

And I let the fury burn.

Silver ignited.

The basin lit up as if a second sun had burst open underground.

The Devourer reeled back, shrieking with a sound that shook mountains.

Lira screamed as the pressure crushed the air around us.

The echo, wolf raised its head, glowing faintly.

Kael’s heartbeat flickered weakly, synced to mine.

The goddess roared inside me, her voice mixing with mine until I couldn’t tell where she ended and I began.

Power surged.

And surged.

And surged...

Until the Devourer staggered, cracks of pale moonlight splintering its void-like form.

For the first time since stepping through the sky, it faltered.

Its voice rasped out, rough with disbelief.

“Impossible.”

But it wasn’t.

Not anymore.

The moon above flickered, once,and then twice, and then blazed with renewed silver light, as if answering my call.

The Devourer recoiled, shadows twitching.

“Chosen vessel,” it snarled. “Your death will be exquisite.”

Then it vanished and snuffed out like someone had erased it with a single stroke.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

The silver light drained from my skin.

My knees gave out.

I crumpled beside Kael, still gripping him with shaking hands, breath tearing out of me.

Lira crawled toward us, wide-eyed and pale.

“Aria,” she whispered, “you just drove away a primordial god.”

“No,” I breathed.

My gaze lifted to the sky, to the crack still slowly knitting itself shut.

“He left because he wants me alive.”

I looked down at Kael.

His chest rose shallowly.

Barely.

“And he’ll come back.”