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“Are you awake, Child?”
I blinked to clear my vision and held my neck with one hand. It felt as though someone had driven a spike into the base of my skull.
Oddly warm hands assisted me into a sitting position. “Do not worry. The pain will stop soon. Do not push yourself too much. You had quite the fall.”
I looked up at the jagged rocky opening above us.
“Fall?”
“Oh, yes, you fell quite a distance. Your hard head seems to have served you well this day.”
I turned my attention to the person kneeling next to me. He was neither pale nor tan. His eyes were unlike any I had seen before. There were no whites, instead replaced by inky blackness. Within it was shocking, sickly green orbs without pupils. They were fascinating and terrifying at the same time. “What are you?”
He let out a single laugh. “You would not believe me if I told you.”
I shrugged. “After what I've been through you would be surprised what I would believe.”
His grin was unnerving. “I like you, Kindred. You are different than most who end up here.”
“Where is here, who are you, and how do you know my name?”
Another lone laugh escaped his lips. “So many questions. I think you and I will get along just fine. Follow me and all of those questions as well as many others will be answered in due time.” He stood and offered me his hand. He wasn't as tall as I thought he would be. He almost looked like an adolescent boy but those eyes did not belong to a child. His hair was a tangled mess of greenish-yellow locks. He wore only a tattered tunic. His feet and calves were blackened as though he had walked through a pile of coal dust.
“I don't follow anyone whose name I don't know. Not again.”
“Are you sure you want that? To know my name?” His tone itself wasn't intimidating but intense energy emanated from him.
I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the stabbing pain in my neck. I studied him silently, planting my feet solidly. “I am going nowhere until you tell me your name.”
“Cres.”
My resolute stance faltered as the name echoed around the large, empty chamber we stood in. I could feel the blood draining from my face as panic began setting in. I took two steps back. “No. No, this isn't what I want.”
He let out a full-bodied cackle this time, a sound that left me shaking. “Oh, it is far too late for that, Kindred. You have landed yourself at my feet. You cannot escape your path, Child.”
I growled at him. “I am not a child.”
He smirked at me. “Not in age, but you are my child.”
“My people were severed from you long ago.”
“It is adorable that you think my dear sister has the ability to do that. She has no control over the Sparks that I gifted your people long ago. Not enough to destroy them. She laid them dormant in hopes none of you would ever figure out how to awaken them.”
“But I haven't figured that out. I'm trying to figure out how to stop that.”
He shook his head, beginning to circle me. “Have you not been paying attention, Kindred? There is no stopping. Your options are limited here. You can either let me help you, or you can let the Corruption slowly consume you until you can no longer keep that tenuous hold you have on your power. I know it has already begun. Like senses like.”
I clenched my gloved hands and felt a surge of energy. I kept my eyes on him as he moved around me. “I can fight it. I'm strong enough.”
“Your confidence is admirable, but unwisely placed. Many have thought they could resist the call. Darkness knows I tried myself.”
I tilted my head, glancing at his discolored feet. “I thought you created the Corruption.”
He shook his head, an almost sad look flashing across his features. “Not by intention. I am just as cursed as you are, Kindred. I just have better control. I can teach you that control. If you let me.” He stopped in front of me. He was only maybe a head taller than I was.
“I can't trust you.”
“I did not ask for your trust.”
“Then what do you want? What do you get out of this?”
He glanced up as a growl rumbled out of the darkness that surrounded us. “That will have to be a conversation for another time. Before you go.” He grabbed my wrist in a vice-like grip and tore my glove from my hand. I stared at the blackened skin that snaked almost all the way down from my fingertips to the heel of my palm. He pressed my hand against an exposed portion of his chest. Pain crackled up my arm as I screamed.
“Kindred! Kindred, wake up!”
I woke up shivering in Samriel's arms. I was covered in a layer of cold sweat and felt sick to my stomach. That only lasted until my body rejected all the food I had consumed the day before. Samriel gently cleaned me up as I mumbled apologies about ruining his shirt he'd let me borrow.
“It's just a shirt, Kin. I have others.” He laid me down next to the fire, petting my head with a concerned look. “Nightmare?”
I nodded silently, still reeling from trying to reorient myself in my own reality.
I looked at my fingertips, terrified to find them discolored as though I had run my fingers through ashes.
It was just a nightmare.
Right?