AELION'S POV
My hands, the ones which are always at work, are covered with blood. However, iit is my own blood, which is less worrisome in my case, I wouldn't have handled anyone else's. I look around in the dark area I fell into. My knees are hurting badly, it's as if I can't stand or walk. Perhaps I could try flying?
However, just as I open my wings, something stops me. A whisper. Barely audible but unmistakably real. It sends a shiver down my spine, like a cold breeze slipping under my skin. I pause, wings half-unfurled, straining to hear. The voice murmurs from somewhere deep within the shadows, laced with an ancient cadence, like it has echoed here for centuries.
Pushing myself to stand, wincing as my knees throb, I glance around, squinting into the darkness. 'Aelion...' the voice whispers again, this time clearer, more urgent. It knows my name. That's when I realize the glade might just be watching me. The silence feels alive, heavy with hidden eyes and silent voices. I am not alone here.
I stumble forward, leaning against a tree for balance, feeling its bark scrape my skin. Ahead, the shadows flicker, forming fleeting shapes that melt away as soon as I try to focus on them. It's almost as if the glade itself is pulling me deeper, calling me forward, toward something I can't yet see but feel in my bones.
My instincts scream at me to leave, to take flight and abandon this place. But curiosity... it's stronger. Or maybe it's the glade itself, holding me captive within its mystery. 'I need her,' the voice urges again, soft but undeniable, as if the entire glade were speaking through it. I think I may just be walking towards my death.
I try to look over the words I am sure I heard, the sentence was too creepy to overthink.
I step forward, a strange determination taking over, pushing through the pain. The whisper has shifted, a barely-there melody leading me deeper into the shadows, into the heart of this forbidden place. And somehow, as I walk, the whispers grow louder, almost like a chant, filling the air around me with an ancient power I can't comprehend but am helpless to resist.
As I step deeper into the glade, the whispers swirl around me, leading me through the darkness like an invisible thread. My heart pounds as I push through twisted vines and fallen branches, every step drawing me closer to a strange light flickering in the distance. It's faint, like the glow of a distant star, but it cuts through the shadows, beckoning me onward.
I appear to have ventured through the jungle for some time, and at last, I emerge out into a small clearing and it is here that I spot something odd firmly lodged between the roots of a weather-beaten tree. It is illuminated as if it has been touched by a white light and seems to pulsate with the voice's rhythm. Its outline seems to remain constant, but every time I try to focus on it, it remains elusive as though it has a mind of its own. It seems to be made out of a substance entirely new to me, a mixture of Obsidian and silver, with what appears to be moving inscriptions that form the outlines of shapes embedded on it.
Gradually, I extend my hand so that my fingertips can touch it, which is a bit risky. The volume of the whispers rises and I feel warmth travel through me in an almost electrifying manner. I see scenes that seem to belong to an entirely different plane; images of powerful beings who looked like gods yet had their features masked in darkness, a war fought over realms that were unfathomably distant, and shrouded in fog was a woman whose face was hazed but her fierce and haunting sad eyes lingered in.
The memories are quickly forgotten however one word sticks to my thoughts accompanied by what seems like the voice of the clearing: Sorzelda. The word is both encouraging and full of dread, the goddess of witches…
The whispers shift again, more urgent now, as if they're warning me of something. I realize with a jolt that whatever this artifact is, it's deeply tied to the gods, and especially to Sorzelda. It holds a power I can barely comprehend—power that feels forbidden, like it's meant to remain hidden. Just as I try to hold it for a longer time period, it vanishes into thin air. Nowhere to be found.
What exactly was that, which I just saw?