Fractured Souls by Jessica Sorensen

Author:Jessica Sorensen [Sorensen, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-06-30T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

I manage to land somewhat gracefully, catching myself with a very minor stumble and Laylen lands effortlessly beside me, gripping onto my hand. We’re standing in a cave with charcoal ceilings and a translucent crystal floor. A midnight river with bits and pieces of gold in it flows beneath the floor. Maroon crystals hang from the ceiling and rubies wave across the snow-white walls.

“Is this the City of Crystal?” Laylen asks in awe as he glances around.

I shake my head in disbelief as I put the crystal ball into my pocket. “I really didn’t expect to actually get us here… but this has to be it. I mean, I haven’t been in this area before.” I slip my fingers from Laylen’s and stroll up to the wall, feeling the smoothness of the porcelain. “But where else could we be?”

Laylen strides up to the side of me and picks at a chipped section in the wall. “I think you’re right.”

I step back, looking from left to right. Each side is the same, paved with broken multicolored pieces of glass, but the one to my right heads toward a bridge. Beside the path is an edge that leads to a very short drop off.

“The question is, which way?” I say. “And what are we even looking for exactly?”

He studies both directions, his head turning from left to right. “I just want to say first, that it’s not going to be pretty.”

“What’s not pretty?”

He locks eyes with me. “Where Alex is.”

I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Why? Where is he?”

He circles around me and then drapes an arm around my shoulder. Guilt immediately soars through me from his touch because I want him to touch me more intimately. “There’s this crystal ball in the center of the city that channels the energy to all the other crystals. That’s where he is.”

“In the crystal ball?”

“No, outside it.”

I pull a perplexed face. “So what’s the point of him being down here, then?”

He tugs on my shoulder and guides me closer to him and I have the strangest compulsion to ask him to let me go, yet conflicted by my desire, I keep my lips sealed. “The crystal ball uses human energy to fuel it,” he explains.

I crane my neck, tipping my chin up, and meet his blue eyes. “What? And no one bothered to mention this to me?”

He offers me an apologetic look. “Alex had his reasons for doing it, I’m sure. He wanted to help you.”

“But not like this,” I say, shaking my head. “Not by fueling a crystal ball. It’s absurd.” My heart aches inside my chest, not just at the multiple ideas of what exactly is required to fuel a crystal ball, but also because the electricity has been missing for days now and I desperately miss it for reasons I both do and don’t understand.

Laylen searches my eyes with a creased forehead and then he removes his arm from around me. “We should get looking for him.” He veers toward the left, away from the bridge.

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