by Megg Jensen
Ademar was taken aback. Either Frensia had finally perfected a sympathetic smile, or they had developed actual feelings.
He did not share those feelings. Have faith? For years, he had made every decision based on faith. Faith in his god, Solnar. Faith in Hugh’s decision to come to Agitar. Faith in Tace’s abilities and instincts. But his faith was gone. Destroyed. There was nothing left for him to believe in.
He looked at the ground, his shoulders slumping. “It’s over, Frensia. How can we fight a god?”
“Forgive me, Ademar,” Frensia said.
“For what?” Ademar looked up.
The umgar slapped him squarely across the cheek.
Ademar’s hand flew to his stinging face. “What was that for?”
The umgar pointed upward. “They are fighting. Why have you given up?”
Ademar looked toward the battle, toward the dragon continuing its futile contest with the god of fire. As he watched, the dragon spotted him, and their eyes met. It hesitated, then broke away from its assault and sped toward him. It landed directly next to him with a whoosh of air, leaned down with its great snout, and nudged his sword back to him.
This was definitely the same amethyst dragon whose breath had blanketed Tace’s grave.
“You want me to take up arms?” he asked, as if the dragon could understand.
To his surprise, it nodded.
Ademar reached down, clutched the sword’s hilt, and brought it to his side with a trembling arm. Then he placed a hand on the dragon’s scaly cheek. “Are you in there?” He gazed into the eye slit, but saw only his reflection in the black void.
The dragon nuzzled his hand, let out a long sigh, then slid its front leg closer to Ademar.
Burned into the dragon’s scales were marks matching the three tattoos on Tace’s arm.
Ademar choked back tears, his throat burning. Tace.
The dragon pressed its head against him, nudging him back, away from Tace’s dead body. He stepped away. He understood what it meant to do.
With one huff, it let out a stream of fire, burning the corpse to a crisp. Then the dragon—no, not the dragon, Tace—turned back to Ademar. And once more she slid her left leg in front of him.
There were four tattoos there. The newest one glowed bright, a triangle with a circle drawn around its three points, a dot in its center.
He’d seen this symbol before. Kindara had told them it represented the soul.
This was proof. Tace’s body was gone, but her soul lived on. The dragon didn’t just represent Tace. It was Tace.
He looked up into her eyes. “Do you… Do you want me to get on?” he asked.
She nodded.
Years ago, Ademar had shed everything he knew to follow Hugh to Agitar, to live among the orcs. He had done the same when he followed Tace and Kindara into the forest.
He would do so again now.
He leapt onto the back of the great dragon and pressed his legs into her sides to steady himself. Once again, Tace was teaching him so much more than he could have ever learned on his own. He’d known one day they would fight side by side, but he could never have imagined it would be like this.
Tace leapt off the ground and raced into the sky. Ademar looked down and saw Frensia, already just a tiny figure on the prairie below. Yet he could have sworn he saw the umgar mouth one word.
Faith.
Chapter 42
Ylantri ran as fast as she could, the box clutched to her chest. She wouldn’t stop for gods or ghosts, though neither seemed concerned with her. The dragon in the sky was occupying them plenty.
By the time she arrived at the castle doors, her chest heaving and her shirt drenched with sweat, screams sounded in the distance. The dying keen of a dragon? Or Drothu’s piercing battle cry?
Drothu. The god had been summoned from the stone.
When she’d stumbled upon Ademar and Frensia in the woods, she’d been sure Damor’s magic had failed him. What could a human and an umgar have that would be of interest to Damor? But now it was comically obvious. The box was what Damor had sent her to retrieve. Certainly not the stone within it. That was Ademar’s mistake. First it had corrupted Hugh’s body in some way, as evidenced by how the orcs reacted when they came in contact with his relics. And then this. No, Ylantri wouldn’t have taken that stone anywhere near Damor.
But the box…
Once it was in Damor’s hands, he could explain its importance to her. Then, perhaps, she could save him from certain death.
Though his death might explain the mystery of his lack of a soul. The need to understand that was what had led Ylantri to do everything she’d done.
Lymetyrr stood guarding the door to Nemia’s chambers, but he stood aside as she approached. She threw open the door and rushed inside.
The new arrivals were still here—the prince cowering in the corner, the faun sitting on the room’s only chair, her arms over her chest and an annoyed look on her face. Nemia paced next to the bed where Damor lay on the edge of death.
Ylantri knelt at Damor’s side and held out the box. “I found it.”
“No one cares!” Nemia snapped. “What’s going on out there? The noise is deafening.”
Ylantri grimaced and ignored her.
Damor reached out for the box with shaking hands. But before he could grasp it, Nemia knocked it out of Ylantri’s hands. It flew across the room, hit the wall, and smashed into pieces.
“No.” Damor’s protest was no more than a kitten’s mewl.
“How could you?” Ylantri screamed. They’d come all this way to seek this orc’s help, and she’d turned out to be nothing more than a spiteful brat.
“What is happening out there?” Nemia screamed back at her, spittle spraying from her lips.
Ylantri stood and faced Nemia, her chin turned up toward the hulking young orc. “Your god, that’s what’s happening out there. He’s killing whoever’s left, as well as some random dragon that showed up out of the blue. You wanted to meet your god? Well, now’s the time. Go to him!” She pointed one trembling finger toward the door, daring Nemia to leave her prisoners behind and seek out her greatest desire.
Nemia hesitated only for a moment before running out of her chambers.
The faun breathed a sigh of relief. “Are we to be your prisoners now?” she asked Ylantri. “Or…”
“You are free to go,” Ylantri replied. “We have no more use for you than Nemia did. And good luck.” She meant it, too. Though she’d never want Kazrack as her king, she knew better than to mistreat him. If she ever made it out of this alive, she didn’t need to face a tribunal for treason. “You, too, Lymetyrr,” she called to the elf who now stood in the doorway. “Go. Find a way home, if you can.”
Alyna and Lymetyrr helped the elven prince to his feet, and the three of them left without another word.
Ylantri turned back to Damor. She sat on the bed beside him and rested a hand on his head, her thumb stroking his cheek. “I’m so sorry she destroyed your box,” she whispered. “Can you tell me why it was important?”
“Not the box. What was in it.” Damor looked at her with sad eyes.
“I—I don’t understand,” Ylantri stammered. “The only thing in the box…”
Damor had sent her to get an item that could save his life. It couldn’t have been the stone; that was a relic belonging to the orcs, one that summoned their god. How could it have anything to do with Damor?
“I am… not as I… seem.” His words were broken, spoken through weak lips.
“What are you saying?”
“My soul… You wanted… to know where…” His breathing was shallow.
“Where is it?” What Ylantri really wanted to know was what his soul was.
Damor coughed, his entire body wracking violently. But when the fit passed, his voice was stronger. “Long ago, I gave my soul away in return for eternal life. But there is always a price.”
“Tell me,” Ylantri demanded. She felt anger growing within her. S
he’d believed Damor was special. A being that survived without a soul. If she could replicate that—if there was a way to live without a soul—she could harvest souls without the mortal cost.
“I was tasked with protecting the god of the underworld. Drothu.”
Damor struggled to sit up. Ylantri didn’t help him.
“I gave him my soul in return for protecting his, and instead…” Damor’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he slumped forward.
Ylantri grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “You will not die until you tell me what you’ve done!”
He looked up at her with eyes bloodshot and swollen. “I stole his soul and kept it hidden, drawing from its power all this time. A god’s soul is far more powerful than my measly human soul.”
“You were stealing power from the soul of the orc god?”
Ylantri could hardly believe it was possible. She could steal souls from bodies, but those were mortals. To take from a god…
Damor shrugged. “But years ago, I lost it. His soul. The stone. That was when I began to weaken. Without it in my possession, I couldn’t draw power. I needed someone with worldly power to help me find it. Unfortunately, all of my manipulations have come to naught.”
The souls inside Ylantri screamed, tugging at her.
What had Damor done?
The souls inside her whispered, telling her to press on. To ask more. Not to let it go.
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” she demanded.
Damor smiled, and a cackle fell from his dried, cracked lips.
Ylantri felt sick. She’d been a fool, thinking she could learn how to be a better Shadari from this deranged human.
“The dragons…” Damor’s cackle reached a fevered pitch.
“What about them?” Ylantri had seen the dragon, but hadn’t given it a second thought. They’d been spoken of during the battle with the xarlug, so she’d assumed they were commonplace here in Agitar.
“The dragons of the Nether!”
Damor’s laughter abruptly stopped, and he fell to one side.
Ylantri caught him, but he lay limp in her arms. He was dead. His secrets about the dragons were gone with him.
We will help you, said a voice. No—many voices. All speaking as one.
Ylantri looked around her. “Who said that?”
Ussssss. The word elongated like the hissing of a snake.
Yet there was no one in the chamber. The others had fled. Damor was dead.
The souls you have collected.
Ylantri gasped. She wasn’t hearing the voices with her ears. They were speaking in her mind.
Terror spread through her, leaving her arms and legs tingling. She’d taken the souls, saved them from their fate. But never before had they spoken to her.
Let us guide you. We will end thissss.
Ylantri’s body moved toward the door, and not of her own accord. Her feet propelled her down the stairs and out of the castle. She shambled involuntarily through the broken city toward the damaged city gates.
Above her, the shrieking dragon fought with the fiery orc god. Ylantri wouldn’t survive this battle—she knew that now. As a Shadari, she knew when someone’s time was up.
This was where she would die.
Chapter 43
Nemia burst through the ruined gates of the city that had been hers to inherit—before her father stole it all away and replaced her with an inferior orc child. That girl had been an embarrassment. A waste. She was better off dead. Nemia had always been the true heir to the throne. The only one capable of bringing Agitar back to its former glory.
Hope swelled in her chest as she took in the magnificent Drothu in all of his fiery grandeur. He stood taller than the highest rampart of Agitar, his body pulsing and swollen with hot orange flames. He was everything Nemia ever imagined he would be. Strong, powerful, magnificent.
As he swatted away the measly dragon that flew around him uselessly, Nemia laughed. No one, nothing, could defeat Drothu. And finally, she could prove herself to her god and take her place as the true ruler of Agitar.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the darkness deep inside herself. She remembered what Azlinar had taught her, about how to latch on and call it forth. She could feel it bubbling, rising, spreading throughout her body. A smile edged out the furrow in her brow. The flames within her echoed those of her god.
Her eyes snapped open.
She gazed up at Drothu and called out, “I am here, my lord! I shall do your bidding!”
Drothu looked down at her, then reached out with his hands aflame.
Nemia trembled, but forced herself to stand still.
Everything she’d ever wanted. Communion with her god. It was no longer a promise far in the future. It would happen here, today. Now.
Drothu lifted her off the ground. Her body screamed with agony as his flames licked at her skin, bringing her joy she couldn’t have conceived of before that moment. She burned with all of the desire she’d felt throughout her short life.
Her god’s fiery hand brought her close to his face. His breath, dank and moldy, washed over her in a baptism. A part of her wanted to close her eyes, but she wouldn’t. She wanted—needed—to see what was next. She would recall this moment for the rest of her life—the moment she became one with the god who’d been her only refuge in a life filled with unfairness.
Nemia shrieked, her skin melting to the bones, as Drothu pulled her to his lips.
Finally, the kiss of immortality. She would live forever in him, her soul part of the god she loved so much. Together they would rule Agitar, bringing every orc to their knees in supplication.
Drothu’s lips parted, his teeth sharp and shiny.
Nemia reached out with a shaking arm, burned flesh hanging in strips from her charred bones. As her fingers ran across his canine, a shiver of pleasure rippled through her body. She’d heard the stories of lovers joining; this was her induction into those carnal pleasures. She knew now what caused others to root around in the darkness, grunting.
Her god turned her from a child into a woman.
Nemia closed her eyes, surrendering to him as she entered his mouth, giving in to him, trusting him completely.
His teeth bit into her neck and ripped her head from her body. His silky mouth bit down again and again, tearing the flesh from her skull.
Nemia’s last coherent thought was of her father and mother, trapped under Agitar. Soon she’d seen them in the Nether.
The end had come. For all of them.
Chapter 44
Kazrack ducked as Nemia’s headless body flew over him, drenching him in her blood. He stood frozen, shaking, overwhelmed by the horror surrounding him. Ghosts swirled above, their gentle touches a stark contrast to the brutality of the fiery orc god, yet just as deadly. The prairie burned, and its fire threatened to consume everything.
“We’re doomed,” he said.
Alyna’s fierce eyes sparkled in the firelight as she took in the battle scene. She threw her shoulders back. “Maybe you’re doomed. But I’m fighting back.” Her red hair whipped in the wind like tiny swords readying for battle.
Kazrack wasn’t a fighter. He was a prince. A very good-looking prince. It was his responsibility to survive this battle, so he could be the next ruler of Gailwyn.
But before he could formulate a proper response, she’d run headlong into the battle, prepared to fight a god with her bare hands.
Kazrack waved feebly at her back, knowing it would be the last time he’d see her alive. She was wasting her life—and for what? For the orcs? She had no loyalty to them; she was a faun.
He scooped up the edges of his cloak and tiptoed backward toward the city. If he could just find a suitable hiding place until the fighting died down, he might survive this. And then… then he could bribe someone to take him across the Orianna Sea to his home—the place he never should have left.
His mother had warned him not to meddle in the affairs of the short-live
d races. But he’d thought proving himself to her was paramount, so he’d taken the risk. He’d let delusions of grandeur cloud his thinking. Now he knew his mother had been right. It was best to let the orcs and humans do as they pleased. If they wanted to kill each other and fight gods, that was their problem. Not his.
The earth shook beneath him, and a vast shadow came thundering across the prairie. A sea of draft horses. Orcs rode upon their backs, weapons in hand.
An army.
Hope leapt in Kazrack’s heart. If the orcs could win this battle, he could still form an alliance…
He squinted at the moving mass, shook his head, and blinked. Was that… Maysant? His little sister was with the orc army! He felt relief wash over him. Without her help, he’d already be dead—though he’d never admit that to her. And now that she was here, she would save him again.
He ran toward the approaching army. He would live. He’d make it home to someday be king. And with Maysant’s connections, he could maybe even rule the orcs. He felt a smile spread across his face. It was all within his reach. Finally. All the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.
He thrust his arms into the air as he ran, waving wildly at his sister.
She spotted him, and her eyes went wide. She waved back, but it was an odd wave. One finger thrust repeatedly into the air. Kazrack wondered if this was some strange greeting she’d learned from the orcs. It was almost as if she was pointing at something… behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder.
An orc ghost was hot on his trail, and closing in fast.
He looked back to his sister. She would save him. She loved him. She would always help him.
But she was too far away.
A cold sensation started in his shoulder, then crept up his neck and down into his chest. His tongue felt heavy. As he blinked, his eyelids felt like tiny icicles. The feeling stretched down to his legs. They slowed, as if he were running through heavy snow, then stopped. He tumbled to the ground.