Aset broke through the cloud cover first, followed by Hathor and Set. He paused, waited and then realized Merit and Serqet wouldn’t enter before him. More specifically, they would pull up the rear to protect their queen, trusting the other two Tyets were in position on the other side of the cloud.
Each twin took hold of a horn on his head, which made him feel better when he flew through the ever-darkening cloud. As soon as his body came into contact with the cloud that felt more like Hathor’s mists but colder and thicker, Osiris knew this tunnel to the entrance to their realm wasn’t the same as the one from a hundred years ago.
Even though dragons had night vision, Osiris struggled to see through the harsh fog. He could hear the flapping of wings in front of and behind him, which let him know the rest of the group were near.
“Merit,” Isis yelled out. “Do something about the darkness, please.”
The yellow energy dragon, whose bright yellow color hadn’t breached the dense fog, created a low hum of light that began behind Osiris before spreading from her, past him and to where Aset, Hathor, and Set flew in front of everyone.
Osiris stopped, and so did the others. Merit increased her yellow energy magic, casting it to the wall of fog around them. Petrified dragons lined the fog wall. No, the dragons were the wall. Their magic had seeped from their bodies, coalesced into blinding mists, and formed the cloud cover they’d flown through.
For fear of seeing faces he’d once known, Osiris hesitated to look at the dragons closely. When Merit’s light brightened, even more, the scene didn’t get any better. More than two dozen dragons were frozen in place, their eyes open, teeth bared in a snarl, and their scales devoid of any color except a washed-out and putrid white.
Barring their morbid stillness and unnatural coloring, they appeared like border guards on duty. Which, as Osiris forced himself to take in the fallen warriors of Nebty, the dragons had been placed on display like this for a cruel reason.
To mock their efforts to save dragonkind.
Nephthys swore, and Osiris agreed with the sentiment.
High-pitched screams sounded behind him, but too low and shrill to be one of the twins.
Dammit, the fairies.
“Come here,” he heard Isis say, her words gentle but a definite command.
He wondered when the little stowaways had snuck on. They weighed next to nothing, so Osiris hadn’t known the children were there. Based on how long it took them to reach Isis, they must’ve hidden close to his tail, as far away from the twins as they could get.
“I told the three of you to stay at home.”
From the sound of things, all three children spoke at once before Isis shushed them.
“It’s too late to take you back now. If I allow you to stay by my side, you must promise to not disobey me again.”
More indecipherable chatter from the fairies.
“Good. Now, stay here with Nep.”
Isis flew from Osiris and no one followed, understanding, like him, that her command to stay put was meant for them all, not just the Yumboe fairies.
Merit tracked Isis with her yellow energy. Isis cut the palm of her hand on a fang of the first dragon she reached, then placed her bloody hand on the center of the dragon’s forehead. In a voice too low for Osiris to hear her words, Isis whispered to the dragon. She did this over and again, as she worked her way down the right row of dragons.
If not for Merit’s light that let them know Isis was safe, when she’d reached the end of the first row, over three hundred feet away, Osiris would’ve gone after her. Instead, he reeled in his protective urge and watched his mate begin the process over with the second row of dragons.
She was life to Nephthys’s death. If either of the twins prayed for the deceased, which he assumed Isis had done, it would be the moon dragon. Yet, as queen, it was Isis’s responsibility to offer funerary rites to her dragons, even the ones who came before her reign began.
When she flew toward him, to reclaim her spot on his shoulder, he knew the Demon King had just given Isis one more reason to see him dead. Her anger was palpable but, like always, she said nothing. In truth, what was there for any of them to say?
They began flying again, with Merit taking point and Hathor replacing her behind Osiris. He kept his eyes straight and didn’t allow them to stray to the wall of dragon bodies that led the way home.
If this was what awaited them on the other side, Osiris was glad he’d come back from the dead and could be by his mate’s side. She would’ve done this without him because Isis had little choice. The thought of this gauntlet of bodies laid out as a warning to any dragon who dared to enter the realm and challenge King Sansabonsom made Osiris even more determined to see this through to the brutal, bloody end.
So he flew through the fog of morbid magic, driven more by love than revenge. He feared, for Isis, it was the other way around.
They stopped again when they reached the end of the line of pale, petrified dragon bodies. Gone was the blinding fog and oppressive cold. Fluffy blue-and-white clouds were everywhere, a vista of calm seas and winds found off a paradise tropic island. Scents of coconuts, jasmine, and eucalyptus wafted to him, enticing and incongruent with the gruesome sight of the new gateway.
What kind of sick fuck was King Sansabonsom, and how in the hell had he managed to…
Nephthys screamed, not in pain or horror, he could tell, but in abject fury. The Tyets whimpered their sadness. Even Set appeared shocked and disgusted. The fairies fluttered about his head, and Isis said and did nothing.
Osiris couldn’t move, didn’t want to fly his mate and sister-in-law through the gateway. The last he’d seen of the Gateway of the Two Ladies, the all-seeing Eye of Ra served as the upper bridge of the structure, with Wadjet’s symbolic cobra as the right pillar and Nekhbet’s vulture symbol as the left pillar. He’d seen the gateway just that once, and he remembered thinking it magnificent and beautiful.
There was nothing magnificent or beautiful about the new gateway. As horrible as it was for the twins to see, it would’ve been far worse if Nut had come with them. He didn’t know what Isis would do when Nut wanted to return home, because her mother could never see her mate like this.
The one hundred twenty-eight-foot earth dragon with two heads stared out at the group through black, empty eye sockets. His nearly two-hundred-foot length frame grounded him in the air the same way the original gateway had. Whereas the other dragons were whole, impossible to see what had killed them, King Geb’s entire middle section, from chest to pelvis, had been eaten through. The gaping hole in his body was the only route to the other side. From where he hovered, Osiris could make out the green of Nebty.
“Maybe we should go back.” Set inched away from Geb’s mauled body but didn’t flee. His eyes shifted to Isis. “You should reconsider. None of you are a match for whatever did that to your father.”
Osiris couldn’t disagree, although he’d be damned if he fled. He wasn’t a ten-year-old dragon anymore, scared shitless that demons would eat him. He didn’t know what had felled King Geb, but he wasn’t ready to believe that the mammoth earth dragon had been killed by the demons alone. They may have feasted on his body afterward, but he questioned if that’s how the dragon died.
“Isis, sweetheart, talk to me. What do you want to do?”
She didn’t respond right away, and Osiris wished he could see her face. He heard Nephthys’s soft tears and even softer curses. It wasn’t hard to conclude that Isis’s priority was her sister, over that of even her own emotions at seeing her father displayed like a piece of meat.
If she wanted to enter Nebty, Isis would have no choice but to, quite literally, go through her father’s body, and again on her way back to the human realm.
They stayed there, on the other side of the sickening gateway for twenty long minutes. Set didn’t recommend they leave again and neither did anyone else. He wondered, not for the first time, why Set was truly there. He’d given Osiris some bullshit about o
ffering Isis his help in finding the demon who shot her and killed Asim. Set Ombos was many things, but selfless wasn’t one of them.
“Osiris, will you fly Nep and me to Geb’s heads?”
Isis didn’t have to ask. He would do anything she wanted.
The sight of poor dead Geb got worse up close. His heads didn’t hang the way they should’ve in death. Instead, they were stiff and upright, as if held by invisible strings. What should’ve been green-and-brown scales, thick and spiky, were thin and a sickly shade of gruesome gray.
Isis cut the hand she hadn’t used with the other dragons on one of Osiris’s teeth. A king cobra peeled from the arm of the bleeding hand and slithered over her open palm and into one of Geb’s empty eye sockets. A second cobra followed the first, marking his body in Isis’s blood before claiming the other eye socket in the left head.
Nephthys cut her hand in the same way as her sister. From her, two white vultures emerged. Beaks wet from the moon dragon’s blood, they flew to Geb’s heads, where they perched inside his eye sockets.
He knew what Isis intended them to do next, although he had no idea what it all meant. Osiris flew even closer to the heads until the twins could reach out with their bloody hand and place their palm in the center of Geb’s foreheads and over the djed symbols.
Osiris stayed where he was, giving Isis and Nephthys time to say goodbye to their father. It was one thing for them to know, theoretically, that Geb was dead. It was entirely different to see proof of his death, which had Osiris thinking about his own father. Was the dragon still alive, or had King Sansabonsom done away with Geb’s traitors once the Dragon King was dead?
The small dragon that loved his father didn’t want to know.
“What now, Isis? Stay or leave?”
He doubted if she would leave, but he’d wanted to give her the courtesy of asking, as well as one last chance to change her mind.
“None of this alters our mission. We proceed to Nebty, as planned.”
She sounded cold and distant and so very heartbroken.
Osiris led the group through Geb Gateway and into Nebty.
Chapter 17
Tall trees in full bloom and thick, green foliage met the group when they landed in northern Nebty. She’d heard stories from Nut her entire life. The smells, the sights, and the sounds of the floating island of dragons, Nut had left nothing out. Standing on the forest floor, surrounded by trees at least five hundred feet tall, in shades of brown and green she’d never seen in the human realm, Nut’s stories of home paled in comparison to the reality that was Nebty.
Everything was bigger yet quieter than the human realm. The tallest of the trees extended beyond the emergent layer of the forest. The canopy layer and understory, thick foliage, plants, vines, dense vegetation, and medium-sized trees shielded the forest floor, where Isis, Nephthys, and Set were, from most rain, wind, and sunlight.
Dark and damp, the forest floor matched Isis’s mood.
“I got you.” Isis hugged Nephthys, who shook in her arms. “It’s okay. When this is over, we’ll take care of Father and the warriors. We won’t leave them like that.”
“If we move Father, we’ll be stuck here. We need him to stay the way he is so we can return home to Mother.”
“I’ll find a way. Don’t cry, Nep, my heart can’t take it when you’re sad.”
Isis ignored Set, whose eyes were on the twins.
One of the most defining features of this part of Nebty was how far apart the trees were from each other. The trees seemed to grow with the size of dragons in mind. Not only was there space to land but ample room for a dragon, even the size of Geb, to walk and roam. The landscape, from the little she’d seen, was intended for large land and air creatures. Here, unlike most areas in the human realm, a dragon could shift and not fear destroying a building, bridge or other manmade structure if they landed or flew too low to the ground.
She would learn more about this expansive dragon island when the others returned. Aset and Merit had flown ahead to scout the southwest area, while Serqet and Osiris took the southeast region. Hathor reclined on the ground. The off-white wingless dragon was curled in a ball, bluish-gray eyes on the untrustworthy Set and her neck the current resting place of the Yumboes.
“He didn’t deserve what was done to him.”
“I know, Nep.”
“I don’t remember Father. I wish I had a real memory of him to offset the image of a mauled Geb.”
Isis’s memory of Geb was no better than Nephthys’s. She’d commissioned an artist to paint a picture of the earth dragon, based on details provided by Nut. When finished, she hung the painting in her bedroom. She’d had a second copy made for her sister. The painting wasn’t enough to make Geb real for them, but at least they had a beautifully rendered image of King Geb, powerful and full of life.
The demons had stolen that little slice of father perfection from them, too.
“It’s okay. That’s not how we’ll remember him. As long as we have each other, Osiris, and the Tyets, we’ll persevere and win.”
Isis held her twin until she felt Nephthys had regained her composure. Then she held her two minutes more for her own sake. When they broke apart, Nephthys shifted into her natural form and joined Hathor.
“We’re all going to die on this fool’s mission of yours. The Demon King will have us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Isis walked away from Set. She didn’t need the rock dragon voicing her fears.
Once Isis felt she put enough distance between herself and the others, but wasn’t too far away, she slumped to the ground behind a wide tree and onto a pile of moist leaves.
She raised her legs to her chest and lowered her head to her knees and wept the way she wanted to the minute she saw the two rows of dead dragons. When Isis had first realized the towering dragon in front of them was her father, her knees had buckled and her stomach roiled, threatening to return her breakfast.
Isis cried, unable to stop now that she’d permitted herself to give into her emotions. Tears fell, her resolve unbroken but her heart ravaged by so much death.
Blood and corpses, the war she would bring to the Demon King would produce more of both, tainting the ground, air, water, and everyone’s soul. Despite her desire for revenge, Isis would accept a peace treaty from the Demon Kingdom. She had no interest in decimating an entire species. Genocide wasn’t her plan, although she didn’t doubt King Sansabonsom would murder every dragon if given the opportunity.
Leaves squished, and twigs cracked. When a familiar body sat beside her, she neither looked up nor was surprised by the hand that went to her back and rubbed. Osiris stroked up and down the length of exposed skin between her at-rest wings.
“I’ve never wept so much in my life. I’m tired of having reasons to cry and not enough occasions to smile and be happy.”
Isis didn’t mention the last time they were both happy, the evening full of laughter. The night of her baby shower seemed so long ago. She’d known her life would soon change, but none of what she’d imagined, sleepless nights and midnight feedings, had come true. Instead of joy and parenthood, Isis and Osiris were tossed into a den of death and demons.
“Will killing the demons camped at the Cave of Dep make you happy?”
“You know it won’t.” Isis lifted her head and wiped her face dry with the back of her hand. “Did the demons spot you?”
“No. Serqet and I stayed downwind of them and didn’t get too close.”
“How many?”
“I can’t be certain. Maybe four or five hordes.”
Four to five hundred demons. After last night’s battle at Philae Manor, the Demon King had to expect them to retaliate.
“It’s a trap. That many demons are enough to give a sensible group of dragons pause but not enough to make them question their ability to win.”
“Okay, I’m with you. What do you suggest, if you don’t think we should take out the hordes near the cave?”
Osir
is helped Isis to her feet. Her dress was wet from the damp leaves, not that it mattered. She smiled at her mate, and then kissed him. Not passionately but with a wife’s understanding of his need to protect her and the temper she was about to inflame.
“I can’t treat this as a business deal or Sansabonsom as a businessman. None of my DIG strategies will work with a creature like him, which means diplomacy will be a waste of time.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“Violence, which is all demons seem to know and understand. We’ll attack the hordes who are stationed at the Cave of Dep.”
“You just said it was a trap.”
“It is. A trap we’ll intentionally spring.”
“I already don’t like where you’re going with this, and I haven’t heard your plan.”
Isis’s eyes dropped to the arms that raised over wide chest, then to the rest of Osiris’s naked body.
“Me, Nep, and Set will attack the hordes. You and the Tyets will stand down and stay back.”
“This is me, your mate and husband, doing his best not to yell at or shake some sense into you. What you’re suggesting is a suicide mission.”
That was one way of looking at it, especially with Set at her back.
“As awful as the route into Nebty was, I learned something about the Demon King.”
“Yeah, so did I. He’s a goddamn lunatic who needs to be put down like the rabid demon he is.”
“Okay, yes, I hear you. He’s also a showman. A braggart. He not only likes to win but relishes publicizing his conquests.”
“No.”
“Let me finish.”
“I don’t need for you to finish, not if your plan ends with you and Nephthys allowing yourselves to be captured by the demon hordes and taken to the Demon Kingdom and paraded around like dragon spoils of war. You’re smart enough to come up with a better plan than that. You want to fight the demons, just like you did when you and Nephthys saved the fairies.”
20 Shades of Shifters_A Paranormal Romance Collection Page 261