Because no matter what Maivera tries to convince me of, what the Aviraji are doing is wrong. In every universal sense possible. There is no balance in what they seek, and the universe cannot survive without it.
Determined, I storm in, ready to betray the mother of my daughter and their family.
I just hope Rivi forgives me one day if her mother ends up dead.
-D’vuirn, Realm of the Baesams
IANTHEN
Where is Existence?
An indescribable roar tears through the air. Eruptions of power light up the night, one after the other. I rematerialize on a cliff away from the main core of the destruction. Power flares once more from the valley below.
Hissing, I jerk my head to the side and squeeze my lids shut, absorbing the sensation of the burn as my eyes start to heal and adjust. Again, I have to wonder: What in the fuck is Zexistr doing?
The battle should not have lasted this long. It should not have spread from Earth to here. This is the fourth time in three days that the fight has migrated to a new dimension.
Existence should have found a way to close the Kystms. This dimension must be blocked off from the rest so that the battle can be contained. We all agreed. It is a fucked solution. Utter genocide. Anyone that remains trapped here once the portals collapse will surely perish.
No other hope for it. I am prepared to do anything. I am ready to give my life to make sure it does not end on Earth.
Not when it will cost my mother her life if it does.
She made you take the sacred vow.
If the battle ends on Earth one more time, we end it there. She shall die with it and she is prepared to make that sacrifice.
I am not.
The battle must end here. If any beings have the hope of surviving the Aviraji, it is the power-breathing creatures of this plane.
Thus, Zexistr’s part in our plan.
The fact that he has not closed any of the dimensions yet can only mean one thing: he has been deterred by the mother of his daughter. Maivera.
When I open my eyes, the mountain range I stand on comes back into focus. This land is nothing but stone—even the cities the citizens have built are carved from it. All the better to survive the constant power fluctuations and the fiery energy they so often give off. The sky, always dark from the fog in the air, crackles with red lightning over my head.
I have to get down there. Join the fight as I am itching to do. If need be, I need to find my own way to close the Kystms. “Finding things” is what I excel out.
If anyone can do it, it is me.
But I need to locate my sister more. Where the hell is she?
A burst of wind hits me in the face. A shadow appears on the ground besides me. Something is falling over my shoulder—
A male lands next to me.
Headless. Limbs twitching. Blood gushing out of the hole left behind in his torn neck. His head lands against the stone after, the impact destroying it instantly. Like an apple slammed into a wall. I watch as pieces of bone and tissue land on my boots.
My soul-deep connection with my twin spirals open, seconds before she even starts speaking. It flows through me, soothing me even as chaos rules all around me.
“Based on what I sense in you, Fort’em, I know we are of like mind. Mother cannot die. I will not allow it, no matter what she made us swear.”
Turning, I find her standing feet behind me, her blue-and-white armor covered in blood.
More blood marrs the sides of her chin, leaking out of the corners of her mouth; a reminder of what she has recently become. Biologically, my total opposite. A species I am inclined to despise. A species our father hated to his last breath.
Lilitu, as some of the humans have begun calling them. Blood drinkers. Leeches. Created by that fucking bastard Kain, the spawn of Lilith and Lucifer.
None of that matters to me. My connection with her is unbreakable; nature itself cannot defy it.
“I gathered knowledge from that male before killing him.” Ianythi, Goddess of the Wild, nods her chin at the corpse by my feet. Of course, she speaks of the fact that she has fed off the male’s blood and absorbed all he had known. “Zexistr destroyed half of Ixalir. They think he is closing in on the Etdir where they have the ciphers to the Kystms hidden.”
Shock. “He destroyed half their dimension. Truly?”
Ianythi nods excitedly, her dark blue hair swinging with the movement. “Him and Cyake. I could scarcely believe it, either. Truly, he might be free of her compulsion at last.”
My sister believes she knows the reason why Zexistr was lost for so long—Maivera’s powers of Illusion, of course.
The Aviraji claimed her powers were not strong enough to overcome Existence. Clearly, for millennia, something had, and if it was not her powers, at least Zex is finally freeing himself of whatever foolishness once took hold of him.
By the gods, this is the kind of news I needed to hear.
Ianythi smiles, experiencing the rush with me. “Now, how about we go down there and kill those that dare threaten our mother’s planet and her life?”
I hold my gloved hand out towards my sister. “I wager I can kill more than you.”
At that, Nythi scoffs and flies off the cliff in a blur, leaving me standing here with my hand still outstretched.
Feeling my inner wolf rise with excitement, I follow right after, already morphing into my canine state.
Prologue Part 2
ZEXISTR
I land within D’vuirn, my form flickering as a blast of energy shoots through me. I absorb some of it, the burn settling deep in my chest.
Then, I solidify on one knee, and slowly raise my head to stare at the male that dealt it. War Erencei. Clearly drunk with bloodlust and fury.
A dead male.
I send the energy shooting back out of my body, amplifying it with my own. The male does not have time to escape.
I watch as the demon becomes nothing but dust and a permanent shadow on the ground, once again disappointed. No time. I am going to have to find myself a worthy fight after this is over, one in which time is not of the essence. Then I will be able to go slow and enjoy the kill.
With a sigh, I straighten, taking in the destroyed city around me. Above my head, a Baesam flies by, in full power-breathing, winged-demon form. Its roar as it lets out a stream of raw energy from its mouth makes everything around me tremble.
Cyake was gone when I exited the chamber. I sense him on the dimension, yet his exact location remains unclear.
Why did he leave Ixalir before I did?
Behind me, I hear running footsteps, and what sounds like a wolfish huff.
Instantly, my Hyren senses burst free, and my body recognizes the scent heading my way. It is another Hyren. One I know well.
Ianthen.
Fully turned.
Adrenalized.
Scared out of his fucking mind.
My body tenses as I prepare myself for whatever is heading our way.
Ianthen’s massive blue form comes barreling around a corner. He is going so fast the stone beneath his feet is sliced up by his paws.
One slip; he skids into the remaining wall of what had been a temple. His body impacts, the sound as loud as the beginnings of an eruption.
Ianthen barely seems to notice. Shaking his head, he takes off again, staring over his shoulder.
Definitely running from someone.
What the hell?
He almost runs by me, not even noticing me.
I shoot off my feet, catching Ianthen around the neck and slamming him into the dark stone wall. Mentally, I demand that he revert to his god-form. He trashes in my grip, his large jaws snapping in my face.
Motherfucker. I tilt my head back when those monstrous teeth get way too close. Damn it. Ianthen is rabid with fear. What happened?
“Turn, damn you,” I order through clenched teeth, exerting all my control over him.
The male switches back in a flash, his neck racing underneat
h my grip as he pants.
Ianthen is an alpha in his own right, yet he has no choice but to listen to me. Due to my powers, I am the alpha of all alphas, the one wolf that rules over them all.
I rule over all species. An unfortunate consequence of Existence being a species-cycling Ja’mogen.
As scared as Ianthen is, his behavior annoys my Hyren instincts regardless. Squeezing down on the male’s neck, and glaring into his white, dilated eyes, I growl, “Speak. Now.”
“What the fuck is wrong with the males in your family today?” Ianthen gasps, staring wildly behind me.
What does that mean? Has Keiros somehow snapped? Has he lost control?
No. Time would be fluctuating. The battle itself would have been distorted.
Suddenly, darkness falls over everything, so black I cannot see through it. I know Ianthen cannot either.
Then, that suffocating pressure, the one that always comes before the Exivisi Genelhi powers are unleashed in full force—
“Close your eyes!” I scream at Ianthen, pulsing out the strongest Gnetica I can muster.
The blinding white light that comes next is beyond intense, and I can see it through my closed lids. Outside, thousands scream as they are instantly incinerated by the brutal power that bursts from the darkness.
The light recedes in a rush, and I hear the giant footsteps. The giant stone footsteps of the light-and-darkness twins in their united form.
The creature they become can grow almost as tall as a mountain, as white as polished stone, and with soulless, statue-like eyes that inspire extreme fear in most beings. Even I am not unaffected.
It stomps by, about a hundred yards from me and Ianthen, its hand outstretched as it fires balls of dark miasma at the beings below.
Dark miasma that will taint its victims, turning their minds and suffocating them in their own evil, until their psyches simply explode from the overload of darkness.
I know this firsthand. Have been a victim to it once before.
“Let me go,” Ianthen growls, resuming his struggles. “Have to get away from your fucking brother. Cyake—”
My head snaps around to him once more. “Cyake?” No. He was already on edge. All the Fates had to do was find a single opening . . .
“His eyes, asshole.” Ianthen sinks his dark claws into my hand. “They are blue. He . . . he started prophesizing to me.”
No, it cannot be. It has not happened in over five-hundred winters. Now? The third one would happen now?
It is Ianthen?
“You know how the first two worked out, have to get away.”
“You cannot,” I tell Ianthen, staring unseeingly at the stone wall behind him. “There is no escaping Fate.” And it usually only takes over when it is tragic. In other words, when the being on the receiving end is about to be punished.
I was the first.
Mavrak the second.
Now, Ianthen shall be cursed.
For a second, I have to close my eyes as pity for my Fort’em floods me. Cyake will not survive this one. The male in my grip is Cyake’s best friend.
A blast of power sends me flying away from Ianthen and into an opposite wall.
Intense power.
Stubborn power.
The kind that not even I, Existence, can fight against.
Fate.
Cyake appears before Ianthen in his armor, his crazed, metallic blue eyes glowing. He has taken up where I left off, holding Ianthen to the wall by the neck.
Ianthen bares his teeth in Cyake’s face. “Fight it. I am your friend. You are like my brother. Do not do this to me!”
“You will do it to yourself,” comes the voices of different beings from within Cyake’s throat.
A legion of them. All starving. All aching to be united and in control once more.
“No!” Ianthen’s fist flies in a blur towards Cyake’s face.
Cy catches it with his left hand, his stare fixated on Ianthen’s eyes. “Crimson will demand. The wolf’s power will fall. Pride captive to the whims of the soul.”
Ian tries to kick out, but Cyake dodges that, too, claws digging deeper into his flesh.
Plastered to a stone archway, I grunt as I try to break free of the crushing pressure around me.
For a short moment, Ianthen’s enlarged eyes flicker towards me.
The Fates have deemed him worthy of punishment.
They will destroy him.
They are unmercifully using my brother as the vessel of their curse for Ianthen. Cyake was finally free of them upon being born on this plane and they never forgave him for it.
I growl as I continue to fight the pressure.
Cyake’s head snaps in my direction and a cold, evil smirk tugs on the corner of his lips. “Do not worry, Existence. One day, your time will come as well.”
“Fuck. You. You have already done enough to me,” I yell at the Fates.
Cyake shakes his head slowly. “No. What is coming . . . that you actually did to yourself.”
What?
“Cyake! Fight it, damn you!” Ianthen yells. “Fight it!”
That is our most brutal tragedy—once that connection is opened between Cyake and them, he is lost. He cannot fight it no matter what he wants.
My brother’s head turns back in Ianthen’s direction in that same slow, eerie fashion. “Eons of fight will be reaped in one moon. The prey foreordained will quell all that is known and forever will be. A river spilled. A heart torn asunder. Hunt will be hauled from his peak on the night that she speaks.”
At that, Ianthen freezes, teeth bared with pure rage.
I cannot blame him. She? This all has to do with a female?
Cyake tilts his head, staring at Ianthen with an almost pleased look. There is a whisper of amusement in those soulless, shining eyes. “In the shadow of Conquest, the willow weeps. And when it is done, all laid barren, he will come to the truth. The thing that was once most important to him will be the thing that destroys him. The ashes decide where the legend will rise.”
“What the fuck?” Ianthen cries out, the veins in his throat bulging.
Then, just as quick as it had come, the pressure is gone, sucked instantly out of the air around us.
Still in mid-struggle, I drop to my knees. I watch as the blue leaves my brother’s eyes just as fast as the power of Fate abandoned us.
Then comes the shock. The horror as Cyake realizes who is in his grip.
What he has just done.
“No, no, no.” Cyake jumps back from Ianthen, shaking his head.
Ianthen falls to his knees, just like me, his white, unblinking eyes locked on the ground. “You . . . you just prophesied my end, you asshole.”
Cyake shakes his head faster, and something in my chest tightens. This curse—this fucking abusive power has tormented my younger brother all his life.
And now this?
Cyake’s stricken expression tears at my heart. “Forgive me, I did not mean—”
Ianthen finally looks up. “Not your fault,” he says in a deadened rasp, “it is theirs.” Expression bleak, he sneers up at the dark sky. “They want this for me. Those whining cunts!” He slams his fist into the ground, causing everything around us to shake.
Cyake reaches for his hair, yanking on it.
“Stop.” I jump to my feet. “Not now. You can figure out what to do about all this later. I collapsed the Kystms. We do not have much time before the dimension is sealed off.”
Two half-dazed pairs of eyes, one white and the other golden, meet my own.
I nod, walking up to both of them and offering my hand. “It will finish sealing shortly, we must end it and get back to Earth.”
A black portal spirals open above our heads, one so large it overcomes an already dark sky.
Air roars faster around us, tearing at our skin.
“No!” I growl out, infuriated. Someone found out and warned the Aviraji. They are opening the portal before it can close, recalling their fucking allies.
“They are going back to Earth!” Ianthen is one of the beings with the most to lose. His mother means everything to him.
Considering what just happened, I cannot fault the male for the desperate look in his eyes.
“Go!” I command, dematerializing and heading straight for that tear in the fabric of reality. There is no choice now but to end the fight back on Earth. I do not know how many beings will end up locked behind, but I know that enough of them will make it back through.
I also know with absolute certainty that this battle has just cost us another race of beings. Now that the portal is closing, they will all end up trapped here for eternity.
Nothing I can do now. I have to focus on what is ahead.
Chapter 1
Present time. One week after Evesse’s arrival
- Enzyria, Viewing Chamber
IANTHEN
T he white, glowing map flies past at lightspeed. No one would ever be able to keep up with the three-dimensional projection moving at this pace.
No one but me, that is.
And probably Existence. But thankfully that cocky bastard isn’t here to show off.
Small orbs of light come to life throughout the map, but just as quickly they disappear as my attention bounces to the next. I know who I’m searching for. After all, their energy signatures are ones I know very well.
That’s what happens when you’ve been that close to someone in the past.
Those assholes were once my friends. Our friends.
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done to hide yourselves, you pussies.” Arms crossed, I mentally command the map to move even faster, searching through beings scattered in the dimensions. “Eventually, I will find you both.” I always do. No one can hide from me for too long. Not once I decide to track them down.
Dyletri is my boy, as the humans say. The human girl he intends to sacrifice, Ismini? She’s a total sweetheart. Although she has to die, the fact that Enteax and Lisrn were after her really pisses me off.
Blood Drenched Conquest (Ryze Book 3) Page 2