They came.
Hooves pounded. The earth shook beneath my feet. Hulking shapes burst from the trees, baying with rage. They barreled into the men, trampling them, goring them. A herd of forest demons, with horns and tusks and fangs—they had once belonged to Veronis, god of all creatures, just like the lammergeiers, the Brine Beast, and every other animal on my island. The demons swerved around me and the other villagers, stomping on the fallen Dragonmen, stampeding into the village. The warriors screamed and fell beneath their hooves.
This time, I did laugh. Mangled bodies, death everywhere. Something deep within me, something that didn’t feel like me, found it all quite amusing.
Someone laughed with me.
He stood twenty paces away. Ash-silver hair spilling down his back, bare from the waist up, ink spiraling across one side of his body. A shining golden god. “Good trick, little warrior.”
His voice was a shard of obsidian. It was water hardening into ice. Not even the Fallen Ones’ power could shield me from him. Would my skoldar still protect me now that Reyker was dead, or had its magic been severed?
“Draki.” His name slipped off my tongue, a growl and a whimper. I snatched up one of the dead Dragonmen’s daggers.
“Come to me,” Draki said.
The scar behind my ear went cold. My legs began to move without my consent. “No.” My skoldar warmed enough for me to stop, but Draki’s face twisted into a beautiful, terrifying smile, and I nearly hit my knees. How could I ever hope to escape from him?
The sound of hooves made me turn.
A chestnut mare galloped toward me across the hills. “Victory?”
The mystic must have ridden her here. Rhys’s horse came for me, to save me as I’d saved her. Maybe it was fate, or luck, or Veronis’s influence—whatever it was, I would take it. Victory paused long enough for me to swing onto her back before running full speed to the shelter of the Tangled Forest. I didn’t look back.
We raced through the forest until it became a swamp. Even the thick canopy couldn’t keep out the driving rains. Crystals gleamed in Victory’s coat and mane; the rain had turned to ice, a translucent glaze falling across the earth. Gales battered us, but the forest stirred with more than wind. Draki was near. I felt him. Victory sensed it too, shifting her eyes with the fear of an animal stalked by predators. Distressed, the horse failed to notice the fallen tree blocking our path.
Her hooves skidded in the mud, her front legs crashing into the bulky trunk. Victory toppled over the tree, and I was thrown from her back into a deep puddle.
The water was as thick as quicksand. I struggled to my hands and knees, wading through the muck to get to Victory, who flailed on her side, unable to stand. I coaxed her, pushed her, but it did no good; I wasn’t strong enough to help her up. I murmured, petting her muzzle, trying to soothe her. Around us, the trees shuddered. The Dragon was coming.
I stared into Victory’s dark eyes. Go, they seemed to say.
“Damn you!” I screamed at the gods. “Why must I lose everything?”
The gods didn’t answer; they wouldn’t deign to explain themselves to mortals. I grabbed my dagger, kissed my brother’s horse one last time, and left her behind.
Crawling through mud. Wading through puddles. “Show yourself,” I said, envisioning the Grove of the Fallen Ones, the only place I might be able to hide from the Dragon. Before, the forest had transitioned from living to dying as I’d crossed from my world to the in-between space the grove occupied. This time, the grove sprang up around me—absent, then everywhere, all at once. Blackened trees stretching over me, rotting creatures scuttling about. The sickly loch, still and sinister, squatting in the center of everything.
I went to it, my toes poking over the edge of the bank. Outside the grove, I could hear the storm, but it didn’t touch me here. No rain fell, no wind shook the decaying leaves and blighted branches. “What now?” I asked the loch, and the gods trapped beneath it. The water belched and bubbled, as if someone was speaking from deep in its depths. I crouched down, fingers hovering over the slimy surface. Words whispered through my head.
now, you choose.
The trees began to sway. The loch began to boil. And then the grove was gone, ripped away like a blindfold, rain and ice and wind pummeling me again. There was no loch, only muddy pools of rainwater.
“You hide, but I find you.” Draki emerged from the forest, silver threads of wet hair clinging to the sharp planes of his face. The bare skin of his tattooed torso glistened. He tapped a finger behind his ear. “I always find you.”
Blindly, I staggered backward, out of the cage of trees, onto a plot of flat green land that ended in a sheer drop-off. Beyond it, the Shattered Sea unfurled like an endless shroud. Far to the west lay the lands of the Frozen Sun. I’d made it to the northern bluffs.
The sky crackled with white veins of fire, and pearls of ice rained down on us. Draki seemed impervious to the glassy spheres bouncing off him. His eyes were radiant, full of expectation. I raised my dagger. “Stay away from me,” I said in Iseneldish.
Draki switched to his native tongue, his words flowing smooth as silk. “You cannot escape me. I have the blood of gods in my veins—my gods and yours. I was spawned from the womb of the serpent-goddess Ildja, the eater of souls.”
I stared at his gold-green eyes. A serpent’s eyes.
“I believe you know Ildja’s brother.” Draki paused, savoring my fear like the calm before a storm. “You call him Gwylor. The god of death.”
“That’s not possible.” The Immortal Scriptures contained no mention of Ildja, or of Gwylor having a sister. But the Immortal Scriptures were a lie.
“It is”—Draki spread his arms wide—“because here I stand. I meant to feed you to Ildja, so she could taste all the souls you’d ever touched. She loves to eat the Daughters of Aillira, out of spite. You know, your people’s scriptures are erroneous. It was my mother who started your Gods’ War. Ildja was the one who told her brother to seduce Aillira and destroy Veronis.”
Something clicked into place: Aillira, staring at the bog adder she used to kill herself. I see you, goddess. Devour my soul if you dare. Ildja. The serpent-goddess, eater of souls. That’s who Aillira had seen in the adder’s eyes.
Draki tried to circle me, but I shuffled my feet and moved with him, never letting him get closer. “I sense much power in you now,” he said. “You would be wasted as a meal. I will keep you for myself. Would you like that? To be my devoted pet?”
I could feel him reaching out, stripping away my thoughts, my defenses. I lunged at him with the dagger, and Draki caught it with his bare hand, fingers jerking the blade forward, pulling me so I fell against him. He gripped my hair, sniffing at me, an animal memorizing my scent. The mark behind my ear turned to frost and images flickered through my mind.
Draki sits upon a throne—a monstrosity made of skeletons frozen in ice, matching the crown of ice and bone set atop his head. I kneel before him. His tattoos come alive, rippling across his skin, the ink dripping over me, staining me with its darkness. His muscles flex, his bones shift; glistening black wings burst from between his shoulders. “You are my savior,” I tell him. “My master. My god.” His wings encase me, swinging shut like a trap.
“Stop.” I tore myself from the vision, but my will was disintegrating, my breath heavy in my lungs. I melted against him like wax under a flame, losing myself.
Draki leaned in, studying me, his lips nearly touching mine. “Make me, if you can.”
Rhys. Reyker. I held them both in my mind like a talisman. The skoldar on my wrist smoldered, and the chains Draki had wrapped around my mind loosened. I stomped on his foot, pounded my fists against him, banged my knee into his groin.
He released me. “There you are, little warrior.” An infuriating smile softened the harsh beauty of his face. “I see you. I know you.”
I
shuddered.
Draki glanced at the scar on my wrist. “When I rid you of that, you will be free. You will see the splendor of what we can accomplish together.”
“You can’t remove my skoldar. Not without killing me.”
“A mortal would not survive.” His gaze raked from my toes to my scalp. “But you have the power of gods in your veins too. You are not so easy to kill.”
The healed wound on my chest gave credence to Draki’s threat. I thought of Eathalin and the fire-sweepers, their eyes void of life—that was the fate awaiting me. Draki would drag me back to the village. And then what? Cut off Reyker’s mark so he could take control of me? Use me as a weapon to hurt my own people?
I fumbled for whatever powers Veronis and the Fallen Ones had given me, desperate, but it was like groping for a lost weapon in the dark, knowing it was there yet finding nothing. I didn’t know how to use those abilities, not without their coaxing, and for some reason their voices had gone silent. Did they not care if I succumbed to Draki’s compulsion, or had he done something to quiet them, the same way he’d forced the grove to recede?
Foolishly, I stared at the forest. Searching. Waiting.
Where are you, Reyker? You promised you’d never leave me. You promised you wouldn’t let Draki take me.
I reached for my medallion … finding nothing. Doyen’s dagger must have sliced through the rope when he stabbed me. The last thing I had left of my mother, and of Reyker, was gone.
“Come, little warrior. I will take you home.”
The wind howled. The sky ignited. The god of death’s kin held out his hand to me.
I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened them. I knew what I had to do.
“My will is my own.” I took several steps back, raising my dagger again. “Until the end.”
I swung my arms hard, then let go, hurling the dagger at Draki. He laughed, reaching out to catch it, distracted. I turned and ran. My feet touched the ends of the earth. I kept going.
Off the edge.
Over the bluffs.
What have I done?
It was mere seconds between the moment I leaped from the bluffs and the moment I was swallowed by the sea, mere seconds I spent plummeting through the space between land and water, but it felt like an endless journey, my resolve unspooling along the way.
Oh, gods, what have I done?
Time slowed down even as my life sped by me, all the things I’d lost, all the things I’d left behind, snapping around me like broken threads. I clawed the air, flailing, as if I could somehow climb my way back up and make a different choice.
I don’t want to die.
The wind tore at my clothes, ripped at my hair. Below me, the gray waters churned and frothed, growing closer. I was falling, falling, yet it was as if I hung there, suspended. Mere seconds. An eternity.
The sea. It was so close.
Reyker. Amidst the grip of panic, I clung to thoughts of him. So little time we’d had. Not nearly enough.
Reyker’s gods, his otherworlds, were different than mine. When I died, would I find him waiting beneath the waves, feasting with Rhys and Mother in the Eternal Palace? Or would he be with his own gods, his own people, in Fortune’s Field? Would we wander through the hereafter, searching, never finding each other—separated evermore, like Aillira and Veronis?
The sea. It was here.
Blackness. Darkness. Endless.
I was reduced to nothing but a spark. The infinite cave of Death’s mouth opened, teeth sinking into me. It was cold, dark, the blackest of winter nights. I was alone. But I didn’t hurt. I wasn’t afraid. I could stay here and sleep forever, no more pain or loss, just an icy oblivion.
I laid my head down, closed my eyes.
Something itched, scratching at the back of my mind. A voice, screaming my name. Haunting me. Waking me. Calling me back.
I sucked in a sharp breath. Choked on a mouthful of water.
My eyes flew open as something crashed into me, shredding my skin. My arms dug at the cold water until I’d pushed my way to the surface. I gulped air, but a wave knocked me back under. My body smacked into one of the jagged pillars of rock rising from the sea.
Once more, I splashed to the surface only to be thrust under, pounded against rocks again. I was trapped in the sloshing throes of the storm-ravaged sea. I would die here. The rocks would break me; the waves would drown me.
sing.
The thousand voices returned, Veronis’s the strongest of them all. Without questioning, I did as the Fallen Ones bid me, opening my mouth to pour out all my pain.
The song—it was the same one I’d heard when I dove into the loch and Veronis first spoke to me; it was the same song he and Aillira had sung to each other, the same one she’d been humming when she planted the seed of the thorntree just before she ended her life. It was in the old language, and the words were different, but it was the song I’d sung to Reyker, the sea ballad my mother taught me as a child. I sang it now, and it rippled into the current.
How could my love be lost to me …
I forced air from my lungs, throwing a torrent of vibrations into the water. I wanted to sing so loud none of the gods could ignore me.
His ship was swallowed by the sea …
I harnessed the violet spark of my being, setting the verse aglow as it left my lips, hoping Rhys and Mother and Reyker might hear me, and know I was on my way to them.
I feel him close, but it’s only his ghost …
Delving into my head, into my blood, I sought every drop of power the mystic had given me, unleashing it, filling every word with its essence.
My love, my love, return—
A song answered mine, startling me. It was a wordless echo, mimicking the ballad’s tune. Moments later, other songs joined it, harmonizing.
All around me, music swelled. It rose up from the floor of the sea, lulling and luminescent, a sweeping whirlpool of sound. The phantom choir crept out of the darkness below; I didn’t see them until I was surrounded. They were as big as whales, but serpentine like eels.
The Brine Beasts. There wasn’t one; there were many. A pod of them. A family.
And they still served Veronis, their fallen master.
One of the Beasts swam beneath me and surfaced, taking me with it. I took a gluttonous breath, and it dove down again. I clung to its slick scales as the creature slithered and glided, faster in liquid than any horse was on land. Its pod flanked us, moving as one, singing to one another. I should’ve been afraid—one of these Beasts killed my mother, my cousin. One devoured a boatful of Dragonmen. But it had also spared Reyker. It had spared me.
The Beast I held on to arced its body up, breaching long enough for me to gasp, then plunged. In this manner, we made our way swiftly along the coast, outrunning the storm.
When the Beast finally slowed, grazing the air longer, I noticed the water was calmer. I wasn’t sure how far we’d gone—at least ten leagues, if I’d had to guess. Far from Stony Harbor. The cliffs were smaller here, and a sloping shore edged the sea.
My ride was over. The giant eel shook and rolled, flinging me off like I was a parasite. All the Beasts were gone in an instant, darting into deeper waters.
I swam to shore, dragged myself onto the sand, and collapsed.
I slept, dreaming I was back on the bluffs with Draki, only I stood at the edge of them, staring down into the water. My chest throbbed as if my heart had shattered, the shards impaling me from within.
Fingers of sunlight brushed my skin, rousing me sometime later. I hauled myself up the rocky cliff, unsurprised to find the outskirts of the Green Desert on the other side.
I walked.
The day grew hot. The sun peaked and set.
The night grew cold. I didn’t stop.
The sun burned the horizon once more. I pushed on, over hil
ls, across the moorlands—thirsty, hungry, aching—until my legs gave out. I languished in the tall grass, waiting, unafraid.
This was where I was meant to be.
REYKER
The horse wasn’t fast enough.
Reyker put his heels to it, but it galloped no faster. The Tangled Forest sprawled around him, dark and dreary. The clouds dripped. His breath was tight, chest aching from the horse’s concussive gait. Blood seeped around the priests’ sutures, where the captain had stabbed him.
He should have gotten here sooner. The priests had lent him their small vessel, the one they’d been sailing when they had fished him from the sea, but it wasn’t outfitted for ocean crossings; he’d been blown off course, landing farther south of Stony Harbor than he’d intended. And the stupid horse he’d stolen, despite its height and strength, ran as slow as an old man.
Thick plumes of smoke curled above the tree line. The raid had begun.
Finally they reached the village, the horse shying at the crush of heat and flame. Every cottage burned with unearthly blue fire. Draki must have commanded his god-gifted prisoners to do this. The Dragon meant to reduce Stony Harbor to rubble.
Screaming villagers ran from the hordes of Dragonmen. There were mercenaries too. Bog Men. The Ravenous, the clan that had attacked the cog. Others, who wore odd outfits like vests made of seaweed or armor made of skulls, carried strange weapons like spiked maces and tridents. It seemed Draki had forged his own alliances with the mercenaries.
No one paid Reyker heed as he rode through the turmoil. From afar, he was just another Dragonman.
Reyker closed his eyes, trying to hear the whisper in his blood that could lead him to Lira, but it was drowned out by the call of the black river, begging to be released. He felt the deep divide within him, blazing lights warring with suffocating darkness.
He steered the horse to Ishleen’s cottage, where he’d last seen Lira, and saw a mob of Dragonmen cornering a small, brown-haired girl—Ishleen, screaming, swinging a short sword. She managed to stab one of the Dragonmen, but the others ripped the sword away, grabbing at her, tearing her dress.
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