by Sarah Hawke
“Impressive,” the Godsoul said, lowering Marcella’s arm and dismissing the glimmering barrier upon it. “I can see how you defeated the Huntresses. You have more control than I expected.”
Marcella’s body strode forward and approached the priestess again. Despite the fear in the girl’s eyes, she didn’t sob or whimper or beg for mercy. She simply raised her chin and waited for the inevitable.
“If the soul your sisters recovered had been more than a mere fragment, you would be formidable indeed,” the Godsoul said. “But the time has come for my brethren to be made whole once again. Your power will allow me to avenge an injustice thousands of years in the making…”
Marcella’s right hand lifted, and a radiant golden beam erupted from her palm and blasted the helpless girl. The priestess shrieked in pain as the light enveloped her pale body and burned her black robe to cinders. She floated off the ground, her screams transforming into frantic gasps for breath, as the Godsoul fragment inside her was slowly ripped away.
“The Reckoning has come…and the world shall be reborn anew.”
***
Tahira was dying.
Julian Cassel could feel her agony burning through the Aether, and he knew he was nearly out of time. Every paladin in Highwind except him had already lost his or her channeling abilities. The Wasting Echo had swept over the Order with a vengeance, though it wasn’t as if any of the knights would live long enough for it to kill them. The Inquisitrix and her soldiers would see to that.
Not if I get to her in time. Not if I save her!
Cassel’s pulse pounded in his ears as he sprinted through the gate to the Redwater District. His lungs burned from inhaling the freezing air for so long, and his legs throbbed from running across half the damn city. Tahira’s power still flowed through him somehow, but it was her pain that pushed him farther beyond his limits than magic ever could.
He half expected a platoon of enemy soldiers to be waiting for him in front of the Silver Temple, but the courtyard was practically empty aside from a handful of corpses lying in the gathering snow. He didn’t look at their faces; he simply couldn’t afford to be distracted, not with the fate of the whole Order—perhaps even the whole fucking world—at stake.
Cassel sprinted through the shattered doorway and adjoining foyer into the main hall. Even more bodies greeted him inside, including the still-smoldering corpse of Commander Crowe.
He’s dead. They are all dead! Gods, I never should have left the temple. I never should have agreed to—
Tahira’s agonized cry snapped him back into reality. He could feel a gathering vortex of Aetheric energy within the sanctuary at the end of the hall, and he knew he was out of time. He pulled Retribution from his back, charged through the sanctuary’s blasted door—
And was immediately struck by a bolt of lightning.
Without Tahira’s power shielding him, Cassel would have died. The jagged current of electricity obliterated his barrier in the blink of an eye, but the shield dampened the blast enough that the residual charge shocked him without killing him. He froze in place, momentarily paralyzed with pain, before a wave of force slammed into his side and hurled his body into the statue of Shalassa along the sanctuary’s eastern wall.
“Curious. Only a single spark of power remains within the girl, and she chooses to share it with you…” The voice was that of a woman, cold and calculating, but left a disturbing echo in its wake.
Cassel clenched his teeth and tried to ignore the pain shooting down his right arm as he studied his attacker. He wasn’t sure what he had expected here—a Huntress, perhaps, along with a Crimson Flame channeler or two?—but he found himself looking upon a lone human female clad in an elaborate suit of silver plate armor with broken blades jutting from her back. One of her claw-tipped gauntlets crackled with electricity while the other clutched an immaculate rune-covered blade. Her scarred face, left exposed without her infamous mask, belonged to a woman everyone in the Northern Reaches feared yet almost none had ever met.
Gods, it’s her. It’s actually her!
“She is stronger than she appears,” the Inquisitrix said, her blue eyes narrowing as she glanced back at Tahira. “In a different age, she would have made a worthy vessel indeed.”
Grabbing onto the edge of the statue, Cassel slowly pulled himself back to his feet. Tahira was lying in a heap behind the altar on the opposite side of the sanctuary, her black robe seared to embers. He could feel her pain in the Aether, though it was tempered by her raw determination. Time and time again, she had proven more resilient than her appearance would suggest, and today was no exception.
“You will pay for what you’ve done here,” Cassel said, reaching down to retrieve Retribution and lifting it protectively in front of him. “Escar’s justice comes for you!”
The Inquisitrix snorted. “Escar’s justice…you mortals have no idea what you’re even babbling about. It would almost be amusing if your ignorance hadn’t blighted the world for so long.”
Cassel paused and frowned. He had never actually heard the so-called Raven Queen speak, obviously, but there was something strange about her tone and cadence.
“Your people don’t remember the past—how could they?” the Inquisitrix asked. “Your lives are motes of dust, there and gone in an instant. Even the descendants of the Avetharri have forgotten who and what they truly are. Their ‘histories’ are little more than fables, told and retold a thousand times until nothing remains but the rotting carcass of the truth.”
Cassel took a step closer, his blade still clutched tightly in his hands. He could feel the Aetheric energy surging through the Inquisitrix; her body teemed with power just like when Tahira had blasted the Huntresses back in Hastien’s Fall and again at the Silver Tower. This woman really was another Conduit…but there was something different about her.
“Mortals?” he asked. “What, you believe you’re some kind of god now?”
“Not some kind of god,” the Inquisitrix said. “The true god. The one god. The only god.”
Cassel’s breath caught in his throat, and his mind flashed back to the Silver Tower when Tahira had also spoken with a different voice. He may have been standing in front of the Raven Queen, but he wasn’t speaking with her. Not anymore.
“You’re not the Inquisitrix,” he whispered. “You’re…”
“I am Dathiel,” she said, her eyes suddenly glowing a brilliant gold. “And I have returned.”
She thrust out her left hand. A searing beam of golden light erupted from her outstretched palm, blasting Cassel with the force of a meteor. Acting on pure reflex, he lifted his sword defensively as if it were a shield. The light splintered over the blade like the rising dawn breaking over the Shattered Peaks, but the heat was still so intense he couldn’t believe it didn’t incinerate him outright. He slid backward across the floor, his knees buckling and his grip faltering…
And then Retribution changed. The assault was almost blinding, but Cassel watched through squinting eyelids as the metal blade shimmered and transformed. At first, he thought it had simply melted, but then it abruptly reappeared—not as a length of silver metal, but as a sword-shaped beam of brilliant blue energy.
“What?” Dathiel breathed, the golden beam dissipating as she lowered her hand. “Impossible…”
Cassel swallowed, paralyzed in awe, as he stared at the blazing blue blade held before his eyes. A heartbeat earlier, Retribution had been so heavy that no one could have possibly wielded it without the Aether bolstering their strength. But now…now it was as light as a feather. He had never seen an enchantment like this before—even Serrane’s elven swords and bow didn’t contain this kind of raw power.
“A wraithblade?” Dathiel gasped. “Where did you get a wraithblade?”
Cassel’s gaze was still lost in the glowing weapon. The enchantment wasn’t merely incredible—it didn’t make any damn sense. He couldn’t feel the Aether swirling around the blade. It didn’t feel magical so much as…otherworldly.
This sword was once wielded by the Knights of the Last Dawn, Crowe had told him. They claimed that such blades had the power to strike creatures living outside the physical world, including the demons of the Pale.
“You must have stolen it from the Tel Bator like everything else your wretched Order possesses,” Dathiel snarled. “Their Templar are noble servants of the gods. They sacrifice everything to defend their people and do not taint themselves with stolen power!”
Cassel lowered the blade enough to look upon the woman standing before him. Her expression and body language had completely changed. She wasn’t just angry at the sight of the weapon.
She was afraid.
“You are unworthy to hold such a weapon,” Dathiel hissed though his mortal vessel. “You will suffer for your sacrilege!”
The Inquisitrix’s hand flashed with another burst of golden radiance, but this time Cassel didn’t give her an opportunity to strike. He lunged forward, Retribution sweeping in a wide arc in front of him. The sudden change in the weapon’s weight threw off his movements—it almost felt like fencing with a rapier despite its size and length—but he still forced the Inquisitrix to leap back. When she tried to use her sword to parry his attacks, the wraithblade burned cleanly through the steel and cut the blade in half. She stumbled away, staring in horror at the broken weapon in her hand, and Cassel lunged in for the kill—
Too late. Dathiel rolled away just before the wraithblade carved through the Inquisitrix’s neck. The blazing beam still clipped the remaining blades jutting out of her shoulder armor, however, and the smoldering tips clattered to the floor.
“Enough!” she snarled, thrusting out both of her hands. An invisible wave of force crashed into Cassel, hurling him back into the statue of Shalassa hard enough that the stone shattered around him. The air rushed out of his lungs as he fell on his side, and the blistering pain in his gut warned him that he had broken at least one rib.
“I will tolerate your insolence no longer!” Dathiel said, pivoting back around to face Tahira. Another beam of energy shot from her palms and enveloped the priestess, lifting her from the floor, and her agonized shriek echoed through the temple.
Cassel vaulted back to his feet and began to charge—
And then he lost everything. Another spike of pain jabbed into his stomach as if he had just been impaled, and he immediately dropped his sword and collapsed to his knees. It was the same full-body agony that had crippled him at Hastien’s Fall the moment of the Shattering.
“You mortals have stolen our power long enough!” Dathiel spat. The golden beam vanished, and Tahira’s body crashed to the floor, completely limp. “I don’t care what sword you wield. I have returned to reclaim what is ours, and no mere paladin will stand in my way!”
The pain of the Wasting Echo was so intense that Cassel could barely breathe, let alone speak. In a single horrifying instant, all his failures flashed before him. He had failed to rebuild the Order. He had failed to protect Tahira. He had failed to protect his unborn child…
But then, just before he was overwhelmed by the pain, he heard a deep, thunderous roar from outside the temple. A knowing smile tugged at his lips.
“I…I may not be able to stop you,” he said, his teeth chattering. “But I know someone who can.”
The Inquisitrix’s face twisted. “What are you—?”
The sanctuary’s domed ceiling didn’t so much crumble as explode. Cassel glanced up just in time to watch as a massive red dragon smashed through the stone vaulting as if it were a sandcastle. One of his mighty talons smashed down upon the stage while the other crushed the pews like kindling, and a rush of cold winter air blasted through the remnants of the temple.
The Dragon of Highwind had arrived.
10
Dragons and Gods
Piles of dust and stone fell from Jorem’s scales as he reared back and unfurled his wings. The Silver Temple had been devastated even before he had crashed through the ceiling—the corpses of fallen knights were strewn about the floor in the adjoining hall, and the sanctuary’s altar had been ripped from the floor and tossed into a corner. Commander Cassel was still alive, thank the gods, but the Eternal Priestess was lying slumped near the wall, her body sizzling.
“You are too late, Wyrm Lord. The Age of Sorcery is over!”
Jorem swiveled his long neck to glare at Inquisitrix Marcella as she dragged herself out of the rubble. Her mask was nowhere to be found, but her infamous bladed armor and clawed gauntlets dragged a thousand repressed memories from the darkest recesses of his mind. He had spent most of his life in mortal terror of this woman and her regime, yet somehow, now, when she was on the cusp of conquering the Northern Reaches, she seemed incredibly…small.
“The walls of my prison are broken!” she spat. “There is nothing you can do to—”
Jorem swatted her with the back of his claw, launching her tiny human body across the sanctuary and into one of the few remaining walls, collapsing it on top of her. He knew the impact wouldn’t kill her—she was far too powerful for that—but it still felt unbelievably fucking good. After all the pain and death and terror her regime had wrought, after fighting to survive her assassins for most of his life, it was finally time for this bitch to face justice.
Marcella screamed something unintelligible as she pulled herself from the rubble, her body sheathed in a glowing Aetheric barrier, but Jorem wasn’t interested in hearing her petty taunts. Highwind, Nol Krovos, even Vorsalos—they all demanded justice only a dragon could provide. He reared back, sucked in a deep breath, and spewed forth a cleansing gout of flame.
Her barrier was strong, but not that strong. Jorem watched as the flames seared through her shield, her armor, and then her flesh itself. By the time he stopped, there was nothing left of the Raven Queen but an ashen husk of smoldering bone. The unmistakable stench of brimstone flooded the sanctuary despite the flurries of freezing wind and snow, and Jorem slowly leaned back on his haunches and allowed the gravity of the moment to wash over him.
She was dead. Inquisitrix Marcella, scorned amazon and butcher of the Broken Sea, was finally dead. Without her power to sustain them, the Crimson Fist channelers would succumb to the Wasting Echo, and her Sanctori and Senosi would—
Impudent mortal wretch!
Jorem couldn’t tell if the words were spoken aloud or if they seared directly into his head, but a moment later, the smoldering bones of the Inquisitrix began to move. At first, he assumed his draconic eyes were playing tricks on him, but then the corpse hauled itself back to its feet. Its cracked, charred bones snapped back into place, and its hollow eye sockets began to glow with a brilliant golden light.
“Escar protect us…” Commander Cassel gasped.
Jorem refused to believe what he was seeing. The skeleton in front of him, completely scoured of blood and flesh mere moments earlier, began to heal. Blood, organs, flesh…in the span of a few seconds, they had all regenerated. Power swirled about the living corpse unlike anything he had ever sensed before, even the Fount beneath Nol Krovos. He wasn’t just looking upon the trapped essence of an ancient god.
He was looking upon the god itself.
“The boundless arrogance of the Wyrm Lords,” the corpse said with a deep, masculine voice that no longer sounded anything like Marcella. The male body that had taken her place was tall and hairless with smooth russet skin and a bald head. Jorem had never seen this man’s face before, yet from everything Selvhara had told him, he knew exactly who it was.
Dathiel the Watcher.
The reborn god held out his arms, and a mantle of gold-white energy materialized around his body like a suit of shining armor. Glimmering, ribbon-like strands sprouted from his pauldrons and slowly merged until they formed a pair of ethereal wings.
“Your miserable kind tried to destroy us once,” Dathiel said. “Their arrogance drove them to assault the very throne of the gods, and we nearly eradicated them then and there. But some of my brethren insisted your k
ind could still be redeemed, and their misguided mercy nearly doomed this world.”
The One God opened his right hand, and a spear of golden light flashed into existence in his palm. “I will not repeat their mistake.”
Dathiel hurled the spear. Jorem, still paralyzed with shock, barely had time to unfurl his wings before the glowing weapon struck him in the belly and hurled him backward as easily as he had swatted Marcella just moments ago. He crashed through the remnants of the temple, the courtyard wall surrounding it, and at least two other buildings before his momentum finally stalled. His chest burned as if he were still impaled even though the spear had already dissipated back into the Aether. He roared in pain and protest, furious and frightened all at once, and it was only then that he saw the massive black scar marring his scales.
Before this moment, he had started to believe that he might be invulnerable in his dragon form—arrows, swords, and even spells hadn’t been able to faze him. But the pain in his underbelly was so intense that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t reverted to his human form…
Another flash of energy caught his attention, and he craned his long neck up to see Dathiel floating out of the temple, his body still suffused in a mantle of brilliant golden light as his wings effortlessly carried him through the air.
“You don’t even understand the blood legacy flowing through your veins,” the One God snarled, his voice echoing like a pounding drum. “The fools of this age see you as their sovereign when you are nothing more than a slave. But like all servants given a taste of freedom, your kind were all too willing to become oppressors.”
Jorem growled deep in his throat as he rolled over and pulled himself back to his full height. He tried to summon more draconic flames to his maw, but the pain in his belly made it impossible. He was finding it more and more difficult to breathe in enough of the freezing air just to satisfy his lungs…
