Page 4 of A Dawn of Gods & Fury

I call forth threads of my affinity—I did not come this far only to lose my love to a blade—but before I can throw up a shield, Elijah raises his free hand and the soldier erupts in flames. The others leap away as his shrieks echo.

My pulse races, throbbing in my ears.

Elijah did not have an affinity to Malachi.

“Who am I?” His voice booms into the night.

The question is for the soldiers, but I squeeze my eyes shut against the answer that screams inside my head. No, no, no … it cannot be.

A beat passes and then, one by one, the soldiers kneel, murmurs of “Your Highness” slipping from their lips.

I grit my teeth as I turn to regard my husband, my true love, the soul I have clung to for nearly three hundred years, the fog lifting as reality sinks in.

This was Malachi’s plan all along.

I do not dare utter the accusation, and yet I don’t need to. His lips peel back with a knowing smile. “Come, my queen, and we will rule everything together.”

3

Romeria

Dawn paints the sky in sweeping shades of pink lemonade and wisteria, ignorant of the blood that soaks the earth and the countless bodies that litter it.

“Is it over?” Adrenaline and fear have kept me standing all these hours, through a night that felt endless at times. Now my legs wobble and my arms hang limp. I’ve never been so tired in all my life, not even when I was living on the street and sleeping with one eye open, guarding against threats.

“For the moment.” Zander sidles up to me, his own breathing labored, his armor drenched in inky blood. He never left my side as each creature crawled out of the rift, carving through any that managed to escape the blades and arrows in the gory battle in front of us.

I graze a fingertip along the new silver line on his throat—a near-fatal strike by a wolflike beast who used the cover of a charging nethertaur to get too close. I healed him instantly with my key caster magic while battle raged around us.

Zander’s jaw tenses as he collects my hand and kisses my knuckles. A silent thank-you for saving his life, perhaps.

On the other side of him, Abarrane plunges her sword into a cloaked heap that I’m certain is already dead.

I shudder, recognizing the body as that of a hag—a horrid monster that walked upright as if human, but with the black eyes and gray skin of something undead. When I saw the first one appear last night, its layers of jagged teeth revealed with an ungodly shriek, I screamed and incinerated it with a bolt of fire. Five more emerged behind it, their stench burning my eyes. Zander piggybacked off my flame to dispatch them.

I’d rather face a grif than another of those.

“Most of these beasts prefer the cover of night. We’ll have the day to recuperate.” Jarek saunters over to a nethertaur’s corpse to wipe his blade across it, shedding clinging innards. Where Zander flanked my left, my faithful Legion commander slaughtered without mercy at my right. Now he looks like a movie poster for a wartime battle, his normally blond braids stained black.

“Are you telling me we’ll have to do this again tonight?” I shake my head, a touch of hysteria in my otherwise weak voice. Is there enough time to rest?

“Perhaps not. These beasts do not appreciate the stink of their own kind’s death, so they may be deterred. Eventually, they’ll find somewhere else to climb up.” He winces when he stands upright, pressing his palm against his side, a poor attempt to patch the gash where a beast tore through his warrior leathers and into his ribs.

“Jarek.” I reach for my affinities without thought so I can heal him, but there isn’t a single thread to grasp. The well has run dry after hours of launching flames and icicle arrows and stone bullets and everything else I could think of. At some point in the night, wielding my affinities became second nature, as innate as breathing. Now, without access to them, I feel naked.

“That thing moved faster than I expected.” He juts his chin at a small creature that reminds me of a hyena—only with blue skin and scales lining its spine. “Thankfully, its claws were unimpressive.”

“Impressive enough to cut you open,” I counter. “We can get you to a healer on the Ybarisan side—”

“I’m fine, Romeria. It’s just a scratch. Do not mother me.” Soot-colored eyes pierce me as he uses my first name rather than my title. He’s the only one who dares speak to me that way, especially in front of others. Jarek and I have always had an unorthodox relationship, but I appreciate it.

“There are many others, far worse off.” Zander waves his sword outward, drawing my attention to the gory scene.

With daylight breaking, I can finally grasp the carnage at the rift. Countless beasts lie in still heaps, while blood-covered soldiers—Islorian and Ybarisan alike—wander among them, giving an aimless kick here and a blade poke there as if to ensure the carcasses won’t revive.

There are also fallen soldiers in the mix.

My heart clenches as I scramble to search faces, but it’s impossible to discern people in helmets and blood. “Where is Elisaf? And Radomir? And … and—”

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