Page 97 of Shadowlands Omega

And it’s in the midst of my and Brega’s shared stamping and huffing that I happen to glance west. In the distance, somewhere shining over the cliffs, an errant burst of sunlight filters down through the dense cloud cover. I saw the sun too few times as a boy.

Looking at Paradise Hole, I’ve thought so often that ruin has come beneath my rule. That that is all I will leave behind. A legacy lost when the last Shadow Lord gave up his crown. I have worried often that I am not the Lord I thought I was — that he saw in me.

But looking at the sun? I have seen it shine in the presence of Fallen Omegas more than I have ever seen it in my life. I have seen it shine on Kiandah. I have seen it shine through her and it brings me the belief that perhaps, I am not a fallen Lord. Perhaps, it is a Fallen Omega who will help me shape a new legacy. I exhale, feeling calmer. I pat Brega’s mane as he too calms beneath me.

Jesùs clears his throat. “My Lord?”

“A moment.”

“I am not in a rush.”

“Then what is it?”

“I wondered merely if the Red Moon Festival would still be taking place in light of recent events?”

“The red moon will rise in a little over a week. That is enough time,” I say, but time enough for what? For me to raze Trash City and send the Fates and their dead army back to the underworld where they belong? Or for me to fuck it all, ignore her honor and simply throw her down and bond her?It isn’t enough time for any of that.And I wanted to honor her.Fuck honor. Throw her down and bond her…

“That’s good, my Lord. Very good. Dorsten’s and Hector’s packs were right then.”

“What?” Three more of my guard are visible now at the mouth of the Night Market. They are the last to return. We will be off, then.

He gives me a hesitant glance from the corner of his eye. “Uh…I only meant, for the packs that will vie for her. I heard rumors, rumblings that there were a few…preparing…in case it did happen at the next red moon.”

I cannot control my reaction, which is a problem for me. This whole thing is a fucking problem. I should have just fucking bonded her. Fuck her honor. Fuck the Fates. Fuck everything.

I snap Brega’s reins and steer him towards the docks where six large ships and many smaller ones remain tied up. There is a larger marina on the eastern side of the ports, but these ships are meant for the North Island. Now, they are simply idling, their wares being offloaded lest they spoil.

I frown as I look across Zaoul. His dark and murky waters hide many secrets, none greater than the question of how the undead are creeping onto our borders. We have yet to source the ships that brought them here. Perhaps, they were destroyed or burned and lie now on the bottom of the sea floor. It would be little effort for the Fire Fate to dismantle them. I have seen her in action. Her face so similar to Kiandah’s, her power so much more visible. But not greater. Oh no, her power is not greater.

I tilt my head to the side, my eyes unfocusing as Brega shuffles to the very end of an empty dock, his hooves clattering over the sea-salt-encrusted wooden planks. I think of the fire I saw from the Fate. It always came in bursts of red and orange. But everyone knows that the flame is hottest at its center where it shines the color of the clearest sky.

A bird caws overhead. Nothing new, but the sound becomes annoyingly persistent.

“Lord Yaron, we are ready to depart!” Leonard, a Beta and one of my Crimson Riders, shouts at me from the foot of the dock. His horse is braying almost uncontrollably and I can feel the trembling of Brega’s muscles beneath my legs. I frown.

“Calm that horse, Leonard.”

“Apologies, my Lord. All of the horses are agitated.” He points back towards where my guard remains clustered, about fifteen Beta men and women wearing cloaks that, at this moment, appear rather silly. They look like children attempting to control unruly horses on their very first rides.

I frown and open my mouth, but the bird caws once again. And then again and again, swooping lower before flying higher once again. “Fucking…” I turn and look up at the dark sky, which silhouettes this bird in sharp relief. Only, it isn’t one bird, it’s a dozen, and they’rehuge.Larger birds than any I’ve ever seen. They have faces like owls and shine all in white. Bright white.

And when they dive, they dive as one.

A dawning realization only catches up to my reality when the birds crash in the center of the dock between Leonard and me. The pile of feathers congeals, bone and beak fusing together until a female form rises up from the mass that once was. Leonard has not met this female before and draws his sword while Jesús charges forward, calling for him to stand down. He and I have fought alongside this Omega before.

While Jesús explains to my other Riders who she is, she looks only to me. The female with the white skin and the white hair and the painfully light eyes has blood on her mouth that drips down her chin and jaw and neck. She lifts a thin arm and points to the sea. “Call your army. They have come.”

I turn as the world hangs on a pronounced and pregnant silence. The sea continues to lap and froth, charging in the directions Zaoul directs it. The boats continue to rock. I stare out at the horizon, against which I can only see the faintest outline of land far, far off in the distance, and only through the eyes of my beast.

“Freya, speak plainly.” Panic-fueled rage laces my words.

Freya’s frustration with me is clear in her tone, which rises to an inhuman screech. She advances on me, coming to tower over the top of my head on the knobby legs of a giraffe with a white pelt. Her bloody mouth distends and I am left looking into her black maw as she grabs me by the collar of my shirt and shakes me with the arms of a gorilla.

“They are here!”

Brega is calm. He responds to her dominance with a submission I have not seen him show anyone before. Freya and I stare one another down as I seek out the answers to my questions in her nightmarish eyes. Her face reforms to that of a human — in her case, a Fallen Omega’s — and she hisses out a final whisper, “The water.”

My lungs inflate, the air tasting of salt from the sea. I haul back on Brega’s reins and wheel him around to charge down the dock. Halfway there, I hear the boards of the dock explode apart. Brega lifts his front hooves and when he falls back to the rickety floorboards, I watch as an undead male soaked in sea water drags himself up onto the dock. He reaches for me, bones protruding from his arm.

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