Page 450 of Of Empires and Dust

“How?” Ella repeated, staring at Tamzin.

“There!” She pointed towards a gateway that had just opened only a few feet away. “We need to get him back through to the waking world.”

Ella grabbed at Farda, but the man swatted her away. “Leave me! I can hear them… I can hear them calling…”

The wolf in Ella’s blood howled, and she felt it grab hold of her. She leaned down and thrust a shoulder into Farda’s chest, hauling him up over her back, her legs burning beneath her. She broke into a run, the strength of the wolf surging through her, a rage burning in her veins.

The shape of a man emerged in the gateway, his eyes white as snow. Ella drew on the wolf’s strength and launched herself at the man, hauling Farda on her shoulder. She crashed into the Starchaser, and all three of them hurtled back through the gateway.

In an instant, Ella was filled with a blinding pain, as though her soul was being ripped from her body.

About her, the fighting still raged. She was back in the waking world, but her body flickered, seeming to shift and change. She screamed, the agony burning through her. Then she saw herself standing with her hand on the trunk of the Ilyienë. Her true body.

Tamzin stood beside Ella’s body, Faenir, Kerith, and Tanner with her. The woman turned and found Ella.

Ella couldn’t hear a thing. All she saw was Tamzin screaming at her, face red, eyes wide.

The wolf within Ella howled and shrieked. Ella charged towards her physical body, feeling something pull at her with every step, trying to drag her away. A sword flashed before her face, then passed through as though she were not there. She kept moving until she crashed into herself, and the pain stopped, replaced by a shiver spreading from head to toe.

She gasped for air, stumbling backwards, Tamzin grabbing her.

“That was the most reckless thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Tamzin said, clasping Ella’s face in her hands. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”

The ground shook beneath Ella, and she turned her attention to where Bjorna and Fenryr smashed through the shattered remains of the terraces, chunks of stone tumbling into the streams that fed the central chamber.

A roar sounded over the ledge of the basin, resonating against the stone. A moment passed, and then the enormous frame of Sardakes appeared at the upper ledge and descended into the basin. The great black dragon spread his blue wings and hurled himself at Bjorna.

Sardakes smashed into the bear god, bit down into Bjorna’s shoulder, and ripped a chunk free. He threw Bjorna backwards and roared again, Fenryr standing beside him.

Without a thought, Ella reached her mind outwards, half of her floating in Níthianelle, half in the waking world. Her sight flickered between the vivid colours before her and the pale whites of the Sea of Spirits. She could feel Sardakes’s fury and his pain as clearly as she felt her own.

For a moment it looked as though Bjorna would charge into both Fenryr and the dragon, but the bear god stopped and stared up at something behind Ella.

There, at the top of the basin, standing on the ledge where a waterfall crashed down, was a stag larger than Valerys, its antlers black as coal, its fur white as sun-bleached bone.

“Dvalin…” Tamzin whispered. “All the Danuan have awoken.”

Fenryr looked to Dvalin, then turned back to Bjorna. “What say you now, brother?”

Glistening white blood poured from wounds all about Bjorna’s body, but even still, he looked as though he could tear through a mountain. The bear god stared at Fenryr for a fewmoments. A cloud of green and black smoke swirled around him, shifting and changing, until the largest man Ella had ever seen stood where the monstrous god had been.

“I’ve missed our battles, brother,” Bjorna called out, his voice carrying in the broken basin of shattered terraces. “Let’s not leave it so long.”

A white light came to life behind Bjorna, spreading into a portal that showed a vast mountain on the other side. The god stepped through, and the portal collapsed behind him. Three more portals appeared across the central platform and the remaining Bjorna Angan and druids fled, leaving their dead behind. The surviving Vethnir druids did the same, their Angan already dead alongside their god.

Ella collapsed to the ground, her head resting against the trunk of the Ilyienë. From where she sat, she could see Farda’s chest rising and falling in steady sweeps, and in her mind’s eye, all she saw was her mother’s face.

Chapter 103

The Necessary Path

27thDay of the Blood Moon

Western villages of Illyanara – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

The lightof the morning sun shone over the peaks of Wolfpine Ridge in the distance, glowing bright across the treeline of Ölm Forest. Calen and the others had set out on horseback at sunrise, Valerys soaring overhead. He had asked Tivar to remain at Salme to watch over the city with Avandeer and Varthear. Tivar and Avandeer agreed, Varthear however had other intentions.

The great blue dragon followed Valerys, vermillion wings pale and glowing in the morning light.

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