Page 18 of Kissed By the Gods
Lyathin’s eyes narrow on me, and he opens his mouth to speak, but before he can get a word out, the air shifts and everyone on the tower looks up. Ryot pulls me back, dragging me toward the back wall of the tower. Einarr defers, too. He stepsback, head low, as another faravar comes in to land on the stone tower.
This beast is massive, even larger than Einarr. Its black coat is streaked with white; its feathered wings are frayed at the edges. Still, it lands with a force that makes the tower tremble.
Every man here—even the Archon—drops to one knee and bows their head.
But me? I raise my chin, my eyes taking in the old man on the back of the beast.
“The Kher’zenn is not a creature of mercy. It hungers for the living, devours the soul, and wears the faces of the dead. To meet its gaze is to invite death; to pity it is to invite ruin.”
Personal journals of Altor Serel in Year 129 of the Eternal Wars
CHAPTER EIGHT
The old manhas to be over a century if he’s a day. The skin on his face is loose and droops in wrinkles from his cheekbones. His hands are knotted and twisted, the joints clearly shot to all hells; white hair falls loose to his lower back, and a white beard comes to his mid-chest. His eyes remind me of a pond that’s been disturbed, the way the water gets cloudy until you can’t see the bottom. They used to be blue, I think, but now they’re so misted over with a white film you can’t quite make out the actual color or see his pupils. The eyes of the faravar he's on are the same. I would think they’re both blind, but they’re each staring directly at me.
“Elder,” Archon Lyathin begins, but the old man makes a deep sound in his throat that cuts him off. I almost scoff at the title—the banality of it seems like a joke.
The old man swings down with a fluidity that should be impossible for a person his age. He’s clothed in a black tunic, with billowing robes that hang from his shoulders and drag on the ground. He leans heavily on a simple, black cane. He does not speak to me. Instead, he reaches out a gnarled, scarred hand, placing it on his beast’s neck. The two—man and beast—take their next steps together, until the beast brushes his nose against the top of my head, nuzzling my hair and snorting in my face. My blood runs cold and sluggish in my veins, and my heart goes dangerously slow. Even though he’s kneeling next to me, Ryot still has one hand on my hip. I don’t know if it’s meant to hold me up or hold me back, but his grip tightens until it’s almost painful as the beast continues his perusal. Then the pair of them—the old man and the old beast—share a glance steeped in meaning and step back.
The old man turns, and when he speaks, his voice is like stone cracking, crumbling under the weight of time.
“You squabble like children,” he admonishes. The warriors go rigid, even Archon Lyathin. “You mock the gods’ will, as if your opinions have ever shaped fate. And in doing so, you have failed in youroneduty on this tower.”
Maxim stiffens. “We have failed nothing. Ryot failed at his mission and provoked the men. The girl is clearly?—”
The Elder laughs. But it, too, is not the sound of real amusement. It’s mocking, the sound of a man who has watched the men repeat the same mistakes countless times and has long since stopped being surprised. Like an exhausted mother with too many children.
“Then tell me—” the old man pauses to look up “—why none of you saw them coming?”
A shiver runs down my spine.
As a unit, every being—every man, every beast, even me—casts their gaze skyward. It’s quiet on the tower, quiet enough for the steady beat of wings on the wind to break through. But this is not the now-familiar sound of the beasts. This is stealthier. Smoother. The kind of flight that doesn’t wish to be heard; the kind that belongs to predators creeping through tall grass.
Ryot is the first one to jump up from his reverent kneel.
“Fuck!” he shouts. He shoves me to the ground. My knees crack as I land, scraping my palms on the rough stone. My scythe tumbles from my hands. Something stirs in the air around me—a shimmer, and a little blast of heat. It brushes against my skin, clinging to me.
Ryot calls his sword from the ground and stands, straddling me, as the clouds of the sun-streaked dawn open like jaws.
Shapes descend. Sleek. Translucent.
Too fast. Too silent.
They’re creatures with tails like whips and eyes glowing with violence; with wings like blades and forked tongues that dart like vipers. As if they can taste my fear on the wind, the creatures turn to me, the slits of their eyes narrowing on my sprawled form.
I’ve heard stories, of course. Everyone on the continent of Aesgroth has heard the tales of the Kher’zenn and their draegoths. But as the first of the eight draegoths lands on the tower silently, talons raking into the stone, I know.
The stories were wholly inadequate.
Another draegoth climbs up the tower wall behind me. It slithers over the side, instead of dropping from the heavens like the others. The pale-eyed, pale-haired Kher’zenn locks eyes with me. I open my mouth to shout a warning to Ryot, who is fully engaged in beating back the tide of draegoths that fell from the sky in front of me, but the Kher’zenn curls his ashen lips into a devastating smile.
The chaos around me fades to nothing. The shouting of the men and screaming of the faravars becomes muted. I barely notice the way the tower quakes when the beasts launch, their riders on their backs, to meet the draegoths in the air. I give little thought to the blood that pours from the sky like rain, coating my hair and sliding down my face in a warm baptism, as the Kher’zenn and the Altor clash overhead. I don’t even noticeRyot, not really, as he unleashes divine wrath with that sword of his.
I don’t grab my scythe, as a brave soul might when facing death. I don’t scramble for cover like a rational human. I don’t even clutch at Ryot’s legs like a terrified child.
