Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
“The bitch is on the field!” someone shouted.
My gaze jerked to the right. A soldier wheeled his horse around, his helmet with its tuft of red horsehair stained with blood. “Excuse me?”
The horse charged me, its nostrils flaring as its hooves kicked up soil.
A bolt of eather-laced shadows flowed past me, enveloping the soldier and his horse. In an instant, both were shimmery dust.
“Not the horse!” I cried out.
“Liessa…” Ash rose even higher, the churning eather spinning faster and faster. “Get ready.”
I felt the essence surging within me as my hand instinctively tightened around the sword’s hilt.
Before me, several soldiers whipped around. I held my breath and began to count. One. Two. The distraction cost them as their opponents from both sides struck them down. Three. Four—
Tendrils of shadowy eather snaked across the battlefield, sweeping over soldiers in red and weaving between those in black. The pounding echoes of death came so fast I couldn’t even begin to count how many fell as the torrents of eather continued on their way, carving out a path that left only Attes’s soldiers standing and…
Horses suddenly without riders.
My lips curved into a tight smile as I silently thanked Ash.
Then I saw them.
Attes and Kyn were on a hill, locked in a battle of swords and eather.
My chin dipped, and then I broke into a run, Attes’s armies turning to follow as a roar shook the land.
A draken dove from the thick clouds, releasing a stream of fiery eather. I swallowed a shout as I slowed, throwing up my arm to ward off the heat as silver flames erupted before me. Fire swept over soldiers, indiscriminately lighting up everything on the field as the sound of pounding hooves jerked my head up. Through the receding flames, I saw a line of horses bearing down on me.
“Motherfucker,” I spat, straightening as Aurelia arrived, her greenish-black scales bloody in some spots. She swooped down, digging her talons into the back of the other draken.
From the dying flames, a god lunged at me. Don’t take unnecessary risks, I repeated to myself. With a deft sidestep, I swung the sword around, deflecting the blow and pushing him back. Another soldier drove her sword through his back.
“Meyaah Liessa,” she said, wrenching her blade free.
“Hi!” I ran, leaping onto the ruins of a wall. I twisted, the sword arcing through the sky to pierce red armor, knocking a god off his horse. “Please don’t bow!”
I took off toward the battling Primals as I summoned eather, releasing a wave of essence that swept adversaries off their feet, clearing a small space amid the chaos.
Above, the sky roared with the fire of a new draken. Ehthawn. His wings blotted out the sun intermittently, casting moving shadows over the battlefield. He unleashed his flames, turning patches of the field into infernos that consumed both soil and flesh. Even as I shoved the blade through a god’s chest, I felt the heat on my face, the acrid smell of death and destruction lacing the air. I jumped from the wall as Ash landed, shadowy tendrils whipping out.
He and I surged forward, but it was different than before when I slipped away into battle. There was a pattern to how we moved, almost as if we were one. In the back of my mind, it made sense. We were two halves of the same whole, our movements nearly synchronized, punctuated by the thrust of my sword and the arc of his.
We wove through the combat with swift strikes and fluid defensive moves. Ash would maneuver a god to meet my sword, and I would kick another into his, each act a testament to our inherent understanding of each other.
But I knew there was a difference as I met fierce blows with the same strength and lashed out with the essence. When I fought before, I could always let go of my fear. I couldn’t this time. Each swing and thrust was tinged with bitter emotion. I wasn’t scared for myself or even Ash. I worried about the babes I carried inside me. My fear for them made each swing harder, every release of energy more violent. The fear didn’t make me a worse fighter.
It made me a far deadlier one.
Overhead, Aurelia tore through a draken’s throat, releasing him as he shifted into his mortal form and fell to the ground, only to be swallowed by the warring soldiers.
I drew in a stuttered breath as the pulse of death was a continuous throb in my chest. A wave of eather whipped out of Ash, slamming into the Dogs of War. The scent of burnt fur mingled with that of flesh as I shouted, swinging the blade down on a god’s head. Blood spurted, spraying the front of my tunic and face.
The death…
There was so much.
A sudden wrenching sensation in the center of my chest caused me to stagger. I cried out, clutching at my breast, expecting to see a bone blade or blood, but there was nothing there. The pain wasn’t really pain. It was more a dull ache but not a physical one. More like a loss…