Chapter 36 #2
Apollo crossed his arms, letting me add the particulars together.
I skewered him with an intense stare as I dared ask: Hyperion?
He unfolded his arms as his face dropped into something more like concern.
Hyperion, he signed back.
That doesn’t bode well for us. Not with half an army scattered across the ruins of a once-great city. Not without allies surrounding us, and the Strathian army either unaware this is even happening or unwilling to help us save their people.
How long until the other kingdoms join us? he asked.
Days at the earliest.
We’re on our own, then.
I nodded. We’re on our own.
Apollo straightened, his golden armour gleaming in the bright sunlight. Send me.
Send you where?
To deal with Hyperion.
Can you tell where he lurks?
Apollo nodded, pointing. Somewhere over in that quadrant.
Vel? I mentally asked my dragon.
Finally, she growled. As her wings flared and muscles coiled once more, I sent one final message to Apollo.
Save as many as you can. And send word to the Bloodhold.
I conjured a small black doorway beside him with a flick of my fingers, my attention already diverting to the section of Hellespont he’d indicated.
I didn’t look back to see if he, or anyone else did as I asked. I didn’t wait for his response, either.
Velira lurched forwards and upwards, her wings snapping thunderously as she worked to gain altitude. It took less than a minute for her to reach the city, but even her sharp dragon gaze could not discern where the Titan lord of light hid.
Perhaps we should have brought Apollo with us, Vel murmured.
Perhaps, I sent back. Or perhaps not. Have you noticed how this quadrant appears less damaged than the others?
Now that you mention it…
Land, Vel.
She loosed a jarring shriek, swooping down to alight in the middle of an earthen road. Despite our surroundings seemingly barely touched, the streets were deserted and the air tainted by the cloying scent of coals — and the metal of mortal blood.
What are you doing? she snarled as I unlatched the first then the second of the straps encircling each of my thighs.
Going where you can’t. I leaped from her back, landing nimbly on the ashen ground. The second my boots hit, my surroundings changed, and I was no longer on a clean street surrounded by whole buildings and scattered sunlight.
The road was stained black, both from blood and an inferno that still tore through the houses further down the row. Not a single building still stood. Each had been razed until barely any of its previous form was discernible through the haze of smoke.
I coughed as I strode forward — freezing when my boot crunched down on something that snapped audibly beneath it, too sharp to have been the crunch of gravel.
What is it? Vel snapped, sniffing. I can smell the devastation, but for some reason, am blocked from seeing it.
Horror clawed its way up my neck, lodging itself firmly in my throat so that even if I was able to find the words, I could not speak them.
Slowly, I lifted my foot and stepped back, dreading what I would find.
I was right to fear it. I was right to dread it. Because beneath my careless boot, was a length of bone: human, blackened and burned, too small to be anything other than a large child or small adolescent.
With no apparent warning, I twisted sharply and retched. Nothing but bile fled me, but the acid taste in my mouth would remain — reminding me of what we’d already lost, even should we win today’s battle.
And the odds of that were slim to none.
A deep resounding chuckle bounced off the rubble surrounding us.
My head snapped up, eyes darting around the ruins while Velira hissed, doing the same.
“You should run,” an unfamiliar male voice whispered into my right ear, startling the shit out of me. The invisible man cackled again, the sound grating against me like shattered glass — jarring, sharp, and altogether out of place.
A flicker of light glittered in my periphery but when I turned to look, it was gone — taunting me further on the edges of my vision. No matter where I glanced or how quickly I moved, the glint remained forever out of reach.
Stupidly distracted by the irritation of unattainable light like a grain of sand in my eyeball, I completely missed the danger right in front of me — not that I could see it anyway. I was catapulted back to my senses by the horrendous, ear-splitting shriek of a dragon’s pain.
Velira’s agony rocketed into my mind like an inferno, blocking everything else out so that I, too, was completely incapacitated by the wound to her chest.
Because there was a sword handle protruding from it, just below where her heart lay. Just inches from killing her and stealing yet another morsel of my soul.
And I could not afford to lose any more of it, lest I become that creature who plagued my nightmares.
With more effort that she should be able to muster, Vel closed off the link between us. With her agony forcibly severed from mine, she wailed. Her head lashed to and fro even as her feet stomped thunderously on the ground, shaking the rubble and creating more of it.
“Vel!” I shouted, bolting to her, unsure what to do to ease her pain.
With our link temporarily broken, she just cracked open an eyelid, silently imploring me to help.
And all the while that bone-aching cackle reverberated around us.
“This is gonna hurt,” I murmured, closing my hand around the hilt of the offending weapon. It was hot to the touch, and worn — grooved by hands much larger than mine.
She merely closed her eye again, whining and whimpering and crushing my damn heart in the process.
Without prolonging her torment, I yanked the blade out and leaped out of her way.
As predicted, she thrashed and stumbled, crushing everything miraculously left standing after her last outburst.
When I was no longer in danger of being crushed, I stepped forward, calling to her. “Vel!” I shouted until she heard me over the cacophony of her own wailing.
Ignoring the stickiness beneath my feet, knowing that it was pools of her precious crimson blood, I reached up, waiting until she gingerly placed her head against my palm. I eyed her.
“Go.”
A sad whine snaked past her enormous fangs.
I shook my head firmly. “Find Apollo. He will heal you. I’ll be fine. Go now, that’s an order!”
With a keening wail, she took to the skies. Her blood rained down in torrents with every beat of her trembling wings.
“Bold,” the disembodied voice said. “But foolish.”
And then the world was plunged into a darkness not of my own making.