102. Loyalty Above All
Chapter 102
Loyalty Above All
27 th Day of the Blood Moon
Tahír un Ilyien?, Aravell – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Farda had reached the entranceway to the Tahír un Ilyien? when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him, followed by a fist slamming into his face.
He staggered backwards from the force, nose crunching, the taste of blood in his mouth.
“Go near her again, and I swear it will be the last thing you do.” Tanner Fjorn stood before Farda, a black tunic draped over his excessively large frame.
“I’d rather not hurt you, Tanner.” Without a thought, Farda’s hand fell to his pocket, his fingers clenching into a fist when he remembered the coin wasn’t there. I am the master of my own fate.
Tanner glared at Farda, his hands clenched into fists, knuckles pale. “I don’t have the same problem.”
Farda stood straight, wiping the blood from his nose, then turned. Tanner grabbed his arm again, wrapped a hand around his throat, and heaved him against the wall of the tunnel, drawing a gasp from a cluster of passing elves.
Farda stared into Tanner’s eyes as the man held him in place.
“Is the pain you’ve caused her not enough? What more do you want?”
“I want nothing from her.”
“Then stay the fuck away from her, Kyrana. Am I clear?”
“I can’t.” Farda glanced down, allowing Tanner’s gaze to follow his towards the knife he held against the man’s side. Farda could have simply used the Spark, but he truly didn’t want to hurt Tanner. There was no sense in it. He just wanted the man to fuck off.
Tanner looked down at the blade, then back up at Farda, his grip not loosening. The man turned his head at the sound of snarls coming from within the basin.
Faenir.
Tanner let go of Farda’s throat, and both men sprinted back into the Tahír un Ilyien? and over the nearest bridge.
Elves were scattered around the central platform, all staring at Faenir, who stood beside Ella, hackles raised, snapping and snarling at anyone who came close.
The two Angan both stood a few feet from Ella, unmoving, eyes closed, while the druid that had been following her around like a sick puppy – Sennik – had his hand out, trying to calm Faenir, his black wolf standing between the two.
“What’s happened?” Farda brushed past Sennik and then past Faenir, who barely gave him a passing glance. Ella’s eyes were open and white as snow.
A voice sounded behind him, deep and unwavering. “She has entered Níthianelle after explicit instruction not to.”
The man who stood behind Farda was tall and lean, his hair and beard a deep gold. Farda had seen him many times in the Eyrie and in Alura itself. “She is her mother’s daughter.”
Ella drew her breaths in slowly, the sound of waterfalls crashing in the back of her mind. Her hand rested on the enormous trunk of the Ilyien? tree before her, white mist drifting from its surface, the leaves glowing in a vast array of colours. “Mam? Please…”
“You listen as well as she does.”
Ella had sensed Fenryr’s presence before she’d heard his voice, her hackles rising, the wolf within her dipping its head. She turned to see him standing behind her, his body wreathed in black and gold smoke, eyes shimmering. Aneera and Luteir stood with him in their wolf forms, taller than any true wolf and wide as bears, smoke drifting from their bodies. Sennik was there too, watching her.
The entire terraced basin was empty save for small spheres of light flitting between the branches of the tree.
“I’m not going back,” Ella said, pulling her hand from the tree and turning to face Fenryr. “Not without finding her.”
“Your mother is dead, Ella. I felt her die.”
“I don’t care what you felt. I’ve heard her… I’ve seen her. She is here. I know it.”
Fenryr took a step forwards, the smoke shifting around him as he moved. “To learn to navigate Níthianelle takes years, my child.”
“I am not your child.”
“Every moment you spend in this place,” he said, ignoring her, “your scent drifts on the winds. Vethnir and Bjorna are not blind. They know the world is changing. They know I have left my den and that Kaygan weaves his webs. They hunt us. And these trees,” Fenryr said, placing a palm on the bark of the Ilyien?, “are a magic older than time. They are a bridge of souls… they are a signal fire in the night.”
“And what should we do? Cower? Run with our tails between our legs? Are we not wolves? Are we not the hunters?”
The words seemed to wound Fenryr, his lip rising in a snarl to reveal glistening fangs. Ella pushed harder.
“You are a god . You showed me our past, showed me the world as it once was. You keep saying how you are done hiding, yet all you want to do is hide. Let them come!” Ella roared. She looked about the ghostly basin of stone terraces, watching more Fenryr Angan appear, their bodies wisping grey and black smoke. She saw others too, Dvalin Angan with obsidian antlers and white fur phasing into existence, all watching.
“You speak with?—”
“The arrogance born of youth, I know. But my mam is here. I have felt her, I have seen her, and, god or no, if you keep me from her, I will tear you apart.”
“I can guide her.” Ella turned to see Tamzin standing beside her, the woman’s eyes gleaming a deep blue, her twin axes looped at her belt.
“She is a Blooddancer of Fenryr,” Sennik snapped. “She is no kat. I will guide her.”
“You couldn’t guide a blind pig to slaughter if your balls were slathered in cheese.” Tamzin looked back at Ella. “Understand this. When you reach out in Níthianelle, the entire realm can hear you. It is one thing to move through this place in silence. It is another to scream at the top of your lungs.”
“I will take my chances.”
“It is not just you who is at risk. Everyone here,” she gestured around at the others. “And those in the mortal plane. I do not know what Gifts Bjorna’s and Vethnir’s Tuatha possess. This war between our clans has been cold as ice for centuries, because we have hidden and because we all fear what we do not know.” Tamzin looked up at the Ilyien?. “This tree is something beyond what I understand. It is an anchor, an amplifier. If your mother is here, she will hear you. She just won’t be the only one.”
Fenryr looked at Ella, his eyes misting with golden light. Under the weight of the wolf god’s stare, Ella’s blood seemed to burn with fire, and the wolf within her snapped and snarled and thrashed, until eventually it whimpered, and Ella drew in a sharp breath. She could feel Fenryr’s hands in her mind, in her soul. “What… what are you doing?”
Fenryr released his hold, and Ella dropped to her knees. “Searching. You truly believe your mother is still here.”
It wasn’t a question.
“She is alive.”
“Loyalty above all,” Fenryr whispered. He turned to Tamzin. “Where is your Bloodfather?”
She shook her head. “Wherever he needs to be. He does not tell me his every step.”
“He does not tell himself… And he always seems to go missing precisely when he is needed.” Fenryr drew a long breath, his gaze moving from Tamzin to Ella, then back. “I am trusting you, kat.”
“And I am trusting you.”
Fenryr helped Ella to her feet. “If we use this tree to reach out through Níthianelle, the others will come. It will cost lives.” He looked into her eyes. “Your father freed me from my chains. He risked everything to do so. And so I will stand with you in this.” The god nodded slowly, looking down at his feet. “And you speak true. I have been more words than actions. Let Bjorna and Vethnir come. Let them remember the power of the wolf.” He drew a long breath. “Let it be done. I will not leave one of my pack behind. If your mother roams this place, we will find her. Loyalty above all.”
Tamzin placed her hands on Ella’s shoulders. “This will not be like before. Before, we were constantly in motion, moving quietly, not disturbing the aether. Now we will be lighting a fire on a mountainside in the dark of night. Vethnir hunters will come, Bjorna, wraiths. The hungry will find their food. I am not trying to dissuade you. That would be like trying to shift a mountain. I just want you to understand. We do not call out in the Sea of Spirits for a reason. When we do, it has a cost.”
“I understand.”
“In this plane and the waking world. If the Vethnir are close or they have a Starchaser amongst them… Is it worth it?”
“I will do this, with or without you.”
Tamzin nodded and squeezed Ella’s shoulders. “Close your eyes. And listen to my voice.”
Ella did as she was told, feeling the beating of her heart alongside that of the Ilyien?, Faenir beside her in the waking world.
“There are… layers… to Níthianelle. Planes of existence wrapped around each other and buried within. Souls can drift between them, and Blooddancers can walk them. If your mother is here and Fenryr cannot sense her, she will be hidden within their depths. That night you thought you saw your mother, you were dreaming. What were you dreaming of?”
“A time when I was a child.”
“Take me back to that memory. To that moment. To what you were feeling at that exact moment.”
Ella nodded and closed her eyes. Her home took shape around her, the fire crackling, the smell of stew clinging to the air.
“Ella, could you fetch me a wooden spoon?” Freis’s voice echoed.
“Can you tell us the story of Cassian Tal?” Calen’s voice followed.
“ Not again .” Ella remembered being irritated. Calen had always asked for the same stories, the tales of Cassian Tal, of the man who slew Durin Longfang and Taran Shadesmire. Another lie from their parents. But Ella would have given the entire world just to hear her dad tell those stories again, more of those lies, just to hear his voice.
“Maybe a different one?” Freis’s voice called out again and again. “Maybe a different one? Maybe a different one?”
“I can hear her,” Ella whispered. As she did, white smoke swirled before her and took her mother’s shape, and that of Calen’s and Haem’s and their dad’s. “I can see them. They’re right there.”
Ella watched as her parents sat by the fire, Ella, Calen, and Haem beside them, and their father told story after story. As she watched, her mam’s eyes flickered, and she stared at Ella.
Ella’s skin goosefleshed. “Mam?” She tried to hug her mam, but Freis vanished in a wisp of smoke. “Mam!” Ella screamed, panic in her veins. “Mam!”
“Don’t linger,” Tamzin’s voice echoed in Ella’s mind, her hands squeezing tighter on Ella’s shoulder. “Don’t let yourself become lost. Hear my voice, feel the soul of the tree, let it anchor you. This memory will try and hold you. Don’t let it.”
A deep laugh sounded behind Ella. “Arrogant or stupid, Wolfchild?”
Ella knew the voice, the wolf in her blood snarling as she turned.
The man who had hunted her in Níthianelle before stood in her home, his grey hair falling over his shoulders, his eyes sharp and yellow. Six more stood with him, a mixture of men and women and three Angan in the forms of giant hawks, brown and white smoke misting from their figures.
Ella snapped her eyes open, seeing Tamzin before her. She once again stood in the Tahír un Ilyien? beneath the white light of Níthianelle. “They’re here.”
A scream sounded over her shoulder, and Ella turned to see Fenryr standing some twenty feet tall, his body covered in black and gold fur, his face a blend of wolf and man. The god ripped his claws through a giant hawk, tearing it into three pieces that hit the ground with wisps of smoke and vanished. A ripple swept through Ella, a shiver over her skin, a feeling of dread in her bones.
All about the platform, Angan and druids tore at each other. The other druids of Fenryr had arrived and stood beside the Fenryr Angan. There were far more Vethnir Angan and druids than those of the wolf god, but Fenryr himself carved through them as though they were nothing.
“Keep going,” Fenryr snarled, his golden eyes fixing on Ella. “They know we are here now. They know I am here. Find her.”
Tamzin squeezed Ella’s shoulders. “Close your eyes.”
Farda ripped his sword from its scabbard at the sight of one of the Fenryr Angan dropping to the ground, blood spurting from a wound in its throat that seemed to form of its own volition. “What in the gods?”
Beside him, Tanner did the same, the rasp of steel ringing out. The elves who had occupied the platform with them had all run, screaming. Except for two Rakina, Willam and Ah-aela, who both opened themselves to the Spark at the sight of the dead Angan.
And yet nothing else moved. No attack came.
Farda dropped to one knee and ran his finger along the wound in the Angan’s throat, blood coating his skin. “What is happening?”
A chilling scream pierced the air, and Farda snapped his head around to see a druid’s body sliced in two across the navel, blood and innards spilling out, the two halves hitting the stone with a thump. He leapt to his feet, dropping into Howling Wolf.
“Kyrana, what in the fuck is going on?” Tanner stood to Farda’s left, eyes scanning the enormous basin.
“Do I look like I have the slightest idea?”
“They’re here,” Sennik – the Aldruid – said, his eyes closed, that massive black wolf snarling at his side. “Ready yourselves.”
“I’ll get the others!” Willam called, sprinting towards the bridge.
As he ran, a white orb burst into life in his path and spread outwards into some sort of doorway. A vast mountainscape stood on the other side. A man stepped through, twice as tall as Tanner and broad as a bull. He roared and rammed his fist through Willam’s gut, spreading his fingers as they burst through the man’s back, blood dripping.
“Brother!” the man roared, a monstrous grin stretching his lips. “I’ve been looking for you!”
Ella was back in her home, in The Glade, but the memory was not hers. Throngs of people were gathered around her home, faces she knew: Marlo Egon, Jorvill Ehrnin, Anya Gritten, Erdhardt Hammersmith, and so many others.
All of them stood around a circle of Lorian soldiers. Ella shoved through, white mist rising as she slipped to the front. “Mam… Dad…”
Ella’s parents stood at the centre alongside Calen and two men… Farda.
The man beside Farda was touching his cheek, and her dad glared at him.
“Put a sword in my hand and show me who you are,” Vars said.
Ella screamed as the man leapt forwards. She felt that same shift in the air she did when mages tried to wield their magic, and she saw her dad’s hands start to move and then freeze as the man’s sword pierced his chest.
“Dad!”
A shiver ran through Ella’s spine as her mam’s neck twisted and white eyes stared into hers. The world erupted in a cloud of smoke, then resettled as Freis leapt at Farda and the man sent her smashing through the wall of their home. Seconds later, the entire structure burst into flames.
Ella roared and charged, pushing through the crowd. To her left, Farda raised his sword over Calen and stopped when he saw her, his eyes staring into her soul. An arrow sliced through his arm, white blood spraying, and Ella darted into the flames of her home.
Farda brought his blade down with a crunch into the neck of a hawk large enough to pick up a horse. Blood spurted, and brittle bones gave way. The Angan screamed and thrashed, its talons slicing through Farda’s shirt and gouging the flesh beneath.
Faenir crashed into the creature’s chest, ripping and tearing, bloodied feathers and chunks of flesh coming away in his teeth. He brought the Angan to the ground and tore at its throat, thrashing his head left and right until the creature’s shrieks died.
The wolfpine stood over the dead Angan and howled, blood dripping from his jaws.
A monstrosity of a man charged at Faenir, and the wolfpine turned and snarled, ready to leap, but Tanner swept across him and drove a sword through the man’s skull, twisting the blade at the end. The druid went limp and dropped as Tanner pulled the sword free.
All three of them stood around Ella and Tamzin, who were frozen like statues, their eyes pure white.
Farda had seen many things across the centuries, but nothing like this.
Before him, wolves and bears and hawks – all far larger than they had a right to be – ripped each other to pieces, drenching the entire platform in blood and scattering body parts.
Here and there, druids and Angan dropped dead without a blade touching them, and at the centre of it all, two gods collided.
A wolf and a bear both as large as dragons smashed each other through the stone terraces of the basin, tearing strips of flesh from one another, the ground shaking beneath their weight.
Elven warriors rushed through the entrance, bows and swords in hand, gawking at the carnage within the basin.
Portals opened from thin air, showing a world of misty white on the other side, druids and Angan stepping through. Farda could see a battle raging beyond the portals, as though the fighting were happening in two worlds at one time.
In that moment, he heard something: Ella screaming, pain etched into her voice. The sound of it sent a shiver through him. He stared at the nearest portal, then back at Ella.
Farda grabbed Tanner’s arm. “Protect her with your life.”
“Always,” Tanner answered.
Farda broke into a sprint, sliding across the stone as a bear large enough to bite a horse in half charged across his path. He slid beneath the creature, then wove threads of Air into a ball in his hand and slammed it down. Farda spun as he rose, the Air propelling him, his blade carving through the bear’s leg.
The sword cut clean, blood streaming in its wake, and the bear collapsed on its side, howling and kicking.
Farda carried on into a sprint in the same motion and leapt through the portal before it collapsed behind him.
His entire body went cold as ice, his heartbeat thumping in his veins, every hair on his body standing on end. He stood in the same place, in the Tahír un Ilyien?, the Ilyien? tree looming over him. But here its leaves glowed with variegated light, shimmering and pulsing.
Tanner was gone, as were Faenir and the other wolves, and Ah-aela, but the Angan, the druids, and the two gods fought here with an even greater savagery. White mist trailed every movement, black, gold, and grey smoke shrouding the battling warriors.
The two gods were titans, two hundred feet tall, white blood spilling like rain. They stood on two legs, their faces looking part bear and wolf, part man.
Farda had never felt so insignificant, so powerless.
A shriek sounded above, and Farda lifted his head to see a hawk so large it covered the sky. The creature swooped down and latched its talons into the back of the wolf god, gold smoke pluming as white blood spilled.
Through it all, Farda saw Ella and Tamzin, two Fenryr Angan standing guard over them. He ran, his entire body feeling as though he’d dropped himself into a lake, his skin cold, veins cold, bones cold. This place did not want him. And yet, there was something more here. As though he were that little bit closer to being whole.
Ella stood with her eyes closed, hands grasping Tamzin’s wrists while Tamzin’s palms were flat on Ella’s shoulders.
Tamzin’s eyes narrowed as she saw Farda, her pupils sharpening to black slits. “You should not be here.”
“Well, I am.”
“You don’t understand,” Tamzin said, glancing back at Ella. “Souls like yours were not meant for Níthianelle. Mortal souls should not walk this place, let alone souls that are shattered.”
Farda looked down at his hands and realised cracks spread through his body like a dropped vase, gleaming light slipping through the gaps.
“Listen to me.”
“MAM!” Ella shrieked, her eyes still closed, her fingers visibly tightening around Tamzin’s wrists.
“What is happening?”
“Let’s have a chat about it when we’re not all close to death. For now, listen. Think of something in the mortal plane, something that grounds you, that anchors you… something you can hold on to. If you don’t, you will lose yourself here. Do that, turn around, and cut down anything that comes near us.”
Farda nodded, then turned. He drew a slow breath, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword. In his mind, he pictured Ella standing with her hand on the tree. He would not let any harm come to her. He would be her shield.
A man with the shoulders of an ox charged at him, a Bjorna Angan at his side. Two Fenryr Angan leapt at the Bjorna, and Farda threw himself at the druid, his sword slicing through flesh and bone.
I will be the man I was. I will be worthy of her again.
Ella stood in the blazing white flames, the sound of crackling wood like thunder in her ears.
“Mam!”
She raised a hand over her eyes, the light blinding. She wanted to run, to pull herself from Níthianelle, to fight with the others, but the wolf within her howled in defiance. Its hackles rose, and the world shifted once more, and Ella stood on the front steps of her home. The flames were gone.
Her mam stood before her in the garden, staring wide-eyed. They both remained still for a brief moment, as though neither believed the other was real. And then they crashed together.
Ella squeezed her mam with every drop of strength she could find, clasping her hands together at Freis’s back, fingers interlocking. She would not be ripped away again. She would not lose her mam again.
“My sweet girl,” Freis whispered. “My sweet, sweet girl.”
The sound of her mam’s voice sent a tremble through Ella, her hands shaking, her mouth unable to form words. Real or not, she never wanted to leave that moment.
“I’m here, Ella.” Freis ran a hand through Ella’s hair, her fingers pressing into the back of Ella’s head.
“You’re alive?” Ella pulled away and looked over her mam’s face. “This is real? You’re real? You’re here?”
Freis nodded. “I’m here. This is real. I’m real.”
“How? I saw you die… Calen saw you die… You… You…” Ella’s words kept catching in her throat, her breaths cut short by tears.
“I saw a thousand thousand futures, my girl. I looked through the stars and beyond, and on every path where your dad and I lived, you and your brothers died.” Freis stroked Ella’s cheek as though she might break. “We had no choice. There was no choice. Your dad and I agreed. Your lives above ours, always. But there are some things even Pathfinders can’t see.”
“How are you here? How are you alive?” Ella looked over her mam from head to toe as though expecting to find some crack or imperfection, some sign that this was all a dream, all some twisted piece of Níthianelle.
Freis smiled, continuing to stroke Ella’s cheek. “You have become such a woman.” Her mother puffed out her cheeks, tears glistening in her eyes. “Such a strong, fierce woman. There is so much to tell.”
“Come with me, now, come with me… please.”
The smile on Freis’s lips curled downwards. “I have followed you from the moment you set foot in this place. Watched you as closely as I could.”
“It was you,” Ella whispered, thinking back to when something had scared that Vethnir hunter away and saved her life.
Freis nodded. “I’ve been here for a long time… But I’ve not always been me. With each day, we see more, we feel more. And we understand. We… there are rules, Ella. Laws, oaths that cannot be so easily broken… but can be bent, twisted.”
“You’re not making any sense. What rules? What do you mean ‘ we’ ?”
Freis brushed a strand of Ella’s hair from her face. “Freis should have died…” Her mother stopped herself, her lips moving without sound, eyes staring into the distance for a moment. “ I should have died. On every path, I died. I needed to die for you to live. She saved me. She took me from death as I straddled the veil between worlds… She stretched the oaths to breaking.”
“Who saved you? Mam, what’s happening?”
“Elyara… I am her… We are…” As Freis looked at Ella, her eyes glowed with a brilliant white light and her voice shifted. The sound of Freis Bryer was gone. “There are oaths, young one. Oaths sworn millennia ago. To cross to the mortal world would have ripples… But to be here, in the folds of space and time, my kin never forbade that. To splinter myself between planes. To find a soul that could bear my own, one that could see how I see, to bind it to my own in this world… A soul that would charge towards its own doom, knowing the end and facing it anyway. I knew Efialtír was scheming, and I could not allow him free rein while the others sat and watched. I simply could not.”
Ella stepped back, unable to look away from her mam. Elyara. The Maiden. “What are you?”
The voice shifted again, like two layered atop one another. “We are Freis, and we are Elyara. We are both.” Freis’s voice vanished once more. “Efialtír seeks to cross into your world. Many of my kin do not see the danger. They hold to the old oaths, oaths sworn with a purpose but ultimately flawed. If he crosses, we must be ready to fight. But to take form in the mortal plane would cost me half.”
“Half of what?”
“Everything.” Freis stared into Ella’s eyes. “There may come a day soon where that sacrifice will be necessary, but we must bide our time. I can do more from here at this moment. I care for this world and I will not let him burn it.”
A searing pain raked across Ella’s back, and she lurched forwards, howling.
The light in Elyara’s eyes vanished, and Freis’s voice returned. “Ella!”
Freis wrapped her arms around Ella, her fingers coming away coated in glistening white blood.
Ella felt something tug at her, Tamzin’s voice booming in her ears. “ELLA! Come back to us!”
The world around Ella began to collapse, and she reached out her hand, grasping for Freis.
“No!” Freis shouted. She grabbed hold of Ella, hands clasping Ella’s shoulders. “I am here. I will never leave you. Your brother?”
“They’re alive,” Ella said, nodding frantically, Tamzin’s voice clawing at the back of her mind.
“They?” Freis’s mouth dropped open, her eyes widening, voice cracking. “Haem? He’s alive? How?”
“He’s alive, Mam. He came back to us.”
“My boy…” Freis’s eyes glistened, white light shimmering in her tears.
“Ella!” Tamzin’s voice thundered again, and Ella’s fingers slipped through Freis’s.
“Mam, no!” Ella felt herself pulling away.
“I’m here, Ella. I won’t leave you.”
Everything collapsed in on itself in a plume of swirling smoke, and Ella once more stood in Níthianelle’s mirror of Tahír un Ilyien?.
Screams and shouts and howls sounded all around her, Angan and druids battling.
A host of Aldithmar swarmed down the terraces, black smoke swirling around them. They tore through the Bjorna and Vethnir Angan, dark claws rending.
“Ella, can you fight?” Tamzin held Ella’s face, staring into her eyes, white blood smeared across her.
Ella nodded, her mind swirling with a blend of loss, confusion, anger, and sorrow. The wolf within her snapped and snarled, furious to be torn from Freis.
Her eyes fell on something she could not understand. Farda knelt in front of her, his sword buried in the gut of an enormous bear, his shirt and trousers in tatters, white blood streaming from a hundred cuts. He ripped his blade free, then stood and cut down a woman who charged at him with gleaming green eyes, her shoulders as dense and muscled as Haem’s.
Bodies lay all around him, the ground slick with white blood. Farda turned to her, grimacing and limping on one leg. “Are you hurt?”
Ella shook her head. She could feel the pain in her back where something had raked its claws across her, but she would live. Farda looked like he wouldn’t.
“We need to leave this place,” Tamzin said, looking about her. “The Bjorna and Vethnir have too many Angan, and they are too strong here.”
A roar like booming thunder rang out, and Ella spun to see Fenryr standing like a mountain, his claws buried in an enormous hawk, the branches of the Ilyien? tree bowing around him. The god roared again, his eyes gleaming with golden light, and the hawk’s body split, tearing from neck to feet, white blood streaming in rivers.
Shrieks rang all about, and Vethnir Angan dropped from the sky, smashing into the ground, lifeless.
Fenryr held the two pieces of Vethnir in the air and stared at a god that Ella knew could only be Bjorna. “You wanted me, brother. Here I am!”
He dropped the pieces of the dead god and lunged at Bjorna.
Ella stared in awe as the gods went to war. She pulled her gaze away, looking from Tamzin to Farda. “How do we get him out of here?”
“Leave me.” Farda dropped to one knee, his sword skittering against the ground in a plume of white mist.
“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 Ilyien?. 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 few moments. 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 Ilyien?. 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.