Chapter 32 Dianna
DIANNA
I stumbled as we landed on a vast, barren hillside. I coughed, my lungs threatening to burst from whatever the fuck he’d just taken me through.
Unir shifted next to me, darkness swirling around his feet. I hissed and whipped my hand out, claws extended. “You bastard,” I snarled, my hand sweeping through him. He glanced down with a look of pure, tolerant amusement. “What have you done? Where did you take me?”
“Away from Samkiel,” he said. “It seems my son’s attachment to you is hindering my efforts to gain the knowledge I need.”
“What does that mean?”
Unir didn’t answer. Instead, he swept his eyes over me assessingly, looking for something.
“Stop staring!” I snapped.
“My apologies.” He forced a small smile. “You just … are not what I expected. You are his amata. I felt it in the ferociousness he exhibited. I thought you’d be taller, perhaps? More muscular? Or just … more?”
“Hey!” I snapped.
“Perhaps, blonde?” he said. “Or male.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Unir shrugged. “No disappointment. Your demeanor and the confidence you wield make you his match. I am happy he has found you.”
My lip curled. “Oh, yeah? Then why not take me back to him, huh?”
“I cannot.”
I took a step forward and the grass around my feet sizzled, proving I was too close, far too close to losing my temper and attacking my father-in-law. “I don’t know what they did on Rashearim in ancient times or what happens after you die, but you cannot just kidnap people, Unir.”
Unir, dead or not, did not back down. It reminded me so much of Samkiel, and I was desperate to get back to him.
Unir’s dark brows drew together, Death’s misty shadows whipping around him.
They licked at him as if trying to find a way in, but each time retreated as if burned, fire meeting the icy kiss of death.
I understood exactly how it felt, and I knew fire had lived in me long before Kaden and my Ig’Morruthen form.
“You’re upset. I understand.” Unir said. “I merely need to speak to Gathrriel. He fled the same afterlife you speak of, inhabited your body, and I have questions that need answering.”
My head whipped back. “What does that mean?”
He waved his hand toward the bustling little town. “You must be famished from our trip. Come.”
I glanced toward the town nestled in the valley below.
Smoke curled from chimneys, the aroma of bread and wine floating on the air.
It all mixed with the scents of the townspeople, and my stomach growled.
He moved away from me as if that was answer enough, heading down the hill, but I planted my feet.
“Now you’re going to feed me?” I scoffed. “I think I’ll pass.”
I spun away with every intention of finding my way back home, back to Samkiel, who, by gods, would cleave the very sky if he couldn’t find me. Again.
There was a whoosh, and Unir was in front of me. He grabbed my wrist, the mist that circled him enveloping me, and suddenly we were in the center of town. I groaned and grabbed my head as my knees hit the wet cobblestone. I blinked rapidly, bringing the bleak gray town into focus.
“You asshole,” I growled at the god before me, seething with anger. A few people sidestepped me, whispering and clutching their children tighter. Unir was a shadow in the world, people passing through him as he waited for me to recover, his form wavering and solidifying each time.
“They cannot see me,” Unir said. “To them, you are but a raving mad woman screaming in the rain.”
I ground my teeth. “So I gathered,” I gritted out and pushed to my feet, wiping at the mud on my knees. “I thought you were in the Valley of Kings or whatever it was Gabby said.”
“I am,” Unir said. “Unfortunately, my time here is short, but my daughter draws near a weapon that can ruin everything.”
“Of course she does.” I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “It’s always a fucking magical weapon. Let me guess, she wants to destroy or rule the realms, and you need Gathrriel because he knows some ancient way to stop said magical weapon.”
He smiled at me with pride. “You are a clever woman. But you are not completely right.”
I nodded, puffing my cheeks out with air before releasing the breath.
“Well, I hate to ruin this little trip for you, but you can’t talk to him.
At least not through me. See, he’s on this huge revenge trip, and once he takes over my body, he kind of owns it.
I can’t let that happen because, you know, it’s my body. ”
I took one step back, preparing to change and bolt into the sky.
Unir’s eyes lit with a silver sheen. I backed up again, knowing this was my only chance to flee, but he was quicker.
He reached forward, and I moved to block, but my hand went through him.
Of course, it did. How did I fight a ghost?
His body solidified, and he grabbed my head.
Pain speared through my brain, and I screamed.
“No!” I thrashed. “Please, don’t do this!”
He ignored me, his fingers digging deeper into my scalp.
My vision blurred as the Ig’Morruthen in me roared to life in a flurry of snapping jaws and razor-sharp claws.
Unir stepped back, his eyes widening as my form bent and twisted.
My wyvern, my true power, took control, her fear disappearing with her need to protect me.
A column of blazing orange flame shot from between my jaws, incinerating all in its path as it tunneled through the ghost of Samkiel’s father.
The sound of screams finally pierced my pained rage, and I snapped my jaws closed.
The spikes along my head settled when realization hit.
I’d just burned the side of two buildings, a dock, and half the forest along the river’s edge.
People rushed out of the buildings, grabbing their families and belongings as they fled to the dubious safety of the streets.
The panic in the town only rose when they saw me.
“Ig’Morruthen!” a man shouted as he pointed to me.
“Nismera has come!” a young woman screamed.
Bells rang, and the town woke, bustling and moving. Their fear of Nismera and her legion had descended upon them, but it wasn’t her. It was me.
Their voices all melted together.
“She’s here.”
“Nismera’s legion.”
“Ig’Morruthen.”
Beast. Beast. Beast!
The words didn’t impact me how I expected them to.
My eyes dilated as a thrill tickled my scales, making the horns along my head rise like ears on a predator.
Blood thrummed in my veins at the intoxicating smell of fear, and my pulse thrummed as the screams grew louder.
Hunger heightened my primal instincts, and my body responded by stretching, growing, and sharpening. Not my body, but his … No. Gods, no.
Internally, my mind was thrust back into the cavern, and I watched Gathrriel surge forward.
“No,” I pleaded again. “Please, don’t do this.”
Gathrriel stopped at the entrance and turned back to me, his spiked armor and horns a reflection of the jagged, wretched beast he was, even if he wore the face of a man.
“It is already done,” he said. “But have no fear, I will send him back to the ether whence he came.”
One moment, I had control of my body, and the next, I was bound in that tight empty space, there but not there.
My head pivoted toward Unir. The town was awash in fear and screams, people running around and through where he stood at the center of the square.
My mouth watered, and the hollow feeling in my chest, where I knew my soul used to be, begged for food, to hunt, to feed.
Wyvern wings flared wide enough to eclipse the courtyard, the need to take to the skies pulling at him.
“You are a fool to summon me, World Bringer,” Gathrriel said, the words rumbling from the depths of his massive throat of spikes and flame.
“You know me?” Unir asked.
“I saw it all from Asteraoth, how you and your comrades stole what was mine. You used and crafted it to your own will, not really knowing what you were dealing with, and now you fear your own creation. Petulant, arrogant gods who cannot control their own hubris.” He snapped his jaws in irritation, and he walked forward.
Stone crunched beneath the taloned wings and feet of my now massive form.
Gathrriel’s Ig’Morruthen far outweighed and outmatched mine.
The shadow of his twisted horns and scaled body rose above the buildings like an oceanic predator curling beneath the waves.
“I did what I thought was right. I was trying to save us.”
A rumble vibrated in his chest. If he could laugh in this form, he did. “Ignorant. Seeking to control what you cannot, and now you have doomed your own blood.”
Gathrriel stepped forward and his tail whipped out, crushing the building behind him, uncaring of the life surrounding him now that he was focused on Unir.
“Fear not,” Gathrriel said, crashing to a stop before him. He raised his head, his neck cocked back. “I shall end them all for you. For what they took. Starting with you.”
Flames bathed the town square in rich ribbons of gold and black.
Screams rent the air, the scent of burning wood and flesh overwhelming.
Fire roiled around where Unir had stood.
It was a while before he finally sucked in a breath to view the results of his destruction.
Smoke filled the air, casting everything in shadowy silhouettes.
He lowered his head to inspect the ground, but there was no singed body where Unir had been, as if he could burn a ghost to embers.
Gathrriel released a loud, archaic growl and turned, more buildings cracking and crashing from the sheer mass of his body.
“Your time here is limited, Gathrriel,” Unir’s disembodied voice said.
Gathrriel growled again, growing rabid in irritation. “I will feed and feast and own this shell, you fool,” he growled, snapping his teeth at the smoke dancing on the air currents.