Page 106 of Soul of Fire

I tried my best not to think of his bare shoulders and chest, the scars covering every inch of visible skin, but Kindra caught the thought anyway, snorting happily.

Shut up,I repeated.

A rumbling roar sounded from the ground below.

Another earthquake?I suggested.

But the rumbling didn’t stop. It grew in intensity until I felt it through our bones. Ten seconds. Twenty.

Kindra dipped below the clouds, where the land was almost dark enough that wecould fly unseen.

Houses that dotted the surrounding countryside were toppling like dominoes as thousands of birds screeched and took flight. Stone towers crumbled before our eyes as a deafening crack split the world in two.

Odemarksdyr!Kindra’s screech had the others following us like shining arrows as we wheeled toward the ground.

“What the fuck is that!” Arne bellowed, holding so tightly to Kindra’s neck, I was certain he would rip off a few scales.

Kindra looked behind her wing, and I saw it. The Scar had indeed made it to land, and it had cracked into a fissure at least a foot wide, monsters pouring from its gaping maw. The crack seemed to stretch northwest as far as I could see from our current altitude, and I had a sinking feeling I knew where it reached.

A pack of garmr climbed from its inky depths, their claws gouging deep lines of black ichor into the soil and withering the grass where they stood.

Call the reirholds,I commanded. We need as many of them as Ironholm can spare.

Kindraswooped low until she was only a few feet above the crevasse, her whole body vibrating as she gathered her fire. With a roar, she blew a torrent of golden flame over the emerging garmr. They howled in agony as Bryndis and Sigurd joined us, pushing the garmr back into the darkness.

“Holy fucking hells,” Arne swore. I heard the clank of metal and knew he must have pulled his sword from his back. I felt himswing as one of the garmr leaped, trying to pull him from my back. Its body fell away, sliced in two. Black ichor fell like rain over the ground where it destroyed everything it touched.

Arne swore, and I smelled the searing flesh before I heard his scream.

We must take him away, Kindra said in a panic, climbing to gain altitude and keep Arne as far away from the monsters as possible.He has no dragon to protect him.

Where can we land?I asked, looking around where more monsters were spilling from the newly formed section of the Rift.We can’t leave Bryndis and Sigurd.

Kindra was silent for a moment.They say to go ahead to Stormhold. Save the queen. They will wait for the reirholds and try to kill as many odemarksdyr as possible.

We can’t–

We will come back.Kindra was already flying, following the path of the black fissure through the countryside and chasing it with streams of golden fire.But we must protect him first.

She veered to the northwest, where the river that flowed through the capital was faintly visible in the distance. To my horror, the chasm opened by the Scar seemed to grow wider with every passing mile, and more monsters streamed from its depths.

We had failed.

We need to wash the wound.He is unconscious.

Fuck.My heart raced as we abandoned our reirhold once again to save our future mate. If we survived this, he had better be fucking grateful.

It felt like an eternity until we reached the river. The destruction seemed to be focused about two miles beyond the edges of the Rift on this side, and I prayed that the loss of life would be minimal as Kindra hit the mud and shifted.

I stumbled over my pack, which had been hooked around Kindra’s foreclaw, and fell face-first into the mud. Arne landed on top of me, his body a deadweight. Again.

“No.” I rolled him off me, turning to check his pulse.

He lives. Kindra sounded so relieved, it was hard to be angry at her for our rough landing.Wash the wound. Quickly.

It wasn’t hard to find the damage. The garmr blood had burned clean through his jacket, leaving his left forearm a mess of raw, bleeding skin and embedded leather. One section had burned down to the bone, and I had to swallow my bile before I was sick all over him.

Wash, then I can heal it.