Page 141 of Vasmora

Kazhimyr reached again, and Dravien frowned, but Kazhimyr pulled him up onto the iceberg.

Both of them collapsed onto their backs, staring up at the dark sky overhead.

“What now?” Dravien asked. “A pestilent god has awakened, and the world is about to go to shit.”

“I don’t know.” There were no stars in the sky to guide them. Nothing but endless miles of ocean.

“If only we could float like this. Nothing could touch us out here.”

“That isn’t true.” Kazhimyr still hadn’t told Dravien the truth about what had happened back in that rotting tree. How the nightmare he’d suffered after the Syrenian bite had come to pass. How a voice spoke to him and the flavor of blood and raw meat called to him. He didn’t bother to tell him that Dravien was no safer floating on that iceberg in the middle of the ocean than he’d been on that boat moments ago.

“Eh, you’re probably right. Will you return to your home, then?” Dravien asked.

A sadness tugged at Kazhimyr’s heart. “I don’t think I can.”

“I have a confession.”

Kazhimyr sighed. “Okay.”

“I don’t have a home in Calyxar. I was born there, but I was forced to leave at a very young age. Too young.”

“So, I guess neither of us has a place to go from here.”

Dravien was quiet for a moment. “I guess we don’t.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

DOLION

Shocks of lightning flickered over the ward that had separated the mortal lands from Aethyria for as long as Dolion could remember. He stood amongst a crowd that’d gathered, harbored within Costelwick’s high, stone walls. No doubt, every one of them had been drawn by the seismic boom that’d shaken the ground moments before. The few Imperial Guardsmen scattered about should’ve been cause to flee, but they didn’t spare him so much as a glance. Their eyes remained fixated, like everyone else’s, toward the distant Umbravale.

A fragile boundary, easily broken by a god.

King Sagaerin’s castle stood in the foreground of that shimmering ward, once a monolith of the city reduced to a feeble pillar of defense, as the god’s power glimmered across the dark sky. Beside Dolion, Allura’s eyes shimmered with worry, and he took her hand in his, a pittance of comfort in the face of their extinction. Through the sickening crackle of the Umbravale’s destruction, the audible unweaving of centuries-old blood magic, Dolion heard the whispers of his fellow Aethyrians.

“There was no warning!”

“How is this possible?”

“The king brought this upon us!”

Horns blared, the same warning signal given each time the city had come under siege, and the guards broke away, but even at the risk that one of them might acknowledge him there, Dolion kept his eyes on that boundary. A selfish need to affirm what had long branded him as a madman.

“Return to your homes immediately!” the guards shouted. “Do not leave your homes!”

The crowd dispersed into a chaotic frenzy, bodies bumping into Dolion and Allura as they rushed past the two of them. Parents swiped up their children. The elderly stumbled behind.

And still, Dolion stood watching.

Until a high-pitched hum drowned the trumpet of horns, a vibration carrying through the air so thickly, it tickled Dolion’s chest. The weakening integrity of the ward was no match against the ancient magic not seen since the age of gods.

A clamor of shattering glass broke through the pandemonium with a violent gale that swept through the streets. The brutal force knocked Dolion backward into the hard cobblestones, and a shooting spasm rippled up his spine, smashing into his sinuses.

For a brief moment, all was silent.

It was when the screams tore through his head that Dolion realized he’d momentarily lost his hearing. He clambered to his feet and turned for Allura, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet. The two of them scurried through the streets in the direction of the castle, against the opposing throng of citizens heading toward the residential sections of Costelwick.

They ducked into an alley, and Dolion pressed his hand to his chest, breathing deeply to calm his thrumming heart.