Page 168 of Vasmora

“It isn’t the mortals who threaten our existence. In case you missed it, a plague has been unleashed!” Zevander argued.

“There will be sacrifices. A culling, of sorts. But ultimately, the pestilence will run its course, and the strongest of us will survive it.”

“You’re mad!” Lothare cried out, his arm still outstretched and trembling.

Tears leaked from my eyes, my body turning around by an unseen force, until I faced the mage. Beyond him, Zevander’s scorpion emerged from the sand, its legs frantically digging, opening the gap around Zevander’s body. The mage glanced over his shoulder, as if he could see, and turned back to me, seemingly unbothered. The moment Zevander climbed to his feet, he sent a blast of flame over the ward, but it did nothing more than bounce across the surface.

Akmyrios held out his hand and the black flame gathered across the ward shot through the boundary to his palm.

My heart raced as a cold, clammy sensation moved through me.

Zevander stepped back and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the ward shimmered.

Akmyrios spun around, and my body collapsed into a heap on the sand. He lifted his nose into the air, his hands reaching out, as if to feel the ancient power that burned around us. “You possess the god’s glyph!” He slowly backed himself away. “How is this possible?”

I drew in a sharp breath, heaving and coughing. My muscles slowly loosened, but not nearly fast enough.

The boy with the white hair thrusted his palm toward Zevander.

“No!” the mage cried out, lurching toward him. “You can’t!”

The boy trembled and collapsed to his back, convulsing. Flames burst across his body, and he let out a scream as black fire consumed him alive. Within seconds, he’d been reduced to a small bloodstone that sat atop white ashes.

“What have you done!” The mage sent a blast of Aeryz, knocking Zevander backward. As the mage strode toward him, a massive shadow passed over the ground, and he skidded to a halt.

In the seconds it took for him to lift his nose and sniff the air, a colossal form fell toward the ground, landing with a booming thud that sent sand flying upward.

I shielded my eyes from the stinging granules, and when the dust settled, I lowered my hands to find a dragon twice the size of Raivox prowling toward the mage.

“Dragon!” The moment Akmyrios raised his palm, teeth snapped down over top of him, severing his body at the torso.

The beast raised its muzzle and gulped him back, Akmyrios’s muffled cries dying to silence.

Slowly, the beast turned toward me, and gasping, I kicked backward.

“Hey!” Zevander called out, but the dragon ignored him, twisting its big body in my direction.

I let out a scream, pushing my voice to call for Raivox, but nothing more than a gravelly sound burst forth, my muscles still unraveling from whatever spell the mage had cast over me. Black flames flickered over the dragon, failing to deter the beast as it scampered across the sand toward me, flapping its wings.

Arms weak, I dragged myself in the other direction.

Sharp claws hooked into my shoulder, right before the beast took flight.

Zevander’s outcry faded below me, and my stomach sank, the world around me rushing past at a speed too fast to comprehend. Against the pressure weighing down on me, my muscles that still hadn’t recovered, I raised my blackened fingers to the beast’s massive talons and summoned the death glyph. Arms shaking, I ground my teeth and held tight, against the pain, the weakness, the fear that choked my breath.

The dragon let out an awful roar, and a breath later, its flesh dissolved to ash, which rained down on me as my stomach fluttered then dropped.

Fast.

Too fast.

I caught a glimpse of the ground below me, Zevander nothing more than a dark speck against the white sand.

It seemed I hadn’t properly gauged how fast the dragon had carried me upward. High enough that my bones would probably explode through my skin when I hit the ground.

A scream tore from my throat.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE