He fell to one knee, the movement awkward as if not entirely voluntary but as if he’d been pressed to the ground by an invisible hand on his shoulder.
“Greetings, Belinus,” he said through gritted teeth.
Belinus!
Einin’s breath caught. Cold fear coursed through her veins in a mad rush. The god truly was here. An ancient god!
“You said the gate opens only at twilight,” she whispered to Draknart, dizzy with fear.
“For us,” he whispered back. “The gods come and go as they please.”
She was suddenly as scared to look as she was eager to see the god the priests claimed had been long vanquished. She filled her lungs at last and dared peek around Draknart, into the otherworldly, mystical light that emanated from the stone circle.
Where was the god? Was he the very light?
An impossibly tall, vaguely human shape took form, gliding between the two largest boulders—too beautiful and too terrifying at once, and entirely too bright to be beheld by human eyes.
Einin’s gaze dropped. Her limbs were trembling, her throat so dry, she could not have uttered a single word.
“Let us see her, then,” said the god, and oh, that voice again, as if the words were spoken by the very wind, everywhere at once, filling the entire clearing, and filling her chest too, making her gasp for air.
Blind panic pushed Einin to run, but Draknart held her in place. “I will bring you another, Belinus. I swear to you.”
“On your dragon’s honor?” The god chuckled darkly, the sound edged with danger, sharp, sharp edges that could slice a sword in half. “Einin of Downwood, step forward.”
She had no choice in the matter at all. She felt the words inside her. Her legs simply moved, until she stood halfway between Draknart and the god. Draknart struggled to rise without success, as if held in place by an otherworldly power, an invisible hand pressing him to the ground.
Einin could see him only from the corner of her eye. She kept her gaze cast down. She didn’t dare to look at the god’s terrifyingly beautiful countenance.
“Isn’t she a sweet one?” Belinus’s voice slithered along her skin, and she felt that terrifying pull again.
She could not stop her feet, but she reached for her sword as she passed by it and raised the blade in front of her. She grunted in frustration when her arms would move only halfway up and not higher. Anger bubbled deep inside her, up through the swamp of fear in her stomach.
Draknart had at least fought her, allowed her the chance to save herself.
She gripped the hilt of her sword with both hands and groaned with the effort to move the weapon, just as a new, darkly and dangerously feminine voice joined the conversation.
“She does not appear ready to fall into your arms, Belinus,” the voice said, the tone mocking in the way a quick rapier mocked the opponent in a duel. The sly mockery gave the impression that the one wielding the weapon knew where to strike.
The clearing brightened still more. Einin didn’t look directly at the second pillar of light that moved forward from the stone circle. She felt an added electric charge in the air and a tingle on her skin as the soft little hairs stood up on her arms.
She didn’t have time to consider what to do next. She dropped to her knees, smitten by an invisible fist, and she knew this move had been the goddess’s will. Einin raised her gaze, but not so far that she would be blinded by the brightness, only enough to see the edges of the vaguely human-shaped columns of light, so that she might see death coming.
“You seem to be losing your touch with the maidens, my god husband. I don’t remember any of them drawing a sword on you before.” The goddess glided past Belinus, turning her attention to Draknart.
“You’ve come to cause trouble, dragon?” Her voice had the deep cold of midwinter nights. “Did I not humble you enough by turning you into a halfling?”
“You did, goddess,” Draknart said through gritted teeth.
“You sought to lift the curse by going behind my back?” The rapier-sharp tone stabbed.
“Forgive me, goddess. And if you can’t, at least forgive the wee maiden, I beg you. ’Twas all my doing. She had no knowledge of why I brought her here. She doesn’t deserve your wrath.”
If Einin had not already been aware of how deadly the danger was that surrounded them, she would have known then. Never had she thought she would hear Draknart sound this subdued. Even more bewildering was her realization that he humbled himself not to protect his own life but hers.
The goddess didn’t appear to be in a forgiving mood.
“I decide what you both deserve,” she snapped, and another wave of cold chill filled the clearing, full of dark threat. “A very foolish dragon. Had you brought her over the threshold into Feyland, you would be right now wriggling by my feet as an earthworm.”
