The clouds roiled above him, and he knew what was coming.
Lightning flashed across the Heavens. A voice followed it like thunder, searing him to his bones.
RETURN TO WHERE YOU BELONG.
And where was that? To the stars or to dust?
There was but one end for him.
Rune’s skin seared, his body shuddering with pain and rage.
After a million years of silence.
After leaving him buried in the hollow darkness.
The Heavens at last looked upon him to pass judgment.
Not when Rune pleaded. Not when he wept.
But now, when he had brought theworld to its knees. When there was no other resort but to destroy him. Well, he would rather burn than beg.
Rune raised his head to the Heavens and roared,“THEN DO IT! SMITE ME!”
The sky tore open with a world-shattering crack, and his sight went white as a bolt of divine lightning struck.
And he fell again.
Through earth. Through flame. Through shadow.
To annihilation.
CHAPTER 2
Rune
Pain came first.
Rune’s marrow burned. His scales screamed. Essence leaked from his form, unmoored and wasted, until even his thoughts splintered beneath the weight of it. Magic had been cleaved from him, fractured and bleeding into the world like ink spilled into water.
Then came the dark.
He opened his eyes to cold stone and stillness. Not the living dark he commanded, but a suffocating, stagnant void. No air stirred. No shadows answered. This was a pit forgotten by light and sound alike, buried so deep the world itself pressed down upon him.
A brief surge of panic hit Rune when he reached for his shadows and found nothing.
He wasbound.
Thick chains of white-gold metal glowed with glyphs that pulsated faintly, each one burning with divine energy. They werefastened deep within the stone beneath his feet, forged with the intent meant to last an eternity.
And they’d trapped him in his dragon form.
Rune snarled and wrenched against the chains. The cavern trembled as metal crashed against stone, but the bindings held. Pain lanced through him, sharp enough to fracture thought itself.
He drew breath and unleashed fire upon them.
The glyphs flared brighter, holy light flooding his vision as the scald rebounded against him, burning down to bone. His guttural roar echoed throughout, reverberating against the walls of a cavern.
Rune stilled.
