“No!” Koryn’s cry ripped through space, through the swirling darkness and overwhelming power. It was still falling from her lips as we crashed to the ground in front of the temple.
One look was all it took. I did not feel Koryn’s pain or hear the words.
“Garrick. Something iswrong,” Koryn gasped out again.
Yes. Very, very wrong.
CHAPTER 59
KORYN
If I had not already visitedthe Dark God’s realm, I would have thought this a fitting description. Lines of fire crisscrossed the sky. The mountains were now green, only their tips capped with snow. Clusters of wildflowers had sprung up all around the valley. And people everywhere were screaming. Not just the humans. I saw pointed fae ears in the melee as well. Some tried to collect their belongings. Others ran with just the ragged clothes on their bodies.
Tomin and Varian stood at the doors of the temple, now thrown wide open, ushering people inside. The curse was lifted. The temple was no longer reserved for supplicants.
They scrambled over each other to escape the ominous fire overhead and the bloodshed.
Ramkael, the God of Devotion, stood over Maura’s body, blood dripping from his battle axe. Even from several yards away, where we’d appeared, I could see the gaping wound in her chest. She was not moving, not even slightly. No one could survive a blow like that. Not even a witch.
Maura, the head witch of the Midnight Coven, was dead. Murdered by a god himself.
Garrick tried to shove me behind him, but I’d gained enough strength to resist.
“This is what you felt,” he said.
“Yes,” I gasped.
The shift of power within Velora now that Maura was dead was immense. The absence of the curse, unburdening us, only made it worse. But now that the initial wave was over, I could at least breathe without pain. A strange, heavy sensation remained between my shoulders, weighing down every movement.
Ramkael stared at us. I stared back.
“Why are the gods doing this?” I asked.
Plumes of fire reached out of the sky, incinerating a line of meager tents along the far edge of the valley. More screaming. So much screaming. Velora was free of its icy curse, only to suddenly be bathed in blood.
Ramkael did not answer. My mind began to throw out its own explanations.
The gods were not content to let Velora live free of the curse. They would rain down fireballs rather than let the people of Velora live in peace.
The bulky, heavily-tattooed god tilted his head up to the sky. “This is not the work of the gods,” he said. Then he disappeared, in the same strange way that Syleris did.
I did not understand. I looked up at the sky, trying to see what the God of Devotion meant, but my eyes were too blurred to make out any details.
Garrick’s grip on my arm tightened. He gasped. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my eyes enough to see—the outline.
“Those are dragons,” Garrick said.
The shape overhead came into focus. The two large wings, four legs, a snapping tail. My familiar was their perfect miniature… and there were dozens of them in the sky above the Unknown Gate.
Isanara, did you know they were coming?
She was at my side, but she did not answer. Her head whipped around, tracking one line of fire and then another. Onedragonand then another. Oh gods… was Isanara’s family somewhere up there?
The questions I’d tried to ignore found their answers.
The talismans had been runed for protection. The fae king knew about the existence of the talismans and both he and Maura were desperate to create them. Protection.
Protection from the fire-breathing terrors tearing through the sky above.
