And still Kalder felt the threat growing more lethal as every second passed.
This was different from all the other times they’d been attacked. The Dread Waters were a lot stronger than they’d ever been before. Something had roused them up to a rare form tonight, and made them even more powerful than they’d been at the height of his father’s reign.
What could cause such a transformation… he had no idea. His people had been on the brink of dying out when his mother had killed him. Their forces, like their numbers, should have dwindled and weakened over the centuries, not grown. And definitely not increased into something ofthismagnitude.
This made no sense whatsoever.
How was it even possible?
Closing his eyes, Kalder summoned his powers and listened to the voices in the aether, seeking some form of rational explanation.
Yet only agonized screams filled his ears. The voices of a million souls in torment…
Then in a single instant he understood what was happening.
And why.
“Swing her about!” he shouted. “Fire to the wind!”
Bane arched a brow at his unexpected and shocking orders.Orders Kalder knew ran contrary to everything Bane stood for, and normally, so did he. “You’d have us retreat? Are you insane?”
He pointed at the water. “That’s the Malachai rising beneath those waves. It’s what’s giving them such power and why they’re surging like this. We can’t fighthim.”
Only a fool would try when that malevolent beast wasthisstrong.
For the first time ever, he saw hesitation in Bane’s eyes. Not out of cowardice.
Respect. The Malachai wasn’t like any other creature or demon alive. He was a force unto himself and he carried with him the knowledge and powers of all the Malachai who’d been born before, throughout time itself. Each generation growing deadlier.
More destructive.
None more powerful, vengeful, and hate-filled than the one they claimed had been driven mad by his captivity.
Adarian Malachai.
Created by the dark gods so that he could free them and they could finally rule over all of the earth and put down their enemies. Only Adarian had never agreed to be anyone’s flunky. Not even that of the ancient gods who’d bred him.
Now Adarian was out for blood.
Everyone’s.
And especially the gods who had sought to rule and use him. Those who had fed from him and weakened him for their own selfish purpose.
For centuries, Adarian had been doing his best to find his wayout—to escape his captors and rain down his wrath upon them for the punishments they’d doled to the beast.
That insolent, insatiable anger and hunger was what had finally caused the Maystresse Gates that held the Malachai prisoner from the human world to buckle and fracture.
Long before mankind had begun to record history, the ancient gods had fought a vile and vicious war.
In those days, the Malachai wasn’t a single demon, but many, and he and his army had fought for the Cimmerians or Mavromino—the darkest of the gods. Those who’d wanted to burn the world down. To make it a sinister place of fear and pain where they ruled with total brutality, and held supremacy over the siblings they viewed as weak and kind-hearted. Those who thought the Nine Worlds should be shared and protected.
That protection was something Kalder agreed with. Even at his worst, he’d never been the type to tread on anyone’s freedom. Not for any reason. That was where he differed most from his brothers.
And it was something he shared with Cameron and Paden Jack. They were remnants of the Sephirii—the Kalosum army that had once protected the weaker species against their darker brethren. Those who’d wanted balance and light over all the lands—both enchanted and not. Gods of peace and prosperity, who believed the worlds could, and should, be shared, and that hatred and intolerance should be banished from them forever.
Unable to come to terms with one another or find common ground, those two great armies had almost destroyed everyone and everything in their quest to put each other down.
Including the gods they fought for.
