I took one step back, preparing to change and bolt into the sky. Unir’s eyes lit with a silver sheen. I backed up again, knowing this was my only chance to flee, but he was quicker. He reached forward, and I moved to block, but my hand went through him. Of course, it did. How did I fight a ghost? His body solidified, and he grabbed my head. Pain speared through my brain, and I screamed.
“No!” I thrashed. “Please, don’t do this!”
He ignored me, his fingers digging deeper into my scalp. My vision blurred as the Ig’Morruthen in me roared to life in a flurry of snapping jaws and razor-sharp claws. Unir stepped back, his eyes widening as my form bent and twisted. My wyvern, my true power, took control, her fear disappearing with her need to protect me. A column of blazing orange flame shot from between my jaws, incinerating all in its path as it tunneled through the ghost of Samkiel’s father.
The sound of screams finally pierced my pained rage, and I snapped my jaws closed. The spikes along my head settled when realization hit. I’d just burned the side of two buildings, a dock, and half the forest along the river’s edge. People rushed out of the buildings, grabbing their families and belongings as they fled to the dubious safety of the streets. The panic in the town only rose when they saw me.
“Ig’Morruthen!” a man shouted as he pointed to me.
“Nismera has come!” a young woman screamed.
Bells rang, and the town woke, bustling and moving. Their fear of Nismera and her legion had descended upon them, but it wasn’t her. It was me.
Their voices all melted together.
“She’s here.”
“Nismera’s legion.”
“Ig’Morruthen.”
Beast. Beast. Beast!
The words didn’t impact me how I expected them to. My eyes dilated as a thrill tickled my scales, making the horns along my head rise like ears on a predator. Blood thrummed in my veins at the intoxicating smell of fear, and my pulse thrummed as the screams grew louder. Hunger heightened my primal instincts, and my body responded by stretching, growing, and sharpening. Not my body, but his … No. Gods, no.
Internally, my mind was thrust back into the cavern, and I watched Gathrriel surge forward.
“No,” I pleaded again. “Please, don’t do this.”
Gathrriel stopped at the entrance and turned back to me, his spiked armor and horns a reflection of the jagged, wretched beast he was, even if he wore the face of a man.
“It is already done,” he said. “But have no fear, I will send him back to the ether whence he came.”
One moment, I had control of my body, and the next, I was bound in that tight empty space, there but not there. My head pivoted toward Unir. The town was awash in fear and screams, people running around and through where he stood at the center of the square. My mouth watered, and the hollow feeling in my chest, where I knew my soul used to be, begged for food, to hunt, to feed. Wyvern wings flared wide enough to eclipse the courtyard, the need to take to the skies pulling at him.
“You are a fool to summon me, World Bringer,” Gathrriel said, the words rumbling from the depths of his massive throat of spikes and flame.
“You know me?” Unir asked.
“I saw it all from Asteraoth, how you and your comrades stole what was mine. You used and crafted it to your own will, not really knowing what you were dealing with, and now you fear your own creation. Petulant, arrogant gods who cannot control their own hubris.” He snapped his jaws in irritation, and he walked forward. Stone crunched beneath the taloned wings and feet of my now massive form. Gathrriel’s Ig’Morruthen far outweighed and outmatched mine. The shadow of his twisted horns and scaled body rose above the buildings like an oceanic predator curling beneath the waves.
“I did what I thought was right. I was trying to save us.”
A rumble vibrated in his chest. If he could laugh in this form, he did. “Ignorant. Seeking to control what you cannot, and now you have doomed your own blood.”
Gathrriel stepped forward and his tail whipped out, crushing the building behind him, uncaring of the life surrounding him now that he was focused on Unir.
“Fear not,” Gathrriel said, crashing to a stop before him. He raised his head, his neck cocked back. “I shall end them all for you. For what they took. Starting with you.”
Flames bathed the town square in rich ribbons of gold and black. Screams rent the air, the scent of burning wood and flesh overwhelming. Fire roiled around where Unir had stood. It was a while before he finally sucked in a breath to view the results of his destruction. Smoke filled the air, casting everything in shadowy silhouettes. He lowered his head to inspect the ground, but there was no singed body where Unir had been, as if he could burn a ghost to embers. Gathrriel released a loud, archaic growl and turned, more buildings cracking and crashing from the sheer mass of his body.
“Your time here is limited, Gathrriel,” Unir’s disembodied voice said.
Gathrriel growled again, growing rabid in irritation. “I will feed and feast and own this shell, you fool,” he growled, snapping his teeth at the smoke dancing on the air currents.
Movement had Gathrriel’s head snapping to the left, tracking a shape as it jumped from one building to another. Fireballs erupted from Gathrriel’s mouth. Wood and glass rained down on the streets as they made impact, but did not connect with the shadow. It disappeared and then reappeared off to the right, a stream of fire chasing it. Anger turned into frustration as the shadow blipped in and out, Gathrriel turning in circles as he tracked it, but not once getting close to hitting it. If he was this quick dead, how fast had Unir been when he was alive? I now knew where his children had gotten their ungodly agility from.
Gathrriel threw his head back and roared his rage, but stopped chasing him, no longer willing to be tricked. Instead, he turned his attention to the running, screaming crowd and charged. Mouth agape, he aimed for anyone close enough to snatch into his jaws. Light, pure and blinding, hit the side of Gathrriel’s head, sending him tumbling to the side. He screamed, the sound piercing enough to break windows. He spun to face and destroy whatever had hit him.
