Page 96 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

The cruel king paused, a scowl carving his face as he looked over his shoulder. Black eyes narrowed, grotesque tarry veins spider-webbing from his face down his neck as he cocked his head.

Ryker heard it then. All around the square, chimes the rebels had hung from the few remaining trees and lampposts danced, singing as the wind steadily grew.

Faintly—distantly—thunder rumbled.

Ryker looked up as the sky darkened within seconds, hope blooming in his chest. Because the lightning always came before they did.

The crowd began shrieking and jostling—a stampede of panic. Ryker jerked his gaze back to his father⁠—

—right as the King slid his blade across his throat and vanished into shadow.

Ryker was screaming. Screaming as he shoved his way through the crowd. Screaming as his father’s head fell back limply. Screaming as veins of lightning webbed across the horizon.

Ryker was still screaming when he slammed through the front line and into the square. As if in response, chaos erupted.

The men on their knees rocketed upright. Those standing for execution whirled.

Even as the demons ran so many through with blades, the humans fought.

Through fire and ice, through the trembling of the earth, the rebels of Watchhouse Twenty fought back.

Ryker’s knees screamed on impact with the blood-slick stone. His hands clumsily moved to the gaping wound across his father’s neck. Their matching blue eyes met as lightning flashed again, this time striking the earth not twenty feet away.

“Dad.” He hadn’t expected the broken sob that climbed his throat as he met his father’s bleary gaze. Ford’s lips moved, a trickle of blood staining his tan, sun-worn skin. A lone tear slid from the corner of one deep blue eye. Then the world lit with a deafening boom that forced Ryker’s eyes closed.

When he opened them again, a god stood before them, a crown of lightning flickering around his brow like thorns. And those eyes—they glowed gold as he lifted an arm to the sky and bellowed, calling down the wrath of the heavens as the sky shredded apart.

Rain slammed to earth in a torrent as what must’ve been a hundred guardians appeared out of thin air, all surging into combat with a collective roar.

The lightning god vanished. Black blood spilled on all sides as the crowd dispersed, screaming and fleeing for their lives.

Where he’d stood, an ethereal, brown-skinned, wide-eyed woman remained. Her eyes landed on Ryker, then his father, and she lunged. It was all Ryker could do to scramble out of her way as her rich tawny hands wrapped around his father’s throat…

And glowed.

A body stepped between them, blocking his view.

Black armor. A familiar gold crest of a winged sword stretched across his chest, now speckled with black ichor. The lightning god extended a hand, and without thinking, Ryker took it.

Because lightning always came before he did.

The god sent to save them.

The gods fighting back.

He met those raging golden eyes when the man asked, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Ryker… Ashborne.”

God, the man was tall. Bigger than the soldiers from before, Ryker noted as the giant nodded. He had to be seven feet at least. “As in the Watchhouse Ashbornes?”

Ryker eyed the crest across the lightning-wielder’s chest, then dipped his chin. The giant nodded solemnly and placed a pistol in Ryker’s hand, the magazine glowing a soft silvery-blue.

“Your dad teach you how to shoot?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” Ryker breathed, his trembling limbs stilling as he stared down at the weapon in his palm.

“Make them pay, Ryker.”