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His back arched, head tilting to the sky as he unleashed a bellow of grief.
No, no, no. Surely the gods wouldn’t be so cruel. She scrambled over the ash and charred wood to fall to her knees at his side. She reached for him, desperate to hold him—as if her mere touch could stave off the infection about to ravage his body—but her hands passed through his form.
“I did warn you,” the priest said, lips twisted into a superior smirk.
Eyes already turning red, the knight said, “Kill me.”
“You beg for mercy?” The priest crouched beside the knight and pulled off his helm, revealing a man with braided black hair, heavy brows and fierce blue eyes. While strength radiated from the knight, menace seemed to emulate from the priest, as if the ash thickened in his presence.
Maren tried to shove the priest away, but her efforts didn’t even stir the air.
She turned to the goddess. “Help him! Please!”
“I cannot,” Ceres said.
“You defied me,” the priest said, in a voice so quiet that Maren wouldn’t have known his words if she hadn’t been kneeling beside them both. He wore the robes of the chaste, and yet his words were a sick poison. “And death is too simple a punishment.”
For the first time, true fear widened the knight’s eyes. “By the Gods, I beg you.”
“The Gods have spoken,” the priest said. “And you will serve.”
“No!” The knight’s word became a scream. His body contorted, and the sharp crack of broken bones hung in the air as his body splintered, a new shape being forged from within.
“You must help.” Maren lurched to her feet and flew at the goddess. She gripped an arm of verdant green and tried to yank the great figure toward her knight. “This is wrong. It is cruel. Please. Stop it!”
“This has already come to pass,” Ceres said. “This is what must be.”
“No…” Chest shuddering, Maren shook her head. “It is wrong.”
“I cannot change these events.” The goddess took her shoulders in a gentle grip. “But I can tell you that this is not where things end. This is not your nightmare, child of sight. It was his. Within it, lies your sliver of hope.”
Chapter Three
Leaves swarmed from the goddess's hands across Maren's eyes, and when they receded, she found herself on a rocky shore. A stark, barren landscape. Full of dust and desperate lichen, where the earth fell away in a sharp drop of stone.
Golden Gods have mercy, she stood atop the Badlands.
The worst, most dangerous place in all the lands.
The one place she'd been told never to tread—the ruined place the Chastry railed against, where the spreading dark slowly ate away at their very world. The tower priests taught that the Badlands had formed from the ash of the dying Golden Gods, and were the very heart of the darkness plaguing the lands. A desolate and solitary space, where only the worst demons dwelled.
She would have felt entirely alone, and afraid, in such a space, if it were not for the goddess at her side.
“Why would you bring me to this place,” she whispered.
“To show you hope,” Ceres said. “It stands upon that ridge.”
Maren turned, and saw a solitary creature standing on the rise, its massive figure silhouetted against the fading sun.
It was strange and inhuman, with horns that reached for the sky. Tall and wolf-like, with dark fur covering it from nose to claw, and a body clad in tarnished armor that glittered in the waning light. A thing of broken dreams and borne of twisted demons.
A monster.
She shook her head. “I don’t… I do not understand how this poor beast is hope?”
“Do you not?” The goddess asked softly. “Look again.”
“No, I…” As Maren focused on the figure, a fresh level of awareness skirted across her skin. She did not know this beast, but at the same time he felt shockingly familiar. Almost as if…
