Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Night fell. Troops returned to the mountain. The Fae camped at the base of the lake. It ran red with blood.
Ferrinix sat on the banks. He waited and watched. These creatures were supposed to have remained in Alfheim. He Who Reigns was not supposed to send more to these shores. This was dragon domain. Humans had lived here first, but they now worshipped the dragons. As they should.
Kerrigan knew all this as if she were inside Ferrinix’s head. The ache he felt at being deceived by the one who had sent them here. He Who Reigns was the most devastating being in the known universe and Kerrigan’s grandfather. She was glad to have never met him. If all the Doma and dragons knew to fear him, it would do her no good to meet the monster.
Ferrinix didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to protect his people. He did not want to consort with the Fae. He did not want to cede land to their kind. They bred quicker than dragons and would soon take over the world. He didn’t know how to stop it without wiping them clean off the map. It was the only way.
With his decision made, he turned to leave. A shift in the winds to the northern bank made him turn. Out of the darkness, in a cloak of shadows, a maiden stepped out of the nothing to stand before him.
He had never seen this power. The possibilities were terrifying even for a dragon.
Irena stood before him, more beautiful than even history could depict her. She looked shockingly like Titania. If Kerrigan had not stood in the presence of the mother of the Fae, she would have thought Irena was Titania. But as she neared Ferrinix, Kerrigan could see the slight differences. Her hair was more white than blond, her features sharper than Titania’s full face, her eyes keener, more cunning, but less all-knowing. She wore all black like an assassin ready to take out her mark. The shadows of the Ollivier line swirled around her hands.
“What are you doing here, child?” Ferrinix asked, exhaustion in every line of his features.
“I have come to end it,” Irena said in her melodic tone.
“You think that killing me, if you are even capable, would be enough to end this? Your people are a plague on our lands. Another ruler will rise up. Another dragon will take my place. You will lose.”
“Where else do you think we can go?” she demanded.
“I do not care.”
Irena took another step forward. She had no visible weapons on her. Was she there to kill Ferrinix? Was she the assassin that one of the tales had set her up as?
“You should care. We could be allies.”
Ferrinix rumbled, the red flush of fire against his throat. “Allies? To our enemies?”
“We do not need to remain enemies.”
“That is all we are.” Ferrinix looked down his snout at her. He was tired. He doubted this small thing could kill him. But wouldn’t it be glorious to have one last fight with the shadow thing at his feet? Maybe it would determine the end of this war.
“We are the same,” Irena said. “We were both cast out from our homelands. We can no longer claim Alfheim. The Doma have sent us on. We have nowhere else to go. Let us lay claim to this land together. Let us ally.”
He did not care about her plight, only the atrocities they had committed and the dragon blood on their hands and the land the dragons owned.
“No,” Ferrinix said and then blasted fire at her.
But Irena moved through her shadows as if through air. One second, she was there, and the next, she was on Ferrinix’s back. He roared and burst into the sky. The girl remained atop him as if this were not her first time riding the winds. She barely stumbled as he went straight toward the moon high above. She clung to him as he looped around, and then she ran up his back until she was at his neck.
He moved into a tight corkscrew, trying to dislodge her. He had never had a rider on his back. That had been one of the disagreements in the last days of their time in Domara. His forebearers had fled to keep the Doma from using them as brute animals. He would not become one.
“You gave me no other choice,” Irena yelled.
Then, out of the shadows appeared a black metal crown. It had luster in the moonlight, shining with the glow. But it seemed to suck the light in rather than reflect it. And as she lifted it high, anticipating Ferrinix’s next move, she dropped the crown onto his head.
They both fell, dropping out of the sky like the dragon had been shot with an arrow through the heart. Irena screamed as she pinwheeled her arms. Ferrinix couldn’t move. Whatever this crown had done, it had affixed to his head. And in his mind, it was suddenly no longer silent. There was another voice.