Legions of Bone: Dragon Rider Book 3

Chapter 40: Cold Fury

I scare the shit out of my boss every day lmao. She hates me.

Norah

Norah recognized the howling before she felt the storm. Could feel the ground trembling like the fall of a hundred cities through her boots. The planet's destruction sounded like drums against her ears, loud and deafening. Jagged rocks took to the air, cutting her face.

Fear coiled inside her belly. Fear like ice and crawling worms.

Not like this, she thought, squinting through the pitch black. She could make out the wisps of clouds surging around her. Could see the speckle of rocks—but no god.

It wouldn't be long.

Norah wrapped her arms around her to keep her shaking unseen. She had to push through the frost and the shakes, the memory of lying there, her body twisted and mangled only to be healed and destroyed again until she woke. But she couldn't wake from death. She had to think how to get herself out of this.

"You return."

The words felt like cold drips on her skin. But there was more in Etin's voice than that low, booming certainty—the voice that reverberated through the storm, burrowed in her bones like blood and knives carving her away. There was confusion.

"Yes." Was all she wanted to say.

Pain slithered up her back, Etin's taloned fingers taking her shoulders very, very gently. "Why?"

Norah was dead. She remembered the Echo and then falling. This wasn't sleeping, she wouldn't wake up.

Norah chose her next words carefully. "I died."

"Is that so?" he crooned, tracing the curl of her ear. Pain followed like a lover. "How?"

"A Thrawler." He couldn't know the whole truth.

Etin pulled away, his presence vanishing like heat blasting away the cold. He chuckled, the sound echoing around her. "You try to defeat me, but you cannot even defeat a Thrawler. How pathetic you've become without my guidance."

Norah said nothing. She forced herself to remember her previous visits, needing anything she could use to help her.

You will not die in my realm, he once told her.

Norah glanced up at Etin, his towering form prowling around her, darker than the storm consuming them. Had he known she'd return here? Or had he been implying she couldn't die here wherever she was on Andis.

It's the same realm, she hissed at herself. He was on Andis. It was his realm.

He'd known.

But the pieces weren't adding together.

"Did you know?" she wondered. "Did you know I would come back?"

"You possess the other half of my soul. You will always return to me. No god can hide you from me."

Vaella.

Of course, he would fucking know about her too.

Norah shrank into herself, enough that her emotions and body became distant. "I died before."

Etin was behind her now. It felt too vulnerable for Norah, too easy a place to strike, but turning would mean displaying that discomfort.

"I made adjustments." His voice sliced against her ear, cold and sharp as razors. "You left. I granted you my power so you may escape your prison and you abused it."

Norah wavered, her insides turning into liquid. 

"You were going to torture me," she said, frowning.

"For your own good," he replied sweetly, caressing her cheek. "To help you learn, my child, but you continue to rebel." He yanked her head back to meet his faceless form. "I cannot do that if you are weak and run to lesser gods."

"She found me," Norah explained. "I had no choice."

Etin shoved her forward, the storm rumbling with his frustration. "You dance into cages like a weasel into snares," he sneered, the words tinged with disgust. "I held higher expectations of you. You should have spent your time sharpening your skills, but all I see is a beaten dog content to stay in its cage."

Norah's anger stoked. She choked it down.

"Did you know about the god in your realm?" she asked.

"Which are you referring to?" He leered over her, taunting her. Making her feel small and in the dark on her own knowledge.

It was working and she hated it.

"The one that's been sending creatures into your realm," she explained, her fear melting into anger.

Etin's shadows withered. "I do not have time for such pathetic gods."

"What if he comes here?" she asked. "Into your realm?"

"It does not matter," he said. "He will die like the rest."

He.

Norah's gaze fell to the black, rocky ground. Shards of rock tumbled across the ground, clashing against the other shards, against her boots before being swept away into the darkness. An idea came to mind.

"You're right," she said. "Once one god comes here, they'll all come in."

The fallen god circled her, prowling and hungry for violence. "You waste my time. Tell me your point."

"If the gods are in one place, they'll all start infighting," she explained, squinting against the wind. "They'll kill each other off."

Etin froze, turning on her. "What other gods?" he growled. As if no one was stupid enough to cross into his realm, even as he knew of two gods already trespassing.

"The other infinite ones?" she suggested.

Etin whirled and this time Norah was ready for it. "This is my realm--my planet and you are mine. You will kill him."

"Me?" She grimaced. This was not where she expected it to go. "I'm dead."

"Have you always been so dense?" Etin seethed. "If you humans hadn't forsaken us, you would remember gods cannot die. Hence..."

The icy spiders crawled down her body. It took her a moment too long to figure out the obvious. "I'm immortal?"

"Partially." His disdain didn't go unnoticed. "My divinity will resurrect your mortal form."

She forced herself as still as possible, not quite sure how to feel or what to do.

Etin's shadow body dispelled into the darkness, appearing looming over her until he was the only thing she could see. "Prove your loyalty," he demanded. "Kill the god."

"How?"

"A weapon I created," he stated. "It can kill a lesser god. You will find it stored where I once ruled in Oreyad. The sentinels will not harm you and neither will my creatures."

"Any tricks I should watch out for?" Norah asked. "A puzzle I have to solve to get this weapon?"

"I will order my sentinels to let you pass," he said. "Take the weapon and kill the god if you wish to be at my side."

Norah didn't. There was only pain, and her family's deaths if she joined him. But she nodded, head spinning with thousands of questions when the world went black.