To overthrow the cruel King who brutally slaughtered her foremothers, the last surviving water witch Elara Consuli must team up with novice warrior Juda Vikaris from the Serpent Order and realise an ancient prophecy, before the blood-thirsty ruler d...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Roth had always said the mammoth gates to the King's keep were as wide as the wingspan of the monstrous spider dragon. Yet, standing in front of them, Juda thought them to be larger, and no doubt to some, far more terrifying than the eight-eyed winged beast that laid its gossamer traps in the narrow passages of the Dreynian mountains, waiting to ensnare any traveller unfortunate to wander off course.
To him, however, the gates to the black palace sent a rush of exhilaration through his veins. They were, after all, the gateway to everything he had been striving for since Aleina had been dragged from his side.
At his side now stood The Grim, who had rapped five times on the small entry door cut into the gates with his wide, roughened knuckles and now stood waiting, staring directly ahead as he had in the training yard.
It took an age for someone to open the door. Time crawled by so slow that Juda wondered if it might stop altogether and he would be frozen here, so close to his goal and yet forever on the wrong side of the palace walls.
When the snap and click of well-oiled latches could be heard and the door was finally opened, it was not the familiar red and black uniform of an Elite Guardsman who greeted them, but the fully cloaked figure of a Druvari priest, his shaven head half etched with scrawls of indigo ink.
Juda couldn't see The Grim's expression, for his own attention was fixed ahead, but he noted the hesitation in the Commander before he finally spoke.
"I, Commander Grim of the Serpent Order, come to deliver one Highguard Vikaris to the His Most Exalted King Ban-Keren's side, to remain eternally loyal, fierce in his devotion, and to sacrifice his own life if the crown does so require it, until the tide comes when His Grace grants him leave of service, or when he doth meet his death."
The priest's piercing gaze crawled over Juda's flesh, his distaste evident in the sneering curl of his mouth. "Scraping the barrel now, I see, Commander? One wonders, by Ban-Keren, what paltry scraps you will deliver to the palace next?"
The Grim broke from his position to lock eyes with the priest.
"Scraps, is it?" he said, his voice sharp as a dagger's edge. "You tell Hoth-Sàl, he can match any of you wet-hearted rags of shit to my warriors any tide he cares for, and I'll wager it'll be your blood I'll see ooze out of your soft-cocked bodies into the dust of my training yard. Any fucking tide, do you hear me, wretch? Now do your fucking job and let us through, before I make you piss in your britches in front of however many more of you pitiful whelps stand cowering behind this gate."
Juda allowed himself a brief glance at the priest, hoping to see how The Grim's rebuke would have undoubtedly soured the arrogant look on the man's face, and yet instead saw something that spiked a recollection so sharp into his brain, that it would have rocked a weaker man back onto his heels.
A line of spidery script curled around the tip of the priest's ear, broken partway where the cartilage had been torn from an old injury.
Juda's body was being torn apart. He was certain of it. Whatever burrowed inside him would devour his innards, drink his blood, rip apart his flesh until his body could no longer contain its wild thrashing. Any other pain such as this, and his body would grant him the blessed relief of unconsciousness, but the borer-worm would allow no such thing. No, it would keep him awake throughout its torture, attempt to destroy not only his body, but his mind too. He had to withstand it. He had to...
