Page 210 of Scourged
Mariah latched onto his bond with all her might as she cast a final snarl towards Kol, arched her wings, and leaped into the air.
She stayed latched onto that bond for as long as she could, until the distance between them stretched too thin, and his words vanished behind her on the evening breeze.
Chapter 72
The gardens were silent as Andrian watched his soul fly into the sky. Her roar tore through the heavens, their bond pulling taut in his chest before fading with her disappearing form.
“Don’t come back for me.”
He kept repeating those words, over and over, even after he was sure she could no longer hear them. But only because he had to be sure.
She had to listen. She’d never been good at listening, but by all the gods, he hoped she would now.
He wasn’t worth her rescue. This one act may have bought him true redemption for the pain he caused her, and he hoped she would let him have it.
“I think we both know she will come back for you, son of shadows.”
The rays of the setting sun gilded the edges of the great black and gold dragon, aureate eyes glowing like twin suns. Shadows danced between the membranes of his wings, just as light had twined through Mariah’s.
And to Andrian’s bitter disgust, he felt his own shadowsreaching.Desperate to leak from the dark place in his soul,curious to investigate this being who was so much like him in so many ways.
But Andrian had known for many months now: his shadows might have been cast by the sun, but they’d grown stronger beneath the silver-gold light of the moons.
“You knownothingabout her.”
Kol chuckled.“Maybe not the woman she is. But I know her. The grace she carries is a part of her. It will never allow her to leave you behind. Not forever.”
His words grated against Andrian.“You don’t know what you’re talking about. She is not her magic.”
“Are you so sure about that?”Kol lowered his massive head.“All people are nothing more than their power. Power determines their place in this world. And magic is but a manifestation of power.”
Andrian gritted his teeth, holding Kol’s gaze with a defiant glare, but said nothing.
The dragon chuffed, snaking his head back to the sky. The shadows around his wings wove thicker, caressing his onyx scales. They leaked from his body, soon shrouding him in a rush of darkness, opaque clouds billowing around his form. The air crackled and the shadows snapped together, condensing into a size a fraction of the beast.
Into the size and shape of a man.
They peeled away slowly, revealing the figure beneath.
Andrian’s breath left him in a rush. He staggered backwards, knees buckling, almost sinking to the blood-stained grass.
The man—Kol—wore a dark, fitted jacket, black pants tailored to a powerful and imposing frame. His skin was warm and tanned, his hair black and shimmering with traces of gold.
But his face … his face was Andrian’s. Only his flaming red-gold eyes and their slightly more upturned shape set the two men apart.
They could have been brothers. Far more alike than Andrian was to his actual brother, Gabriel, whose absence from Khento was something a part of him noted and stored in the darker corners of his mind.
Kol looked enough like him to shred through Andrian’s wall of ice, fear and confusion slipping past his careful mask.
The dark god brushed a hand across his shoulder. His face lifted into a familiar, cocky smirk. “Surprised by something,reykr?”
Murmured gasps washed through the gardens as the court members reemerged from where they’d hid amongst the rubble and behind the castle walls. But Andrian couldn’t tear his gaze from Kol.
From the face that might as well have been his own.
His words failed him, so his mouth stayed closed, all his resolve pouring into his limbs to keep his body standing and steady.
Kol laughed. “There is so much you do not know. Which reminds me …” His laughter died as he shifted his attention behind Andrian.