Not an angel, I thought, gritting my teeth as I started to rise, panting, to my feet. Not an angel, but a fox-tailed, bat-winged demon. An alien monster I had to get away from at all costs.

Steadying myself against the tree, I raised my foot to take a step.

My boot never hit the ground.

He moved faster than should have been possible, especially for someone his size, all coiled strength and agile muscle. His hands closed around my waist, his wings slamming downward until the world, along with my voice, was ripped entirely away.

The ground was gone.

All that was left was the white and the black and the wings. Red fur, webbed stars.

And the swallowing blue of his eyes.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER EIGHT Wylfrael

The flight to my castle was mercifully short. I was in no shape for a long flight, even though the human female I carried weighed so little. I still wasn’t entirely sure why or how she’d ended up in my arms. I only knew that I could no longer stand about in the woods wasting time when I needed to check on the Sionnachans who lived here. Since I hadn’t killed her yet, and had decided not to leave her, it seemed the only option left was to bring her with me.

I can always kill her later.

But even as I thought the words, I knew that they were hollow. She was too small, too fragile, too brutalized by the snow. She’d come with the invaders, yes, but she’d raised no weapon against me. I wondered what my peaceful Sionnachan mother Sashkah would say, were she still alive to see me kill such a weak, defenceless female in my midst.

I needn’t have wondered. I knew what she would have said. It was something she’d told me many times throughout my life, whenever I got too brash or too angry or too proud.

Oh, Wylfrael, she’d murmur, stroking her hand over my hair, you have too much of the stone sky in you and not enough of Sionnach.

Violent spasms went through the woman’s body as I held her to my chest. My wings churned much more slowly than they should have, as if through sludge, even though the air was crisp and clear.

Once past the previously human-infested valley, everything looked and sounded and smelled just as it ought to have. The forest thickened beneath us, and ahead the Sionnachan mountains rose up in a dark, snow-peaked band. The sun had begun its descent behind the peaks, staining the sky a red so familiar I could have conjured it behind closed eyes no matter how much time I spent away.

Everything was just as I’d left it.

And yet, nothing felt the same.

I tilted forward, wings relaxing open to catch a drift of wind downwards. The woman in my arms tensed when she realized we were landing, another tremor going through her tiny frame.

I landed on my feet, wings sending the top layer of snow skittering away from us. We were in a clearing – an open space between the thick forest behind and the base of the mountains ahead. I was relieved not to see my castle. Good. That old Riverdark spell still holds.

The warlords of Riverdark were powerful mages. Back when he’d been alive, my father Cynewylf had brought one here. The Riverdark mage had owed him a great debt from a previous affair, and as a result he’d agreed to protect our family home with a shielding spell. It made the entire property invisible, even to those who knew where to look.

I placed the human down onto her feet. I watched her carefully, wondering if she’d collapse or try to run.

I had to hand it to her. She was made of slightly stronger stuff than I’d thought.

She chose to run.

She didn’t get very far. A few weak and wobbly steps were all she managed before she fell forward onto her hands and knees in the snow.

Seems her heart is stronger than her legs.

Sighing, I crossed to her and hauled her upright, keeping a firm grip on her upper arm.

“No more running,” I snapped. “I don’t have the patience for it.”

It was true. Now that the fighting had ended, the pain of my wounds was making itself known. If it had just been the human weapons, that would have been one thing. Barely worth bandaging, really. But Skalla had mauled me before I’d even begun battling the humans. Even before this whole thing had started, I had not been at full strength, still weakened from my first fight with my cousin.

The woman said something to me, and I growled in annoyance. I didn’t understand her.

They must be a young race. Or, at least, this language is.

I’d visited Rúnwebbe not long before my first battle with my cousin, and I’d given her a gift in exchange for a fresh bit of her web. She and her web collected whispers from all over the universe, and those whispers included language. But if this human’s language hadn’t existed in its current form back then, then the small pieces of web I’d absorbed into my ears would be useless where this woman was concerned. Only the source web in Rúnwebbe’s world continued collecting whispers, its threads updating as languages morphed and expanded. Once a bit was cut off and used, it could only translate languages that had existed before it got severed. Maerwynne did say I’d been gone for many mortal generations...

The woman spoke again, something that sounded like a question. A question I did not understand and could not answer.

If I want to understand her or interrogate her, I’ll have to see Rúnwebbe first. Get fresh webbing.

But one thing at a time. For now, I just needed to get inside my blasted castle before I bled out all over the snow.

I spoke the Riverdark word for home, mirreth, and then grunted in satisfaction when the castle shimmered into view. The castle was comprised of three ancient, gigantic trees. The trio of trees had been hollowed out, with rooms and stairs and walls built inside them by my father. The three shining, conical towers were connected by above-ground tunnels made of translucent, multi-coloured crystal – the shards of many trees melded together. Some of the tunnels ran along the ground. Others were high up in the air, suspended between the top floors of the towers.

Apparently, the human was not as satisfied as I was by the apparition, because she renewed her attempts to run with a vengeance. Her feet skidded and slipped in the snow, her whole body straining away from my grip.

“I thought I told you, ‘No more running,’” I said flatly, beginning to walk and hauling her along with me. She stumbled, and by the suddenly stubborn look on her tiny face, I wondered if she was about to stop walking beside me altogether. If she was going to collapse to her knees and force me to drag her or pick her up again. She seemed to decide against it, though, which was smart. If she had let all her weight go like that, my strength probably would have popped her arm out of its socket before I could stop it.

“Good,” I grunted as she walked, not exactly impressed, but something close to pleased by her actions. There was something to be said for walking with your own power, even when the path ahead seemed dark. Plus, I was glad I didn’t have to carry her kicking and screaming inside. What would Yllsha think?

It jarred me, the grief when I remembered that Yllsha, the endlessly competent Mistress of Affairs who’d run this castle when I’d last been here, was long dead. Though I felt as if I’d only seen her days ago, she would not be here. Neither would Notto, the Master of the Grounds, with his flashing eyes and smoky, rumbling guffaw.

Who was left?

Would anyone even be here at all?