AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I squint at them, then gasp. Aviax!
I can tell because, while their shape is almost human, they have wings where their arms should be and fingers that end in delicate but sharp claws. Like the birds they so resemble, their bodies are covered in brilliantly colored feathers that shimmer in the sunlight. I’ve never seen aviax so close before. Unlike their horselike cousins, the equus, they do not tend to associate with alaki or, indeed, any of the other humanlike races. They rarely leave their mountaintop cities, the majority of which are securely hidden in the great jungles of the Southern provinces, and when they do, they remain so high above the clouds, they’re usually just specks on the horizon.
I’ve only seen them in passing once or twice before, but now, apparently, White Hands is with them.
“General White Hands,” the one in the front says stiffly. It’s a large male with bright green plumage.
She turns to me apologetically. “I must go, Deka. I’ll call upon you in two days’ time. Do be ready to receive me.”
I nod. “I’ll be waiting,” I say, waving her off.
As I do so, the sound of harried footsteps reaches my ear. “What’s this?” Nenneh Kadeh gasps. “You must end this now!” When I turn fully toward her, the older godsworn is pointing at White Hands’s image while running toward me with a group of the yellow-robed, warlike godsworn and Lamin by her side.
She shakes her head at White Hands. “Please, whoever you are, you must flee before you are followed. Communications such as these can be tracked, and if another senses a disruption in the barrier—”
“Understood.” White Hands nods swiftly, snapping her fingers. Just like that, she is gone.
And Nenneh Kadeh is once more rushing toward me, her eyes alarmed, her voice panicked. “Why did you do that, Angoro Deka? You were warned repeatedly!”
I frown. “Warned about what?”
“The barrier!” Nenneh Kadeh says, exasperated. “You were warned not to disrupt it!”
“And I heeded that warning,” I snap. “The barrier is intact.”
“But she was here! That woman was here! Which means others will come. The balance has been much too disrupted, which is why the vale has grown.”
She points and I follow her gaze toward the ocean. My stomach immediately plunges. There’s an ominously dark area just past the shallows. The shadow vale I saw when I went to the Hall of the Gods—it’s massive now, writhing as it sucks in more and more water.
That wrong feeling pours from it, as does something else: a familiar tingling.
“We have to go,” I say to the others, hurrying onward, but even as I do, I hear it: the high-pitched shrieking emerging from the vale. The shrieking that sounds like deathshrieks but isn’t.
“Oh, gods above, is that—” Before Britta can even finish her question, a dark shape explodes out of the shadow vale: Melanis, a victorious smirk on her face. Five of her hunters follow her, their pale, emaciated bodies seeming wizened by the bright sunlight.
The warrior godsworn unsheathe their swords, alarmed. “What in the name of all the gods is that thing?” one asks.
“Melanis, an ancient alaki!” I reply, reaching for my atikas as Keita and Britta immediately flank me, preparing for battle. “Stay clear of her wingtips. They’re as sharp as knives.”
“Understood!” the warrior godsworn say, positioning themselves around me.
Suddenly I notice Nenneh Kadeh standing at the edge of the grove, her body frozen in place. For all her calm assurance, she’s a scholar, not a warrior. This is no place for her.
“Take her to the caverns,” I command Ixa, who obligingly grows to accommodate her and the two warrior godsworn now making their way over.
When Nenneh Kadeh notices, she shakes her head. “But honored Angoro, I—”
“You’ll only slow us down!” This statement comes from Lamin, who swiftly loads her onto Ixa’s back, then urges the two warrior godsworn to mount behind her. Once they do, he slaps Ixa’s rump. “Go!” he says, and my companion takes off running, headed for the caverns Britta and I just emerged from.
Then they’re gone, and it’s just the remaining three warrior godsworn and us, all weapons raised aloft as we wait for Melanis and her hunters to arrive in the grove.
She does so within moments, she and her hunters flapping lower as she sneers, “Morning greetings, Deka. I would say it was a surprise to find you here, but that would be a lie.”
“Melanis,” I return coldly. “And just how did you find this place?”
“Same way I always find everything—using the trail of Fatu’s gauntlets.” She smirks evilly. “I know so intimately the smell of their power, I could recognize it anywhere. All I had to do was follow the odor, and obligingly, it led me through one of the mothers’ shadow vales.” Her smirk widens, lips splitting into a cruel mockery of a smile.
“Now that we’re finally together again,” she says companionably, “let’s take your body for my goddesses to feast upon, shall we?”
