The Demigod Proving (66 page)

Thirty feet.

Athanaric had nearly used all of his Flux.

Twenty feet.

He reached out, almost able to grab the draegon's tail. Leenda's eyes, wide in horror at her failure, met his.

Ten feet.

Something struck him in the back, throwing him off balance. His hand, extended to grab onto the draegon's tail, closed over empty air. The weight on his back pulled him down, and he began to spin.

“Yet another god loses,” Naresh said into his ear, and the weight was gone.

And so was Athanaric’s Flux.

He spun and rotated as he plunged, so that one moment he saw the ground coming closer, the next the draegon in the sky. He caught a glimpse of Naresh landing on the draegon's back, above, and of his paladins meeting the Hasuken, below.

He couldn’t suppress a roar of anger.

He'd failed. He had
failed
. The Godslayer had bested him. A favored son—one who might have inherited his godhood—was dead. His other choice son had betrayed him. He had no heir, no oasis against the despair of his years.

And he was falling.

But he still was moving, and so he still created Flux. It emanated from him in waves of white. He could harvest that Ichor and slow his fall enough to survive the impact.

Yet, he could also let himself fall and fall and strike the ground like a star descended from heaven, and die. He could end it all and no one would think he'd done it on purpose. He could do it, and end his agony at life—so much the greater without the promise of an heir to relieve him of his duty.

No. He had a people to lead and love. They depended on him, and they would need him to protect them from the other gods, who ruled not with generosity and kindness, but with fists of steel. His people still needed him.

And the country of Hasuke needed taming. It needed to pay for what it had done to his little ones and wives through its alliance with the apostates. He had vengeance to levy on his enemies.

Especially Naresh and Wrend.

And so he harvested the Flux, bound it to his body, and applied it upward. He would hit the ground hard, but hopefully he could slow his descent enough that it wouldn't kill him.

He would live to protect his people. He would live to mete out justice.

Chapter 88: Remembered memory

Every human dreams of flying, of lighting on the wind like a bird or a draegon. How strange it is, when as a human you remember doing exactly that.

-Wrend

Wrend knew it was his own memory. It was too strong and vivid to be anything else. It wasn't an imagination or a dream, a vision or a revelation. It was a
memory
.

His red wings spread out on both sides, the wind flapping their edges and rustling through his fur. The ground slipped away below him: an alpine forest with snow frosting the needles of spruces and pines.

His draegon-shaped shadow grew and shrunk as it moved over trees, and dropped fifty feet to the bottom of a ravine. To each side of him, larger draegons flew. His mother on his right, with her amber fur, and his father to his left, with his dark red fur and the splotch of white on his nose. He loved to fly.

It was an old memory. Very old—from the time when he was a draegon pup, just learning to fly. But it was his.

He was a draegon.

Chapter 89: Something like victory

Rarely do you achieve your goal in one gigantic event. More often than not you get there slowly. Step by step, like the rising of the sun.

-Weicketable

Leenda tried to grip Wrend. It was goat-gutting difficult because she had to twist her body to hold on to him, and he seemed to want to do nothing but laugh and spread his arms wide. He had his eyes closed and his head thrown back. It seemed he'd snapped. Gone goat-gut crazy.

“I'll hold him,” the old man said.

He crawled up Krack's back, holding on to fistfuls of fur. Leenda had no idea who the man was, but didn't care. He seemed to be on their side.

Below, Athanaric struck the ground, right in the middle of a battalion of paladins. They bounced up and away from the force of his impact. The wind carried away the sound of him hitting the ground, but Leenda imagined it would have satisfied her very much.

As they approached the opposite butte, Krack began to descend. She laughed at the wind in her face. She had her mate. He had escaped from Athanaric. That didn’t mean he’d decided to join her and return to a draegon body, but she’d gotten him halfway there. It was a victory. Not everything she’d hoped for, but that would come in time. No doubt it would.

And, just as important, her son had come back to her.

She leaned low against Krack’s neck, nestling her face in the fur's softness, and hugged him.

“You came back for me.”

He twisted his head around to look at her. His great black eyes reflected her face, and he didn’t speak for a few seconds. When he did, he tilted his head in an expression of sarcasm.

“Of course I did. I’m a draegon, aren’t I?”

She didn’t know how to take it. Had he decided to live like a noble draegon, or was it simply guilt that had brought him? Maybe his motivation didn’t matter. It, too, was a victory. Perhaps not everything she wanted, but close.

His wings fluttered as he touched down. He took several quick steps and stopped. She dismounted, careful to step around a poison sage, and helped the old man lift Wrend down. He still had a vacant look in his eyes. She guided him over to a rock and sat him down.

“Wrend,” she said. “Wrend.”

He didn’t respond. She straightened, shaking her head, and turned around. Nearby, the old man stood looking at Wrend with a furrowed brow.

“Who are you?” she said.

He shrugged and pointed with his chin at Wrend.

“His mentor, I suppose.”

She raised her eyebrows. “He never told me about you.”

He laughed at her as if laughing at a little child who’d stumbled while learning how to walk, and gave her a look as if indulging her on some trivial thing. He might have been on their side—and was obviously very powerful—but he was still a goat-gutted idiot. She could see that.

When he’d finished laughing, he leveled his eyes on her.

“And you’ve spent so much time with him that he would have told you everything? Who, I should ask, are you?”

In complete silence, Krack lowered his head, placing it about a foot behind and to the left of the man’s head. Leenda didn’t let her eyes wander to her son. Instead, she pursed her lips, placed her hands on her hips, and stepped between the man and Wrend.

“I’m his mate.”

His eyes widened. “I had no idea that he’d—“

“And that,” she said, nodding at Krack, “is his son.”

Naresh turned his head—and yelped to find the draegon so close. He jumped away, and looked back-and-forth several times from Leenda to Krack, clearly trying to figure it all out. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air.

“I thought I’d seen everything,” he said. “But maybe not.”

“Leenda.”

Leenda snapped around, turning back to Wrend. He looked up at her with an expression full of understanding. Comprehension. For the first time since she’d seen him, she saw light in his eyes. True light. Heart pounding, she knelt before him. His gaze locked with hers. His mouth gaped.

“What is it?” she said.

He shook his head and chuckled in complete wonder. “I remember now.”

Her heart leapt. Could he remember his draegon form? Could he remember that she was his mate?

“You remember what?”

A corner of his mouth twitched in a smile.

“I’m a draegon.”

Chapter 90: Just the beginning

Do the best you can with the circumstances you’re given. That’s all anyone can ask of you.

-Naresh

From their position of safety atop the butte, they watched the two armies clash in battle. They were much more evenly matched than Wrend ever would have expected.

At the outset, the Master had withdrawn, limping back to the rear ranks of his army—probably not out of cowardice, but in an effort to recover from wounds. Wrend imagined that he would go to Rashel, to recover along with her. Well, he hoped the Master would. And hopefully his mercy toward Rashel would continue.

The paladins attacked with their usual doggedness, going down only once they’d lost their heads. They cut down plenty of Hasuken soldiers with ease, and kept on fighting even after they’d lost their arms and legs. But they didn’t simply overrun the Hasuken, many of whom leapt and dodged with unusual speed and strength.

“How is that possible?” Wrend said.

Leenda stood next to him, gripping his hand. Disappointment had painted her face when he’d admitted that he didn’t remember being her mate. He didn’t even remember her in his draegon form. He could only remember one or two things from his time as a draegon. A few of the things that must’ve been most vivid to him when he was a pup.

According to Naresh, when the Master had transferred his soul from the draegon body into the body he now had, the memories had drained out of the soul, with the newest first, and going back. If the Master had kept Wrend’s soul without a body long enough, Wrend would have lost all his draegon memories. As it was, it had taken flying on a draegon to trigger the ones he had left.

“How are they using Ichor?” Wrend said,

“Your father,” Naresh said, “lives in his own little world. He’s not particularly aware of the things that go on outside it. Many have known for a time—and, granted, kept it secret—that anyone can use Ichor. Not just descendents of Pyter.”

“Anyone?” Leenda said. “You’re sure?”

Naresh nodded.

“I don’t understand,” Wrend said.

Naresh shrugged. “It’s simple. You’ve been in the dark your whole life, knowing only what your father chose to tell you—which wasn’t much. And which, of course, is not even close to the aggregate body of what the world knows. Either he deceived you and the rest of his kingdom about Ichor, or he simply doesn’t know that
every
person can use Ichor. The most common child can learn to use it.”