The Primodial Song: Book 1

Chapter One

The war is here, and where am I?
Stuck in the fucking catacombs, wandering around in the dark, trying to find some way out so I can get to my parents, who are fighting somewhere above me with the rest of our people.
I've been down here long enough that I'm starting to lose track of which corridors I've already searched. Every hallway looks the same, all dark stone, ancient carvings, and alcoves holding the remains of people who died long before I was born. I strain my senses as I walk, searching for anything that might lead me out. Fighting, screaming, footsteps overhead. Hell, at this point I'd settle for the distant rumble of an explosion, but I can't hear a damn thing.
The silence down here is unnatural. Heavy. All I can hear is the echo of my own footsteps and the occasional crackle from the torches I've lit along the walls with a wave of my hand. Their flickering light dances across ancient runes carved into the stone, protections meant to keep my ancestors' remains safe from anyone stupid enough to disturb them.
Apparently, they're also very good at keeping me in.
"Fuck!" I scream, kicking the last emergency exit latch hard enough to send pain shooting through my foot.
Nothing happens. The runes carved across the door glow faintly beneath my boot, almost as if they're mocking me.
I know what they are. I've known since the moment I woke up down here and realized what had happened, but that hasn't stopped me from trying every door I've found. Even with all my power, there are some runes a half-blood like me cannot break, which means someone knew exactly what they were doing when they put me down here.
That thought pisses me off more than anything else.
They've trained me for decades to fight this war. Bracken has beaten me bloody more times than I can count, teaching me to use every weapon imaginable and every ounce of power I possess. I've spent my entire life preparing for the day the Mystics finally broke through the Divide, and now that the war is actually here, they lock me away underground while everyone I care about is fighting above me.
I don't understand any of it.
I turn to head back the way I came when the runes behind me suddenly flare. I spin around, throwing an arm over my eyes as light floods the corridor. The door opens just wide enough for a man to slip through before slamming shut behind him.
For a second, I don't recognize him. He's covered in so much dirt and blood that I can barely see his face. His clothes are torn, there's blood drying in his hair, and he looks more exhausted than I've ever seen him.
Then he looks at me.
"Bracken!"
Relief hits me so hard it nearly knocks the anger right out of me. Nearly.
"You damn idiot, are you okay?" I rush toward him, looking him over for wounds. There's so much blood on him that I can't tell how much of it is his.
"I'm fine," he says briskly, and that's all I get.
No explanation. No reassurance. He grabs my arm and immediately starts pulling me down one of the corridors as though he expects me to follow without argument.
I stumble after him for several steps before my relief wears off and my anger comes roaring back. "Why did you lock me down here?"
He doesn't answer.
"Bracken."
Still nothing.
I twist my arm, trying to wrench myself free, but his grip only tightens. He's always been stronger than me in this form, something he never lets me forget during training.
"Would you stop dragging me around and tell me what the hell is going on?"
"To keep you from what's happening."
There's something in his voice that makes me stop fighting.
Not anger. Not irritation. Pain.
I stare at the back of his head as he keeps walking, and suddenly the blood covering him feels a lot more real. Something is wrong. Really wrong.
I dig my heels into the stone and yank my arm hard enough that this time I manage to tear it from his grasp. "Bracken. Tell me what's happening."
For several seconds he just stands there with his back to me. His shoulders rise and fall with a heavy breath before he finally turns around.
The expression on his face makes my anger falter.
Bracken has been training me for most of my life. I've seen him angry. I've seen him injured. I've seen him annoyed enough with me that I thought he might actually throw me off the side of a mountain, but I've never seen him look like this.
He closes the distance between us and grips my shoulders. "Stop fighting me and listen," he snaps, shaking me once. "We trained you to survive this war, Willow. Not to fight in it."
I stare at him, sure I've heard him wrong. "What?"
His grip loosens slightly. "I'm sorry we deceived you."
The words don't make sense. "Deceived me about what?"
"Everything." His face tightens. "We knew there was a chance this would happen. We hoped we were wrong, but we couldn't risk telling you, not with the connection you have to Eryx."
My stomach twists at the sound of his name, and I hate that it does. I hate that there's anything inside me that responds to him at all.
Eryx Creed may have helped create me, but he's never been my father. Not in any way that matters. My father is the man fighting somewhere above us right now. The man who raised me, protected me, and taught me what it meant to be Draken long before I was old enough to understand why everyone seemed so tense whenever someone mentioned the Mystic Realm.
Eryx is blood. Nothing more.
"What does he have to do with this?"
"Your biological father," Bracken says quietly, as though I need the reminder. "He's turned against us."
A bitter laugh leaves me before I can stop it. "Then stop calling him my father. That man donated half of whatever made me and disappeared back through the Divide. He doesn't get the title."
Something almost like sympathy flickers across Bracken's face, which only makes me angrier.
"We didn't realize the truth until he returned to the Mystic Realm."
"You told me he was a double agent," I say, shaking my head. "You told me he went back because he was supposed to, that everything he did over there was meant to help us."
"I believed that."
"Then maybe he's still pretending."
"He isn't."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
His answer is too immediate, and the look on his face makes something cold settle in my stomach.
"People are dying because of information only Eryx had."
For a moment, I can't breathe.
The disgust that rises in me is so sharp I can almost taste it. His blood runs through me. The thought has never bothered me before because Eryx was always something distant, an uncomfortable truth I could shove into a corner of my mind and ignore.
Now I want it out of me. I want to claw open my own veins and drain every piece of him from my body.
"How much did he tell them?"
"We don't know."
"About me?"
Bracken hesitates, and that hesitation is enough.
"Bracken."
"He knows what you are and what you're capable of. Whether he gave that information willingly or they pulled it from him somehow, I can't risk him reaching you through the bond."
A sick chill crawls over my skin. "He can feel me?"
"Not now. I blocked the connection."
"And before?"
Bracken doesn't answer quickly enough.
I let out a humorless laugh and rub a hand over my face. "Fantastic. So my traitorous biological father has apparently been sitting across the Divide with a door into my fucking head."
"Not exactly."
"That is not nearly as reassuring as you think it is."
Bracken reaches for my arm again, and this time I let him take it. "There's not much time, Willow. The block should hold for quite some time, but I don't know how the Rite of Great Sleep will affect it."
I stop walking so suddenly he nearly jerks me forward.
"The Rite of Great Sleep?"
Bracken closes his eyes, and that alone tells me everything.
"No."
"Willow-"
"No." I back away from him. "You want me to sleep through this war?"
His silence is answer enough.
"There is no fucking way I'm letting that happen. My parents are up there. Our people are up there." I point toward the ceiling even though we're so far underground I have no idea what's directly above us anymore. "You trained me for this my entire life, and now you expect me to lie down and sleep while all of you die?"
"That's exactly what I expect you to do."
I laugh because I genuinely can't believe what I'm hearing. "You've lost your fucking mind."
Bracken's eyes flash, the dark brown bleeding away until they're molten red, his pupils narrowing into thin slits. "Damn it, Willow!"
He moves before I realize what he's doing. One second I'm standing in front of him, and the next my stomach slams against his shoulder.
"Bracken!"
He takes off down the corridor while I shove against his back. "Put me down!"
"No."
"I swear to the gods, when you put me down I'm going to kill you."
"Get in line."
Despite everything, an incredulous laugh almost escapes me.
Almost.
Then the corridor opens into a circular chamber, and every thought disappears from my head.
I've never been in this part of the catacombs before. Runes cover nearly every inch of the room, carved into the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Some I recognize from my studies. Protection. Preservation. Blood. Others are so old I've only seen drawings of them in books Bracken wouldn't even let me touch without gloves.
A stone altar sits at the center of it all.
My stomach drops.
"No."
Bracken carries me toward it anyway.
"No, no, no. Bracken, put me down."
He does, but only when we reach the altar. The moment my feet touch the ground, I try to step away, and he catches both my hands.
"We need you to survive so you can save us."
There's something different about his voice now, and it makes me stop struggling.
Bracken doesn't plead. Not with me. Not with anyone. But that's exactly what he's doing.
"They're inside our minds, Willow," he says, his fingers tightening around mine. "The Mystics found a way to enslave the Draken. They're turning us against each other, forcing us to fight a war they started on their side of the Divide."
My mouth goes dry. "How?"
"I don't know. Not completely. We thought we understood what they were doing, but their magic is changing too quickly." He swallows and looks away from me for a moment. "I've already seen Draken turn on their own families."
The image hits me hard enough that I feel sick. "My parents?"
"I don't know."
"Bracken."
"I don't know," he repeats, harsher this time, but I can hear the fear underneath it. "And I don't have time to find out."
I pull against his hands, but there's no strength behind it anymore. "So you're just sending me away?"
"No." His eyes come back to mine. "I'm making sure there's someone left to bring us back."
Something inside me cracks.
I want to scream at him. I want to hit him. I want to burn every rune in this room to ash and run upstairs to find my parents. But beneath all that anger is something much worse.
Fear.
Because Bracken is afraid, and if Bracken is afraid, then whatever is happening above us is worse than anything I imagined.
My eyes burn. "How long?"
"We don't know."
"Years?"
"Maybe."
My throat tightens. "Decades?"
His silence makes my chest hurt.
I look toward the entrance of the chamber. Somewhere beyond all that stone, my parents are fighting. People I've known my entire life are fighting, possibly dying, and Bracken wants me to leave them.
"What if you need me?"
"We do," he says, and his answer comes so quickly that I look back at him. He gives my hands a squeeze. "Just not yet."
That breaks whatever fight I have left.
I nod.
Bracken's shoulders sag with relief, and for a moment he closes his eyes before motioning toward the altar. "Lie down."
I climb onto the cold stone, every part of me screaming that this is wrong. Bracken watches me settle onto my back, blood drying along his jaw. I want to ask him whose it is. I want to ask him a thousand things, but suddenly none of the questions seem important enough.
He reaches for the blade at his waist.
"If you see anyone you know when you wake, we will not recognize you."
My heart stutters. "What do you mean?"
But Bracken draws the blade across his wrist before I can sit up.
"Bracken!"
Blood spills freely down his hand. He presses his palm against the first rune surrounding the altar and drags it slowly across the ancient carving. The symbol drinks it in, and a faint red light follows his hand before settling into the stone.
Then he moves to the next.
"What are you doing?"
He doesn't answer. He begins to chant instead.
The language is ancient, older than any kingdom that still exists. It's the language of our ancestors, the dragons we once were, before time and magic changed us into what we are now. I know enough to understand pieces of what he's saying, but not all of it. Sleep. Blood. Time. There are other words woven between them that I can't translate.
Protection, maybe.
Or sacrifice.
"Bracken, that's enough."
He keeps moving as blood runs steadily from his wrist, dripping onto the stone between the runes.
"Bracken, that's enough blood."
His steps begin to falter, but he ignores me.
The first rune ignites.
Then another.
And another.
A pulse of power rolls through the chamber so violently that I suck in a breath. The air suddenly feels too thick, charged with something I don't understand, and when I try to sit up, nothing happens.
My body won't move.
"Bracken?"
My lips form his name, but no sound comes out.
Panic tears through me. I fight against whatever is holding me, trying to move even a finger, but the magic has wrapped itself around every part of me.
Then something changes.
The power filling the room isn't coming from the runes anymore. Or at least, not all of it.
There's something else here.
Someone.
I feel him before I see him. Every instinct I possess reacts at once. My heart pounds, my skin prickles, and something ancient buried deep inside me recognizes a predator far greater than anything I've ever encountered.
The air beside Bracken seems to ripple, and then a man is simply there.
He's taller than any man I've ever seen, broad through the shoulders, with long brown hair falling loose around his face. His eyes are a vivid purple, bright enough that they almost seem to glow against the darkness of the chamber.
He's beautiful, painfully so, but there is nothing safe about him.
Bracken sways where he stands.
The stranger reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, and Bracken's knees buckle. He collapses in front of him, one hand catching himself against the floor while he pants for breath.
I try to call out to him.
Nothing.
"You did well, old friend," the man whispers.
Bracken looks up and smiles.
I forget my panic for a moment because I've known Bracken for most of my life, and I've never seen that expression on his face. There's no sarcasm in it, no arrogance, none of the hardness he seems to carry everywhere he goes.
It's tender.
Bracken reaches for the man's hand and presses a kiss against his palm.
My eyes widen.
What the hell?
I've never seen Bracken interested in anyone. Ever. As far as I knew, he was born old and irritated and planned to die that way.
The man's expression softens as he looks down at him. "Your power will return, but slowly, and that wound won't heal for some time."
Bracken looks at the blood still dripping from his wrist and shrugs as though the injury is barely worth mentioning.
Of course he does.
Then he turns his head toward me. "Take care of her, Atherian."
If the magic hadn't already stolen my voice, I think I would have stopped breathing anyway.
Atherian.
One of the Primordial Gods.
Not a priest. Not some ancient Mystic Bracken dragged out of hiding. A Primordial.
My mind struggles to make sense of the man standing only a few feet away from me. I've seen paintings, statues, and read stories written by people who claimed their grandparents' grandparents had once seen one of the Primordials from a distance.
None of those stories prepared me for what it feels like to be in the same room as one.
Atherian turns toward me, and his purple eyes meet mine.
For one terrible second, I understand exactly how prey must feel when it realizes it's being watched.
I'm a Draken. In my true form, I'm enormous. I've spent decades being taught that there are very few things in this world I should fear.
Atherian is one of them.
And yet, when he approaches the altar, his expression is almost sad. He reaches down and brushes a lock of hair away from my face, his fingers warm against my skin.
"Forgive me, sweet Willow."
I don't understand what he means until his palm presses against the center of my chest.
Pain explodes through me.
Every muscle in my body locks as something tears through my veins like fire. I can't scream. I can't move. All I can do is stare up at him while the runes surrounding the altar flare so brightly that the entire chamber turns red.
The pain keeps building until, for one horrible moment, I think Bracken lied.
This isn't sleep.
I'm dying.
Atherian's face begins to blur above me, but his hand remains firmly against my chest.
Then the pain disappears.
Not slowly. One moment it's unbearable, and the next there's nothing.
The chamber fades with it. The runes, Atherian, Bracken kneeling on the floor beside him, everything slips farther and farther away until I can't hold onto any of it.
The last thing I see is Bracken watching me.
Then sleep takes me.