Bloodlines: Dragon Rider Book 2

Chapter 50: Dark Descent

Still, I say nothing.

"Do not worry, mortal," she says with a spider's smile. "By the time we're done, my name will be carved into your soul."

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The air shimmers, like ripples in water. Everything falls away until darkness surrounds me.

"Holland!" I surge to my feet. My bones turn brittle, my stomach wrenching. I shut my eyes, fighting the nausea.

I had forgotten about him. I had forgotten about the person I killed my dragon for. The thought tastes like bile in my throat.

I blink away the colors, my gaze darts through the darkness before snapping to the woman who would tower over Holland, over any person with ease. "Where is he? Where is Holland?" He was still breathing when I left. Bleeding and choking but alive and I need to be there to help him.

Her gaze smolders over me. "Your lack of focus is what caused your friend's death. Focus on what's in front of you now."

"No. I need to help Holland."

Fire pours into me, pounding through my veins. I scream, fingers gripping black. Then, the pain is gone, fast and quick. A reminder and warning.

"They're all dead," she hisses, her voice like water on hot rocks. "Did you not see their wounds? Too horrible for any mortal to survive? Millions of others will face a similar demise if you cannot set aside your selfishness to obey a single word I say." She glares down at me, never letting me rise to my feet. "I have taken pity upon the human race, time, and time again. But given my interaction with you, I question myself. My time and energy can be better spent elsewhere."

An image of Adam lying dead on the ground ignites a deep ache in me. I remember holding Easton in my arms, red-white spines through his chest and Holland, his last words to me sawing like a rusted blade. Clarika would still be alive, they would all still be alive if it hadn't been for me. Rima would be with me right now.

She pauses, letting the words penetrate.

"Do you know how Andis was created?" she asks coolly, but a simmer of venom underlines each word.

"An explosion of particles?" I say, though some part of me feels like I'm wrong. She wouldn't have asked the question otherwise.

"Worlds are created by Gods." Light explodes, shattering the pitch-black. I barely have time to shut my eyes and try to blink away the flicking lights. I watch as the lights become a blanket of shimmering pearls of stars. "We sacrifice a piece of our soul to create planets," the woman says.

We.

The sea of stars disappear and suddenly I'm on vibrant green grass. Hills crest the land, rolling like calm waves of an ocean until a blue horizon merges with them. Two people appear, one the woman in her red and gold, and a man in white and gold and blue.

They survey the lands with appraising eyes. "Does this one suit you better, Khalixis?" The man asks, his voice clear and resonant as summer's wind.

Kal-licks-is, I mull over the name, running it through in my memories, hoping my repeating it enough will put a name to a Goddess. A Goddess.

They exist.

The thought hasn't sunk in yet and part of me wonders if I've gone insane, the absence of Rima's bond taking its toll.

Holland had always said the gods abandoned humanity, but I thought they existed in words and song only. Their stories being weaved and spun in dark times by people needing hope and needing to believe in something bigger than themselves because they couldn't handle what science and facts answered.