No matter how often the snap of her bones cleaved through the bellowing rapids.īut she did not know how long they had kept her in that iron box. No matter how often her screams drowned out the raging river.

She would not tell them what they wished to know. If there would be anyone left to remember her. It was better than the alternative: to be remembered for her utter failure. In a stone temple built for some forgotten god.Īs she would likely be forgotten. It filled the gaps between her screaming.Ī sliver of island in the heart of a mist-veiled river, little more than a smooth slab of rock amid the rapids and falls. The roaring the endless rushing of water over stone. She could hear the water, even in the iron box, even with the iron mask and chains adorning her like ribbons of silk.

It had snuffed out the fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had been doused. Still he hunted for her on every dusty and forgotten road.Īnd sometimes, he spoke along the bond between them, sending his soul on the wind to wherever she was held captive, entombed. So he stayed with his companions, even as the days passed. And after he was done with her, after that, then he’d take on the cold-blooded gods themselves, hell-bent on destroying what might remain of his mate. Were it not for them, he would have flown off, soared far and wide.īut he would need the strength of their blades and magic, would need their cunning and wisdom before this was through.īefore he faced the dark queen who had torn into his innermost self, stealing his mate long before she had been locked in an iron coffin. He stopped long enough to feed his body and allow his companions a few hours of sleep. And only recalled it because his three companions spoke it while they searched for her across violent and dark seas, through ancient and slumbering forests, over storm-swept mountains already buried in snow. He had been hunting for her since the moment she was taken from him.

Kingdom of ash book