Page 92 of The Coven of Ruin
Theyhadstumbledupona mage that Grae recognized as a Legion member while searching one of the group’s abandoned safehouses.
“Lie again, and I’ll cut out your tongue.” Ares pressed the tip of the knife further into the mage’s cheek, drawing blood.
The cloaked male panted and grabbed Ares’ wrist as if he could keep him from doing so. “All I know is—” He whimpered in response to the blade digging deeper into his skin. More frantically, he stammered, “It was meant to be a temple for the Mothers! It is somewhere within the cursed forest near the Swallowed Sea’s shore. That’s all I know, I swear it.”
Ares slit his throat, ensuring his silence.
Not a short while later, the information had led them to a gods’ forsaken field with a stormy sea raging in the distance. Taking the cloaked sentinels patrolling the shore by surprise, Ares and Grae made quick work of dispatching them.
“Where is the Underkeep?” Ares growled, grabbing one of the dying witchmen and ripping off his mask.
The mage only laughed maniacally, crimson bubbles foaming from his mouth. “May Khaos swallow you whole,” he spat at him.
Ares threw the dead mage away from him, moving to confront a witch who was calling for her dragon. She turned to face him, magic radiating from her, but he cut her arm off at the same time she attempted to hit him with a hex. Stumbling and falling to the earth, she cried out. Wingbeats thundered in the near distance as her dragon came for her.
“Tell me where they are,” he demanded, stabbing a dagger into her remaining hand and digging a knee into her thigh.
“T-the temple,” the witch cried out, searching the skies.
“The location,” he pressed as the shadow of her approaching dragon fell over them. Ashen and on the brink of death, her blood pumped out from the wound. She was too far gone.
In one fluid motion, he pulled his dagger from her hand, sheathed it, and raised his sword to meet the dragon. Looking up, he could barely distinguish the dragon against the quickly darkening sky as he yelled, “She’s dead, dragon king!”
Emerald eyes with flecks of gold studied him, deciding. Ares preferred to not kill a dragon, but he would if he had to. They were rare, and their connection to witches was no fault of their own.
Ares backed up slowly, holding eye contact. The massive, scaled beast landed, the ground shaking beneath its weight. When the plumes of dirt settled around its talons, without taking its eyes from Ares, it lowered its head to the witch. The creature nudged her limp body and inhaled. Its eyes narrowed on him before shaking its leathery mass threateningly. Stepping over her body toward him, it had decided on vengeance.
Grae’s arm brushed his as he stepped up beside him. “Fighting a dragon will be a first,” he remarked, his sword readied.
Death was in its eyes, and Ares’ own matched it. Dragons, shadows, mages—he’d kill everything if he had to.
The drumming sound of air and wings pulled Ares’ focus from the dragon before him to search the skies for the second beast. Black against black and faster than something so large had the right to be, it landed heavily behind them, its rider still upon it.
As if one dragon wasn’t enough.
Grae and Ares moved naturally, his brother facing the new threat while Ares turned back toward the first.
“Vah’mahth Viska,” the dragon rider called out, his voice struggling to be heard against the crashing waves behind them. “Hi’na, Nasara.” An ancient tongue for an ancient creature.Stand down. Peace, Nasara.
The dragon regarded the rider. Dragons were not controlled by witches—it was a relationship based on respect and deep bonds that were formed through hard work on the witch’s part. Ares readied himself for the attack, but it finally lifted its head toward the sky. Its mottled onyx body quaked as it let out a mournful roar that cleaved through the entire field. Such loss.
“Vah’mahth Viska. I’ll bring her back, I swear it,” the dragon rider vowed.
Crouching, it pushed off from the ground into the night sky in a furor of wind.
When the dragon had disappeared in the dusk, Ares turned to confront the new threat. The dragon rider disembarked smoothly, sliding down a rope attached to the riding harness. He approached them with his hands up. When he was steps from them, he slowly lowered his hood, revealing stark white locks.
Silver eyes regarded them warily. “My name is Xerxes, Commander—”
“We know who you are,” Grae interrupted, his fingers tapping against the hilt of his sword he had rested on his shoulder.
“Name your business,” Ares demanded.
The mage swallowed. “I know who you are, Witchbane, and—”
Ares offered an annoyed grunt, and Grae whipped his sword out, pointing it at Xerxes’ throat. The dragon swung its head to peer at his brother with one large eye that seemed to hold an entire landscape within it.
The mage was desperate, but desperation did not equate to trustworthiness.
