Page 149 of Broken Veil
Laura looked him up and down. “What is going on? How can you shift?”
“There must be a gate nearby or some old power rising, because the magic…” Godrik looked at Cadell. “Canyoushift, brother?”
Yes.
“I think if you can, he can,” Carys said.
The dragon stretched his neck to the side, and Carys saw the glow of red fire at his throat.
“Yes.” The word was more of a hiss than a statement.
Careful.Seren spoke in her mind.His natural form is the beast, but violence will only feed the Morrígan now.
“Agreed.”
Cadell’s eyes flashed like fire. “Nêrys, let me loose and I will burn the goddess where she stands. There will be no shelter for her, no place to hide. There will be?—”
“So, so, so many humans who die,” Carys said.
Cadell went still.
Can Seren hear me?
Cadell!
The dragon’s face was a torment of emotion.
Seren. I have… missed your voice.
We need to be careful, old friend. Listen to your nêrys now.
“We need to get to Cley Hill and confront her,” Carys said, “but we are not killing hundreds of random people who have fallen under her spell. That would be exactly what she wants.”
Laura took Cadell’s hand. “She’s right, and you’d feel horrible about it later. There has to be a better way.”
There is.
Carys pulled the eye patch over her left eye and started walking. “Come on. We’ve got a walk ahead of us. Let’s go.”
They walked through the forest,encountering various people as they made their way to Cley Hill.
Some were laughing as if they were drunk, and others were weeping. Carys looked at a weeping man with her right eye and saw a crouching, mud-brown creature perched on his back. It was whispering in the man’s ear as he cried.
“Despair,” she whispered.
The Brightlands are not at all as I remember.
“Jibril called Despair a god,” Carys said softly. “I think that might be it.”
I believe you are correct.
“So we can see spirits now,” Carys said quietly. “Maybe hidden gods.”
As they walked, she encountered more.
What are the lights around them?Pixies? Wisps?
Many of the people they saw had bright sparks swirling around their heads. The lights buzzed like bees, but no matter which way the humans looked or who they were talking to, the moment they started focusing on anything but the buzzing lights, a spark would go off like a bug zapper.
