Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (116)

“My thanks. Good luck to you, Lindon.”

Cassias started to walk, but then he hesitated. “Actually, I apologize, but there is one more thing I was wondering. Eithan…was he really…”

“Yeah.”

The Truegold’s brow furrowed, and Lindon wasn’t sure how to read the expressions crossing his face.

“Why?” Cassias asked at last.

“I’ve asked that myself every hour since he left,” Lindon said. “If you’ll pardon me for half a guess, I think he was lonely.”

Cassias nodded. “Yes. I think he was.” He straightened his spine and gave a crisp bow, then walked off to join his family.

The Arelius clan in the Blackflame Empire may have survived, but not everyone had.

Jai Chen sat listlessly on a rock, staring haunted into the distance. Fingerling crooned on her shoulder, and she held a blue spear across her knees.

Lindon knew what happened when he saw her. He had already suspected when he didn’t sense Jai Long anywhere in camp.

Kelsa was nearby, but not outwardly grieving. She was answering the questions of a nearby family, pointing them off in some direction, but her expression was a hollow mask.

Lindon walked up to Jai Chen and sat next to her.

“Apologies,” he said quietly.

Tears brimmed in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “Why didn’t you protect him too?” she asked.

The question hurt worse than he’d expected.

“I didn’t think he’d need it,” Lindon said honestly. He had a limited number of resources and a limited amount of time in which to plan. An Underlord, as far as he was concerned, was much more capable of defending himself than Kelsa or Jai Chen were.

The best Lindon could do to protect everyone was to take down the Dreadgod.

“I didn’t either,” Jai Chen whispered, and then she swiped angrily at her eyes.

Lindon looked down at his chalk-white palm and considered what he could say. He didn’t know much about Jai Long that was positive, but this seemed like the time to say something.

Kelsa stomped up while he was still trying to make up his mind. “Gratitude. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

She gave Lindon a stiff bow, but Lindon tried to catch a glimpse of her face. She was still wearing that stony mask.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Better than I would have been if a monster had stolen my mind.” She met his gaze directly. “Did you kill it?”

“Yes.”

Dross slipped a comment into the conversation. [For context, I believe you should know that the Dreadgods have lived for thousands of years, and are considered all but impossible to kill.]

“But you did kill it.”

[Well yes, we did, I was only worried that you might not understand the full weight of that statement.] Dross paused for a second. [And my condolences for your loss, of course.]

“I’m glad you killed it.” Kelsa was standing perfectly straight and looking ahead, as though her spine had been replaced by a wooden post.

Lindon looked from Jai Chen, who was clearly grieving in her own world, back to Kelsa. He hadn’t spent much time with his sister over the last few years, but he suspected she blamed him for Jai Long’s death…but she knew that wasn’t fair, so she was wrestling with herself inside.

Ultimately, there wasn’t much else Lindon could say.

“You do have my apologies, for what they’re worth,” he said again. “If there’s anything either of you need from me, call my name. I’ll hear you.”

Both of them nodded slightly, but didn’t otherwise respond. He supposed that was the best he could hope for.

Lindon shot up into the air on aura of wind and force, then flew over to join Yerin. She waited for him on the former site of the Heaven’s Glory School, just outside the Ancestor’s Tomb, and she had already gathered Orthos, Ziel, and Little Blue. When she saw Lindon, she gave him a grim smile.

“Caught me a message from Mercy. Looks like it was headed to the closest of us two. You want to see it?”

Yerin leaned against Orthos’ shell as she held up a construct that resembled an inky black fish. Orthos snorted smoke.

Little Blue, on top of Orthos’ skull, made a sound like crashing glass.

Ziel barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, of course it’s from Malice.”

Lindon played the construct so that everyone could see it. Mercy’s image appeared, earnest and packed with emotion. Her hair was tied back, and her cheekbones were so sunken it looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks.

“Lindon. Yerin. I saw what happened today. I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you in person…”

With every word, Lindon’s fury grew. He felt as though he could hear Malice’s laughter echoing in the background.

When Mercy finished speaking, Lindon cracked the construct and it crumbled instantly to dust.

Orthos chewed on a mouthful of grass. “Tell me again what’s really happening.”

“Hunger aura doesn’t happen naturally,” Yerin said. “It only shows up when there are Monarchs who stay too long. If they all went away, the Dreadgods would get weaker and weaker and eventually die.”

“But where does hunger aura come from?” Orthos asked.