Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (125)

They left the Soulforge, and then he and Yerin vanished.





While Malice observed the situation from one of her floating cloud fortresses, her irritation had reached its peak.

Her peers were incompetent.

They had allowed one Sage and one Herald to walk straight into their strongholds and take whatever they wished, like children plucking candy from the shelves. Now the Dreadgods were coming to her territory, again, as always seemed to be the case these days. Once the Weeping Dragon arrived, she would have the distasteful distinction of ruling over the only continent since the Dread War to have been invaded by all four Dreadgods inside five years.

These children had slapped her in the face publicly with their every action. She’d raised Lindon and Yerin like they were her own, and they’d prospered in her territory. Even represented her in the Uncrowned King tournament. She’d allowed her own daughter, her favored daughter, to shirk her responsibilities and travel with them.

In exchange, they were working to topple everything she’d worked for.

The message in the Dreamway was the flame that would ignite their funeral pyre. It was not an insurmountable problem on its own; the average person wouldn’t see the message, wouldn’t comprehend it, and couldn’t do anything about it if they did.

Over the years, there had been other leaks of information that had been easily controlled. “The Monarchs and the Dreadgods are working together!” was a popular conspiracy theory, especially as most never received a full education on the history of the Dread War.

But Yerin’s message had reached a few influential ears, and they were giving Malice a headache.

Whenever anyone inside the range of Malice’s spiritual perception spoke her name with intention, it felt to her like the tap of a finger. Like she was being prodded in the spirit. A mere mention wouldn’t draw her focus, and she could concentrate on many tasks at once anyway.

Mercy had called her so frequently and so furiously that it was a constant itch.

Finally, Malice summoned her daughter in a fit of irritation. She didn’t bother with an illusory world, or an isolated space. Mercy popped into the main sitting room of Malice’s favorite cloud fortress, stumbling as she landed.

“I cannot cater to your every doubt,” Malice snapped. “I told you what lies they would tell, and still you fell for this. Here is one lesson you can learn from your ‘friends:’ they have willpower like tempered steel, while you are turned like a leaf by every breeze.”

Mercy buckled under the sudden assault, as well she might, having gone from muttering her mother’s name in her room to weathering a verbal attack in under a breath. But this would be good willpower training for her as well, and it was with a faint pride that Malice saw those purple eyes go from startled to resolved in an instant.

“Swear on your soul that what they said isn’t true, and I’ll fight them myself,” Mercy said.

“Absolutely not. You know better than to take such an oath lightly. I cannot risk the damage, I will not suffer the indignity, and you couldn’t scratch them in a battle.”

Mercy’s face twisted, and Malice could feel the distress in her soul. She wanted to believe both sides.

That compassion would serve her well, but only when it was directed where it was deserved.

Malice sighed as some of her irritation released. Mercy was so very, very young. She would learn with time, assuming they all weathered this chaos that Eithan Arelius had brought to their world.

“This is only another reason to control the pace of your advancement. If your friends hadn’t raced ahead so fast, they wouldn’t have left you behind.”

Mercy slumped, holding onto Eclipse for support. “Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry to bother you.”

She drifted out of the room and opened the door. Malice allowed it because it amused her to do so.

Mercy saw the endless ocean stretching out beyond the cloud base and slammed the door shut. “I thought we were still in Moongrave!”

“This is where Lindon will lay his trap for the Weeping Dragon. I’m waiting for him.”

Mercy chewed her lower lip. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?”

“That’s not the solution I would prefer,” Malice said honestly. She would rather bind Lindon and Yerin with so many oaths that they couldn’t so much as inhale without her permission, then use them as weapons against the other Monarchs before finally shipping them up for the heavens to deal with.

“I’ll wait with you.”

“As you wish,” Malice said. This was only one of the visible possibilities for Lindon’s future. If he did show up while Mercy was here, she could always send Mercy back with or without her consent. Or tuck her away in a void space, as Shen suggested.

Then again, she could also allow some limited conversation between the two of them. If she couldn’t control the flow of a conversation between children, she didn’t deserve to rule.

Of course, there was always the chance that Lindon had left this branch of Fate unveiled to lure her here. That was what she would have done, with her command of the Shadow Icon. But she’d seen his use of authority, and he didn’t have the skill for such a subtle trick.

It was as Malice had the thought that she felt Lindon appear beneath her fortress.

For only a moment, her thoughts froze. Who had tutored him in the manipulation of Fate? Had it been Eithan? Emriss? The Eight-Man Empire? Had Northstrider taken him as an apprentice?