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Chapter 1
Griffin and I stood on the streets of Veshtul, upon the planet nanized the streets and narrow lanes with theirstands run by the comesuli When I'd seen it before with Kifirin at ht Comesuli had called out to one another as businesses were shut down for the evening Now, instead of the tranquil city I'd visited before, the shops were deserted and chaos, noise and destruction reigned Shout Veshtul, and the scent of death was everywhere I cringed as an explosion rocked the ground beneath my feet and shops collapsed around us
Thousands of Copper Ra'Ak fought throughout Veshtul, killingothers as they crawled along Screa comesuli ran before them, desperate to escape the deadly creatures In the distance, Dragon's roar sounded as he fought off one of the ht beside hion, a Silver Dragon and a Gold Dragon Others were fighting Ra'Ak as well; a Black Gryphon fought alongside a huge Snow Leopard Giant birds swept the sky, screa to sink rows of deadly teeth into feathered flesh
A separate battle raged between High Demons—thousands of them warred with one another and froht be friend or foe They were all in Full Thifilathi and a single confrontation between any two of them was fierce and terrible to witness
Griffin setareas of Veshtul that hadn't been touched by copper-scaled h Deht, Lissa," Griffin whispered in azed in horror at the war before us I turned to hient "It isn't just the Ra'Ak; the two largest High Demon Houses have allied with them They will kill the Saa Thalarr and all who live here if you do not stop them"
Griffin's words shocked h De true before me There was more to this story, too; I could see it in Griffin's eyes He just wasn't telling me the full tale Nevertheless, what he'd told me was truth; he couldn't lie, just as Merrill said If I didn't do so, Kifirin would fall
"All right" I nodded at Griffin, took a deep breath, turned to mist and threw myself into the battle
There are too ht nearby, his giant cat ripping into a Ra'Ak with his claws
I never thought our last stand would be like this, Lynx replied before cutting off ht commanded his full attention
Xenides' death had given er had to come in contact with poisoned outer scales to defeat the Ra'Ak I could mist inside their heads and blow ht It was a chain reaction, after a while I found a Ra'Ak, he died I found the next one and he died—as quickly as I could mist from one to the other I lost count quickly, so h Demons I found that held taint? They died just as easily as the Ra'Ak did
The High Deht in Full Thifilathi They were at least seventeen feet tall in that fored, terrible to look upon and fought to the death Most fought with other High Deeted by Ra'Ak It took h De off six Ra'Ak at once, so I gave him a little help He would probably never knohat had come to save him there at the end, just as he was about to fall The other High De as they ripped flesh and limbs aith powerful hands and deadly claws Nearly half the High De held taint, and with the thousands of Ra'Ak helping those rogues, the battle was certainly weighted in their favor Until I showed up, that is
The couard in their city and had no defense against those attacking the the co their poisonous scales and crushing weight to destroy others I wanted to weep in frustration as I misted toward those Ra'Ak They died, but a sad side effect of killing Ra'Ak is that they dust, blasting their fist-sized chunks in all directions and killing anything in their path I found ht and that Roff and Giff would be safe Shovingmachine
Four seconds passed, a Ra'Ak died Another four seconds, another Ra'Ak blasted outward Eventually, though,The battle with Xenides earlier, co of er to pull ether Ten seconds it took And then twenty Forty More than a minute Five minutes Until the h energy to kill anything past that point Not without killing myself
The noise and destruction continued in the distance, but I foundamid a pile of debris, surrounded by a relative sea of calm—if you call crushed shops, dead coround a sea of calazed about me—devastation and the scent of spilled blood was everywhere
"I' out the words I saw a hand stretched fro nearby A head, matted with blood All dead I didn't hear a heartbeat anywhere around me But the worst? Just to my left lay a comesula, his tiny, lifeless child still clutched in his ar to flee I huggedto hen there was nofor breath, I ishing for a drink of water on a world I couldn't find on a star map anywhere
Where had Griffin gone? Was he lost, like so hto catch th to stand Kifirin—this was his world Where was he? Why wasn't he helping? Griffin—was this one of those things for which I'd been the answer? Was this the ultimate reason he'd searched out my mother to create a child? Kifirin and Griffin—how did those two know each other, and why? They'd engineered this somehoas sure of it
While I pondered those scattered thoughts, so across colored bricks ca as an enormous, copper body crawled over wrecked shops and the bodies of the dead Lifting est Ra'Ak I'd ever seen approached, and I'd killed plenty that were quite large At least seventy feet in length he was; his copper body wide and gleaht His thy, needle-sharp teeth His eyes, too, were darting quickly, searching his surroundings as he crawled along He was hunting so me