Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,70

in sudden foreboding, but what more could she say?

So in the end, she lifted a hand. “Good luck, Dayn.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Same to you, sweet Reda.” Then, moving with smooth, predatory grace, he slipped from the copse without looking back.

And she was left alone, save for a bald-faced horse and a heavy heart.

Dayn didn’t let himself turn back, though he badly wanted to. And he didn’t let himself fold inward and curl around the tearing pain that filled the place where his heart had been, though he badly wanted to do that, too. Because for a change he was doing the noble and honorable thing when it came to her: he was sending her away.

The sight of Castle Island had only confirmed the prickle of instinct that had been growing ever since they had set out that morning, the one that had said it was going to take a miracle for him to even reach the island, another for him to get inside the castle. And the odds of him surviving a fight with a sorcerer capable of wreaking so much damage, with twenty years’ worth of magic and spells rooted in the castle, were brutally bad with or without his siblings, unless the decades had given them powers that far outstripped his own.

There was a damn good chance that he was going over there to die. And if that was the case he wanted her far away from the island, safely hating him in her own realm. For once, he knew he was doing the right thing when it came to her, the unselfish thing.

So instead of going after her and doing whatever it took to get that shattered look out of her eyes and put her once more back in his arms where the man in him wanted to believe she belonged, he pushed onward toward the section of the Dead Forest known as the Thieves’ Woods, in search of a boat.

But as he ghosted along the edge of the Dead Forest, the sense of impending doom he’d awoken with only grew stronger, sending cold chills down his spine and causing him to look over his shoulder time and again.

Then, one of those times he caught a glimpse of movement and his gut fisted. There was something out there. Something big and nasty. And it reeked of dark magic.

Heart pounding, acting on his hunter’s instincts, which suddenly screamed loud and clear, he unshipped his crossbow, hesitated and then opened the small, tightly stoppered container at his belt. Carefully—oh, so carefully—he dipped the tips of his last six bolts into the thick black liquid, coating the barbs to an oily shine.

He returned five to their spots on his belt, points hidden. He loaded the sixth onto his crossbow and started walking again, though far more stealthily than before, intensely aware of his surroundings, straining to sense a footstep or breath. Something was out there, but where?

A cloud passed over the sun, shadowing the scene momentarily and then moving on. Wind whispered overhead, sounding strange in the leaves of the dying trees. There was an open spot overhead, letting through sunlight that was dappled with another passing cloud shadow, this one moving unnaturally fast in an unseen current high overhead.

Then it curved back around and went the other way. And grew bigger.

Dayn stopped dead and stared for a split second of disbelief as the shadow grew wings. There weren’t any winged creatures that big in Elden. Not unless you counted the legend of the… No. Impossible. He heard it in Reda’s voice, and suddenly understood the wrenching disconnect of having a childhood bogeyman come to life, even before he ripped himself from his paralysis and yanked his attention to the sky.

“Gods!” The word burst from him at the sight that confronted him.

The huge dark snakelike beast undulated through the sky as if swimming. Then it screeched, swiveled, and folded its wings to plummet toward the earth with its bloodred eyes locked on him. It had small forelimbs with clawed hands, powerfully muscled hindquarters and the head of a scaled stallion. Covered entirely in black scales that gleamed dully in the sunlight, it was gorgeous and terrifying, in the way that only the worst of monsters could be.

Dayn’s pulse hammered. It was a dragon. And not just any dragon; it was the Feiynd itself, the assassin of the old magi.

Moragh had summoned it to kill him.

Gods help him.

The Feiynd’s mouth split in a silent gape that