But Delphine couldn’t speak, and the string of signs she created with her hands meant nothing to Haven.
She was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t pick up on the twins’ muteness until on the boat toward Shadoria. Only then did she notice that instead of speaking, the pair made a vast array of symbols with their hands.
She thought it might have been a code they’d developed during their enslavement to Morgryth, to keep her from intruding on their internal conversations.
The brutal truth was far darker.
As Stolas had explained, the Seraphians had been forbidden from communicating in any fashion. Cruel, savage magick was used to crush the part of the minds Seraphians used to soulspeak.
Any Seraphian caught talking aloud to their brethren had their tongues ripped out.
Haven shivered, her gaze flicking to the east and whatever awaited her before returning to Delphine. If only Haven knew how to read her signs, and she made a note to learn the next time she had a few hours to herself.
Stolas’s friend made three signs, finishing the statement with a fist clapped over her heart, and then exploded into the sky. Her shadowy form soon joined the battle over the sea.
Time to find out what awaited her to the east. Haven’s sword pommel was cool beneath her palm as she stalked toward the looming tower. The shadows of the cliffs easily hid her approach. Whatever the dying Seraphian directed her toward, Haven would face it alone.
There were no Seraphians here. Nothing but the soft crash of waves, the lulling song of the sea drowning out the cacophony of violence and death at her back.
She wasn’t foolish enough to mistake the quiet for safety.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, an angry god awoken from its slumber. A few drops of cool rain pattered against her cheeks.
The dancing glow of a green portal lit up the beach, painting the pale sand a soft, sickly death-hue. Five Asgardian warriors guarded the portal, their armor glinting. And when she saw the creature that slithered from the portal’s gaping mouth, its rider’s massive axe already raised as the terrifying duo took to the skies—
A shiver of horror wracked her core. Death Raiders from the Asgardian nation. Known for defending the floating city of Tyr in Asgard on battle dragons, their battalions had slaughtered thousands in the Shadow War.
Their mounts were hardly larger than an Alpacian steed. Muscled and thick, with stubby wings meant for low-level fighting and scaled hides near-impossible to pierce, the domesticated wyrm hybrids had been bred for strength and stamina.
Combined with the skill of the Asgardian warriors they were absolutely lethal. And now they hunted the inhabitants of Shadoria.
Ice stung her veins. If the Death Raiders reached the city again—
That will never happen. Never.
A sword of blinding-white lightning emblazoned the sky, momentarily crippling the Asgardian’s night vision. She counted to three, timing her attack with the earth-shattering crack of thunder that followed. The warriors protecting the portal neither saw nor heard Haven until her longsword tasted their blood.
A regular sword would have barely penetrated their flesh. But the rare night ash blade—forged from demon-fire and infused with raven’s blood—turned their immortal flesh as soft as the ripened moon pears that permeated the island.
Three died immediately, crumpling to the ground in the eerie silence that followed the thunder.
The last two managed to throw up their iron shields, deflecting her powerful blows. Each shield was decorated with an image of the male’s first dragon mount.
Metal clanged against metal in time with the booming thunder. The impact exploded up her wrist and arm, the pain slamming the breath from her lungs and keeping her sharp.
She ducked as the deathly-fine edge of an axe whistled through the air. A prickle of adrenaline warmed her chest and ratcheted her heart into a pounding rhythm.
Bjorn had kept his own axe honed to a killing edge. Memories of what it had done to the muscled, leathery body of Shadowlings surfaced . . .
Not for the first time, she cursed her mortal flesh and bones. If one thing was certain about this whole prophecy, it was that being called the descendant of a Goddess while being caged in a frail mortal body was cruel.
The air whined, and she pivoted sideways as the axe blade flashed beside her cheek, severing a long strand of rose-gold hair. A second later and her head would have been rolling over the sand instead.