Blood Dawn

The candles had burned nearly out in the little lamps, and the stink of drowned wicks in liquid wax trailed across the room with thin plumes of black smoke. Darkness stole across the study like a stalking cat. The wingback chairs rested on clawed feet in the center before an ornate walnut desk with curved, flaring legs that narrowed into wooden paws.

Hoon sat at his desk, brooding, his eyes distant. Something had gone wrong, but what and where? He saw very little of Zyne these days. His venomous secondary nails had slid from beneath his primary nails to drip little pools of poison as he pressed them into the wood.

A knock at his door preceded its opening and two Lemyari and a lycan entered: Kalmaryn, Telemon and Imric.

"Lord, I think we are about to be betrayed," Kalmaryn told him, and then gave him the rest of the tale of what they had seen across several nights of watching Zyne.

Hoon considered their words, and found his thoughts drawn back to a time when he and Mephistis had stood upon the battlements of his lost citadel near Norendel. "You are a dangerous dreamer, Hoon. And you begin to frighten me," Mephistis had said. To which Hoon had replied, "I would not need to free the Hellgod, I would make a new one."

But he had not made a new one; he had released one-that vapor from the box. "I agree. Galee gave me a box to place by Zyne's head when she rose. I think more came out of it than information. I think Galee came out of the box."

"Is that possible?" Kalmaryn asked, frowning.

"With Galee, anything is possible. Have you seen any new royals?"

They thought about his question. Yes, they had seen a few.

Hoon sighed. "Get everyone out. 'Amalthea to Jedrua.' I will leave last."

"Lord?" Kalmaryn sounded alarmed, both by the fact that Hoon intended to leave last, and that he had spoken that particular code. Amalthea meant that they were to flee as swiftly as possible, stopping for nothing, all the way to Hoon's estates on the southern continent of Jedrua.

"Get out. If I don't reach Jedrua, Timon is your lord."

"Yes, lord." Kalmaryn bowed himself out, his expression grave.

The word was spread through the mansion and once the last of them had left safely, Hoon sealed the secret passages beneath the house with a word of command lodged in a crystal, and then destroyed the crystal.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Blood Dawn