Dragon Soul - The Ancestor Gods Saga Book 1

24. The Dragon Knight

Tylesin had to get out of the room. She had gone. With her final threat She had closed the looking mirror and left him in relative peace. His stomach would not stop churning and as he cautiously drew himself up to his knees, he expected the wooden floor to cave in and send him hurtling down into the Netherworld.

He wanted to be sick but more importantly he wanted to be outdoors. Not that being outdoors would make any real difference if the Creatoress decided to come for him, but it just felt as though it might offer him a greater chance to escape.

One thing was certain, he had to get that soul and return it to Her.

Things had crystallised in his mind as he had been staring down into the vortex. Tylesin might have talked boldly about trying to stop the Creatoress, but when things came to a head, he was more concerned with saving his own skin.

It would not end with the dragon's soul. He saw that. But giving Her the soul would buy him time and the peril he was in now was far more real and fixed in his mind than the peril he might be in, in say a century or so.

Once the Creatoress went looking for other souls, She would face Her own children, the gods, and they would not simply let Her kill them. There would be a war and the odds were the gods would win. Tylesin felt happily confident in that regard.

In fact, it might be just as well to give up the dragon's soul and let Her turn on the gods, because the chances were Tylesin would not be believed if he tried to explain this strange tale to the divines – at least not without proof, and fellow gods dying was very clear proof.

Yes, he was quite settled on the matter.

After all, what good could he do anyone down in the Netherworld?

In this frame of mind, he hurried through the tavern, not noticing that the drinkers and tavernkeeper were cowering under their tables and bar respectively, having been terrified by the tremors She had caused. Being at the epicentre of the vortex, those in the tavern had experienced things they could not entirely explain. Weird visions and disturbing feelings had engulfed their reality, leaving them feeling as if someone had tried to drink them like water from a glass. It would be hours before they could even begin to explain what had occurred.

Tylesin stumbled outside, giddy from adrenaline. The warmth of the sun hit him and seemed to jolt him awake. He stood swaying in the middle of the road, his skin crawling, and his stomach clenching, reminding himself over and over that She had gone, he was safe, for the moment.

Too slowly, he began to notice people rushing past him. His ears began to process the sounds of doors slamming and people shouting and shrieking, as if everything was filtering through mud. His mind caught hold of snatches of what was happening and dragged his consciousness back to the present moment.

Tylesin looked up in the direction from which people were running and realised his day was about to get a lost worse.

"Tylesin!" Riva shouted at him, rushing from the door of another building.

Tylesin's eyes went straight to her belt and saw it was empty.

"Where is the soul?" he demanded, panicking.

"Safe," Riva told him. "But I don't think we are."
She flicked her head back to look at the monstrous man stood in the roadway. He didn't seem to be quite sure what to do within himself and was looking around at the suddenly closed doors.

"He grew wings," Riva hissed.

Tylesin shook his head.

"I've never seen that before."

"I think he is a Dragon Knight," Riva added. "I just don't know why he is after the soul."

Tylesin blinked his eyes, hoping he might be able to erase the image of the monstrosity that had landed in their midst from his vision.