Stormlands ( Book 2 of the Torrent Skies Saga)

Chapter Forty-Six: Of What May Come

As Katerin laid her head on the pillow, her thoughts still trying to grasp the truth of Juen'tal's answer, it seemed it only took a moment for her to fall asleep. Her dreams had drifted peacefully, lately. But tonight her luck left her, it seemed.

She found herself standing in a grand and shimmering palace. A throne room, she made out, as details came into focus around her.

"You have certainly made strides, my champion."

Katerin blinked as that seductive voice met her ears, and there was a form sitting tall upon a gilded throne.

A woman, with luxuriously long black hair, tipped at the bottom with a crimson so deep it resembled blood. Her lips were the color of rubies, her eyes shaded by coal, and a green so bright and so deep they could tear through any soul. The woman was hardly covered—no where near modestly dressed. Pale and heavenly skin peeked though a dozen places, as leather straps crossed her body to serve as clothing. Her face and figure was in perfect symmetry, or so it appeared to Katerin.

Lodyne? Katerin thought, struck by the beautiful form of the goddess, by the power her image exuded. She could hardly find words, and her mouth grew dry as she gazed at the goddess before her. She gulped, trying to shake herself from the goddess' presence.

"You are only dreaming. But I thought that since it has been so long, I might deign to show you my face." There was a soft chuckle. "Is it what you expected?"

Katerin stared at the woman, and she remembered the shrine she had once found in Holter's office in Anklestrap, long before she knew who this goddess was. She could see that likeness, now. Crude and almost insulting, in comparison. The woman before her held so much more power, so much cunning and grace, that it bellowed out from her to fill a grand space. "No," Katerin said, fighting a shake to her voice. "I expected someone beautiful."

Lodyne raised a single brow, amusement across her face. She tisked. "You still want to fight? I thought your little... excursion might have changed your mind."

"I learned quite a lot about you," Katerin said, realizing in that moment that she could not move. "And the more I learn, the less I fear."

Lodyne laughed. "You are brave, trying to lie to me." She leaned forward, with a playful smirk. "I am much more powerful than even a dragon of your realm, and they can comprehend the smallest of untruth's."

Katerin stared at the woman and tried to force her heart to a normal pace.

Lodyne stood from her throne, and swayed across the space between them. She stood twice as tall as Katerin, and her hand reached out and brushed gently along Katerin's cheek. A caress so full of power that it tingled down Katerin's spine in warning. "Accept me, girl. You cannot comprehend how much it can aid you, or how much I have already aided you, since your birth. I can help you. I can give you all you desire, and all that you ache for."

"All you offer is pain, and destruction, and wrath. I have seen enough of that."

"You think a drop of rain can equal the volume of an ocean?" Lodyne's eyes were pleading, almost convincing. "If you continue to fight me, you will lose all you love. This I can promise, child. And that pain... that pain will come to you too late. If you should keep up this game you think you can brave, I will leave you to suffer with no holds, and no hope to ground yourself with. I will let you drift in that misery, without a care."

"All you offer me now, Lodyne, is a chance to be a pawn."

"You already are one." Her words were a consolation as they escaped perfect lips. "I am only trying to convince you to see reason. Do you think your power, your magic, is all your own? I have been with you always."