Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
"You," it rumbles, its voice like waves crashing against rock in my mind. "I told you to run."
I'm surprised to sense some of the same intelligence from when it spoke to me during the trial. "I'll happily run if you step out of my way," I reply, surprised at my own boldness. The words tumble out before I can stop them—apparently near-death experiences make me mouthy.
The dragon studies me, its massive head lowering until we're eye to eye. Despite its size and power, I sense no immediate threat. But that doesn't make sense. I've come to know this beast through my nightmares. It has been hunting me. It wanted me dead. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
"Why aren't you killing me?"
There's a long pause. I sense it struggling somehow, as if each word comes with a cost. "You... weakened it in the lake. For a time."
"Weakened what?"
Instead of speaking, it turns slowly so I can see the largest patch of that mist-like... nothingness. The thick serpentine shape of its body seems to fade and drift up in smoke all along its right side.
The dragon's eyes close briefly, as though in pain. When they open again, I see the madness swirling deeper, threatening to consume what lucidity remains. "You can run, angry human. I can hold it off for a time. Only a time."
Angry human? Seriously? I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of the nickname, but the danger is still too real.
I study the creature before me, seeing beyond its terrifying appearance to the ancient intelligence trapped within. Something about its suffering calls to me, resonates with a part of myself I'm only beginning to understand.
I know I should run. I should take its offer and not think twice. Except…
"Can I help you? Somehow?"
"You must run," it roars in my mind, and now I feel as though I hear two voices. One is wise and old and the other is deep and bestial, twisted and terrible.
"And what happens to you if I run? Why did this... other thing inside you want me dead? Was it because I can hurt it?" I desperately flip through my mental catalog of everything I've read so far in the unbound book. Countless passages talk about how unbound have the power to unmake or to ether. To draw energy of all sorts, and how this was a gift and a curse. It still doesn't make complete sense to me, but I know what I've already seen.
In the lake, I pulled something from this creature. Whatever I did let an intelligence shine through. So maybe I could... do more.
The deep blue eyes flash, and ink-like blackness swirls within. Its body shifts, head lowering as it begins to pace and circle me, long body stretching out as it walls me in.
"Run... little one, before you are destroyed."
"No." Pulse racing, I push down my terror and reach a hand up for its large snout. With one snap of its massive jaws, it could destroy me. I brace for the pain, but only feel my palm land softly on the scaled surface between nostrils that trail steam.
A rush of sensation and power passes into my hand. My body wants to draw it in, to try to absorb it like I did in the lake.
The dragon breathes out heavily, as if my touch is both a relief and something to struggle against. The heat of its breath and the scent of salt water and sea life washes over me, but I don't pull my hand away. I drive my focus deeper.
And then I feel it. There's an inky film coating everything within the dragon. I could draw the power and maybe some of that stain with it, or I could try to draw only the stain itself.
I close my eyes, struggling to grapple with forces I barely understand as I reach for the corruption within the dragon. And I pull.
Nausea rocks me as the first waves of it enter my body.
Fuzzy images and memories that aren't my own flash through my mind. Ancient battles. Elementals fighting elementals. Then the first tethered primals. A powerful woman and a smaller version of the serpent I see now. The two of them fighting side by side for centuries. And then…
Betrayal.
Broken tethers. Broken oaths.
Everything after that is twisted by the black film, and I sense the tragic awareness of an ancient intelligence confined in its own mind—unable to reach out and stop its own body from wreaking havoc for centuries Of watching powerful friends and allies suffer the same fate.
But that corruption is reaching into me, now. It's trying to slither under my own skin and coat me. Claim me.
"Unbound," the voice comes into my head more clearly than before. "You will destroy yourself if you don't release it. Use your gift. Channel it away from yourself as I cannot."