Aegis of The Gods: Book 02 - Ashes and Blood Read Free

dreams and memories from that night sparked a battle within himself not to lash out. The worst part was lacking the knowledge to begin his search. He hoped the answers came with the ‘teacher’ the netherling claimed would arrive.
    Underneath the knotted mass of emotions lurked something stronger. It fluttered in his gut whenever he relived the night he lost Mother. Since then, he’d filled the vaults of his mind with revenge and rescue. But could he really master his gift and defeat the man in black? Or was she already dead and what he felt from her charm no more than residue, a lingering memory? Worse yet, what if she was alive, and he failed to free her?
    Body trembling, Ancel clenched his fist. Open then close. Open then close. When he finally stopped shaking, and the fear subsided a little, he opened his eyes and took in the snow around him and the peeking grass that failed to succumb to winter’s stranglehold.
    I will prevail.
    The forced sense of calm made him acutely aware of his third link. The one to his supposed mentor. He was certain he sensed the being somewhere to the south, faint and tremulous, but not as distant as before. Ancel brushed his fur vest as if he could touch that bond. It lived inside him much like the weaker one from his mother’s charm or the one that blared from his sword.
    However, unlike those two latter bonds, this link kept changing. It began as a tiny, inconsequential itch just beneath the surface of his Etchings, but over the past months, it had grown to an ever-present lump in the back of his mind. In fact, at times, the connection to his so-called teacher bloomed as if the unknown man or creature was well within reach. Once, he tried to escape from the pull, going high up into the Kelvore Mountains. But his location made little difference.
    On several occasions he thought he sensed other similar points, but when he tried to focus on them, they disappeared. As time went on he’d dismissed them as part of his overactive imagination. Now, he resigned himself to waiting. And of course killing wolves.
    A howl broke him from his thoughts, reminding him there was work to do, death to embrace. He brought two fingers up under his scarf into his mouth and whistled. The sound cut through the silence.
    A sharp bark that ended with a roar answered his whistle.
    Ancel broke into a jog. Boots crunching with each step, he headed toward where the bloody trail entered the Greenleaf Forest.
    Moments later, a shaggy, gray-white form bounded from among the trees. Charra had grown quickly over the past months, much faster than any other daggerpaw. Much bigger too. He now stood a good eighteen hands tall at the shoulders, larger than the average horse. From across the way, his eyes shone like golden torches. In a soft mane down his back and sides, Charra’s bone hackles spread even wider now. When they hardened, they stood erect, some of them more than a foot in length with edges as sharp as a honed blade.
    According to the netherling, Charra was one of their kind. Ancel still found that difficult to believe. He’d discovered the daggerpaw wounded and bleeding in the Greenleaf Forest near his old home at the winery when the animal was a pup. Despite his father’s reservations, Ancel nursed him back to health, and they remained together ever since. Whenever he saw his pet, he couldn’t help but doubt the netherling’s words. It would take more than atypical size or intelligence to convince him Charra was actually a multi-tentacled, gigantic black creature with chitinous armor, dozens of eyes, and snake-like minions.
    Ancel drew up short a foot before his daggerpaw. “You go northeast. Get ahead of them and cut them off. I’ll take care of the wounded one while you occupy the others.”
    Charra whined his assent and loped off into the shadowy forest, ice and snow soundless under his padded paws.
    One foot tapping time on the frozen ground, Ancel waited for the high-pitched growl that would announce