A Rite of Swords

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Mycoples thrashed furiously against the Akdon net that entangled her, unable to flap her wings, to release her claws, to arch back her neck and breathe fire. Filled with rage, she thrashed again and again, trying her best to breathe or at least claw her handlers. Dozens of Empire soldiers grabbed onto the rope trailing the net and dragged her, thrashing, towards the long plank leading to a ship.

Mycoples scraped against the white sand of the Empire beach, feeling helpless for the first time in her life. The Empire ship was looming before her eyes, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Mycoples closed her eyes and saw Thorgrin, her master. The one person left in the world that she cared for. She tried to summon him, to share his thoughts as she often did.

But as she closed her eyes, she saw Thorgrin in a darkened building, beside his father. She saw him transforming. He was becoming something else. He was no longer the same man she once knew.

Mycoples’ heart broke. Thorgrin, the one she would die for, was fading away from her.

Mycoples arched back her neck and shrieked to the heavens, again and again. It was a shriek so piercing that it shattered the ship’s mast. But shriek as she did, nothing could prevent her from being dragged on board, tied down to this ship, and taken far, far away from here.

Thor, she thought. Save me.