Ghost Of Memory

And when he awoke chained on the altar, he beheld what she had done to the iron coffin.

The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin.

As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.

On a dark hilltop overlooking a sleeping kingdom, she froze.

The others were already halfway down the hill, leading the horses along the dried slope that would take them over Akkadia’s border and onto the arid plains below.

Her hand dropped from the stallion’s reins.

She had to have imagined it.

She scanned the starry sky, the slumbering lands beyond, the Lord of the North above.

It hit her a heartbeat later. Erupted around her and roared.

Over and over and over, if it were a hammer against an anvil.

The others whirled to her

That raging, fiery song charged closer.

Through her

Down the mating bond. Down into her very soul.

A bellow of fury and defiance.

From down the hill, Alec rasped,

“Adolpha.”

It