Dominion by Cari Z

Author:Cari Z. [Z., Cari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Romance
Amazon: B0C5KLRK8L
Goodreads: 157031468
Published: 2023-06-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Deyvid had once prided himself on his imperturbability, on how he never let his emotions rise to the surface unless he wanted them to. There were times when the fact that he didn’t show the pain and fear he felt had been all that had kept him alive, disconcerting whoever was trying to kill him long enough to let him get in a fatal blow. It had taken time for him to learn that it was all right to show what he felt; that in fact, he would be doing someone else a disservice by hiding it. Petur, bless his blunt nature, had taught him that.

So the fact that he literally lost the ability to move when he saw the Guardian waiting for them outside the dining chamber was, he had to remind his stunned brain, not a fault. It was all right—Alie wasn’t moving either. Who could, when confronted with a being so close to monstrous yet so obviously divine?

The Guardian was humanoid but covered in shaggy silver fur that rippled and glowed with every tiny movement. Its face was flat, its wide mouth full of sharp black teeth that jutted over the edge of its upper lip, and its eyes were black as well but sprinkled with prickles of light, like looking up at a starry night … or at the surface of a lake while you drowned far down in the depths of it. Its hands were enormous and supported its heavy front body on the ground while its back legs were short and thick and ended in two massive clawed toes. Its nose was a series of matched perforations, five sets of holes that cascaded down the center of its face. It was both awe-inspiring and fear-inducing.

“Thank you for your presence, Guardian.” The priestess bowed to it. “The supplicants are ready for you.”

Were they? Deyvid didn’t feel very ready, but there was no choice now—the Guardian reached out and took his hand, covering his broad palm completely with just half of its own. Deyvid couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so small. The Guardian grunted in five different octaves, not loudly, but it still made Deyvid’s ears buzz, then turned and led him and Alie down the hall into what Deyvid assumed to be the center of the grove. He smelled iron in the air, mixed with the scent of a lightning strike, and wondered what had been killed to create such a noxious combination.

He soon found out. The stump he and Alie were led to stood alone in the vast middle of this massive grove of trees, surrounded by sandy floor and silver-gray shadows. The stump itself had clearly once been a mature tree, somehow wrenched apart at its very base, and that wrenching had left it wounded. The wood itself was bleeding, a thick, oozing sap not quite the color of blood but not far off from it either. That was the smell, the lightning-strike sharpness: the wound.

“How did this happen?” he

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