Drake of Tanith (Chosen Soul) by Heather Killough-Walden Read Free Book Online

been times since he’d replaced them on the wall a month ago that he had tried to pull the weapons down again. He’d failed every time. As he stared up at them now, he was overwhelmed with a sudden, staggering sense of helplessness. And betrayal.
    As Haledon’s champion and then his avatar, Loki had been privy to the thought processes of an actual god. He’d known what Haledon was thinking, what he was feeling. He’d learned, in those moments, more than most humans would care to know. He’d realized what humans actually meant to the gods – what the gods thought of them – when they thought of them at all. And it had hurt.
    He couldn’t help it if he’d reacted, on the inside if not outwardly. It had confirmed what he had always suspected but chose not to believe. Haledon didn’t really care about the human race or the Terran realm. He’d interfered with Cruor because Cruor was once more becoming a god. And that would have affected… well, the gods .
    It wasn’t that Haledon was evil or that he was even cruel. He was simply a being so powerful and so far removed from the tiny creatures that roamed the surface of the Terran realm, he was literally incapable of feeling what they felt or understanding what they went through.
    It was like a human caring about a single insect.
    There was a lot of inherent and even involuntary apathy involved with being a god. Some humans – just as some insects – were cute and some were amusing and some were even beautiful when they took wing. But they were basically crude and incredibly simple and most of all, they were devastatingly short lived.
    So it was to be like this. Those axes would stay up there and probably wouldn’t come down for another two thousand years – when some other insane magic user or beast decided to threaten the gods and Haledon chose another unwitting champion.
    Until then… the world was on its own.
    Of course, Loki had kept all of this to himself as well. As far as the acolytes and priests of Haledon’s temples were concerned, Loki was now and always would be Haledon’s champion. Loki didn’t bother correcting them. He needed them. The world was fickle and two-faced and the one person in the world he knew he could trust – the one person in the realms he had wanted to confide in as this harsh and cold knowledge had taken seed in his spirit – was being held prisoner by a very powerful enemy.
    Loki missed his sister horribly. He was worried sick about her.
    The priests of Haledon possessed a decent amount of cumulative power and he needed that magic in order to reach Raven. As he had finally managed to do today.
    “Priest.”
    Loki spun at the sound of the gravelly voice behind him. He was alone in the temple – other than the newcomer in the doorway. He hadn’t heard the other acolytes leave. They must have assumed he was praying and wanted to give him the privacy the “champion” deserved.
    In the doorway, framed by the light of the high sun behind him, stood a humanoid creature with green skin. He looked to be about six feet tall, had tusks that extended from his bottom jaw over his top lip, and long brown hair that was braided on either side behind his ears. One of those ears was pierced and decorated with some sort of metal and gem hoop.
    He was the ork from the battle with Cruor a month ago. He’d been Drake of Tanith’s companion, Loki remembered that much. He thought his name was….
    “May I come in?” the ork asked, looking around the room a little nervously, as if afraid that Haledon would not want an ork in his temple and would set him on fire if he stepped foot past the threshold.
    “Of course,” Loki responded. “Grolsch, if I remember correctly?”
    The ork nodded once, curtly, and came into the room. He bore weapons, but they were sheathed and his hands were easy at his sides. “I need to speak with you,” the ork said, his tusks and the color of his skin at odds to the genteel manner in which he addressed Loki.