Origins of the Never: A prequel to The Tales of the Neverwar series, with dragons, elves, and faeries. For Young Adults and Teens by CJ Rutherford, Colin Rutherford Read Free Book Online

represented the home that had rejected him. Although he was born on his island, he’d lived here for centuries before being cast out.
    He sensed the familiar souls, hiding inside, as if the walls could stop him. They were friends, once. Now they were vermin, only fit for extermination. He spat on the ground, the grass withering where it landed. Even his steps left blackened marks as he walked across the meadow outside the gates. The Lands had rejected him. Any tenuous bond remaining between Tenybris and the world of his birth was gone, forever.
    Olumé walked slowly. He looked around, taking in the host gathering around him as he closed with Tenybris. “Took you long enough, didn’t it? I expected you here a year ago.” His lip rose at one side into a crooked grin. “I take it my little friends surprised you?”
    Tenybris glowered, baring his teeth in a mirthless grin. “Again you use the inhabitants of this world against me.”
    Olumé smiled, raising his hand to interrupt his old friend. “And yet again, you are wrong. I did not use the Dwelves. They are my friends, the same as you.” He chuckled. “I thought they might enjoy a game. Again, I was correct.”
    Tenybris looked at his friend, scowling in return. The conquest of the mountain kingdoms had proved his undoing. For months he had thrown his forces into the caves and passages, hoping sheer numbers might be enough. Thousands of his pawns were embedded in granite.
    The Dwelven race sang, and as they did, the living rock flowed to their beat. In their own realm they were unbeatable. After almost a year he left, admitting defeat but vowing to return.
    His dark hair fanned out as a breeze flowed across the plains, carrying with it the stench of rotting flesh mixed with smoke and ash of the volcanoes on the horizon. Tenybris felt the fear emanating from the walls above, but hesitated as he realised he felt none from Olumé. Instead he felt regret, and a sense of expectation. But expectation of what?
    He shook himself, and the army behind him surged forward as one. “I’m sure Lynnaria will welcome me with open arms when I walk through the gates. I have returned on my own terms, my ‘old friend’.”
    The last sentence was pure venom, but Olumé stepped back, smiling. “She is no longer here, Tenybris. She, along with thousands of the People have escaped.” Olumé chuckled again. “By the time you take the Citadel, the portal will be gone also. You are trapped here, my ‘old friend’.”
    Tenybris smiled evilly, as he imagined the fear rising inside his former brother. “Then there is but one way off this rock, brother. Your knowledge will help me. I will find Lynnaria and punish her for what she has done.”
    It was time. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Olumé was beyond hope, and any last shred of compassion he had for him was gone. It was time to end him. Tenybris began the spell, uttering the words to rip the soul from his best friend, his brother, but as he did, time seemed to slow. Memories of past days and better times surfaced, of songs and parties. Centuries went past in the blink of an eye, and Tenybris hesitated. I can’t kill my brother!
    ‘This thing before you is not your brother,’ said the voice, separate from his thoughts for the first time in years. ‘You were never anything more than a plaything to him and his family. Kill him now, and take your rightful place as ruler of this world.’
    Tears flowed like rounded pebbles down his cheeks as the voice’s hatred seeped back into his soul. The final words of the incantation left his lips, just as he saw a flash of silver.
    Olumé pulled out a knife, holding it high so it caught the last rays of the dying sun, before plunging it into his own heart. He fell forward into Tenybris’s arms, coughing specks of blood onto his friend’s chest.
    Tenybris cradled him, as gentle as a new born babe. The voice screamed in his mind. He didn’t listen. His friend, his brother was