The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) by Everet Martins

Baylan and Lillian for Midgaard. He had been there. A Black Wynch had opened his neck to the world with its talon, waking him from the nightmare. If this was a nightmare, he would have woken some time ago. His mind wanted to deny this place. His heart had unshakable veracity.
    The souls of men do not die. They do not rest either. She has taken them into her womb and into the plains of burning, a voice that was not his thoughts echoed in his mind. His eye locked onto Lillian’s, her arm imploring to be pulled from the liquid flames.
    “Lillian!” he shouted, started to reach for her and the world of black returned.
    The Shadow god closed her mouth with a slurp, her snake’s tongue lapping at a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She dipped her hand into the lake of blood and raised it up over her head. It spiraled around her arms, pattered onto her shoulder, wound around her breasts. “I bring forth my new princess to rule by my side. Time ravages us all, even gods.”
    He wanted to tell her she wasn’t a god, but a dying demon. He chewed the insides of his cheeks, forcing his lips to stay closed. He knew who the true gods were. He felt them there, deep inside his chest. The Dragon and the Phoenix were alive. They hadn’t left him. He saw now that they were always there, even as a child. He just didn’t know what it was then.
    “My princess of shadow rises!” The Shadow god clasped her hands together like a child expecting honeyed candies. She looked up towards the massive outstretched hand. There was another human-like figure there, peering down at them, still as a statue. Her body was covered head to toe in armor, wine red and gleaming with the light of the moon. It seemed to be part of her, no plates or seams visible. Her eyes and mouth were exposed and her skin a deep olive. Her arms snapped out, spreading a pair of leathery wings attached at her sides. She dipped her body and leaped from the edge of the palm, soaring down like a hawk in flight.
    “Isn’t she lovely?”
    Walter stared up, numb. The princess drifted over his head and he met her eyes. They were Nyset’s eyes, big and colored like almond skins. “No. You’re alive.” He breathed. “You can’t be here, can’t be.” He reached towards her with his mangled arm and tried to flex open the fingers that weren’t there. Pain, his constant companion, sparked up and into his shoulder, pushing tears from his eyes. He grunted and jerked his arm to his chest, protectively holding it with the other.
    Walter ripped two bloody strips from his pants from ankle to waist. He cinched the first tight around his arm just below the elbow. He bit into the bloody rag, securing it while he tied the knot with his hand. He worked the second strip around the back of his neck and between his jaw. He tied a knot in it and slid it up over his forehead, pushing the knot into his butchered eye. His chest heaved as he worked, every movement like being wounded all over again.
    The princess landed beside the Shadow god, draping her red arm across her mother’s chest and pressing herself against her side. She cocked her head at Walter, looking at him with Nyset’s eyes. “Mother, I am free.”
    “Yes, dear,” the Shadow god crooned, nuzzled her head against her daughter’s hairless head.
    “Nyset?” Walter took a tentative step towards her.
    The Shadow princess tilted her head then tapped a gleaming finger on her chin, just like Nyset always had when she was deep in thought. An icy chill washed down his neck and down to his toes. It couldn’t be her. She was alive. The princess inched closer to the Shadow god, wrapping her leg around hers, their legs intertwining.
    “Asebor. My brood returns!” The Shadow god pushed away from her daughter and clapped her narrow palms together.
    A violet line cut through the air, hissing and burning through the blood lake. This could not be. “The gods have no mercy,” Walter whispered. He dropped to his ass, slithering away