D’kane
New and overwhelming power was coursing through D’kane, yet still he was trapped.
In the distance behind him, as tall as a mountain, was the lifeless husk of the former Breaker of the Dawn, from whom D’kane had drawn his power. He had the ancient god to thank for the surging and nearly incomprehensible strength inside of him, yes, but there was another ancient power with which he still had to contend.
A power that stood before him now, in defiance.
D’kane frowned. “What have you done?” he breathed. His eyes still stung from the earlier explosion of power.
“I’ve trapped us both here,” she answered, “where your power will be useless.”
The being before him, whose form was that of a young woman, was somehow different than the one D’kane had overpowered back in Derenar. Although her physical form was the same—blonde with blue eyes and a smallish figure covered by a worn white dress that had seen its fair share of scuffles—her presence had changed. Even her voice was different: it now commanded authority and made him uncomfortable. He had known that the woman had the blood of the Shaper flowing through her, but it was clear to him now that she indeed was the Shaper of Ages, not just the goddess’s descendant.
“You’re confined to the Otherworld,” she continued, “like the Binder and I always intended.”
Yes: this was the goddess who had crafted the Hammer and the Anvil of the Worldforge, the one whose power had trapped him here.
Yet hers was not the only power D’kane felt. There was another power, somewhere, that seemed to be calling to him. Distant. Familiar. Faint. Tugging at him, as if some part of him had just woken up.
He regarded the Shaper with callous contempt. “Very well. I may not have the ability to leave this world, but I am under no obligation to give up trying. I will find a way.”
The clashing of two titanic powers had already proven to be destructive, and D’kane wanted to find out just how destructive it could be.
He’d already destroyed two gods—what was one more?