22. Illuminating a Path Through the Hopeless Darkness
22. ILLUMINATING A PATH THROUGH THE HOPELESS DARKNESS
~ RUSH ~
With my startled stare pinned on the emerging dragon, tracking every one of its movements, I bounded toward my brothers, thoughts scrambling through my mind in a rapid jumble: How the fuck is there a dragon coming up through the floor? Was that actual blood she was drinking? And if so, could that be what gave her unreasonable speed? What other advantages might she now have? Like we needed her to have any more...
Though it wasn’t a greatsword that required a double-fisted hold, West gripped his blade with both hands as he exclaimed, “What the fuck?” We’d need incredible force to slice through the thick, corded neck currently knocking back and forth to widen the stone opening.
“We can’t kill it,” Hiroshi said an instant before I did.
West’s eyes widened. “Whaddya mean, we can’t kill it? Are you fucking kidding me right now? It’s definitely planning on killing us!”
The beast was pushing its shoulders through the gap, marble slabs sliding along the upended floor to crack into pieces. It snapped its black, shiny eyes at us and roared so ferociously my nose hairs prickled.
“See?” West yelled. “We gotta kill it. We have no choice.”
“Or we could run,” Ryder said.
As a rule, none of us ever ran from a fight. In Embermere, appearance was as important as truth, and any suggestion of weakness was a dangerous vulnerability, especially for drakes like us with a duty to protect our entire clans.
But if our pretense with the queen was up, the rules of the game had already changed.
“We can’t kill a dragon after what we saw in the dungeons,” Hiroshi insisted, again mirroring my own thoughts. “We can be allies.”
“Uh, ya wanna tell this one that, then?” West asked as he shuffled backward, pushing us back with him. “’Cause I’m pretty sure it didn’t get the update.”
The dragon was squeezing its wide torso into the throne room, its blue scales coated in a pale dust. Its massive shoulder muscles rippled as it struggled.
“So this time, we run,” I said. “I won’t hurt the creature unless there’s no other choice, and right now there is one. We run, regroup, and figure out how to take down the queen after.”
The dragon snapped at its own hindquarters as one haunch snagged on stone.
Usually, we’d talk through the matter until we were all in agreement, or as close to it as we were going to get anyway. But nothing about a dragon coming up through the floor was normal or even logical. There were several stories beneath us before we even hit the dungeons, let alone the pit of cages in the bowels of the palace.
“Let’s move,” I yelled, startling West, who nodded and was first to spin around, the rest of us keeping our stares trained on the beast’s mouth. As far as I knew, they all spewed fire.
“Uh, guys?” West said. “We’ve got another problem. A massive one.” His voice uncommonly panicked, he amended, “ Shit . Several massive problems.”
Reluctant to look away from the dragon who was pulling its one hind leg through the hole, slicing mercilessly into its scales as it did so, I retreated so that my back was to a wall, a more or less clear shot from there to the tunnels or the entrance to the vast throne room, whichever would be the safest bet at escape.
Then I glanced toward West—and my heart skipped a beat before thundering at a gallop. “Oh no.”
Four more heads were poking through shifting, widening holes in the floor. One dragon, with rust-colored scales, was busting through the floor at alarming speeds.
“Run,” I bellowed. “Through the front. Now! Let’s go, let’s go!”
West, Ryder, and Hiroshi obeyed instantly, jumping over hurdles as if they were running an obstacle course.
The rust-colored dragon roared, the force of it vibrating across the entire length of my body.
The blue one echoed its warning, setting off another round of quivers that seemed to rattle my very bones.
More stone crumbled and shattered. More dragons groaned and shuddered as they forged a way in.
But we were nearly at the double doors I’d walked through what felt like a million times under much pomp and circumstance. A part of me couldn’t believe the queen was leaving her precious throne room to ruin.
Sword in hand, I pumped my arms and legs, ruing how ridiculously long the space was.
Finally skidding to a stop in front of the doors, I turned to make sure my brothers were there too. They ran only a few steps behind me. Three of the dragons were fully out, stomping around or climbing onto downed pillars.
But my attention was no longer on any of them.
My chest squeezed as if one of the massive creatures sat on me, crushing my insides. For several torturous moments, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but gape, my heart stuttering.
From beyond the open threshold, Ryder yanked my arm, tugging me toward him. “Rush, what’s the holdup? We gotta move...”
Ryder froze beside me before growling fiercely. “ Fuck! ”
West popped his head back in through the doors. “What is it now?”
But once they all saw, we wasted a moment we didn’t have to spare to gawk.
There she was.
The entirety of the Sorumbra was supposed to separate her from the queen who didn’t know she’d survived.
But even with her back turned toward me, every part of my being knew it was her.
Elowyn.
My mate.
Without reason or explanation, she was here, standing atop a mound of rubble. Two partially downed pillars framed her form while she faced the blown-out wall of windows.
As more dragons crawled up from whatever depths they’d come from, all on their own, my feet moved toward her.
Her head swung left and right as she attempted to make sense of her sudden new surroundings. “Xeno? No, no, no, no, Xeno !”
My heart, the organ I’d believed to be a bloody pulp that scarcely worked anymore after what I’d done, squeezed as if she’d been the one to stab me in its center.
Her first thoughts were of him.
Not of me.
What the dragonfire did you expect, Rush? She believes you betrayed her.
Clutching a clinging Saffron close to her chest, she turned. Her eyes widened as she registered the full-grown dragons—who’d also noticed her—before she looked beyond them ... to find me.
My step hitched as her mouth dropped open.
Her clothes were torn all over, revealing what looked like dozens of crusted gashes beneath them. She was coated in some kind of black ... paint? Her hair hung in thick clumps, and even her face was smeared with dark pigment. Her eyes were wild, jumpy, their gray brighter than ever and tinged with an otherworldly violet.
She was a vision, more beautiful than I even remembered.
And she was alive—gloriously, wondrously alive.
Her lips moved but no sound reached me. Even so, I knew what she said.
“Rush?” she repeated, louder this time.
My next breath fluttered buoyantly in my chest. My name upon her lips was a melody I’d longed to hear.
I started toward her again but stumbled as a large mass materialized three feet in front of me.
Instantly, I crouched, sword aloft, anticipating another dragon.
But no, not a dragon.
One second there was nothing there beyond broken tiles. The next, a white horse as large as Bolt lay there, its legs tucked under its body, its head tipped indolently to one side.
I skittered to an abrupt halt as I next noted translucent, iridescent wings, a single twisted ivory horn, and a thick, silky tail.
“You know what?” said a deep voice I recognized instantly, its tone dreamy, suggesting its owner had his eyes closed. “I changed my mind. Let’s put it all into braids, mane and tail. It’ll be lovely.”
“Azariah?”
The pegicorn started with a jerk and screeched as he unfolded and rose to his feet, his big head swinging in my direction.
His dark eyes widened, his entire brow arching higher than I’d ever seen from the theatrical creature as he blinked those thick lashes at me. “ Rush? What in dragonfire are you doing ... here?”
He looked around, his eyes growing impossibly larger as he did. “Am I in the...? Is this ... the throne room? ”
“Yes, it is.”
“What am I doing in the throne room? And why are there”—he squealed as if he himself weren’t a creature as magnificent as they were—“dragons everywhere?”
His legs did a one-two in the air before he retreated a few feet, stopping when he backed into a clump of broken chairs.
Before any of us could make sense of the sudden appearances, the blue dragon, the first to break through the floor, balanced tall atop the queen’s vacated throne, spread its wings till they traversed the length of the dais and touched either wall of the alcove behind it, and craned back its neck.
Even as it sucked in a deep breath, my brothers and I were in motion.
“Take cover,” Ryder yelled as he, West, and Hiro dove behind barricades of debris.
Azariah was immortal and unlikely to die by any means as tangible as dragon breath. Even so, he leapt over the chairs, clearing them with ease, and skidded to a stop behind one of the still-standing columns. His wide ribcage stuck out on either side of the marble shaft as he hid.
Elowyn had reacted faster than any of us, and was already spread flat atop the floor, a short pile of stones protecting her and Saffron.
She’d be okay. My rational mind understood that. She was shielded enough. Plus, her instincts were sharp. Despite being a female, she was a fine warrior capable of defending herself.
But my instincts warred with each other as the dragon sucked in enough breath to bathe the entire room in fire.
Get to Elowyn!
No, take cover.
But Elowyn ? —
In the end, those instincts, honed from a lifetime of training, won out, my body moving as if it had a will of its own, demanding self-preservation. I hit the floor hard and at an awkward angle, landing atop a high-heeled shoe, no doubt abandoned during the earthquake. The spiky heel wedged between two tiles and pointed upward to dig into my abdomen.
The dragon unleashed its fiery breath.
Dipping my head, I grunted, the fire hot enough to make sweat prickle along my skin. I dislodged the hazardous stiletto and crawled along my belly, my only goal to reach my mate.
The flame singed my back as I dragged myself over and across a fallen piece of ceiling.
“What are you doing, man?” West shouted at me. “Just wait.”
But an irrational desperation urged me onward. It wouldn’t allow me to stop until I held her in my arms.
The last time I’d gazed upon her beautiful face, she’d appeared dead by my hand.
I needed to feel her alive and well like I needed my next breath.
“It’s too dangerous, Drake,” Azariah cautioned as I slunk past his hiding place. “Come hide with me.”
“Rush,” Hiro called out. “The other dragons are on the move. I think they’re hunting you.”
That warning spurred me to go faster, but my destination didn’t change.
My tattoos were glowing brightly, lighting up all the way into my hands as I used them to claw my way across the many blockages. I was probably a freaking beacon to the dragons.
“No, Rush!” Elowyn screamed before she did the very worst thing she could have ever done.
She ran toward me and the stream of blazing fire that swiveled across the room in a wide arc.
My heart halted mid-beat, not daring to so much as unclench, as Elowyn drew to a stop beside the torrent of flames, so close the dragon could simply angle its head and engulf her in fire.
“El, no,” I wheezed, but she didn’t hear me over the loud crackling, hissing, and popping of the flames and whatever they had already set on fire. Sweat dripped down my forehead and along my nose to slide onto the floor.
As Saffron gripped her chest, she flung out her arms to either side, stared the blue dragon in the eyes, and did the one thing no sane person would ever, ever, ever do.
She bowed her head to the beast.
I sprang to my feet and ran at her, preparing to tackle her, flames crackling as I barreled through them. I had no idea whether or not I caught fire as I holstered my sword while I went.
I flicked a glance at her, the dragon, her again, and dashed for her.
She was within arm’s reach when the fire abruptly halted.
I skidded into her, sliding onto my knees, my legs dragging across sharp rocks as I pulled her down onto me, swiveling to shield her and the dragonling with my body.
But she slapped at my hold, and jumped from my arms, taking Saffron with her.
“Elowyn, nooooo,” I was in the process of bellowing when the words sputtered in my throat.
She was back to bowing to the beasts, exposing the vulnerable crown of her head to them.
My heart bolted up into my throat as I scrambled to regain my feet.
But as I reached out to her, the most unexpected thing happened.
From all the way across the room atop the throne, the blue dragon bowed its head to her.