CHAPTER 43 - BLAKE
I fixed my good eye on Marcus as he stepped out of the grove. In my periphery, I vaguely registered Pendragon dashing in front of me. She’d broken free from Tanaka’s grip and, with Theo, began carrying Florence to the side of the courtyard. The blood on her hands made my chest tighten, but I shoved it down. I had to focus. Had to distract the sociopathic asshole better known as my brother.
“What the fuck, Marcus?” I said evenly, trying to keep my attention on me. “I knew you were a terrible shot. But really?”
Marcus shrugged. “She got in the way. You know damn well who that was meant for.” He glanced back at where I’d left Aenia. “Carrying our baby sister’s corpse around? Now that’s a new look for you, Blake.”
Rage threatened to drown me but I bit it back, dodging as a second bolt hissed past my ear. My vampire reflexes pulled me toward Marcus in a blur, closing some of the distance between us.
I wanted to tear him apart. Wanted to scream at him for his cruelty, his callous disregard. But above it all, I wanted her back. Aenia, my little sister, was gone. And I couldn’t even afford the time to grieve.
“You don’t get to talk about her,” I spat. “Not ever.”
“Why not?” Marcus feigned a pout. “She was family, wasn’t she? Isn’t that what you always wanted, Blake? For us to be one happy family?”
I snarled.
Marcus shrugged. “Fine. I won’t mourn her then. Not that she meant much, honestly. A feral brat with no leash. You should have put her down ages ago. Glad to see you finally grew a pair and did it.”
His voice was cool and mocking. His pale blue eyes were full of amusement, but there was something cold and calculated there, too. Marcus had always been unhinged. He’d never been much of a planner. Too willing to follow Viktor’s plans to ever come up with any of his own.
I didn’t bother to correct him. Didn’t bother to tell him I was pretty sure Theo had killed my little sister. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was she was gone.
Gone. And I hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye.
Another bolt sped towards me. I sidestepped, the movement automatic, effortless. “You’re a fucking monster,” I hissed. “Aenia was more my sister than you’ll ever be my brother. She was a kid. She didn’t ask for any of this.”
The words caught in my throat, a lump of raw grief and fury I couldn’t swallow. She hadn’t asked for this. She hadn’t deserved any of it. And I hadn’t been able to save her. When she’d needed me the most, I’d failed her.
Marcus shifted and this time I moved before he’d even fired, darting to the side. The bolt clattered harmlessly against the stones behind me.
“Let Lunaya go,” I said, my voice low. The Orphos girl stood rigidly at my brother’s side. Something was decidedly off about her.
Instead, Marcus tugged savagely on Lunaya’s wrist. She didn’t even flinch. He laughed, the sound grating on my ears. “Let her go? Not a chance. She’s mine now. Look at her face. Can’t you tell she wants to be here? She wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He lifted Lunaya’s chin roughly. “Would you, darling?”
Lunaya said nothing, simply stared back at him, her face expressionless.
My jaw tightened. “What the fuck have you done to her?”
“I’d think it was fairly obvious,” Marcus said disdainfully.
“Blood magic.” No wonder he’d been visiting our class. “Why Lunaya? Did Viktor put you up to this? You’ve always been his puppet. Still running his errands? It’s going to get you killed one day, Marcus.”
If I had my way, today would be that day. But even that thought was hollow. Killing Marcus wouldn’t bring Aenia back or undo what he’d done to Florence. Nothing would. Those were my mistakes to live with. And I’d take the consequences.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Marcus said, smiling. “She’s been bound to me for weeks now. A useful failsafe, among other things.”
I looked at Lunaya and, for a moment, I saw Aenia’s face instead. The way she used to look at me when she was small, her eyes full of trust and admiration. And then I saw her at the end, feral and wild, the sister I’d failed to save.
“You’ve been using her, twisting her. Walking in Viktor’s footsteps, I see.” My stomach churned.
“Speaking of the old man.” Marcus smirked and gestured to my face. “I assume you finally snapped and tried to take him on.” He gave a low, mocking whistle. “Looks like it didn’t go so well for you.”
My lips curled. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you.”
Marcus’s expression became uncertain, but only for a moment. He chuckled. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises? But it doesn’t matter. I’ve already won.”
“Won? Won what, Marcus? What the hell are you even doing here?” Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Tanaka moving slowly across the court.
I risked stealing a glance at Nyxaris. The black dragon hadn’t moved since I entered. He seemed listless. Had Rodriguez already completed the ritual to turn the creature back to stone? A chill went through my veins at the thought.
I glanced over at where the professor still crouched over glass vials he’d arranged on the ground. His hand held one, full of a red liquid.
“Damned Rodriguez. He always was a hardass stickler. Worst professor at Bloodwing,” Marcus said, following my gaze with an irritated expression. Lazily, he pointed his crossbow. “I don’t know what the fuck he was up to here tonight and I don’t want to know. But some blightborn prick isn’t getting in my way.”
He swung his aim toward Rodriguez.
“Marcus, don’t—”
The bolt flew.
Rodriguez jerked, a strangled gasp escaping his lips as the projectile struck him high in the shoulder. The vial he’d been holding slipped from his fingers, shattering against the stones, red liquid spilling out.
Before I could move to help Rodriguez or to take on Marcus, Tanaka made the choice for me.
I’d seen impossible things in my lifetime. I’d become a fucking dragon earlier that same evening after all. And yet somehow, what happened next was still beyond anything I could have imagined.
Kage growled. Then, before my eyes, his body began to ripple and contort. It started with his hands. Fingers elongating, nails becoming claws. His shoulders broadened, his neck thickened.
And then the motherfucker started sprouting fur. Thick, snowy white fur, covering him in a gleaming coat.
Where the Avari leader had once stood, there now stood a massive white wolf, towering and muscular.
Marcus was looking at Tanaka, as slack-jawed as I felt. “Is that the fucking Avari?”
I didn’t answer. I glanced at Rodriguez to see if he’d already known Kage’s little secret, but he looked as shocked as I was.
For a second, I felt myself reaching for the dragon within me. Could I summon it like Kage had just summoned the wolf? But when I reached deep inside myself, the dragon was silent, dormant. Part of me was kind of relieved.
Still, seeing Kage as a wolf was incredible. Someone else with a secret like mine. Someone who might understand what the hell I was going through. But I was a little jealous, too. Tanaka seemed to have full control. He could shift in a heartbeat. There’d been no ripping of skin or screaming in pain.
The wolf sprang across the courtyard, his massive form leaping onto Marcus with terrifying speed.
As the two collided—man and beast–Tanaka snapped and snarled as he whipped the crossbow from my brother’s hands, the weapon falling to the ground.
“Tanaka,” I heard myself shout. “Be careful! If he dies, so does Lunaya.”
Kage turned his head and I shivered. The wolf’s pale eyes shone with fury. Then he growled—and I knew he’d understood.
I turned and sprinted towards Lunaya who was standing frozen where Marcus had left her. I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away. “Come on. You don’t have to stay here.”
Slowly, she met my gaze. But her eyes were cold and distant.
“Lunaya, please,” I urged. “Let’s get you back to your brother.”
Without a word, she jerked her arm free and ran—not out of the courtyard towards safety but over to the golden dragon of stone at the edge of the court.
I froze for a split second before following her.
As I came around the statue, my stomach dropped.
Catherine Mortis stood there. She had one hand pressed against the dragon’s flank, her fingers smeared with blood. Her lips moved silently, chanting words too quietly for me to make out.
Her eyes snapped open as I approached and I shivered. They were filled with something I’d only ever thought I'd see in my uncle’s–a righteous zeal. “You’re too late,” she crowed, sounding gleeful and triumphant.
Catherine grabbed Lunaya, pulling her close. Then, with a quick motion she lifted a knife and ran the blade over Lunaya’s hand. As blood welled up from the cut, Catherine shoved the girl’s hand against the stone dragon’s flank.
“Blood of a rider, blood of a master,” the House Mortis leader chanted. “Blood of a rider, blood of a master. Let them be one. Blood of a rider, blood of a master. Bound by blood, rise to serve.”
I fell back as the air around the two women seemed to shimmer and split with heat. The stone scales covering the golden dragon began to crack and splinter, revealing something that looked like tarnished gold beneath.
I was reliving the nightmare of Nyxaris’s awakening. Stones began to rain down around me, each fragment falling with a baleful hiss, like the sounds of a trapped, angry spirit.
“Catherine, stop this!” I shouted, taking another step forward and stumbling as the courtyard shook. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
The Mortis leader’s eye snapped to mine, alight with fervent determination. “I know exactly what I’m doing, Drakharrow. You just aren’t going to like it very much.”
My gaze shifted to Lunaya. Her face was pale, her face twisted as if with pain. But she stayed where Catherine was holding her hand to the dragon’s side, not even trying to resist.
“Lunaya, fight her! You don’t have to do this!” I tried to press forward, to get to her, but the stones of the courtyard were shaking. I swayed as beside me, the Luminthar of House Orphos began to stir.
I looked up at the golden creature as her head shifted, sending chunks of crumbling marble cascading to the ground. The dragon’s once-regal features were emerging from beneath the stone. But something was wrong. They were twisted and misshapen—a cruel parody of the wisdom and serenity she had once been known for. Her scales, which should have been bright and golden, were tarnished and uneven, too–streaked with sickly black veins that pulsed like a corrupt infection. Her jaws parted, unleashing a sound harsh and guttural, nothing like Nyxaris’s glorious, terrifying roar.
My heart twisted. This wasn’t Molindra. Not as she had been. This was a perversion. A monstrosity.
Catherine and Marcus weren’t just using blood magic to bring the dragon back. They were using necromancy.
The Luminthar’s eyes opened and her head swiveled towards me, her eyes unfocused and full of rage. For a moment, I froze. Then Molindra’s gaze swept past me.
I turned to see Marcus and Kage in the center of the courtyard. The wolf’s snowy fur was streaked with crimson as he lunged and snapped, forcing Marcus to dodge and stumble. My brother had blood running down his temple and across his jaw. His once-pristine black and red armor was now ripped and smeared with dirt. He’d regained his crossbow but couldn’t seem to aim it quickly enough to shoot the wolf.
Tanaka snarled, circling him, claws scraping, teeth bared.
As they fought, something about the way Marcus moved—his stance, the way he dodged the wolf’s snarling jaws—triggered a memory. Recognition struck. My breath caught as fragments of the day of the carriage attack rushed back. One of the attackers had moved just as Marcus was moving now.
It had been Marcus all along. He and Catherine must have staged the attack. Not Viktor. Not a rival from another house. Them.
I felt sick as it all came together. That was how Catherine was doing it.Pendragon’s blood was the key. They’d gotten it from the knife she’d been stabbed with that day. They hadn’t been trying to kill her—though I was sure they wouldn’t have minded if she’d died. What they’d been after was her blood. Blended with Lunaya’s Orphos blood it had allowed them to somehow bring the Luminthar back to a semblance of life.
But they still didn’t have a dragon rider. They couldn’t control Molindra. My heart sank. Or could they? If Molindra wasn’t truly alive but simply...reanimated... then could Catherine control her with necromancy?
Why awaken Molindra at all? Why not the Drakharrow Inferni? Or House Mortis’s own Silvrayne?
I thought of Lunaya. She was soft, pliable, easy to control. She’d been susceptible to Marcus’s seduction. No doubt he’d begun to control her with sanguimancy early on. If Marcus and Catherine weren’t using their own house dragons there had to be a reason. And I knew it couldn’t be a good one.
I started to move towards Tanaka to support him, but movement from the gold dragon made me pause. Molindra’s immense head began to lower, and I realized with a jolt what Catherine must be commanding her to do.
The dragon inhaled, her chest expanding. I knew what was coming next.
“Kage! Move!” I bellowed, diving to lay flat on the ground just in front of the dragon’s paws.
The wolf sprang to the side just as a column of golden flame erupted from Molindra’s jaws.
Marcus had rolled away, barely avoiding the flames himself. Now he staggered to his feet and made a mad dash towards the dragon.
“Shit,” I hissed as I watched Marcus begin to scramble up onto the Luminthar’s back. Catherine was already perched above me, feeding the massive beast her commands. I saw Lunaya reach down to help Marcus climb, her movements slow, almost mechanical. What the hell had they done to that girl? Was there anything left of the real Lunaya Orphos even in there?
I glanced around, realizing what they must have planned. This was bad. Very bad.
“Tanaka,” I yelled. “We can’t let them take off.”
Kage, still in the wolf form, gave his fur a shake and growled, his eyes locking on Marcus and Catherine. The flames had singed him, but he seemed more furious than hurt.
I turned and sprinted towards Rodriguez who had crawled over to a column and sat slumped against it, clutching his wounded shoulder and looking as if he was about to pass out.
“We need to move,” I said, grabbing him beneath the arms.
His head lolled slightly. “Molindra,” he rasped. “She’s...”
“She’s still fucking dead. That’s what she is,” I said grimly. “But somehow she’s back. And I doubt we can take her down now.”
I glanced over at Nyxaris. I knew Rodriguez had shot the black dragon with some kind of a toxin so he couldn’t fly away. But it wouldn’t last forever. Surely it must be wearing off by now.
“Theo!” I yelled across the courtyard, to where he stood beside Pendragon, who sat on the ground, cradling Florence Shen’s head in her arms. I knew Pendragon wouldn’t want to leave Nyxaris. But she had to. “Get them out of here! Get them somewhere safe!”
I watched as he said something to Pendragon and bent down as if to lift up Florence. But even as they started to pull back, the courtyard erupted into chaos again.
Molindra roared, the sound sending the cloister pillars trembling. The corrupted Luminthar spread her wings wide, blowing aside fragments of stone. She turned her head towards Nyxaris, who was still crouched on the other side near Pendragon.
His massive body still seemed sluggish as he tried to rise and lift his wings.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
Nyxaris was helpless and we were responsible.
We’d done this. Rodriguez, Tanaka, and I. We’d sabotaged our only chance of stopping Molindra. I glanced at Pendragon, wondering if she’d figured out the part I’d played in all of this yet.
I’d let Rodriguez convince me I was helping her, protecting her. But the truth was, I knew she would never have wanted me to make the choice that I had. Because keeping her life wasn’t worth it. Not if it meant harming Nyxaris. And deep down, I guess I’d known that all along. Now Florence was wounded and that was my fault, too. The girl would never have been here if she hadn’t been following Pendragon.
I’d been stupid, selfish, and I’d made the worst mistake of my life.
Again.