Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Page Sixteen. I failed, but deities, if you still believe in love…please save her.
I wake up with my face pressed against moss—stony moss—and the wind blows across me, carrying the scent of smoke in the air. Turning over, my head hurting like I’ve banged it a thousand times, I see the sky. The night sky and it is extraordinary. Bright lights of reds, silver, yellows, and gold are dancing across the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Screams echo in the air, just as a dragon swoops across the sky above me, blocking out the light for a second, and then it is gone. What happened? My head hurts the more I try to think about it, and a flash of light catches my eye. Not light. Silver. Like moonlight. I lift my arms, blinking as I see silver marks swirling around my skin. I know they’re everywhere, all over my body, even before I check. The marks are like Ziven’s, marking him as the King of the Dragons, but what do these make me? I don’t just have dragon markings; I have other symbols of moons, suns and stars. “You are our warrior, Queen Story Moonsilver, and these marks are a touch of our power. With it, you have what you wish.”
What did I wish? Ziven. I touch my chest, knowing exactly what this means. Ziven is going to live. Memories of everything that happened come back to me as I hear more screams from a distance away, and I flinch. Ziven is alive and I need to get to him. His soul is mine now. And mine is his. I can barely breathe as I reach for him through our bond, and he is there, in the depths of my mind, like a shadow I’ve longed to see. “Where are you? What happened? When were you going to tell me that you were going to die?”
Silence for a second. Then—“Story… Thank the deities. Where are you?”
There is so much relief in his reply, and I can feel him through the bond. He is fighting nearby, and his relief makes my heart pound. I’ve always been connected to him, but this is so raw, so strong, and we are one and the same, now and forever. “I made the deities link my soul to yours,” I speak to him, my voice shaking even in my mind. “I woke up from our bed, and I was somehow in front of the books. We made an agreement, a deal that I had to make to save you, and I am mad that you kept it from me, that you took that power to save me, knowing the cost, but I only care that you’re alive right now.”
“I’d do it again.” His deep voice is steady. “I’m not apologising for choosing the path that was needed to win this war. To save you. I would save you again and again—and never once apologise for it.” He pauses for a long time and fear makes me want to run to him, even if my body is currently reeling. I shakily try to stand and grab onto a pillar to hold myself up. “What else did the deities take?”
Our child’s future. I can barely think it, let alone tell Ziven yet. He will only blame himself, and we have a war to win. I can’t get my mind wrapped around the thought of being pregnant or how it even happened in the first place. “Ziven, we need to win this war, or it is all for nothing.”
“We win or I’m flying with you and our people to safety. We won’t come back,” he vows, even if I know he would hate himself forever for giving up on the fae and I would, too. “Where are you? I’m above the city, and I sense you to the north. The city is burning, and the Silkvir are falling back. I see the vampyre king, but I am turning?—”
“No!” I shout. “Stay there and end this. I will come to you, and I’m fine.”
There’s a stillness to the forest around me that cools my blood, and I don’t think I’m alone. I don’t know how I’ve ended up at a temple, but it is now just broken pillars, retaken by nature, clawed back in by ivy and thorns. The trees form a perfect circle around the ruins, towering high, but they are trimmed back, and there is a clear pathway to the south. To the burning city. The forest will no doubt burn too, and I need to get moving before the smoke gets to me .
“I love you,” Ziven vows, like a vow of storms on a hot day. Vivid, strong, and endless. Like us. “For the fae. For you. It’s all for you, Storm.”
“I love you too,” I send back, and I push Ziven away in my mind, blocking him the best I can—making sure he doesn’t feel the sharp, cold fear that surges through me as I see him step out of the forest.
Prince Emyr. He looks at me like he can hardly believe I’m here in front of him, and neither can I. “I sensed you out here,” he says, voice smooth, eyes sharp. “Smelled you in the air, but I thought it was a trick…” There is a smile that sets my teeth on edge. “Did you come back to me? Have you finally seen sense and remembered how much you love me?”
I want to laugh and scream, to tell him that his hope is impossible. I am never to be used again. Or fed on. I will be with Ziven, and only Ziven, forever. Something breaks inside me as he looks at me with what I assume is how he thinks people in love stare. I lift my arms as it begins to rain, slow drops at first, but the coolness of the rain only fuels me. The silver markings on my body glow. Through my dark top and leggings. Through the night, they glow bright enough to reflect in his eyes. I smile as he shakes his head in disbelief. In fear. “What have they done to you?”
He moves fast—so fast. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t hurt me anymore. I saved a part of my soul, through all the years of abuse and pain he caused, and that tiny piece became a spark that burned into the woman I am now. The queen. The mate of King Ziven of the Moon Dynasty. I became what I was always meant to be. Shadows like Ziven’s but brighter. Mine. They wrap around me in a protective shield, and Emyr is thrown back when he gets close. The shadows swirl around my legs, turning silver—bright like the moon. They are protecting me and it is effortless. The deities gave me what I’ve always wanted—a way to protect myself.
His eyes widen as he looks up from the ground where he was thrown. He looks at me in fear, and if that isn’t a blessing from the deities, then nothing ever will be. I never had power, but I did have a deity watching over my every move. She made sure that if I needed power, I could have it. I could borrow it for just a second—to protect myself. The red light. All of it. It was her guiding me because they needed to be free. The mistakes of my ancestors are undone, and now to truly free this world, the vampyre king and prince, and all who stand with them, have to die.
“What have they done to you?” He keeps ranting as he rises to his feet and steps back. His Silkvir comes out of the forest, the stink of its rotten flesh hard to ignore as it bares its teeth at me, and bones rattle with every thud on the forest floor. The glow from its body, from the light somewhere within it, lights up everything in blue.
Emyr moves fast, stepping onto his dragon’s back and climbing up. “Come,” he demands. “We can go. Fly back to my castle and forget all of this. I will forgive you for all of it, Story.” He stares at me with the obsessive gaze I’m used to seeing, used to fearing, but I don’t anymore. He is one vampyre, and he is nothing. “I knew when I first met you that we were destined for each other and nothing would ever come between us. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I will change, and we can?—”
“No.” I speak the single word, a word he isn’t used to hearing. “You think I’m coming with you?” I take a step forward, the shadows flaring higher around me. “I am not your blood slave anymore. I am Story Moonsilver of the Moon Dynasty. I am their queen and I am his mate. The only male I belong to is him, and he is a thousand of what you could ever have been. I will forget you in time, and so will this world. I’ll make sure no books speak your name. I’ll make sure you’re a ghost forever, a nameless prince who died in the war as nothing… You should be terrified of me this time, Emyr, because this world—the one I will remake with Ziven—will not include you.”
Dragons rush across the sky above, shadows streaking toward the city, and Emyr screams my name as he leads his Silkvir towards me. My shadows make a wall between us, and the Silkvir slams into it, but it doesn’t dent. It snarls, smashing and attempting to crack the shadow wall, but nothing happens. Emyr is screaming and shouting for his Silkvir to get to me, to kill me, but he can’t get close, and I smile as I feel her.
A dragon crashes down through the rain clouds with a smack of thunder to hide her dive—Maeve. She lands on the back of the Silkvir, with her claws cutting through the Silkvir’s back and rotten flesh, the bones collapsing under her weight. Her jaws snap around his neck—teeth sinking deep—then she whips him into the air as Emyr leaps off to the ground. He runs at me, slamming himself into the shadow wall in a feral rage, his eyes burning with hate as his Silkvir dies behind him. He doesn’t look back or care. It’s my mother who lands behind him. My mother—who has never ridden a dragon—and all I see is her red hair as she lifts a dagger up. A familiar dagger. She slams it through his back, straight into his heart, and he silently gasps.
“For all the days you caused my daughter pain and for all the years you stole her from me.” She pushes the dagger deeper, her voice steady, cold and merciless. “You stole her and now you die for it, prince.” She twists the blade. “May the furious fires of the deepest hell keep you company.” She rips the dagger free—then plunges it back in. Deeper, and he screams this time, reaching for her, but my shadows snap around his body in a vise and hold him still.
I walk up to him and stare into his soul. He screams and screams and screams. “You lost.” And then—my shadows rip him apart. Into pieces. Into nothing but ash that scatters into the wind, and he is gone. The male that caged me and abused me for so many years of my life is gone. I never have to fear him again, and I know it will be years until I can really accept that fact and understand it.
In one final breath, I’m finally free.
My mother is windswept, her hair a mad mess like mine, and she wraps her arms around me with a delightful laugh, clinging to me tightly. I laugh with her for a second, only a second, and grin. “You rode my dragon, mum.”
Maeve snorts from behind us, the Silkvir’s dead body thrown into the forest in bones. “I knew we need the blood of fire and revenge to save you, my rider. Your mother is very similar to you and demanded I bring her.”
“Thank you for letting her ride you,” I tell Maeve in my mind.
“Hettie woke me up and told me the dragons were going to war and you were missing. I knew, other than that mate of yours, there was one being who would be able to find you. My heart nearly stopped when she flew,” my mother says. “Hettie knew the deities had something to do with your disappearance, but she wasn’t sure what. Tell me what happened,” she says, shivering, “while I warm up a second, as it’s cold on a dragon. You never mentioned the cold you feel to your bones, even in a coat.”
I let out a breathless laugh, shaking my head. “I know, but you get used to it.” I tell my mum everything, leaving out the part about the baby because when I first say it out loud to someone, it will be to Ziven. I want to see his smile, see his joy and live in it for a while before we inform anyone else, even my mother. I want her advice, her guidance, and then maybe I will find a way through this new adventure. I exhale, steadying myself from my mother. “I have to go to Ziven.”
“I’ll be fine.” My mother nods. “The town is that way. I’m going to go into it—to help the fae who will be fleeing from this war.”
I squeeze her hand. “Be careful, please.”
Maeve lowers herself to the ground for me, and I rush over, wasting no more time here. I see my mother running into the forest, down the winding path, and I silently send a prayer up to the deities to watch over her as they celebrate above. I hope my mother is quick enough to lead others away from the fires. If anyone can lead survivors to safety, it’s her.
The moment I settle, Maeve takes off—soaring straight into the sky—slamming into a Silkvir who was coming right for us. Red scales and blood flash before me as she spins around, and I barely hold on, my stomach twisting as she comes around with the Silkvir in her mouth. The Silkvir screeches, and my ears sting from the noise, which is dampened by the wind, along with the crunching of bones in Maeve’s mouth. Another comes at us, and this Silkvir is much smaller than her, making it easy for her to knock into it. The force sends it crashing down into the forest below.
The bright light of the dancing colours in the sky makes it easy to see everything in the night, and my heart clenches as I take in the devastation of the city. I’ve never been to this city, not once, and it is grand. Or it was. The city is a thousand pillars of all different levels, with homes built around them, and most of them are burning like torches in the night. Dragons and Silkvir fill the night, and with the storms, the heavy rain that has soaked me to my bones, it looks like a nightmare. A war. Maeve’s voice cuts into my head. “Focus.”
She is right. Ziven. He was with the king, and if the king falls, the war is nearly won. I sense Ziven near, and I search for him, looking around the sky to the left, away from the main part of the burning city. Maeve follows my line of sight, and within a few minutes, we find them. Ziven. His dragon is breathing unholy silver fire, trying to catch a Silkvir that is just as massive as him. The Silkvir is burnt everywhere and bleeding black into the air, but the shadow dragon Ziven rides is no better off. I lean down. “Let’s go and finish this!”
Maeve shoots across the sky, straight for my mate. Ziven’s shadows burn in the air, writhing around them as the city below burns. Burns with dragon fire. Maeve lurches up and we dive, spiralling toward them—toward the king’s Silkvir.
Ziven and the king are locked in a fight in the air, their dragons climbing higher and higher with each beat of their wings. Shadows flare around me, falling like silver ink through the air as we slam into the other side of the Silkvir, hitting the king’s Silkvir with as much force as possible. I lurch, nearly falling backwards, but my fingertips grab her scales, and I hold on with everything I have, even as the fear of falling this high up makes me feel sick. Maeve’s claws rip down its back, but she can’t reach its wings as Ziven’s dragon turns around and comes back closer. The Silkvir pushes off Maeve, dragging its teeth down her neck, and dragon blood pours down my arms. I scream as she roars in pain. “Maeve!”
The Silkvir gets free in her shock, but she doesn’t give in, ignoring the pain, and she shoots up after him in the sky.
More Silkvir flood around us, chasing us as we climb higher, and I look down, seeing Ziven’s dragon fighting twenty of them off on his own. My mouth parts as I feel his worry, his desperation for my safety like it’s my own. “Don’t chase him. It’s what he wants!”
The king fights them off, but Maeve is not going to stop. I know she won’t. Ziven’s eyes meet mine through the chaos, and he roars as the Silkvir pile onto his dragon, pulling him down in the sky, and soon we are higher than the clouds, we are in the dancing lights, and they are blinding. Both our dragons swirl around each other, flying higher and higher, so high we might touch the heavens themselves to join the deities. The king is clinging to his rotting beast like it’s a lifeline, like it can save him from me, but it can’t. “Don’t leave me, Maeve.”
It’s the only warning I give her before I jump off her back, the air whistling in my ears as I land straight onto the back of the king’s dragon, my hands digging into its bones, and I hold on tight as it snarls into the air, but it doesn’t stop climbing. I can’t breathe as I look up at the king, who hasn’t noticed me. He is panting, holding onto the saddle his Silkvir wears as the air literally runs out around us. I don’t have long. My silver shadows coil around me as I climb, step by step, higher and higher, up the rotting flesh and bones to the king. Every step, every stretch of my body hurts, and I’m covered in sweat by the time I get close.
The king turns at the last second, grabs my arm, yanking me in front of him and onto the saddle. He flashes his teeth, his fangs, and snaps at me to bite, but my shadows protect me first. They hit him like a thousand arrows, cutting through his body one by one. His eyes widen in shock, and I punch him hard, just the way Ziven taught me. His head snaps to the side, his grip loosening on the saddle. Maeve is there, latching herself to the Silkvir and biting its belly below me. Going for its heart.
The king stops fighting me, and he just stares, like he’s seen a ghost. Like that ghost has finally come for him after all these years. I shout over the wind, over the crying wail of the Silkvir. “I’m sure you’ll see her,” I whisper. “I’m sure she’ll take you straight to wherever the most rotten of souls go to burn for eternity. Your son will be there already.”
Magic—red magic—deity magic—explodes out of me. It burns through the king and through what is left of the Silkvir below me, through everything, and red flames consume the world, burning like a star in the dancing lights until there is nothing left around.
And I fall.
The wind whips around me, the world flickering past in a blur, and I know, I just know, I’m going to die. Maeve is falling too, and she is too far, way too far, to get to me. “I’m coming!” she screams in my mind, but we both know, just know, it will be too late.
I think of him as I fall, as I can’t breathe, and the pressure of the air feels like it’s tearing my body apart, destroying me from within. “Ziven, I will always love you. I didn’t want us to end like this.”
“I will save you!” he growls. “Open your eyes, Storm.” I do and I see his dragon is diving for me, far closer than Maeve. But they’re not close enough. “Nothing will take you from me again.” His dragon moves with impossible speed, like the moon itself is powering him, and seconds before the treeline, he catches me in its sharp claws, but my head smacks into something hard, and darkness crashes over me like a storm.
In it, I only see the man I love.