Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
KILLIAN
This cannot be how it ends. Strangled by a fucking tree? No. I refuse. But try as I might, I can’t get free. The finger-like branches squeeze tighter the more I struggle, like a great serpent constricting its prey, and press me deeper into the earth, the cold seeping into my bones.
I hear Thea scream and grit my teeth, renewing my fight.
I will get back to her. I will not die this day.
I claw at the branches and see my sword lying just out of reach in the snow to my right.
I strain, screaming through clenched teeth.
My shoulder feels like it might be torn from its socket, but I keep reaching, fingers finally scrabbling on the very edge of the pommel.
“Come on, damnit!!” I reach farther still and feel something tear and pain lace through my body, but it’s enough.
My fingers close around the grip and I yank it towards me, stabbing and cleaving, desperate to escape.
My vision starts to darken around the edges as the branches continue to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. ..
“Thea,” I whisper as the darkness starts to overtake me, but then something welcoming settles over me.
Accepting death? No, that isn’t it...but that feeling of wrongness that’s been plaguing me these weeks, that feeling that I’m missing something fades away as something bright flares inside of my chest, hot as fire, but it doesn’t burn.
No, it forges, solidifying some connection that reaches out for—
Screams erupt across the field and the ground shakes as thunder cracks. No, not thunder. The sound of something giant landing just beside me. A moment later the tree is ripped away and I’m staring up at—
Great. Fucking. Makers.
-Hello, Killian Blackheart,- a voice whispers inside my mind.
I blink, unable to move or breathe or think.
The voice is warm and soft. Welcoming. A piece of me.
Somehow she’s always been a part of me, a missing part of my soul now made whole again.
Thea was the first piece to be found. She is the second.
I understand then, what’s happened, what this means.
I’ve bonded. I have a familiar.
And she’s a fucking dragon.
-Are you going to just lie there all day? We’ve a battle to win.- she says inside my mind again, staring at me with those strange golden eyes, ringed in ice blue—a mirror image of Soren’s, I realize. I can feel the amusement in her voice and I wonder idly how long it took Thea to get used to this.
-I am Isolde.-
“It-it’s nice to make your acquaintance,” I manage to say, voice barely more than a whisper.
I clear my throat and wince, fire flaring up my side.
Broken ribs. At least three. I push the pain away to be dealt with later and manage to get to my feet as she.
..fucking winks at me and turns towards field.
A dragon.
Just winked at me.
In the middle of a battle.
Is this real? This can’t possibly be real. Perhaps I did die on this field under that damned tree and this is Noxum’s strange idea of a joke.
I stare in utter wonder at her. She’s magnificent, standing at least twelve feet tall, maybe more, with deep gray scales, so dark they’re nearly black, that shimmer faintly in the sunlight, and spiked ridges down her spine and curling back from the sides of her head.
She spreads her dark wings outward, the undersides a deep crimson in the sunlight.
She turns towards the Alliance’s forces and lowers her head and lets out a roar so loud that I barely stop myself from clamping my hands over my ears.
I turn to see Thea standing a few feet away doing just that, eyes wide and jaw slack, Dessa beside her looking like she might cry from the sheer awe of what she’s seeing.
We’ve both dreamed of this day since we were children, hoping and praying that the dragons would return to us one day, pretending for countless hours that we were chasing them or fighting with them or, hells, even were them, flying high above the kingdom, free from everything else.
Isolde turns her head back over her shoulder, looking directly at Thea for a heartbeat before she turns to the army once more.
She roars again, the earth shaking and ice raining down from the trees around us, tinkling melodically.
The guards surrounding the abominations look as if they might have pissed themselves, their line falling apart as half of them turn and run.
The abominations themselves don’t look much better, their pallid skin draining of what little color they had.
The dragon inhales, her massive chest expanding and wings flaring again, and without knowing how, exactly, I know what’s going to happen next.
I run to Thea. I know that she’s in no danger, but I can only imagine what she must be thinking, and I need my hands on her.
It had been far too close, that darkness creeping in. ..
I reach her side and she grabs for me, clutching at my arm without ever taking her eyes off of the dragon.
A second later blue fire erupts from Isolde’s throat.
It’s unlike any fire I’ve ever seen, azure flames scorching everything in their path as they roil forward.
Ear-piercing screams of agony ring out but don’t last long as the wave of fire drowns them all.
When the fire dissipates, nothing but a field of death remains.
I swallow hard as my gaze skirts over mangled bodies, some still with bits of burned flesh attached, others just piles of charred bones.
“Great fucking Makers,” Thea whispers beside me, clenching my arm harder, her other hand clutching Soren’s fur.
The remaining members of the Alliance’s forces that were on this side of Isolde, fighting against our soldiers immediately throw down their weapons and surrender, dropping to their knees and begging for forgiveness and protection.
We all stand there in stunned silence for what feels like an eternity, watching as the dragon huffs, wisps of blue-gray smoke curling from her nostrils before she turns to face me once more.
She sits in front of us, spiked tail curling around her front feet and giant talons digging into the earth. She waits patiently, tilting her head as she studies the line of us.
Before anyone can say a word, Dessa drops to one knee and bows her head.
“What are you doing?” Thea whispers from the corner of her mouth, keeping one eye on the admittedly terrifying creature in front of her.
Beautiful to be sure, but terrifying all the same.
Isolde peels her lips back ever so slightly, letting us get a glimpse of those massive, razor-sharp fangs, and Thea tenses.
I swear I feel amusement from the dragon whispering in my mind. Wait. Had she heard my thoughts?
-Yes, I did. You’ll learn to control them.
Look for the doorway in your mind, the pathway between us.
- I don’t really understand what she could mean, but I take a deep breath and do as she says, looking within my mind, the same way I do with my Gift.
It takes a moment, but a shimmering golden doorway seems to appear. It beckons, feeling like the road home.
-Um...can you hear me?-
-Very good.-
All of this takes seconds, and in the span of these few heartbeats, soldiers across the field join Odessa, kneeling in the bloody, muddy snow, and Thea finally tears her gaze away from Isolde to look at the spectacle.
“What’s happening?” she whispers.
“We revere dragons, Red. In Duskthorne legends, dragons were once the form Makers took to walk among mortals and are therefore blessed for all eternity. They used to roam all over our kingdom, living in peace with us, protecting us. It’s why Duskthorne’s sigil is a dragon.”
Isolde notices what’s happening and huffs out a soft breath, the air clouding in front of her nose. She…bows in return, head sinking down so low that her chin touches the snow.
I step forward and tentatively hold out a hand towards her snout. She lifts her face once more, easing forward until she—
A strangled scream tears from Thea’s throat as Isolde opens her massive jaws, truly revealing those gleaming fangs, and snapping them shut an inch from my hand.
I rear back, slipping on the snow and landing firmly on my ass.
Thea lunges forward, but freezes when the dragon…
laughs? Her lips curl up in the corners and her shoulders and chest shake with the rumbling sound, reminding me a bit of Soren’s chuffing.
I blink and then throw my head back, laughing so hard that my ribs scream in agony, but I can’t stop. Thea looks between me, Isolde, and Soren, who I assume is joining in our laughter inside her mind, shaking her head as if we’re all insane.
“Did that dragon just…play a joke on the Commander?” I hear Tristan ask in shock as he comes to stand beside Dessa, who’s now back on her feet and looking torn between laughter and tears of joy.
“Yes, yes she did,” I say, wiping tears from my eyes.
-A good one, I think,- Isolde adds, a smile in her voice.
-Makers, I have so many questions.-
-All in time.- She cuts her eyes back towards the field, the aftermath of the battle. -Perhaps after we finish this.-
She’s right, of course. Though she took care of most of the Alliance’s forces, we have at least two hundred who have surrendered, and our own wounded and dead to collect and handle. I incline my head to her, a thousand things running through my mind.
First and foremost, though, I need to greet my wife properly.