Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
THEA
In the words of Matthais: holy ruddy fucking fuck. Far too much has happened in a span of a few minutes, and I can barely wrap my head around a damn bit of it.
We fought against the abominations.
Dessa was betrothed in the heat of battle.
We learned that the abominations can’t be blocked by Killian’s Gift.
Killian almost died.
Dragons are real.
One showed up.
And bonded with Killian.
Holy. Ruddy. Fucking. Fuck.
-Indeed,- Soren says, laughing inside my mind.
-Is this what the rumblings you mentioned earlier were about?-
-Yes, but nothing was certain until she arrived.-
And what an arrival it was. I can’t stop replaying it over and over again in my mind, her landing in the clearing with such force that the ground shook, the sunlight glinting off of her shimmering gray-black scales, the sleek, fluid movements as she turned to face our enemies—and utterly destroyed them with one breath.
Her fire is beautiful and terrifying, reminding me for a heartbeat of my sister.
But Tesni’s fire has always seemed...angry to me.
Wicked. Evil. The dragon’s fire felt pure, called forth from a place of love and protection.
Makers I sound like a lunatic.
So, Killian’s familiar is not only a creature of legend, thought to be gone from this world entirely, she is also beautiful and deadly—and apparently blessed with a sense of humor.
I shake my head and huff out a laugh, unbelieving that any of this can possibly be real.
Killian turns then and meets my gaze, and the look in them has me leaping into his open arms. Soon, I will sort through everything that happened this day, all of the lives I took, all of the blood spilled, and what everything we’ve learned about the abominations could mean.
Soon. Right now, I need my arms around my husband.
I need to know that he’s alright and safe and still here with me.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him so tightly I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let go, squeezing my eyes shut.
He grunts quietly, but circles his arms around me, holding me to him and I know he’s feeling all of the same things I am.
The worry and the fear and the unknown all melting away, at least for a few precious moments.
Right now, all I feel is love and joy, and I send up thanks to all of the Makers for keeping Killian safe, for sending him this dragon that saved him. Saved all of us.
Killian sets me down and cradles my face between his big, scarred hands, holding my gaze.
“You’re alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine, but I wasn’t the one attacked by a fucking tree, Killian. Are you ok??”
He huffs out a laugh, that slow smile curling his lips, the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. His thumbs gently trace over my cheekbones, the touch so tender and out of place on a battlefield surrounded by blood and gore and piles of ash.
“Yes, I’m fine. A cracked rib or five, but nothing that Copeland can’t heal.”
“Makers, why didn’t you say that?! I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that, I—” He silences my objections with a kiss, a firm, unyielding kiss that has me melting in his arms. He pulls back and my cheeks heat, realizing that a few hundred people, plus a dragon and a frost cat, are staring.
“I don’t care how many bones are broken within this body, Red. If you don’t hug me like that after every battle, I will be highly offended.” I laugh and kiss him again, softly, reaching up to run my palm over his stubbled cheek.
“You’re truly alright?”
“Yes, love. I’m fine.”
I exhale, long and slow, the knot in my chest unraveling now that I know he’s ok.
I glance up at the dragon, her golden eyes staring inquisitively.
There’s a ring of ice blue around the gold—the opposite of Soren’s.
I wonder if all familiars have a combination of the two colors or if it's merely coincidence. These days, I don’t believe for a second that any damned thing is coincidence.
“So, um…care to introduce me?”
“Still can’t believe this is truly happening,” he murmurs, “but Thea, allow me to present—”
-Isolde- the soft, feminine voice echoes inside my mind. I reel back and Killian whips his head to look at the dragon before cutting his gaze back to me.
“Did she just...”
“Uh huh,” I say, barely able to get the words out. I know I’m staring, gaping like a fish out of water, but I can’t help it.
“Have you been able to speak to me this whole time and just chose not to?” Killian shoots at Soren, accusation in his eyes. I almost laugh and Soren rolls his eyes, letting out an annoyed huff.
-No need for hurt feelings,- she says, and Killian starts to protest that he had no such things, but she continues on, a smile in her voice.
-Bonded Gifteds and familiars can speak this way to each other or other bondeds.
Or to those like your King Ryker, who has a Gift for speaking with animalkind,- she adds thoughtfully.
She’s right. Inside my mind, I see new glowing doorways now. Neither are as strong as Soren’s, but they’re there, open to me should I choose to use them. I understand without knowing how that I can choose to use a single pathway, or multiple at once.
Holy. Fuck.
I swallow hard and try. Pushing my thoughts toward what I know is Killian’s pathway, silver and shining like starlight, I say, -Can...can you hear me?-
“Holy fucking Makers,” he says, blinking rapidly and reeling back as if I slapped him. I huff out a strained, almost hysterical laugh.
-This is...interesting,- Soren says to all three of us, testing out the new ability.
-Hello, frost cat,- Isolde says, lips curling again. I never knew that dragons could smile. I never knew they existed at all, to be fair, but still, a smiling dragon is almost too much.
-Hello, ice dragon,- he says casually.
I tilt my head, wondering why they’re called ice dragons if they don’t, well, look like ice. I imagined the creatures being white, or even light blue perhaps, spewing ice or snow or frost instead of fire. I’ll add it to my now never-ending list of questions I have after this day.
“Ok, can someone please tell us what the fuck is going on here?” Kendall breaks in finally, pulling the four of us from our strange conversation.
Jonathan elbows him in the ribs and he grunts.
“What?! It’s a valid question. They’re all just standing around staring at each other when we just had a battle with abominations with stolen Gifts that the Commander couldn’t block, and, oh yeah, THERE’S A FUCKING DRAGON SITTING HERE!
” he hisses throwing out a hand at Isolde.
His eyes go wide and he quickly turns to the dragon.
“All due respect, of course, your grace. No, wait. Your...lady?”
Jonathan snorts.
“Your lady? Do you mean my lady?”
“Yes.” He shakes his head, sweat beading on his brow.
“I mean no. I know that’s not what I would call her.
..I mean, I think she’s a her? Oh fuck, please don’t eat me if you aren’t a her and that’s offensive.
..” He glances around at the rest of us, panic in his eyes.
“For the love of all the Makers, would someone make me stop fucking talking?!”
I can feel Isolde laugh inside my mind and Killian’s smile widens. Dessa still seems to be in a bit of shock, just...starting, but Tristan steps up then and clamps a hand over Kendall’s mouth. He bows to Isolde.
“Excuse him. He’s an idiot. There’s no other real explanation.”
Isolde nods, huffing a bit of smoke from her nostrils as if in agreement, and Tristan grins. He turns to Killian.
“Sir, we’ve rounded up those who surrendered.”
That seems to bring Killian back to the matters at hand and he nods to Tristan.
“Very good.” He slips back into Commander Blackheart and starts issuing orders to the soldiers.
Some are assigned to help the wounded back to camp immediately to see Copeland and the other healers, others are to gather the bodies and prepare them for the funeral pyre.
He quirks a brow at me, making sure I’m alright if he goes about his duties and I nod, telling him I’m fine.
He strides off, Isolde following, her spiked tail swishing back and forth behind her as she watches over Killian protectively.
-Magnificent,- Soren purrs inside my mind only.
-That they are,- I agree.
Dessa finally seems to get over the shock of seeing a dragon appear on the battlefield and turns to me.
“You’re alright?” She looks me over for injuries. “You went off into the melee like a fool and I wasn’t sure—”
“I’m alright,” I promise her. “Are you ok? You seem a little...shaken.”
She lets out a long breath. “It’s a dragon, Thea.
A fucking dragon. After all these years!
And she’s his. He’s hers.” I knew she would figure out that Killian and Isolde had bonded.
She shakes her head. “It’s just...I can’t explain it, I just feel the divinity in it all, the Makers’ hands guiding everything, leading us to the path that will end Barony’s terror and somehow fix the entire empire.
” I blink at that, but I can feel the truth in her words, see exactly what she means.
I feel it in my bones that we are all headed for something important, something so important the Makers themselves have intervened to make sure we’re all ready.
I give Dessa a smile before Tristan grabs her and pulls her face to his for a deep, searing kiss that makes me look away, still smiling.
I avoid looking at the bodies and the blood, the carnage left behind from this day, and frown when I realize that I don’t see Lucinda.
She’s normally not far from Kendall and Jonathan, the three of them nearly joined at the hip most days and almost always assigned to the same details.
“Where’s Lucinda?” I ask, though a part of me already knows, that cold sinking feeling dragging my stomach down, down, down. Jonathan tears his gaze away from the dragon walking across the field and casts his eyes downward, shaking his head.
“What?” I whisper as my heart goes cold. No, this can’t be right. She can’t be...
“She died a warrior’s death,” Kendall says, looking stoic for the first time since I met him.
They each place their right fist over their heart, some sign of respect for the fallen, I assume.
I blink rapidly to try to clear the tears blurring my vision.
Lucinda and I weren’t exactly close, but I’d consider her a friend.
And now she’s just...gone. Fallen on this very field while I’m able to walk away without a scratch.
Odessa places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently.
“This is the life we chose, princess. She died honorably fighting for her kingdom. Fighting for what’s right. Take comfort in knowing that it’s how she wanted to meet Noxum.”
I nod, trying to take comfort in that, but none can be found, at least not now.
I knew that we were riding into battle, that lives would be lost, that I would take life myself, but it didn’t truly feel real until this moment.
I push the sorrow away, adding it to the things that I’ll deal with later, and distract myself by helping to bandage wounds enough to hold until we get back to camp.
Eventually Killian returns to my side and we make our way back to our temporary home, a dragon keeping watch overhead.