84. Chapter 84
84
Graysen
A storm surge of feelings—too much, too fast—battered my desolate soul.
“What was that this morning?” she’d asked. “Was any of it real?”
It was real.
It was real for me.
This morning I’d known it would be the last time Nelle would look at me with any affection. Selfishly… selfishly, I simply wanted one last moment with her. One last memory of her looking at me like I was actually worth something. As if I were her entire world. I desperately needed something to cling to, and I knew that her warmth and depth of feeling for me would be the only light to illuminate the darkness to come.
As she roused from her waking dream, I couldn’t do anything but grip the steering wheel to hide the trembling in my fingers and try to bring up the wall of ice as her feelings barreled through me. I could barely breathe through her confusion and shock at my betrayal. Her despair and panic coursed through my veins and corroded my lungs like acid. And when I felt her heart fracture, mine did too.
It cleaved in two like a motherfucker.
Nelle stood in the middle of the driveway, not too far from where I’d parked my car. A slender breeze slithered around her legs and ruffled the hem of her t-shirt that swamped her tiny frame. Big wide eyes, framed by dark lashes, were only on me as she unconsciously skimmed her thumb against the pads of her fingers as if running through phantom beads of adamere. Those full, pink lips parted and she mouthed— Please.
Still , after everything my aunt had revealed about our plans and how I had betrayed her by handing her over to my family, she gave me one last chance .
I briefly closed my eyes to her, despising myself for the choice I’d made.
She would never remember what I had whispered to her on the porch, my confession of how I truly felt for her. I realized how wrong I’d been. All this year spent in each other’s company, when I’d been ruthlessly telling her she was mine, I lost sight of one important fact.
I was hers.
I had always been hers.
Yet it wasn’t enough to save her from my family. From myself. From the choice I had to make.
Nelle’s eyes, the color of moonlight glancing off a pool of water, had regarded me with something much, much deeper this morning. And now, I watched those eyes flash with devastation and rage before growing cold, like dusk on a bone-chilling wintery afternoon, until there was no warmth left, not even the barest hint she felt anything for me but loathing.
I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t explain it to her either.
Whose life was valued above the other?
My mother’s or Nelle’s.
I was as trapped by my family as she was.
Nelle pushed her shoulders back and held her head high as my brothers descended the terrace steps to form a flush line beside me on the cobblestones. My father too. I darted a quick look on either side of me.
Jett's confidence momentarily faltered.
Caidan shot me a wary glance, his throat bobbing as he turned to face the tiny thing burning with wrath in front of us.
“Look at you all,” Nelle declared, her icy gaze sliding down the line of us. “All you Crowthers. Pain and suffering are all you know. All you’ll ever know. And you think you can use me to get into the Witches Ball? Do you think you can cage me here? Maybe even take to my back with a whip?”
I could feel my brothers’ astonished gazes dart to me.
Nelle paced before us, her bare feet crossing the hard cobbles, drawing my brothers’ attention back to her.
Lifting her chin, she tossed her hair back. “Fight me, do what you were bred to do—weapons in the form of flesh. Cold, callous, unfeeling,” she continued, her voice full of disdainful Wychthorn authority. “But know this. I will tear through you and leave you broken and bleeding at my feet.” She addressed this last parting gift to me, her eyes narrowed and mouth a bitter line. “I bow to no one. And I will never bow to a Crowther!”
As the sun’s golden rays gilded the leafy copse of trees in the distance, stretching long shadows across its lawns, Nelle began shifting her hands as she’d done in the woodland clearing a few nights back. With graceful twists of her hands, it almost seemed as if she were molding something tangible, like an artist with a block of clay. A humming spark of light peeked between her fingers.
My chest tightened and I shifted my stance uneasily.
She drew apart her cupped palms and between the space was a crackling sphere of energy that sparkled against her honeyed skin like a lit firecracker. It looked like lightning, but it was charged fire. In a quick motion, and with a snarl of rage, Nelle slid sideways and hurled the fireball right at my car. It soared fast and furious, like a missile—
And smashed into the Mustang broadside—
The car punched back.
Smoke curled from the tires, squealing in protest as the car whisked along the cobbles to slam violently into the wall encircling the driveway. The forceful impact of meeting the stone wall lifted the car sideways off the ground—
And then it crashed down with a heavy, grinding thump.
Holy hellsgate…
Nelle was a whirlwind of movement. Swift and fearsome.
She pitched ball after ball of savage fire. The flames brighter than the sun. Carving through the air straight for the Mustang—
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Metal crunched and buckled.
The noise was deafening as the car crumpled inward with each destructive blow. Pale flames flickered between plates of metal. A sudden squall of icy wind raked through my hair, buffeting savagely against my body. I staggered and braced my stance as it blustered around the driveway, bending rose stems and scattering petals and curled leaves as its mighty current swept up the Mustang—
And my fucking car soared straight up into the sky to hover fifty feet above us.
Looking me dead in the eye, Nelle cocked a brow and twirled her middle finger, flipping me off as she spun wild winds as turbulent as a tornado. For one brief crazed moment, I wanted to bark a laugh, tinged with hysteria and limned with despair, at the delightful smart-ass.
Dying sunlight struck the matte-black metal, sending a spray of butterscotch light up against the deepening blue sky as my car rotated like a spinning top—faster and faster and faster.
She let go—
A whistling sound rushed through the air as it fell—
An almighty crunch cracked in my ears as the car hit the driveway so hard the earth shuddered beneath my feet, shivering through my bones.
“Want to see what I can do?” she taunted, casually shifting her weight to one leg and propping a fist on her hip. “What I’ll do to you if you dare lay a finger on me?”
I swallowed thickly as I flexed my hands nervously by my sides.
She wasn’t done either. No, my little bird stretched out an arm and spread her fingers apart. And I wondered in sick fascination what she was willing into being. Curling her fingers, she punched her fist forward—
The car exploded upward and outward into fragments.
Jagged metal rained down on fire, clattering loudly upon stone. The driver’s door, blackened and melted, skidded across the cobblestones with an ear-piercing screech and stopped right in front of my boots. Acrid fumes seared my nostrils as the burning door rocked back and forth with thin plumes of smoke wafting upward.
“ Holy shit, ” breathed Caidan.
Threads of otherworldly power wove around Nelle like a thick, silvery haze. Reaching high to stain the sky. Spreading wide to darken the world. Her might roiled behind her figure as if she stood in front of a diabolical storm. A tempest birthed from fury.
“Hold the line,” my father ordered, his voice a deep rumble.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I wondered what she was about to unleash upon us.
She gestured at us with a flick of her dainty wrist.
Sirro’s power felt like nothing but a faint echo of what now hunted us down.
Power, so much power, rolled toward us like a bank of fog. Its intensity skimmed my flesh like scraping teeth. It fizzed and crackled and thrummed—
And stopped to hover a hand-span from our throats. A midnight ocean with mighty waves of darkness waiting for her next command.
I could hear Caidan muttering a string of curses like a prayer beneath his breath.
Several tendrils slunk forward and curled around my throat. It felt like chilling, creeping fingers of mist—tasting, testing, tightening.
My little bird waded through her power. She angled her head slightly sideways and her pale hair slipped off a shoulder. Her voice was whisper-soft, but I heard her clearly. “I can crush your fragile bones. Steal the air from your lungs. Incinerate your flesh with a single thought.”
Do it!
Fucking do it!
The air constricted in my throat as she squeezed brutally.
Sweat broke out across my brow as excruciating agony seized my body. Panic devoured my mind.
My nostrils flared, my mouth instinctively opening, trying to gulp down oxygen.
But I couldn’t.
I heard a sharp intake of breath—my sister.
Movement—as if one of my brothers were about to surge for Nelle.
I threw out my hand, warning them to stop.
I didn’t break, nor blink, at Nelle’s challenging glare. Beneath the glacial coolness, she burned with righteous fire, and I fucking deserved it.
Holy Zrenyth!
A popping sound burst inside my ears as my windpipe compressed further with the force she exerted. Thorny pain ravaged my throat and dark spots blurred my vision. I swayed, barely seeing the flash of anger storming through Nelle’s eyes, not at me, but at herself, when she released me on a frustrated hiss, tugging that wild power back to her in a furious snap.
Feathery grey wind spun around her, kicking up leaves and dust and rippling the hem of her t-shirt.
Our gazes held for the briefest of moments—
And then she swifted.
Freed, I collapsed forward, bracing one hand on a knee while using the other to knead my throat as I wheezed in a loud, ragged breath that set my lungs on fire. I could still feel those strands of power on my skin like chaffing rope, choking the life out of me.
Woozily straightening, I turned to my family. The pain receded with my mother’s blood gift as the half-crushed cartilage in my throat rapidly repaired itself.
“She’ll be heading for the gates!” Kenton yelled, his gaze dark with fury.
Jett quickly tied back his hair with a thin strip of leather he kept on his wrist. My father spun toward me, tossing a small black cylinder—a shield House Simonis had originally created and Caidan had perfected from his tinkering—and I snatched it out of the air .
Caidan unbuckled the lasso at his hip. He glanced down at it, his fingers squeezing the coils of rope. His eyes snapped to mine, and I read the barest trace of indecision in their depth until my father barked, “We cannot allow her to break free!”
My father launched forward with thunderous speed, racing down the driveway to disappear swiftly from sight. My three brothers, right behind him.
“Gray?”
My boots gritted on stone as I turned, just as my aunt descended the terrace steps and strode past. But it had been my sister calling out for me.
Ferne hurried over, her hand outstretched before her while using her heightened senses to help guide her downward. In quick ascending strides, I met her halfway.
Delicate fingers gripped my arm and she turned her face toward mine. The lace strapped across her eyeless sockets matched the color of her pale blue dress. “Are you all right?”
No, I’m not.
My sister didn’t wait for an answer. She pressed closer, her whispering voice tremulous. “Nelle here, actually doing this, going through it…” Her mouth wobbled with welling misery and bewilderment. “It’s not how I thought I’d feel.”
“That’s because she’s innocent. Nelle doesn’t deserve this.”
She rubbed her lips together and bowed her head slightly. A sheet of black hair fell over her face as she took a moment before deeply inhaling and answering. “Our mother didn’t deserve it either. It’s been twelve long years, Gray. We’ve got one chance to save her.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I found my aunt standing in the middle of the circular driveway with her back to us, staring as if she could see all the way to the estate gates.
Such heavy despondence washed through me, I was surprised I hadn’t collapsed. I turned to my sister. “Our mother will be heartbroken over what we’re about to do.”
Ferne gave a single nod of agreement. When she lifted her face upward, her features were pinched as if she were holding back tears, and her voice was threaded with hopeless determination. “If we can save her…I’ll learn to live with what I’ve done.”
I knew I never would.
I cast one glance at Ferne, at the lace strapped around her eyes that revived memories of that tragic night so long ago. The shrill, agonized screams of my baby sister. My mother’s panic and desperation. Her sacrifice for us. And loss. Overwhelming heartache and loss as I lay there broken like a snapped twig, unable to save either of them.
Infused with resolve, I surged forward in a whirl of speed.
The last thing I heard was my aunt’s cold voice. “Do not fail us.”
Power curled around my bones and pumped through my veins, pushing me faster and faster, as I hurtled across the long lawn, easily catching up with my father and brothers. As we ran, a smear of battle-black along the narrow, twisting driveway cutting through the thick knotted copse of ash and hawthorn and oak, I clung to the memory of my mother like a dying man.
Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha.
Her name was a tattoo drum beating in my ears.
I could not fail her again.
But another sang. An ancient strain. A wicked melody that softly chanted and became the heart of the song— Save her, save her, save her.
But I couldn’t save Nelle.
The copse fell behind me in a wash of gloom and a streak of muddied green as we raced across the stretch of land to where those monolith towers stood at each side of the estate’s gates.
Unlike the Wychthorns, we had an additional failsafe gate, a formidable wall of adamere that rose from underground and interlocked with the rest of the wall that surrounded our entire estate like a compound. And our soldiers had it in place the moment I’d driven Nelle onto our property.
Our warband was a long double-line of black in front of the gate and adamere wall with their shields activated and locked. Like my own held in my hand—but not yet triggered—theirs were a cunning weapon of magically hardened air that shimmered and fizzed like contained energy.
In a wild streak, Nelle sprinted across the grassy field toward our small army and threw herself into a swift only to reappear a second later, flying backward, tumbling over the grass, skidding, and rolling. She shook her dazed head, leaped to her feet, and swifted— only to ricochet back.
It was like watching a bird seeking freedom beyond, but not seeing the glass in front of it. The monolith towers radiating anti-swifting magic rebounded her. She was a blur of intermittent flashes—disappearing only to reappear—as she bunted up against the adamere wall time and time again.
Materializing from a swift , she soared backward to land heavily against the packed earth with an oomph in an awkward tangle of limbs. She jumped up, shrieking in outrage.
Breathing hard, I came to a stumbling halt not too far away from where she stood vibrating with fury. “Wychthorn! You can’t get out. You’ll never be able to leave!”
“Fuck you, Crowther!” she roared back, stabbing an aggressive middle finger at me.
My brothers spread out, keeping to a safe distance, and my father headed straight for the warband at the wall.
The steady approach of the gloaming shaded the world in rich, dusky hues. Nelle drew her hands apart to reveal flames wrought in metal. Her fire of silver, gold, and copper grew stronger and brighter against the deepening shadows. The hum of magic pulsated through the air and skimmed against my flesh.
The flickering flames cast an eerie glow over Nelle’s fierce expression as they lifted off her fingertips to hover above her figure, spitting and fattening into a raging fireball.
A sinister sun against the gloom of the falling twilight.
My clammy fingers tightened on the cylinder in my hand.
Nelle punched a fist forward—
The fireball razored through the air in a menacing streak—
High above the warband to slam into the adamere wall.
Engulfing it within an inferno.
A flood of hammering flames. Of rage. Of destruction.
An explosion of wrath.
Flames spat outward, burning pockets of grass and scorching the earth.
But the wicked fire could not burn its way out and was shredded apart, dispersed in puffs of black smoke. Nelle cursed in frustration. She shot me a foul look as an unnatural breeze stirred, teasing the tangled tresses of her hair and ruffling her t-shirt.
I shifted uneasily under the intense glare that wished it was me burning to a crisp. A chill slipped down my sweat-beaded spine as the air charged with aether that shimmered, floating like dust motes in streaks of sunshine.
It came out of nowhere.
A thunderous quake thumped the earth—
Throwing me momentarily up off the ground—
I landed heavily, throwing my arms out wide to steady my balance.
Grass shivered. Stones bounced.
Dust hovered like a blanket of dirty mist above the trembling ground .
Shallow fissures tore apart the earth, spreading outward and racing onward from where Nelle stood facing the stoned enclosure.
Shit, shit, shit—
My father and our warband scattered —
Dodging the cracks in the ground as the tremors speared forward —
To strike with an almighty punch.
The wall of adamere shuddered, but its roots, like those of trees, extended deep underground with spikes three times the wall’s height. She’d never blast her way through, nor unearth them…
Or so I thought, right as a colossal earthquake detonated the world around me.
Tipping me about like monstrous ocean waves underfoot. Jostling my bones. Making my teeth chatter as the ground rumbled and groaned.
Nelle stamped a dainty foot—
A great yawning noise erupted through the air like rolling thunder.
The violent upheaval of the earth, splitting and cracking, sent me flying, showering me with damp soil. Stones and clumps of grass and dirt tumbled into a shadowed chasm.
Holy shit…
I sucked in an astonished breath, trying to keep my balance steady against the aggressive trembling.
That brilliant strategic mind of Nelle’s.
Nelle stood at the epicenter of two gigantic rifts carving through the earth, growing deeper and wider as they surged forward.
She wasn’t aiming for the wall at all.
She wanted to bring down the monolith towers.
The towers kept her from swifting from the estate. But if she could unearth those magical barriers, knock them down, and render their dark magic useless…
She’d escape.
Two gigantic rifts carved through the terrain in a rush of violence—
Sending our soldiers scrambling for safety—
And struck the twin monoliths in a deafening BOOM!
Earth blew sky-high—
A tsunami of dirt crashed down like a filthy wave of water.
Spinning away, I flung an arm up over my head as a heavy rain of sharp stones and grassy clods pelted my body. Stinging heat flared across my arms and shoulders.
Rising quickly, I twisted around …
…and watched with dread as the monoliths made a terrible creaking noise and began to sway drunkenly. Their filmy shadows stretched long, shifting across the field with the monoliths’ lurching movement as they swung back and forth like a pendulum.
Hellsgate!
“Kenton! Jett!” my father bellowed.
Kenton charged, activating his shield. A zinging sound reverberated over the field as magically hardened air formed before him. The shield hummed and fizzed. Jett took the opposite position. My youngest brother surged forward with daggers in each hand.
My gut twisted in horror. “No blades!” I roared.
Jett’s head whipped my way, his violet eyes blazing. He snarled, but he tossed the blades away and reached for the lasso hitched at his hip.
We’d always known that whatever we faced with Nelle would be difficult, if almost downright impossible to confine. My little bird was full of righteous fire and she was always going to meet us head-on in a fight. We hoped if we could find some way to incapacitate her, we could capture her safely without her or anyone else being hurt.
My father and our warband advanced as best they could, with the ground shuddering beneath their feet. The earth had been cracked and split apart by wide fissures which stopped them from getting too close. But that didn’t stop my brothers from leaping across the chasms and rushing at her, forcing her to defend herself against their dual attack.
Dust swept around Nelle like a shadowy veil.
Birthed from her vengeance, a blazing fireball materialized out of thin air. Ethereal and deadly. Blazing so brightly it bleached the world like a flash of lightning.
Nelle became a lethal warrior of dark magic and might. Fire. And wrath.
She hurled the fireball at Jett—
He dived out of range, rolling to flip to his feet—
Pivoting to realign himself away from our oldest brother.
An unearthly spear of fiery flames sliced through the air, aimed at Kenton.
He knocked the bolt of fire aside with his shield—
Kept charging. His head ducked low, shield high.
She flipped her wrist fast and threads of silvery power punched out—
Slammed into Kenton, knocking him off his feet, sending him flying sideways to smash into Jett .
Both went down hard, tumbling across the field, skidding to a halt dangerously near the edge of a chasm.
In the background, beneath the chaotic sounds of battle, I heard my father bellow a string of orders at our warband.
Our soldiers joined the attack—
Nelle spun a vicious squall, scattering them like a handful of tossed marbles.
Caidan swung his lasso, letting the noose fly—
She incinerated it in a flash of fire.
Her fight, her spirit, and the spectacular manner she thwarted us was enchanting. It was a fluid, elegant dance, the way she flowed with the battle. Flames rolled off the flat of her palms. A spin on the tips of her toes and a graceful arch of her arms unbridled a turbulent gale. Bolts of shivering power that shot as swiftly as arrows with a punch of a fist. A quick step and stamp of her foot—the earth detonated with a heaving quake.
So easily did she drive us all back.
The sun was making a slow descent, half below the horizon. Deep hues of tangerine and streaks of coral and crimson tinged the edge of ashen clouds. Those same colors were reflected on the battlefield where Nelle stood at the center with pockets of dried grass on fire and plumes of smoke drifting on a breeze.
“You want to see what you’re dealing with? What’s inside me?” she taunted us, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Brave, so brave, my little bird.
She was revealing herself.
I lowered my stance, watching patiently as silvery threads of dark power twined around her body.
She was beautiful.
Simply beautiful in this moment.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away. The scatterings of freckles over the straight nose, pink lips parting as she drew in a deep breath. Her wavy, moonlit hair curled over her shoulders down to her waist, and the t-shirt, oversized like everything she wore, rippled with the reckless currents of wild wind she teased. Thick eyelashes fluttered as she slid her glacial gaze to mine and her cheekbones rounded with a small smile.
A smile I’d never seen before, bitterly cold and cruel, a smile I’d taught her.
And then she unshackled her might.
It was as if an enormous toxic breath had been expelled. As if a wave of poisonous air rolled across the field, and she stood at the very heart of the ripple. Everything living and green shriveled and died and turned to ash, scattering in the wind, until there was nothing but barren earth where she stood.
Fire exploded all around her.
A raging inferno. A blazing tempest.
Like gasoline tossed onto a bonfire—pale as moonlight, chilling as the arctic—flames sprayed upward in a gust of fiery wrath, scorching the twilight sky and turning it into a firestorm of too-bright light.
Nelle winked at me.
And I had no time to wonder why, as a sea of flames barreled straight for me—
Like a meteorite burning through the atmosphere, the deafening sound of it razored across the field—
I engaged the shield just in time.
A rush of magic erupted from the cylinder, cracking in a fizzing web to harden the air. The shield loosened a zinging hum as it held form.
In the corner of my eye, I caught my brothers shielding themselves, while my father roared, “SHIELDS UP NOW!” Chancing a fast glance over my shoulder, I watched our warband change formation swiftly. The front row dropped to one knee, while the rows behind locked their shields overtop to create a testudo defense. Each man and woman protected the other, creating a powerful enclosure much like a tortoiseshell.
And then the world was reduced to fire.
Fierce flames smashed into my shield. Punching wildly against it. Slicing over the top.
I couldn’t hear anything but the roaring sound of the rageful conflagration. I couldn’t see anything but the inferno that drowned me beneath its sea of fiery death.
Golden flames threaded with ice-shredding silver brought blistering heat and bone-chilling ice. A confliction of bitter cold played deftly against scorching heat that wanted to shred my flesh and bones.
Wave after wave of fire broke apart on the shield and washed all around me.
Gritting my teeth, sweat beaded on my brow. Bracing against the fearsome impact on my shuddering shield, I shoved back against the storm, elbowing in, the toes of my boots digging into the hard-packed earth.
And then it halted.
The fire burned away and disappeared into black puffs of smoke.
I stumbled forward, almost pitching over .
Sucking in a ragged breath, I exhaled a sigh of relief as the ocean of fire dissipated from the warband. Everyone remained alive, if somewhat shocked, as I was too.
Slowly straightening, I lowered my shield to watch Nelle warily while wondering what she was going to do next. Behind her, the raging fire undulated and shifted with her movement as she stalked closer. A hunter on the loose. One that wanted a taste of blood.
Raising my forearm, I wiped away the droplets of sweat trickling down my brow, squinting at the unholy fire behind Nelle.
There was something in the flames.
Something I’d earlier wondered about during my stay at the Wychthorn estate.
What is it, what is it, what is it?
There were flashes, like seeing broken images dancing on burning logs crackling in a hearth. A snatch here. A glimpse there.
Hellsgate!
My gaze sharpened, and the air caught tight in my throat at the sudden thought…the possibility, the idea of it…
No…it isn’t…it can’t be…
Now I knew what I was looking for, I could see it more clearly this time. In the churning flames, the entity she was bonded with hovered so faintly behind Nelle that she had never realized it lived within her fire.
The words sprung from my mouth before I even registered what I was asking for.
Caidan rounded on me, bewildered. “What do you mean, Zrenyth’s armory?”
I jabbed a finger toward Nelle. “Just look. Can’t you see? It’s right there!”
By the perplexity in my brother’s gaze, he couldn’t discern what I could. Kenton and Jett were both squinting in confusion at the rageful flames burning behind Nelle. Both of them were yelling out to me, but at that moment they were only noise.
“What the hells are we looking at?!”
“What is she?”
Not even with truesight could they see what was before us.
“We need Zrenyth’s weapons. His crossbows, ropes, and chains. The grappling hooks!”
Something about me set me apart from my brothers. I could see pieces of it perfectly in the shimmering light of flame and I knew right then what Nelle had never realized. Certainty washed through my blood, settling beneath my skin.
“Get them from the armory, now!” I roared again, furious Caidan was still standing there.
My gaze locked with my father’s. Awe and understanding shone in his eyes so dark they were almost black. He bellowed to my brother. “Go! Bring him Leviathan!”
“Jett. Kenton—with me!” Caidan shouted, shooting me one last baffled glance before disappearing, hurtling back toward the Keep.
Jett stumbled away, his sweat-slick brow furrowed with bewilderment, but he was gone in a blur of black, Kenton on his heels.
My father roared at our warband, shouting his orders, sending them into smaller units to corral Nelle like a wild animal.
She didn’t stop battling.
Soldiers were blasted aside by churning tornados—
Set on fire—
Whatever she was, whatever lurked beneath her flesh, worked separately from her. While she spun squalls and made the earth tremble, great blooms of fire exploded in skin-blistering arcs from the flames behind her.
I was distantly aware of the yelling, pain-ridden screaming, men and women rolling on the earth to douse the flames from their armor. But all I could do was watch Nelle standing within the heart of all that power. She set the world alight with a firestorm of moonlight flames. Ash fell around her like fine flakes of snow. Magnificent. Otherworldly.
At the noisy rumble of engines, I blinked, coming to—unmindful of how much time had passed—the bleating sound of wounded. The baritone of my father’s voice rallying our men.
Three vehicles barreled across the field, splitting apart to take position around Nelle. Tire lines of chewed-up grass were carved into the ground as two of the pickup trucks came to skidding halts.
My brothers had returned with Zrenyth’s weapons.
“Gray!” Caidan leaned outside his window as he sped past, tossing me Leviathan. As it soared toward me, its braided lash unwound like a snake.
Fearsome adrenaline coursed through my veins, pumping my heart faster as I raced forward, pounding across cracked, barren earth, springing up to snatch the whip from the air. As my fingers curled around the handle, my flesh tingled at the contact. Its full name was Leviathan Spinebender. Misty shadows wavered along the weapon’s length and its dark energy sizzled like an electricity pylon.
It also felt right in my hand. So fucking right .
Plumes of smoke washed around me as I spun around and landed, a spray of dirt flying upward as my boots thudded upon the burnt earth. Flinging my arm back, I cracked the whip downward. The vicious sound of the braided lash cut through the air, scuffing dust.
Nelle roared, stabbing a finger at me. “Don’t you dare, you asshole!”
Bracing my stance, I swung the lash around my head, slinging it around and around in a swirling arc, faster, faster, faster , until it hummed a low threatening note—
And let it fly—
She shrieked as it snapped toward her. Crossing her arms in front of her face, she lurched backward. But I wasn’t aiming for her. No, Zrenyth forged this whip purely for this creature.
The whip struck the flames, the tip of the lash cracking.
It was like lightning scoring black thunderclouds. A popping of light, rippling and skipping through the banks of flames—
A roiling curve—
A barbed tip of a wing—
A talon.
All those missing pieces in between came to the fore, and what lived within the fire finally revealed itself. Equal measures of dread and astonishment rushed through me at the awful truth I gazed upon.
It wasn’t corporeal. Its form was not so dissimilar to Nelle’s wraith-wolf, with wisps of smoke trailing off its undulating, fiery image. Its length uncoiled. Talons dug into the earth, upturning soil. Graceful wings, formed from flames, snapped out, spreading wide as if to take flight, casting mighty shadows across the field. And with their downward movement, sent a blustering gust of wind crashing through the battle site, tearing at my hair, shunting at my body. Its magnificent horned head reared back on its long, long neck as if the beast intended to strike.
Brought mountains to their knees.
Basked in sunshine… Moonlight…
Volatile. Obstinate. Greedy. Territorial.
Whatever lurked beneath Nelle’s flesh was one of the most powerful creatures in our world. Not extinct, but extremely rare and currently hibernating in the bowels of the earth.
This wasn’t the kind of wyrm my forebears tamed. This wasn’t a true living and breathing beast like Draxxon. This was something else altogether. I’d never have guessed this was what Nelle had hidden within her. She couldn’t physically shift into the creature herself. That much I knew. They were separate, and they were one.
I had no idea how they were connected.
Mortals had bastardized our wyrm and reduced it to a limbless, wingless serpent. Wyrms weren’t wingless, but they did need to spin magical squalls to aid their flight. Its long scaled body was serpentine with a flexible ridge of plated spikes down its spine; four legs with talons and gnarled webbing between its toes to assist with chewing through the earth when it dug underground burrows; its tail ended on a narrow note, thin and sharp as a blade with a deadly curved stinger. Right now, the beast had its tail held high like a snake, whiplashing it through the air.
It took a long moment before Jett retreated a hesitant step and hissed, “ Holy hellsgate… ”
Nelle glanced up and over her shoulder. Her mouth fell open and her eyes flared so wide most of the whites were showing. She half-twisted, stumbled backward, lost her balance, and fell onto her ass with a startled oof.
The beast lowered its massive head. Horns, slender like an antelope’s, were swept back from its scaled forehead. It tucked sleek wings to its sides as its quicksilver eyes, with pupils slit vertically, slowly blinked at her and a loud purr rumbled from its chest like distant thunder.
The beast’s body was wraith-like but borne of flames— not-quite-living— and I realized this was the reason Nelle could swift .
With a trembling hand, Nelle reached out to gingerly touch its snout.
And I swore I heard it speak to her inside my mind, “ Hello, tiny little thing.”
Nelle’s eyes snapped to mine and for one moment all our differences were put aside as it crashed into us simultaneously exactly what we were to one another, what it meant.
My little bird was a wyrm.
And I, as the Uzrek had said down in the catacombs, was a son of the Wyrm.
Wyrm and Tamer.
And everything fell into place, two perfect puzzle pieces aligning, uniting with weighty finality. I understood what drew us both together. Why it had always been her and I. What the Uzrek had suggested down in the dark, dank cavern.
You don’t know what you mean together.
Holy hellsgate.
Hope, tentative hope, curled through me like the first appearance of spring after bleak winter months .
“This changes everything,” I yelled to my father.
Everything.
Fucking. Everything!
Nelle was a wyrm, a prize more valuable than we’d ever thought. We needed to find another way to locate my mother, though I knew deep down we’d tried every other possibility.
“It changes nothing,” he barked back, his gaze darkening. “Your mother needs us!”
Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha—
My mother.
I silently roared my fury. My heartache. The impossible choice.
I shoved it aside, all of it. The unfairness. All those feelings I had for Nelle.
My mother needs me.
I can’t fail.
I won’t fail.
My fingers tightened on Leviathan Spinebender. My ancestors had an affinity for wyrms. We battled alongside the beasts in skirmishes and bloody uprisings until the Final War. And like the tamers before me—eyes as black as my own appeared every so often amongst the violet.
I’d capture her. Bind her. Get her to submit.
I’d tame my little bird.