Chapter 13
VALANCE
Life flowed outward in heavy streams, drowning the bones and the earth, plucking souls from the hands of long death, from the mysteries of the afterlife. Defying time and nature, dragging bodies up and out. Free to breathe the air again, to hear the sounds of Winter, feel the heat of the springs.
Come back. Come back. Come back.
If only this power could call to my lost Kormac, return him to his life that was stolen.
“Cullen!” Lady Fia cried. “What is this?”
A boom, the earth exploding. Giants climbing from the dirt, the other species following. Incredibly loud shrieks of surprise, new voices declaring who they were, that they had come back because of a new king.
Some cheers.
Some horror.
Dangerous, they claimed. The new king is dangerous.
Yes. Yes, I am.
My attention, however, remained focused on the ultimate prize.
There were other dragons deeper down, huge yet smaller than this queen.
It would take the last of my energy to bring her back before I collapsed.
I could feel it coming, the spending of my power.
I would need a brief rest before I could continue as normal. Such was the price of using magic.
For now, the queen was enough dragon for me.
Her bones tremored, sang a clickety-clackety song back to me.
Flesh began to thread across them, tendons spinning like wool on a loom.
Piece by piece, her body reformed from her veins to the tiniest of cells until her thick, black scales covered her in hard armor.
Purplish hues filled the black, giving the scales a strange oily appearance.
Then her eyes, twin amethyst fires blazing, found me.
Come back, my beautiful one. Be mine.
Smoke from her jaws, the promise of fire in her belly.
Come to me…
Her talons tore through the darkness below, churning the earth. She forced her way upward, an incredible force, a magnificent beast.
Be mine…
My eyes shot open as she burst into the sky, earth exploding around her. Bodies jumped back, more shock, more awe, more of that horror. Running and panic as the shimmering black-purple beast roared in the sky, her vast wings beating at the air.
My body waivered, ready to fall.
A mighty roar tore from the dragon as she swooped and dipped, circling.
Be mine… I called weakly.
In a display of her mighty power, she released flames into the air. A furious stream of fire licked at clouds so beautiful, so magnificently golden.
“What have you done!” Lord Cullen cried as I fell to my knees on the platform.
“I have… I have given more life.”
The dragon roared.
“The old ones,” I heard Lady Fia say. “My love, these are the old ones.”
I tried to cling to myself as the platform lowered, my power diminishing.
“King Valance has given us the old ones!”
Who said that? It didn’t sound like Lady Fia.
My vision blurred, my hearing muffled.
“Your Majesty!” Orla? Eoghan?
“Fading,” I whispered. “Fading.”
I tumbled into coldness, my body freezing yet still tied to the world by a frayed thread. Aware of being alive yet pushed off somewhere to the side.
Frozen.
Waiting.