Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
LARELLIN
Roars and the sounds of battle shatter the stillness as I frantically search the wall for the secret compartment Vander told me to find. He failed to mention the royal bedchambers is enormous with several rooms. Which corner is the right one?
I dart past what’s left of the bed, the blankets moth eaten, the wood rotten.
On the floor beside it I find a jeweled dagger.
Without hesitation, I snatch it into my grasp, the golden blade still flashing brightly despite centuries of disuse.
I slide it into the loose britches I snatched from Vander’s closet, the belt at my waist the only thing holding them in place.
Vander is blocking his thoughts from me. I can’t reach him, an impenetrable wall where our bond should be.
My heart sinks at the loss of our connection. Is he all right? He has to be. I’ve seen what he can do, the sheer strength of him. The thought of him falling seems impossible, but I can’t help my fear. Not when I already feel like our two souls are entwined.
A guttural roar from far away in the palace raises my hackles, and I know Brin has shifted into his wolven form.
I keep searching the rooms, the sounds of battle receding a little as I try and fail to locate the hiding spot.
When gold fire lights up the already-sunny sky outside the wide windows, I gasp.
Vander swoops past, his golden scales shining brightly as he incinerates another dragon.
It shrieks, its wings turning to ash as it plummets to the overgrown gardens below.
Vander wheels and rises, flapping furiously as he chases another dragon, this one with sickly yellow scales. I don’t see his brothers, but if the roars are any indication, they’ve all shifted into dragon form and taken the fight to the air.
My hands are cold, my entire body covered in anxious sweat as I listen to the ongoing battle—screeches and roars, the thud of heavy dragon bodies slamming to the ground.
I say a silent prayer to the gods that none of them are my dragons.
I would examine that thought—of Vander and his brothers being my dragons—but I’m far too worried.
What if they get hurt? We’re far from any other towns or someone who could patch them up.
All I can do is pace helplessly, my worry rising with each moment that I can’t sense Vander.
Gods, I feel like I could crawl out of my skin!
I creep to the bedroom doors and listen.
The noise from outside rages on, covering whatever sounds may lie beyond these bedchambers.
Should I stay here? That’s what Vander said.
I wish I could fight, could do something.
But the creatures of Oblivion are far too powerful for me to challenge.
It would be suicide. I have no fangs, no claws.
“Larellin.” My name. Whispered in a familiar voice. One that burns through me like acid. Sela.
I scramble away from the doors and run into an adjoining room. Clawing at the back corner, I search for the hidden compartment. It has to be here. Somewhere.
“Vander thought he’d ended me. Tore off my wing and fed me to the tempest.”
The outer doors creak open as I dart to the next chamber and feel along the walls. A tapestry beside me crumbles to dust as I brush it aside.
“But I’m not so easily destroyed. Not like his mother.” She laughs, the sound eerie and full of malice. “Her blood was warm in my hands. Yours will be, too.”
I grit my teeth and check behind me. She’s in the rooms, but I can’t see her. Not yet. Where is she? With what courage I can muster, I take a chance and dart into the next room, this one with mirrors along one wall and piles of motheaten fabric along the floor.
“I smell you, little one.” She sounds closer.
All-panic sets my veins alight as I dash to the back corner and feel along the seamless wall. There’s nothing. Nothing!
With all my might, I shove at the white stone.
A soft click and a whir, and the wall slides open, revealing a coffin-sized space.
It’s a false wall. Not stone at all but some sort of plaster.
It’s cracked where I pushed it, but still mostly sound.
I slip into the crevice, the wall closing behind me with a soft thud.
Dark and cold, the hole has just enough space for me to scoot back half a step before I hit the true stone wall. I lean against it, chilled sweat soaking through my clothes as I listen. The battles outside continue, the wall shaking as something thuds against it somewhere above.
“I can smell you.” Sela’s voice is close.
I cover my mouth with my palm and force myself to breathe slowly.
“Hiding from me? Playing a little game? I like games.”
A sound. No, a screeching, clicking noise. Horror rises inside me when I realize it’s her claws. She’s dragging them along the walls as she searches for me.
“It’s a pity all of Queen Palonia’s clothes have turned to dust. She always did have wonderful taste.
” She clucks her tongue. “Though I have the most important part of her wardrobe. The diadem. Come out and see how nice it looks atop my head. Strange, I feel power pulsing through it. I didn’t expect it to have any remaining magic.
Palonia’s strength should’ve died with her.
But perhaps some of it is still here.” More screeching, her claws coming closer.
“More power for me once I figure out how to access it. Her last gift to her favorite student.” I can hear the malevolent grin in her voice.
“Vander, please. She’s coming,” I call down the bond. But he’s still walled off from me, his focus on the fight for the DragonLands. He thought I’d be safe here. Stowed away.
“Your heart is pounding, little one. I can hear every beat.”
I hold my breath.
“There you are.” The plaster in front of me explodes, dust blinding me as Sela grabs my throat and yanks me from my hiding place.
I scream, but she squeezes, cutting off my air as she drags me into the light. Her eyes are streaked with red, her skin pale. She looks deathly ill, the only thing bright and alive about her is the malice that rolls off her in waves.
“Vander!” Her yell booms through the palace as she carries me to a window. I kick at her and claw at the hand wrapped around my throat. “I have your pet! I’ll snap her precious neck!”
A burst of golden flame shoots through the windows behind me, and then Vander is there in his human form. A gash mars his chest, blood dripping from him as he glares at Sela. “Let her go.”
“Why should I? She’s mine.” Sela taunts and lowers me to the ground.
I gasp in a breath as she yanks me to her, using me like a shield against Vander. Her forearm rests against my windpipe, her other hand over my stomach.
“I could gut her. Would you like to see that?”
I scream as she presses her claws into my skin. The pain is searing and immediate. My knees try to buckle as I grab her wrist and try to push her hand away. I can’t. I can’t stop her. I can’t stop any of this.
“Larellin!” Vander roars.
“Kneel!” Sela digs in deeper, her arm keeping me in place as she pierces my flesh.
“No!”
“I said kneel!” Sela screams.
Vander lowers himself to the floor without hesitation. “Let her go.”
“I’m so sorry, my treasure.” He looks up at me.
Sela retracts her claws, though the pain remains. It’s scorching, moving deeper inside me. Venom. Her claws carry her poison just as surely as her bite.
“That’s better.”
Sela unsheathes the sword at her side and drags me forward, holding me over Vander as he looks only at me.
“Vander, don’t. She’ll kill you.” My movements grow weak, the poison working quickly, sapping what little strength I have. “Get up!”
“Don’t hurt her. Promise me you’ll let her live. Promise me, and I’ll give you my life freely.” He lifts his neck, showing his throat.
Sela chuckles and moves to his side, angling herself for the kill.
“Vander, please get up. She’ll kill me anyway. She already has. Her poison. I feel it.”
My fingers graze along my belt. Searching. Searching. My mind slows, my heart beating as if it’s pumping syrup through my veins instead of blood.
“You prove yourself weak yet again, Vander.” Sela spits. “You never deserved the DragonLands. Now you’ll die a coward, and I’ll keep my spoils.” She licks my cheek, her forked tongue leaving a trail of fire on my flesh.
Sela raises the sword.
“Vander!” I scream down the bond as I stab Sela with the golden dagger.
She yells, her grip falling away as I drop to the floor. Vander is on his feet before I hit my knees, and then Sela screams again. This time it’s guttural, agonized.
I look over my shoulder and see Vander’s fist through her chest, her poison blood flowing along his arm and sizzling on the rotten carpet beneath us.
With his other hand, he rips the emerald circlet from her head.
Then, yanking his arm back, he shows Sela her own putrid heart.
Her eyes go wide and slitted, the dragon trying to surface.
Vander squeezes, the organ exploding in a rain of venomous blood as Sela falls to the floor dead.
“Larellin!” He spins to me and lifts me in his good arm.
“I’m okay,” I lie weakly.
He carries me from the bedchamber and into the hallway, laying me down in front of the sunny windows as the battle still rages outside. “I’ll be okay.”
“No.” He looks at the wounds on my stomach.
I don’t bother inspecting them. I can feel them. They are death.
“No, my treasure. No.” He strokes my cheek, then leans back and lets out a rattling roar. “Brin, brothers, to me!”
He returns his gaze to me, his features gentling as he presses his palm to my stomach.
I wince.
“You’ll be all right. You’re going to be all right, my treasure.”
“You saved me.” I smile at him and wish I could take his hand in mine. I’m too weak to move. “You changed your fate. You triumphed.”
“You are my fate. You are my triumph.” He leans down and kisses my forehead as Brin runs up, his clothes in tatters.
“Gods.” Brin drops to his knees, his eyes still glowing with wolven brightness. “Sela?” he asks.
“Dead.” Vander gnashes his teeth.
“But her venom lives on.” Brin lifts Vander’s hand and frowns as he inspects my wound.
“Help her.” Vander’s eyes water, his voice breaking. “Save her.”
Gods, seeing him in pain like this is another wound, one that cuts just as deeply as Sela’s claws.
“I’ll be all right.” But I realize I didn’t say the words. I can’t speak. I don’t have the energy. Instead, I use the bond. “I love you.”
Vander strokes my cheek, his beautiful green eyes focused on me and me alone. “I won’t let you go to the eternal, Larellin. I refuse. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t think the eternal takes requests.” I close my eyes. “Or orders.”
“Stay with me.” He presses his warm lips to my forehead. “Stay, Larellin.”
“Oh, shit.” Fyan’s voice. Then Faraday’s, “Brin, what do we do?”
“The poison has gone too deep.” Brin sounds tired, sad.
I try to open my eyes, to reassure all of them. But I can’t.
“You are mine, and I am yours,” Vander whispers against my lips. “We are one, my treasure. We are forever.”
“Brin!” Faraday barks.
“I’m thinking!” the wolven roars, but I barely hear it. He sounds so far away. They all do.
“Think fucking faster!” Fyan cries.
“Stay,” Vander’s tone turns demanding. “You will stay with me, Larellin. I am the king of the DragonLands, and I command you to stay.”
“Arrogant DragonKin.” I want to smile. I can barely breathe. I’m cold.
“Don’t leave me, my treasure.” He cradles my head. I feel his heat, but only from a distance. It doesn’t warm me from the inside. Not the way it should. “I will beg if I must. Gods, please don’t take her. Do not take her when I’ve only just found her. Take me. Take my life. Not hers. Never hers.”
“Give me that!” Brin’s voice echoes.
“The jewel?” Rivon’s voice is reedy and thin, as if it could blow away on a light breeze.
“Stay, my treasure,” Vander orders.
But Death doesn’t listen to commands.
I want to tell him I love him, that I’ll always be with him in one way or another, that I want him to rebuild his homeland, that I’ll be watching and waiting for him on the other side. None of those words reach him. The bond goes silent and cold. And I’m alone. Silent. Untethered.