Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Shitheads
MAGNOLIA
The cage was large. I could walk ten steps before I’d meet the other end, contemplating if I should use my transparency. I could walk right through the bars. The only problem was the sentries. Fifty of them surrounded us, and while I could keep my Token on, I was worried about Aura.
If they couldn’t get to me, they’d attack her. It was part of why Dahes ordered it.
I still couldn’t understand why she came. She didn’t care about me. She was doing it for Hael, even though it was obvious it was the opposite of what he wanted.
Steam wafted over my face as her rattle sounded. I stopped pacing, turning to face her. Her neon eyes weren’t blinking, but staring directly at me, like she could read everything I’d just been thinking.
The rattling grew.
Could she?
It grew louder, then more steam.
I was insane. I had gone completely and utterly insane because I was actually considering the possibility that a dragon could understand me.
It made sense—the me being insane part, not communicating with a dragon.
Ever since I found out about Masin, I hadn’t slept.
I had spent every waking second practicing my Token so that if this ever happened, I could use it.
I developed a slight tremor in my hand from the constant use, but I didn’t care because for the first time in over seven years, I had something that Dahes couldn’t fully control.
Only now I still couldn’t use it—
Steam completely engulfed my cage, coating my skin in a thick layer of sweat, despite my little clothes. I went transparent on instinct, and the moment I did, Aura’s flames consumed the pit.
Fire was everywhere. I swore I could feel the heat of it even in this form.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
Stay in form. You are in control.
Seconds passed before the fire dissipated and the second it did, my mouth gaped open.
Metal melted into the packed dirt and there wasn’t a single sentry in sight. Aura burned them all. I had never known anything to break through their armor. It was supposed to be impenetrable, but she did it. She melted them—and not just them, but my cage too.
I glanced up at her, and even though her chains were now gone, she wasn’t moving. Was it because of Dahes? Was she going to stay in the Dome to save Hael?
She had a chunk of scale missing that was scabbed over that I assumed was from Dahes’ Ater, but now red was coating the pearly color where her chains had been.
I walked through what was left of the bars and out onto the pit, careful to stay in my form so the molten metal didn’t burn my feet.
Her head tilted toward the tunnel and maybe I was losing it. I paused for two seconds, contemplating what to do before I was sprinting toward the direction Aura gestured.
Everything screamed at me to run up the stairs after Hael, but I knew Dahes wouldn’t kill him—not yet at least—and I had to warn the drakins. I had to make sure that Dahes didn’t take them over.
I hadn’t realized how much destruction he planned to cause. I knew he wanted Elion dead, and I knew he wanted the dragons, but I didn’t realize that meant enslaving the Wielders and murdering all the commoners.
The amount of people that were going to get caught up in the onslaught if I did nothing… I sucked in a breath, trying to focus.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
Nessium was giving me an opportunity to right my wrongs, and I prayed she was on my side tonight.
I kept my transparency on as I sprinted toward the tunnel, then blew out a breath the moment I approached the opening and looked across. The entire path was completely black—I guess drakins didn’t believe in sconces.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
I could do this.
And if I couldn’t, there was no going back now. We were already going to be punished for killing the sentries, I had to make it worth it.
I didn’t bother looking back at Aura. If she decided to stay in the Dome because of Hael, I wasn’t going to stop her.
I stepped through the tunnel, hesitantly at first, then broke out into a full blown sprint, praying to each Moon and Sun that I wasn’t making a mistake by coming here.
Mercifully, the tunnel wasn’t long, cutting a direct path underground instead of avoiding the peaks at the start of the pass.
But I still felt short of breath, was still panting, my thighs still burning.
I took a guess at Jaxs’ cabin and prayed I wasn’t wrong. I saw him coming from the one next to Hael’s the first time I was here.
I ran through the walls using my Token, not hesitating to see if I was right. At this point, any drakin would do.
“Holy fucking shit balls on the Moons,” Jaxs swore when he spotted me. His blue eyes were bulging out of his head, his dark hair was wet and the water droplets dripping down his chest had me realizing he just got out of the bath.
Thank the Suns that I was right—and that he had pants on.
“Hi,” I said, walking away from the wall.
“Hi?” His voice squealed. “You walk through walls and just randomly trespass in someone’s home and say HI?”
I frowned, turning back to the wall I just walked through before meeting his gaze again.
His pure shocked expression shifted to concern, his features immediately sobering as he realized I was alone. “Wait, where is Hael?”
I blurted everything out as fast as I possibly could, giving him a short summary of what happened. I knew I was leaving important details out, but we were running out of time. I could see the moons shifting in the sky.
“Shit,” Jaxs swore. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” He started pacing. “Dahes is a drakin?”
I nodded. “He was bonded to an Ater,” I said. “I think he’s using an illusion to hide all his monsters. I think MonClem is surrounded, I just can’t see them yet.”
Jaxs walked over to the window, looking up before he swore again. Everything looked the same. The moons were aligning, slowly moving to the same focal point in the sky.
There wasn’t a monster in sight, but if you looked close, you could see the outlines of the moons were distorted, their coloring not quite right. Everything had an air of fuzziness to it, like it was dipped in a haze, making everything less vibrant.
I was still wrapping my head around the fact that his dragon was how he invaded my mind, how he was now using it to warp our view and alter our reality. How many other times had he used an illusion on me and I had no idea?
I sent Nessium a private prayer that he wasn’t using his Vinculum on me now.
After Hael told me how the bonds worked, it only confirmed that Dahes’ control over my mind wasn’t endless.
Maybe it was before his Ater died, maybe he pulled from his dragon whenever he was running low on his own well.
But now that the extra power source was gone, I prayed it meant he’d stay out of my mind.
He’d want to preserve his powers for the fight, and he thought I was trapped in a cage with fifty sentries guarding my exit if I escaped.
“So you think we’re surrounded, but he won’t drop the illusion until the Solstice starts?” Jaxs asked, still looking up at the sky.
I nodded.
“So what do you want to do?”
“We need to tell everyone to take the tunnel to the Dome,” I said, praying the metal across the pit would be cooled enough by the time they got there.
“Okay, Bluey is already warning the dragons that aren’t in MonClem. We’ll have them meet their riders there.”
“Bluey?”
“My dragon,” he said as he turned from the window to face me.
“Your dragon’s name is Bluey?” I asked.
“Yeah, cause Caeruluses are blue.”
“Wait, did you name her?”
“First, Bluey is a him, not a her. And secondly, yes.” His grin was wide, like a toddler getting praise for learning to walk. “Every rider gifts a name to their dragon at the start of their Vinculum. But never mind that, what the hell are you wearing?”
“Oh.” My cheeks heated as I looked down at myself. “I didn’t have anything else to wear.”
“So you showed up to challenge the literal devil to a death fight wearing fucking lingerie?”
I immediately crossed my arms over my chest, overtly aware that my breasts were exposed through the sheer material, as his eyes raked down my body from head to toe.
“Do you even have a weapon on you?” Jaxs arched a brow.
I blanched, forcing myself to shake my head.
“Fucking Moons, we’re going to lose,” Jaxs cursed as he turned his back to me and started shifting through some clothes.
He threw pants and a shirt at me, which I was thankful I caught.
“Your clothes aren’t going to fit.”
“They aren’t my clothes,” he called over his shoulder. “Courtesy à la one night stands, and even if they were my clothes, they’d be better than you wearing that.”
He turned around. “Get dressed, and meet me outside in five minutes. I’ll start warning the drakins.”
“Jaxs—” He paused, his hand hovering over the handle as he turned to look at me. “Tell everyone not to run. If you can, do everything as calmly as possible.” I was terrified if the slightest thing felt off, Dahes would reenter my mind and know what we were doing.
He nodded before he bolted out the door.
I dressed quickly, surprised that the clothes fit me like a glove.
Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale.
I did two cycles of breaths before I stepped outside.
Jaxs sprinted toward me a minute later. “Okay, done,” he whisper-yelled as we started walking away from his cabin. “Everyone is leaving through the tunnel as we speak.”
“Good,” I nodded, trying to steady my breathing. He led me toward the metal workshop as an eeriness seemed to settle over us at the same time.
It was completely deserted, with the Vivenian-made weapons littering the tables, some fallen to the ground, others thrown on top of each other like they were picked and scavenged.
“Take whatever you need,” Jaxs said. “I have no idea what kind of weapons you can use.”
“Thanks,” I started circling the tables, picking up and testing different daggers. “You should leave through the tunnel, too,” I told him.
“No way. I’m not leaving you alone with Dahes and literally all the monsters from Hell.”
“Jaxs, Hael is going to need you—” I started, then swallowed. “Dahes is using him to take out Elion.”
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he grinned.
I whipped my head toward him.
“What?” He shrugged when he noticed my stare. “That bastard needed to die centuries ago. This night just got a whole hell of a lot better. Get it, cause Hell is here?”
I frowned. “Jaxs, I’m serious. You don’t have your dragon.”
“Bluey is coming as soon as he’s done warning the others, and in case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t have a dragon. Hael will fucking murder me if I let anything happen to you, and I’d very much like to be alive to see this place without shitheads as kings.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I stuffed three daggers into my clothes, keeping one in my hand as Jaxs strapped a sword to his back, then started stashing throwing stars down his chest.
I was about to respond when steam hit my back.
“Fuck yes,” Jaxs fist bumped the air as soon as Bluey landed before us. He was larger than Aura but without the talons running down his spine. His blue scales were varying shades, giving the illusion of a glimmer, and gills were embedded under his neck.
I’d never seen anyone so excited for our inevitable impending doom.
I looked up at the sky, wishing I had that kind of optimism.
Only one moon was out of alignment.
It was almost time.