Chapter 32 Vaylen #2
The harpy lies draped over the log, limbs bent at unnatural angles, midnight feathers matted with fresh blood.
Its neck twists impossibly to one side, the eyes now dull and lifeless.
One wing hangs by threads of sinew, the other crushed beneath its own weight.
Dragon scales cover her back like the Matron's, though hers aren't rainbow colored.
Vomit threatens to rise. Despite years of combat, there's something uniquely disturbing about this awful crash—so sudden, so unceremonious.
I glance between the lifeless harpy and the shimmering hole in the sky as it slowly closes, my mind struggling to connect these pieces into something comprehensible.
"What in seven hells just happened?" I demand, turning to the Matron.
She remains impassive, regarding her fallen kin with the clinical detachment of someone observing an everyday occurrence. No grief furrows her brow, no emotion registers in her expression.
"More proof," she says simply, as if a mangled corpse explains anything at all.
"How does a dead harpy prove anything?" I ask, but the Matron's silence tells me to wait.
A sickening crack draws my attention back to the broken creature. The twisted neck straightens with a series of wet pops that make bile rise to my throat. Shattered bones beneath leathery skin shift and realign themselves with grinding noises like stones being crushed together.
The wing hanging by threads of tissue squelches as muscle and sinew reattach, feathers straightening with dry rustling sounds. Blood retreats beneath healing skin with a soft hiss.
Crack. Pop. Hiss.
Each sound marks another impossible repair as I watch, transfixed with horror and fascination.
The creature's chest expands with a rattling gasp, drawing in air to lungs that moments ago were mangled beyond function.
With one fluid movement that defies the laws of nature, the harpy rises to stand on its talons, perfectly whole where seconds before it was irreparably broken.
Those dull eyes suddenly flash with renewed life as the face reconstructs itself before me.
I barely have time to form a curse when the resurrected harpy lets out a screech that shatters the air. It launches toward me, claws extended, burning with feral rage.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up. Wind swirls around my finger to form a Wind Spear. I even raise my arm, preparing to drive it through the creature's chest, except there's no weapon—only a paltry current fit to blow pages off a table and nothing more.
I've given myself for dead when a dark shape blurs between us—the Matron standing like a wall of midnight feathers and leathery skin. Her back is to me as she faces her reanimated kin. Wings spread wide, she blocks my view completely, the rainbow scales winking in beautiful patterns.
She screeches back at the other harpy, a sound so violent and primal it vibrates through my bones. The language is unintelligible, but there's no mistaking the command in her tone, the absolute authority she wields.
The undead harpy halts mid-air, claws still extended, then slowly retreats.
It shakes its head vigorously as if trying to clear it of some fog.
The creature's movements become more controlled with each passing second, less animal and more.
.. something else. Something that makes my skin crawl with recognition.
The Matron turns to face me, folding her wings against her back. "Do you see now?"
My mind races to make sense of what I've witnessed. Throughout the night, I've heard countless thuds. Did they all signify harpies falling from holes in the sky? And if so...
"Where do they come from? And do they all..." I gesture to the now-living harpy that seconds ago was a broken corpse. "Do they all come back to life?"
"Yes, we all come back to life after you kill us," the Matron confirms.
"But I've never seen bodies disappear after battle."
"New body."
The implications send my thoughts spiraling. If these creatures can't die—if they resurrect after each killing blow—then we've been fighting an impossible war.
"The only proof I see is that this explains why your numbers never dwindle," I say, my voice hardening as I process this revelation.
"Why our dragons keep dying while the Sky Order never makes a dent in your forces.
This doesn't prove you were dragons. It only proves you're more unnatural than I ever believed. More monstrous."
The word hangs between us, a challenge she can't deny. I've celebrated each kill as a victory for Embernia. Now I'm supposed to accept that those victories were meaningless? That every Screechclaw I've slain simply fell through a hole in the sky to rise again because they claim to be dragons?
"The Woken Wyrm made us this way," her voice drops to a dangerous whisper. "She could not kill us, so she gave us this curse. Eternal suffering, eternal hunger, eternal rage."
The other harpies click and hiss from their perches, a rising tide of anger that makes my skin prickle.
"So you say," I spit. "This proves nothing."
The Matron's eyes glitter with a keen intelligence that unnerves me. "What will it take for you to believe, Omneira?"
I laugh, a harsh sound that scrapes my throat. "Unless you transform into a dragon right before my eyes, I can't abide this insanity. Next you'll tell me I'll sprout wings and fly."
"I can give you that proof," she says, her voice eerily calm.
"What? How?" My hands clench at my sides, uncertainty crawling up my spine.
She steps closer. "Get your dagger," she commands, her chest thrust forward. "Run it through my heart."
I blink, certain I've misheard. "You want me to kill you?"
"Yes," she says simply. "Kill me, and witness the truth."