Chapter 34 Vaylen
Vaylen
Icould have never predicted that one day I'd stand in front of my worst enemy and she would ask me to kill her. The Matron's watches me, unflinching, insistent.
"Go ahead, Omneira. Strike true."
After what I've witnessed—that harpy crashing to the ground, breaking apart, then regenerating before my eyes—I doubt I can truly kill her.
"You'll just spring back to life the way the other one did, won't you? So what's the purpose of this exercise?"
She taps her chest with one claw-tipped finger. The feathers there part to reveal scales beneath, shifting colors that resemble Heratrix's hide.
"Kill me and find out."
Fingers twitching, I'm surprised to find myself reluctant.
This creature has slaughtered thousands, torn apart villages, murdered children in their beds.
Yet now, faced with making this monster pay, I hesitate.
I could make her suffer, cut her limb by limb.
Justice for countless lives. For my lost childhood.
But something in her eyes—ancient, patient, knowing—gives me pause.
She spreads her arms, leathery wings unfurling like dark sails against the blighted landscape.
"Do it," she commands. "Release your hate."
I pull the dagger from my boot, letting my anger build, feeding it with memories.
My first patrol as a fresh Skysinger, watching a Screechclaw tear apart a fellow Skyrider while I stood frozen.
The smoking ruins of Onyx Crossing where my mother died, countless night raids where these monsters descended on sleeping families.
Hearthdale's destruction and our mutilated friends left in the rubble.
My fury builds with each recollection. The screams of children.
The smell of their rot and our burning flesh.
The face of every soldier I've lost to these abominations.
"You killed them all," I snarl.
"Yes," she answers simply.
My fingers tremble. I see my mother's smiling face and ache at the lonely nights in Ashen House.
With a roar that tears from my throat, I lunge forward and stab the dagger right into her heart. She titters backward, black blood spraying from the wound, and collapses to her knees, eyes wide with something that looks disturbingly like satisfaction.
Around us, hundreds of harpies screech in fury. I drop into a fighting stance, certain I'll die here, torn apart by their vengeance, but they hold their positions, talons digging into rock, bodies trembling with restraint.
I stand frozen, watching the Matron's lifeless body. The foul blood pools beneath her, spreading across the cracked earth. Seconds stretch into minutes. Doubt creeps in. Maybe this was her plan all along, to trick me into killing her, leaving me defenseless against her horde.
One minute. Two. Three.
Nothing happens. The surrounding Screechclaws remain eerily still, their eyes fixed on their fallen leader. Their discipline is unnerving since all I've know from them is chaos.
"Was this the proof you promised?" I murmur.
Silence answers me. The growing certainty that this won't work makes my stomach churn. Then…
A twitch.
The Matron's talons move. Her chest heaves once, violently.
The wound begins to close, not with the frenzied speed of the other harpy, but slowly, deliberately. The blood retreats, flowing backward into her body. More bright scales emerge where feathers once were, spreading across her chest like water rippling outward from a stone's impact.
Her spine arches, elongating with audible cracks.
Her neck stretches, the vertebrae rearranging beneath her skin.
Her face—Wyrm's rot, her face—the mouth morphs, revealing a more reptilian snout.
Eyes that were sulfurous orbs moments ago grow larger, more expressive, with vertical pupils like a dragon's.
Most shocking of all, she grows. Not the slight stature change of someone standing taller, but an actual increase in mass.
Bones crack and reset as her form expands, her wings nearly doubling in size, their leathery surface thickening.
What rises before me is neither harpy nor dragon, but something caught horrifically between worlds.
Spreading her wings wide like a grotesque parody of Heratrix herself, she bellows.
—Proof!
This time her voice doesn't come from that half-transformed mouth but resonates inside my skull. The sound of it scrapes against my thoughts, foreign and invasive. I stagger back, hands flying to my temples.
Around us, thousands of harpies erupt in screeches and cries, the sound so overwhelming I can feel it in my chest, my bones, my teeth.
My legs shake beneath me. What I've witnessed should be enough.
The transformation is undeniable, but doubt creeps in like poison, nonetheless.
What if this is another illusion? Tahranis fooled everyone, wearing Silas Pyrewing's face, and we never suspected.
The creature before me—neither harpy nor dragon—tilts her head.
—What proof would convince you, Omneira? she asks inside my mind again. Would you have me tear open my chest to show you the heart that beats there? Would you have me breathe fire like your precious dragons? Kill me again then, and maybe I will be able to do that.
I back away, teeth clenched. "Stay out of my head."
This could all be elaborate deception. A Weaver's trick.
—You have your proof, Omneira, she says. I have guided you as far as I can. Now it is up to you to believe. There is nothing more I can do.
Her words settle heavily on me like some sort of death sentence.
Before I can respond, she turns away from me, facing the gathered harpies.
Her movements are awkward, limbs caught between two forms. She limps toward the center of the stone arches, where thousands of her kind watch with unblinking eyes.
Then she lets out a sound unlike anything I've ever heard—part dragon's roar, part harpy's screech—that echoes across the wasteland. The sound vibrates the ground, raising the hair on my arms.
The response is immediate. Like a single organism, the harpies descend, talons outstretched. They fall upon her like birds of prey attacking carrion, tearing and biting. Their wings create a whirlwind of darkness around her form.
I step back, horrified. The swarm circles her, thousands of wings beating, their bodies blocking any view of what's happening at their center.
But I can hear it—the wet sounds of flesh tearing, bones cracking.
The coppery smell of blood fills the air, so thick I can taste it.
Bile fills my throat, and I fall to my knees, overwhelmed by the savagery before me.
The frenzy stops suddenly, as if commanded by some invisible force.
Silence blankets the wasteland, heavy and unnatural.
The harpies retreat, forming a wider circle around the Matron.
Then, a moment later, it begins again. The descent, the tearing, the blood.
The pattern repeats. Attack. Retreat. Attack. The cruel rhythm continues until I think I'll lose my mind. I want to turn away to escape witnessing this horror, but I'm frozen.
Then something shifts in the air.
The atmosphere compresses around the writhing mass of bodies, particles seemingly sucked toward their center. My ears pop painfully as pressure builds. The world goes eerily, completely silent, creating a vacuum where sound should exist. Even the flapping of thousands of wings produces nothing.
My lungs struggle against the crushing weight of air.
Then comes the boom.
It hits like a physical force, knocking me backward.
I cover my ears too late. Blood trickles between my fingers.
The massive stone arches crumble, disintegrating into fine powder that billows outward in choking clouds.
The ground beneath me fractures, dense rock ground to dust by forces I can't comprehend.
When I dare look again, ears ringing, my breath catches in my throat.
Where the Matron once stood towers a dragon unlike any I've ever seen.
Larger even than Heratrix, her scales shimmer with colors that shouldn't exist in this world, deep violets that fade into midnight blues, edged with silver that catches all the light.
Her wingspan blocks out the sky itself, casting the arches in deeper shadow as she unfurls wings that seem to contain galaxies within their membrane.
Her neck arches gracefully, circled with ivory spines that gleam like polished jewels. Knowing eyes the color of lightning survey the landscape. When she moves, the massive stone arches shatter beneath her ivory claws, reduced to dust by her mere presence.
The harpies scatter like ash in a hurricane, their screeches now sounds of reverence rather than bloodlust. She rises on powerful hind legs, her chest expanding as she draws breath. The air itself seems to rush toward her, pulled by some primal force.
This isn't just a dragon. This is divinity incarnate, magnificent and terrible.
The Matron—no, the dragoness—roars, ivory fangs gleaming, then a column of iridescent flames jets into the sky. Dragon fire. The heat sends me crouching, feeling as if my hair is being singed. Then she launches into the sky with a mighty roar that shakes the very foundations of the earth.
Her massive body rises with impossible grace, each beat of those galaxy-filled wings creating windstorms below, making me lose my footing. She spirals upward, her body twisting and turning with fluid perfection, performing aerial maneuvers that would make any Sky Order dragon envious.
She revels in this form, this freedom, after so long imprisoned in that terrible state. Her joy is palpable as she dives and swoops, trailing fire behind her like a comet's tail. Each movement speaks of liberation, of chains finally broken.
I stare at the empty sky where the dragoness just disappeared, her massive form swallowed by clouds that seem impossibly small compared to her sheer size.
Around me, the remaining harpies gaze upward, their eyes reflecting profound hunger.
They want what she has. Freedom from their curse. Or so it seems.
The wind dies down, leaving an eerie silence across the blighted landscape. My tent lies flattened, supplies scattered. I walk to the pathetic remains and sit heavily on a rock, mind reeling.
"You have your proof, Omneira. I have guided you as far as I can. Now it is up to you to believe. There is nothing more I can do."
Her words echo in my head, demanding an answer. I rake stiff fingers into my hair and shudder. Believe or not believe. After all I've seen and despite her Weaver powers, is there really a choice?
But if this isn't an illusion, and I'm truly this Omneira she claims... if I'm meant to break this curse alongside Rhealyn... how will I do that if she and I are done, and her lies have broken me beyond repair?