Chapter 39 Vaylen
Vaylen
The explosion of light blinds me, even as I shield Rhealyn instinctively with my body. When the brilliance finally fades, I straighten, squinting toward the western horizon.
"What was that?" Rhealyn whispers beside me, her grief momentarily forgotten.
"I don't know." But deep in my gut, I feel it's connected to the Matron's transformation. Something long forgotten stirs in the realm. Around us, the Screechclaws have all frozen, faces turned toward the light source. Their collective stillness sending a chill down my back.
"Vaylen." Rhealyn's voice wavers. "Do you feel that?"
I do. A tingling across my skin, a pressure building in my mind. The scar where the Matron healed my wound burns white-hot.
Suddenly, the Screechclaws move as one, wings spreading wide. They launch skyward in perfect formation, leaving us alone in the wasteland.
"They're going to her," I murmur. "The Matron."
Rhealyn's hand brushes mine. I pull away, denying my need to touch her.
Silence falls like a shroud over the desolate land. The wind passing through the broken terrain is the only sound remaining. We stand awkwardly in the emptiness, two broken people with nothing but pain between us.
"They come at dawn," she says, voice flat as she stares toward Embernia. I know instantly she means the Sky Order. Tahranis's attack force.
She rubs her chest where her bond with Zephyros once lived, swiping tears from her face with quick, angry motions. I watch as she straightens, shoulders squaring beneath her leather armor. Something transforms in her posture. She's donning protection that has nothing to do with physical shields.
This is the same tough woman I met over a year ago at the Rite of Flight, ready to fight anything in her path. And yet she's not the same at all. There's a rawness to her now, a vulnerability she can't fully hide. Ill timing, she said, while I wish I hadn't fallen at all.
She shakes her head. "We can't stay here. They'll find us."
"Where are we going to go?" I gesture at the barren landscape stretching around us in every direction.
Turning in a slow circle, she surveys the desolation. "What happened here?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'm not sure I believe it myself."
I stare at the broken arches, focusing on anything but her face.
The curve of her cheek, the way her hair catches the dying moonlight.
It all tears at something already bleeding inside me.
How can such hurt ever be mended? How can a heart feel anything but this anguish after what has happened? I don't know anymore.
The hole inside me yawns wider with every breath. Her betrothal was the final strike that knocked everything loose, sent it all spilling out of me until nothing remained but pain.
I kick at the dusty ground. Our dragons gone, our bond broken, our future erased. And still, standing here with her hurts worse than all of that.
The rhythmic thud of wings sounds in the distance.
Rhealyn and I turn, expectant. At first, they're just silhouettes against the fading explosion of light.
Two massive forms, wingtips nearly touching, leading an impossible army through the sky.
Zephyros's hide gleams like polished armor, but it's the dragoness beside him that steals my breath yet again.
The dragoness who was once the Matron.
Her scales ripple. Her wingspan stretches wider than seems possible. Behind them, thousands of Screechclaws fill the sky, their disciplined formations creating dark geometric patterns against the stars that still blink in the brightening sky.
Rhealyn's mouth falls open, her hand reaching instinctively toward Zephyros. Even in profile, I see wonder replace grief in her eyes.
"Who is that?" she whispers.
"The Matron. She was a dragon all along." The words sound insane even as I speak them.
"That's… impossible."
The air vibrates with the collective wingbeats of countless beings, a rhythm that resonates in my very soul. The dragoness's gaze meets mine, and words pour into my mind.
—Omneira, she calls. Not to me alone. To both of us.
Rhealyn staggers beside me, clutching her head. I know she hears it too. Suddenly, my chest blazes with light that cuts through my clothing. Rhealyn's hand flies to her heart, where an identical glow emanates.
"Vaylen, what's happening to us?"
The dragoness lands before us with earth-shaking force. Zephyros settles beside her, his gaze fixed on Rhealyn with recognition that transcends their broken bond.
—Two dragons. Two riders, the dragoness says.
—The Omneira, Zephyros finishes.
The dragoness lowers her head until her breath warms our faces. Her eyes contain the universe as it was made, timeless chaos. They swallow me whole.
I'm ripped from my flesh like a garment shed, transformed into nothing but pulsing light. My thoughts scatter, reassemble, faster than breathing.
Where am I? What am I?
Consciousness without form. A being of pure energy. The boundaries of self expand beyond anything I've known. It's vast and terrifying, yet exhilarating.
But I'm not alone here.
The dragoness's presence surrounds me. She's past, present, and future—a powerful tempest contained within cosmic boundaries.
Her essence bleeds into the fabric of whatever realm we occupy, her thoughts rippling outward to the very edges.
Beside her, there's an unmistakably male presence…
Zephyros. I recognize him too. But that's not all.
There's someone else here. Larger. Consuming.
A force that eclipses even these two primeval dragons.
I recognize it as it brushes against my consciousness like the prayer I once learned by heart. I felt it once before when her powers fused to mine during the Rite of Flight. When wind answered to us both, when lines between our separate selves dissolved for an instant.
This enormous presence is her.
Rhealyn.
Her essence is magnificent beyond comprehension. She shines brighter than anything in this strange place between worlds, her power unbound by her body.
Our essences collide.
There's no gentle merging, no careful introduction. Her consciousness crashes into mine with the force of a hurricane, and suddenly I'm drowning in her.
Every memory, every thought, every feeling floods through me without filter. I see through her eyes, feel with her heart, know her as completely as I know myself.
The devastation nearly breaks me.
Her mind is a battlefield. Torn edges where thoughts should connect smoothly. Jagged scars where memories were ripped apart and stitched back together all wrong. She tried to find them all, desperately cataloguing them, but the damage runs deeper than she could see.
Tahranis's fingerprints are everywhere.
He didn't just change a few moments like she thought. He rewired her. Subtle alterations that compounded, creating a person who barely resembled the woman beneath. His Weaver abilities dwarf hers like an ocean swallows a stream.
I see her beneath that mountain, screaming inside her own skull, calling for me, begging for Zephyros, her hands reaching out while her mouth spoke Tahranis's words, her body obeying commands she never chose. Even the things she thought she chose and accepted as her own mistakes were not her own.
I see memories that rip the world from beneath my feet.
Tahranis's voice slithers through her mind, whispering.
Vaylen doesn't matter. Kiss me now.
Her thoughts scream rejection while her body moves without her consent, lips pressing against his. Her mind a prison while her flesh betrays her.
Worse horrors follow. Tahranis in her bed, his hands exploring her body.
Inside, she's thrashing and fighting to break free.
But outwardly, she reciprocates, believing she wants it, her will stripped away by his command.
Her mental screams reach no one while her mouth forms words of pleasure she doesn't feel.
An explanation for her more recent actions unfolds with Tahranis weaving a trigger phrase into the fabric of her consciousness.
—When I say, 'Wake up, Omneira,' you will leave everything behind. You will follow me without question.
And when that fateful moment came, when Silas turned to Tahranis and spoke those words, Rhealyn's resistance crumbled instantly. No choice remained. She was compelled to abandon the Sky Order, to leave me behind, to follow him to Emberton.
He silenced her, buried her so deep she forgot she was drowning.
The rage that fills me isn't mine alone. It's ours, combined, amplified. Our fury becomes a living thing in this place between worlds, burning with the heat of twin suns.
She never betrayed me.
She was stolen.
But despite Tahranis's manipulation, she fought back.
I see it all… her desperation during that stolen year, that wild plan to return with blocked memories. That was the one idea she could get through. A gamble for freedom. And it worked. Back with Zephyros, back with me, she started healing. Piece by piece, thought by thought.
Subconsciously, she found ways to resist Tahranis without his knowledge. Built walls where he'd torn them down. Zephyros strengthened those defenses, creating shields he couldn't penetrate.
She clawed her way back to herself.
Not completely. Not perfectly. But enough.
My chest aches with pride I have no right to feel.
She's stronger than anyone knows. Stronger than she realizes, and it humbles me.
While I nursed my broken heart, she fought for control of her own mind.
She found her way back to me despite everything he did to prevent it.
Despite my coldness. Despite my rejection.
The woman I love isn't a betrayer. She's the bravest soul I've ever known.
Rhealyn. Oh, Rhealyn.
Her name echoes through our joined consciousness.
And her feelings too. I see them all, exposed and overwhelming.
There's such sadness in her. A bone-deep resignation to losing me that sits like stones in her chest. She's convinced I'll never forgive her, that the damage is permanent, irreparable. She's accepted it as truth, already mourning what we could have been.
But there's love too.
Dragon's breath, so much love.
It eclipses my own. Consumes everything else until there's nothing but this fierce, aching devotion that she carries for me. It burns through her every waking moment, this desperate need to protect me, to save me, to somehow make things right even as she believes it's hopeless.
Oh, I thought I was a fool, but I didn't know the extent of it.
I thought she didn't love me. Thought she chose Tahranis, chose power, chose anything but us. My mind twisted those suspicions into certainty without Tahranis ever needing to enter my thoughts. I poisoned myself with doubt while she fought tooth and nail to return.
Oh, four winds! I don't deserve her.
Every cruel word I threw at her lands differently now. Each rejection, each cold dismissal. They fill me with shame, wound me, the pain magnified through her memories of receiving them.
She was fighting to get back to me all along.
Through this absolute knowledge, my broken heart rebuilds itself, jagged pieces fusing with molten gold.
Where I thought there was nothing—no hope, no future, no us—I find everything.
A reason to keep loving her. A reason to love her and be whole again, despite the scars we both carry.
The goal to work hard and become worthy of her for the rest of my life.
—My Rhealyn. Please forgive me. Please tell me you'll have me again. I love you and will love you for the rest of my life.