Chapter 41 Vaylen #2
Some females were simply gone. Dead. Vestra had killed those she was able to overpower.
Others, the ones who'd survived her physical assaults, suffered fates infinitely worse.
Vestra twisted their forms, combining elements in ways nature never intended.
She warped scales into feathers, shortened talons into grotesque claws, reshaped faces until beauty became nightmare.
The females became monsters, hideous reflections of what they'd once been.
Screechclaws.
But Vestra hadn't stopped with reshaping dragons. She'd cultivated human alliances too, particularly with one family whose ambition matched her own—the Flarebanes.
While other dragons required human riders to fully manifest their elemental powers, Vestra and Heratrix alone could wield magic independently. Vestra leveraged this unique advantage, approaching the Flarebanes with promises of dominion.
—You will be kings, she whispered to them. Your bloodline blessed by divinity.
The Flarebanes embraced her, worshipped her black scales as holy perfection. Tahranis isn't just continuing his ancestors' work, he's fulfilling a pact made long ago, a covenant sealed in dragon’s blood and the ambition of men.
Heratrix and Vestra continued fighting over the Flametop Mountains, their struggle stretching for hours, neither of them yielding.
In the end, Vestra proved cleverer, if not stronger.
The curse hit Heratrix like nothing she'd ever felt.
Elements twisted together, rewriting bone and scale.
Vestra transformed her mother into the same hideous form she'd inflicted on the others—something Heratrix had no defense against. The Queen of Dragons felt her wings shrinking, her scales shifting into feathers, her whole body changing into something grotesque.
But even as the transformation ravaged her body, Heratrix gathered the last of her power. She couldn't reverse what Vestra had done. The technique was too new, too foreign to understand.
She could only retaliate.
The counter-curse erupted from Heratrix, binding Vestra to slumber, tying the sleep to her own Screechclaw form.
When one curse broke, both would. Mother and daughter would return to their normality together.
Vestra's obsidian eyes widened as understanding hit.
Then she collapsed, scales dulling as unconsciousness claimed her.
Heratrix's last coherent thought before the transformation completed was simple.
My daughter! Why are you like this?
Then she became something else entirely.
But Vestra's crimes didn't end with physical transformation.
Before the battle, she'd invaded the male dragons' minds, rewriting centuries of memory.
She made them forget their sisters, their mates, their daughters, made them believe only one female had ever existed—the Queen, the Goddess, the eternal mother of all dragons.
And she renamed herself Heratrix, claiming her mother's worship.
The males accepted the falsehood without question. Their minds were too malleable, too eager for simple truths. Vestra had counted on that weakness.
And her rider, Tahranis's ancestor, knew everything, so when Vestra fell into slumber, he helped spread the lies among humans and methodically destroyed records until truth was forgotten. Together they orchestrated the greatest deception Embernia had ever known.
—There was one who remembered, Heratrix murmurs through our bond. One who knew the truth from the beginning.
Her gaze fixes on Fragor.
My chest tightens. By the four winds! My dragon knew. He knew everything.
The memories she shared crystalize with brutal clarity. Fragor watched his daughter become a monster, curse the females, and claim the Goddess's name.
And he did nothing.
Worse than nothing. He served her, carried her lies forward, let her reshape history while he stood silent, complicit. Because Vestra promised him power and status. The father of the new Goddess, elevated above all others.
He chose ambition over his own kind.
Now he hovers across from us, Silas Pyrewing perched between his horns. A Skyblaze riding a wind dragon. Their elements oppose each other, offering no advantage. Fragor's here on fangs and claws alone, willing to fight without the enhancement a proper rider provides.
Because he belongs to Vestra.
Because he always has.
Betrayal burns through my veins like acid.
Once more, my eyes sweep across the formation. Dakar on Notos. Cliffbecker steady on Lithos. Phoebe hanging back on Trueno, her face pale and full of doubt. Riders I've trained with, fought beside, trusted, all here.
I don't want to kill them.
The dragoness's grief echoes the same sentiment. —Neither do I wish to harm my kin.
—We'll do our best, I say.
I nod at Rhealyn, who shares all this terrible knowledge with me. She nods back, a blessing on what we're set to do next. With a deep breath, I face our opponents, then send wind spiraling around me, carrying my voice across the sky.
"Commander Voltguard. Primes. I request parlay."
Tahranis's laugh cuts through the tension like a blade, also carried on the wind.
"I lead the Sky Order now, Stormsong." His voice drips venom. "And I have no interest in negotiating with traitors."
His gaze slides to Rhealyn, contempt twisting his features. Then he lifts a hand, voice cutting like steel across the distance.
"Attack!"
The Sky Order surges forward, dragons roaring as one. The harpies jump to the forefront, ready to defend their queen. They mean to be the first line of defense as they will return to life if killed.
—Forgive me. The dragoness's grief floods through me. Then she unleashes her power.
It slams outward like a shockwave, invisible but devastating. The Weaver energy crashes into every dragon simultaneously, ripping through mental barriers Vestra constructed centuries ago. Dragons shriek mid-flight. Some falter, wings stuttering. Others spiral, disoriented.
The memories hit them all at once.
I feel it through the Omneira bond. Fragments of history flooding back. The knowledge of those stolen sisters, mates, and daughters. Females who flew beside them before Vestra twisted everything into lies.
Indrax—the Commander's mount—screams, a sound of pure agony.
Notos shudders violently, nearly throwing Dakar from his back.
Across the formation, dragons convulse as truth collides with falsehood. Some roar in fury, turning on Vestra with newfound understanding.
Others hesitate, confused.
And some… some don't change course at all.
Those loyal to Vestra keep coming, eyes blazing with hate.
The sky erupts into chaos.