Chapter 42 Rhea
Rhea
Sadness crashes through me like a wave, drowning everything else.
Not fear. Not rage.
Just grief so profound it steals my breath.
Through the tetrad bond, I feel it echoing from all of them. Vaylen's bitter anguish. Heratrix's deep sorrow. Zephyros's fury laced with heartbreak.
All this fighting. All this death. A thousand years of war.
For nothing.
For lies.
And now there will be more.
I search the sky for familiar silhouettes among the chaos. Phoebe. Nate. Adelaide. Omari.
My friends.
Do they fight with us or against us?
Dragon's breath, they must be reeling. What do they think of their High Prime standing beside me now, the woman they branded traitor? And not only that but standing next to the Screechclaws? And what of seeing us poised against Tahr and the so-called Goddess? What are they to make of any of this?
—Why can't they know the truth too? I push the thought through the tetrad bond.
Heratrix's response floods my mind with regret. —I do not think the humans would withstand such a blow.
—Why?
—The dragons carried those stolen memories locked within them, protected by instinct and time.
Your companions possess nothing to anchor them against such a barrage of new thoughts.
Their minds would shatter under the weight of remembering what was never theirs to begin with, of reconciling a thousand years rewritten.
—We mustn't hurt them, I beg.
—We will do our best, little one, Zephyros assures me, just as the Sky Order fractures before my eyes.
Sylpharen keens—a sound like tearing metal—and drops listlessly. Braylen jumps off his head and Drops, spiraling downward, barely in control. He's shouting something, hands glowing as he tries to guide his dragon into a landing rather than a fatal plummet.
Notos shudders violently. Dakar's face is white, eyes wide with shock as his dragon processes centuries of stolen truth.
Some dragons don't hesitate. Lithos roars and lunges forward, Cliffbecker crouched low between his horns. His dragon has chosen Vestra, chosen the familiar lie over devastating truth. Same as Cliffbecker, even though he doesn't understand what's really happening.
Others hover motionless, wings beating mechanically. Confusion wars across scaled faces. Riders give commands that go unheeded as their dragons grapple with memories that contradict everything they believed.
The formation dissolves into chaos with dragons who can't decide, dragons who won't fight, and dragons falling from the sky in ill-contained spirals while their riders desperately try to salvage what they can.
While those who've already made their choice against us dive forward with murder blazing in their eyes.
The Screechclaws surge upward as one, disciplined and deadly, meeting the diving dragons head-on.
Before I can process what I should do to reduce casualties, Fragor breaks through the chaos and barrels straight toward us.
Silas crouches between his horns, face twisted with hate.
At the same time, Vestra and those loyal to her wheel toward Vaylen and Heratrix, Tahr's white hair streaming behind him like a banner of war.
The Screechclaws scatter to intercept the other dragons, preventing them from converging on Heratrix all at once. Their tactics are flawless, too flawless for creatures that just weeks ago were mindless beasts.
But Fragor ignores everything else and singles Zephyros out. His eyes glint as he closes the distance between us with terrifying speed.
Zephyros climbs higher, wings slicing through air. Beneath me, his muscles tense, ready for what's coming. Through our bond, I feel his hatred for Fragor, so much pain compressed into this moment.
Fragor circles us, Silas's expression smug, triumphant atop the dragon's head.
"Been waiting a long time to teach you a lesson, Wyndward," Silas calls out. "A nobody from nowhere who thought she could play with the big dragons."
I say nothing. What's the point? The Pyrewings have known the truth for generations. They've embraced the lie, profited from it, built their dynasty on the backs of cursed dragons.
My silence infuriates him.
"Nothing to say?" he sneers. "Then let me thank you properly for guiding me straight to Heratrix. All I had to do was follow you after you sneaked out of the fort. Just like Tahr said."
Surprise jolts through me, and Silas catches it immediately.
"Oh yes," he grins. "Tahr always knew you'd lead him to this battle. It's the only use he ever had for you. Part of Omneira, a compass pointing to power. A stupid girl thinking she was special when she was just a means to an end."
Beneath me, Zephyros growls, the sound vibrating through my bones.
"At least I'm not insane," I bite back, my voice laced with bitterness. "A Skyblaze on a wind dragon is as useless as a Pyrewing trying to command respect, just a bunch of pompous crooks everyone despises."
Silas smirks with satisfaction and says, "For Merryll."
Then, in utter contradiction to my words, silver light explodes from his hands, and an attack tears in my direction, massive and focused. Not fire. Not the elemental power he's known for.
Wind.
Shit! He's a dual!
Merrill, his brother, was Zephyros's rider. He's a wind elemental from his mother's side, and it's now obvious that Silas has inherited the same gift, and has kept it hidden all along—the way I kept my Weaver powers hidden.
Almost too late, I throw my own wind forward, meeting Silas's blast with equal force. The collision creates a shockwave that ripples outward, battering Zephyros and Fragor backward.
My arms shake from the force of holding the barrier.
Silas grins wildly, and gathers himself for another strike, while chaos erupts all around us, the dragons on our side joining to help the Screechclaws.
Water slams against lightning in bursts of steam.
Earth slabs hurled by Skydunes collide with ice, shattering into deadly shrapnel.
Fire arcs across the sky, trails of orange and red painting destruction against the gray clouds.
Metal shards whistle past my head, launched by some Skyforge caught in the fray.
Through the tetrad bond, I feel Vaylen's concentration sharpen. Fire roars from his palms, meeting Tahr's own inferno in a collision that lights the sky white. The heat washes over me even at this distance, revealing yet another lie from Tahr. He can wield more than just wind.
But I can't watch because Fragor is diving at Zephyros with teeth bared, murder blazing in his eyes. He wants to destroy my dragon. Needs to. As if killing Zephyros will erase what he's done, what he's allowed.
Silas's hands glow. Three Wind Spears materialize and shoot in a precise path toward me. I bat them aside with my left hand, wind meeting wind in bursts of force that rattle my bones. On my right hand, electricity crackles. I thrust it forward and jagged lightning tears through the air.
Fragor banks hard, the bolt missing him by inches. The smell of ozone fills my nostrils.
I don't give him time to recover.
Ice crystallizes in my palms, and I hurl shards toward Silas, each one gleaming like a dagger. He deflects them with a wind barrier, but I'm already moving, already shifting.
Fire blooms from my fingertips, and I send hungry flames snaking through the air. Silas curses, dodging left as Fragor banks hard. The heat singes dragon scales.
"What the fuck are you?" Silas shouts, voice raw with fury.
I don't answer. My focus narrows to the rhythm of attack and defense, the pulse of power flowing through me like breath.
At my command, fallen metal weapons tear from the ground below and morph into spinning discs at a mere thought.
At another, they slice through the air toward Silas.
Another Wind Blast erupts from his hands, scattering my projectiles.
But it costs him. He misses several that cut through his leathers and make him bleed.
His breathing comes harder now, sweat gleaming on his face as his expression changes.
I see the moment understanding crashes through him. His face goes pale beneath the sweat and grime.
He's losing.
He didn't expect to fight this, didn't expect Omneira to be this powerful.
A strange sound cuts through the chaos—a high, thin whine like tearing fabric. I glance up and my heart stops.
The sky splits open above us, a jagged wound in reality itself. Beyond it lies only darkness, a void that makes my eyes hurt to look at directly.
"Zephyros!" I shout a warning, but it's too late.
A Screechclaw plummets through the hole, its body limp and broken. The creature falls directly toward me, wings shredded and useless. I throw myself flat against Zephyros's head as the harpy hurtles past, missing me by inches.
More tears appear across the sky, dozens of them, like someone taking a knife to canvas. From each one falls a Screechclaw, already dead.
"What in the seven hells?" I gasp, even though I know what this is. Screechclaws who were slain elsewhere, returning through these rifts. I gained the knowledge through the tetrad bond.
A second harpy crashes onto Zephyros's hindquarters. The impact jolts us sideways, throwing me against his neck spines. The creature slides off, trailing dark blood across silver scales before plunging toward the ground.
More fall around us, a grotesque rain of broken bodies. One slams into Fragor's wing, sending him into a momentary spiral that gives us precious seconds to regroup.
With new-found fear, Silas's movements shift. They're no longer aggressive, but calculating instead. He crouches low between Fragor's horns, fingers moving in rapid patterns across the dragon's scales. Signals. Commands I can't decipher from this distance.