Chapter 71 #2
Men swarmed from the gates as the dragon descended, fleeing for the cover of the forest—yet more had stayed behind, taking up defensive positions beside the artillery.
They’d covered the wingbreakers with canopies of soaked hides to protect them from the dragon’s fire.
Crews of shouting men pivoted them around, tracking us.
Rage twisted around my heart. Sarkis had lost a quarter of his army in the woods, yet he’d managed to cart these murder machines here. He hadn’t just planned betrayal; it had been his purpose from the start—two kingdoms for the price of one.
In that moment, I wished that Valen had pulled out every one of his teeth.
“Go in low to take out the wingbreakers,” I shouted above the roar of the wind. “They’re covered with hides!”
Could Valen even hear me above the wind and cannon fire?
My answer came as he plunged downward. Everything inside me revolted as the ground raced toward us. I clung to his spines, screaming in terror as I poured my magic into the chains digging into my thighs. Frost spread over the links.
I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.
A low rumble built beneath me, and a plume of fire poured from Valen’s jaws.
Tents lit up like matchsticks as the flames spread, consuming everything next to them, including one of the crossbows.
Soldiers shouted and fled, but one of the immortals manning the burning crossbow rotated the chassis, setting its sight on us.
Adrenaline slicked my throat.
The immortal pulled the lever, and a deafening crack split the air. The carriage recoiled violently, and the bolt flew toward us like a comet.
I grasped for it with my power, making a connection. Fly wide! The freezing sensation under my ribs grew into something sharp and excruciating.
The bolt jerked sideways and screeched past us, barely missing Valen’s throat. I cut the connection, and the searing pain subsided as I collapsed against the dragon’s back, drawing ragged breaths.
Valen roared as he swooped low, racing just above the ground. Flames jetted from his open jaws, consuming the wingbreaker and its crew, and carving a path through the camp. Black plumes rose around us, searing my lungs and blotting out the sun.
Musket shots rang out. Bullets shredded through Valen’s wings and ricocheted off his scales. I cried out as a sharp wet sting blossomed across my thigh. “Climb!”
He soared upward, but gravity took hold, and I slid sideways. My stomach lurched, and the thread of my magic connected to the chains surged. My body shuddered with a creeping cold. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Valen pivoted his head to inspect me. His golden eyes burned with concern, and he released a low snarl. Then he banked and bellowed sharply three times.
Panicked soldiers fled before us, weaving through the barricades and rushing for the cover of the trees. A horde of black shapes met them, moving fast and ripping limbs and heads from bodies in a display of crimson wrath.
The beasts.
A new type of nausea took hold. I squeezed my eyes shut against the slaughter, reminding myself that Sarkis’s men had come here to conquer and pillage my homeland, and now they were trying to kill Valen.
It didn’t make the horror any better, but it strengthened my resolve. I’d see the army broken. They would never set foot in Fellspire, let alone the Bloodvale.
My gaze drifted to the smoking and crumbling ramparts of the castle as a band of riders crested the hill, their mounts charging toward the frenzy. Locke was on his way at last. The Crimson host would be trapped between his riders and the beasts.
Yet when I squinted against the wind, the figure leading the front wasn’t the magister, but Gregoire.
My jaw dropped in shock. He’d come. Of all people, he’d come.
Valen bellowed a series of sharp commands to the beasts below, hopefully telling them not to harm the riders. They turned and vaulted over the barricades, charging into the smoking ruins of the camp, destroying the wingbreakers, and leaving a sea of bloody corpses in their wake.
My stomach churned. Once, the beasts had been lost hunters and villagers. Now they were monsters. I looked down at the slaughter.
Was I becoming one, too?
A percussive crack sounded from behind us, and I twisted around as a silver blur shot toward Valen’s belly.
He wouldn’t see it.
I struggled to form a connection with it. Turn!
White-hot pain blazed below my ribs as my magic surged. I choked as I gripped the spines along Valen’s shoulder, my lungs screaming for air as the bolt whizzed past us, the freezing pain easing as it did.
“They have a wingbreaker hidden in the trees,” I said weakly.
Valen dropped into a dive as a second bolt soared toward us. His head tilted toward the incoming projectile, too late to climb, his tattered wings barely pulling against the air. He tilted to shield me from the shot.
Something inside me ignited—not fear, not rage. Something darker. I clamped my hands around the chain holding me down. I wouldn’t let them hurt him again.
My magic unfurled, and I lashed out with my power, seizing control of the bolt. It jerked against its chain and twisted upward and around before plummeting downward. I sent it straight back at the machine that had released it, guiding it like an arrow loosed from my bow.
It was mine, my weapon, my revenge.
Agony ripped through me, and my vision blackened for a second as I funneled my strength into the chain and the bolt.
Just a little longer. I just had to hold it a little bit longer.
It drove home, and I pushed the last of my power into it. Explode.
The crossbow carriage detonated in a spray of wood and metal, filling the air with screams. Yet my power didn’t cut off.
Ice scorched through my veins, and my back arched as magic poured freely out of me as hundreds of connections flared.
Explosions spread through the camp, and Valen let out a deep, rolling rumble of approval.
We did it. Then something snapped in my chest, and stabbing pain knifed me as the flow of my magic cut off.
The chains around me loosened. I barely noticed. As suddenly as the pain struck, it vanished. The cold and the ache in my legs, gone. I grew numb, and a deep calm settled over me.
I caught fragments below. Gregoire and his soldiers. The sun cresting the horizon. Bloody bodies everywhere. The beasts. The smoke rising. Sarkis’s army was destroyed.
They wouldn’t hurt Valen now.
A breath left me, almost a laugh. It was such a strange thought. Why did that matter so much? Why did he matter so much?
The lifeless chains around me slipped away like silk. Valen’s head whipped around, panic blazing in his eyes.
I smiled weakly back at him. “We did it—”
The world tilted, sky replacing earth.
I was tumbling. A star burning toward earth.
I tried to cry out to Valen, but his beautiful name died on my tongue. Wind buffeted my body, but there was no cold, no pain. Not anymore.
My body lurched. Then darkness swallowed me whole.