12. Full Circle
Chapter 12
Full Circle
6 th Day of the Blood Moon
Elkenrim – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Claps of thunder rolled across the sky, flashes of lightning striking down over the mountains of Mar Dorul in the distance while Eltoar stood at the top of the hill overlooking Elkenrim.
A vivid hue of pink painted the skies above the city, the Blood Moon hidden behind a dense black cloud. Hundreds of lanterns marked the two walls that enclosed the inner sections of the city, and hundreds more spread through the homes and buildings that sprawled outwards. But those flickering flames paled in comparison to the ocean of lights that stretched across the landscape to the east and south.
Over the weeks, almost fifty thousand soldiers had amassed in Elkenrim’s surrounding areas, pulled from the west. Another twenty thousand held back at Merchant’s Reach, and fifty more at Catagan. Eltoar would have preferred all one hundred and twenty thousand be garrisoned at Elkenrim, but feeding that many mouths in one place was all but impossible, particularly amid the raging chaos that had consumed the continent. The Uraks had burned the fields and granaries south of Greenhills, and with the western cities razed by the elves, food was in short supply.
In truth, the empire was in tatters. Shipments from the South had stopped, merchants and traders dared not travel the roads, and without the iron from Dead Rock’s Hold, the armies would soon be fighting with sticks.
Worse, the elves knew precisely what was happening. After burning Steeple and Holm, they had halted their forward momentum, hiding in that wall of fog.
It was precisely what Eltoar himself would have done. The longer the Lorian armies were forced to remain encamped, the thinner the supplies would run, the deeper the fear would set. If it was left to a waiting game, the empire would crumble and wither while the elves walked over the ashes. The only saving grace was that elves were not known for their patience. They would not sit on their hands while honour and glory awaited them. It was not in their blood.
Eltoar drew a long breath of cold air into his lungs, looking up towards the Blood Moon that was now partially exposed through a gap in the cloud cover. Four hundred years had passed since he’d seen that moon, since the night he’d sacrificed everything.
The sound of soft footsteps drew Eltoar’s attention. Voranur approached, his blue and black robes flapping behind him. He inclined his head. “Eltoar.”
“Brother.” Eltoar looked to Voranur, but the elf strode past him and stopped only to stare out over the horizon. “Sleep evades you?”
“I evade it ,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.
“May I ask a question of the heart, old friend?” With Lyina and Pellenor – Heraya embrace him – Eltoar had grown accustomed to the human ways, but with Voranur he held to elven tradition.
Voranur nodded, the muscles in his neck tensing.
Eltoar took his place beside Voranur, both looking out over Elkenrim, the sea of lanterns, and the distant horizon. “How are you and Seleraine dealing with the loss of Jormun and Ilkya? Of Hrothmundar and Eríthan?”
“Not well.” A fleeting smile touched Voranur’s lips, as though he were trying to muster some semblance of joy, only to watch it melt away. “We had flown together for so long, to me they seemed as immutable as time itself. Their absence…”
“Is like missing a piece of yourself.”
Voranur nodded, turning his head just enough for Eltoar to see the light of the Blood Moon in his eyes. “I want to rip them apart, Eltoar.”
Eltoar didn’t have to ask to know Voranur spoke of Calen Bryer and Tivar. “Voranur?—”
“I want to tear them limb from limb.” He took a step closer. “Come with me. With Helios and Karakes beside Seleraine, we can set the whole Darkwood alight. We can burn them all.”
“If we leave, brother, the elves swallow this place whole. There are two hundred thousand souls within Elkenrim?—”
“Let them die!” Voranur shouted, veins bulging in his neck. A roar erupted in the sky, Seleraine mirroring her soulkin’s fury. The dragon burst from a bank of clouds overhead, blue scales glittering purple in the light of the moon. A heartbeat, and Helios emerged behind Seleraine, blotting out the moon’s light. The two dragons circled as Voranur’s chest heaved.
Voranur gestured down at the city below the hill. “Who are they? I don’t know them, don’t know their names or their faces, don’t know their hearts. Look at us, Eltoar. We are elves,” he grabbed at the tapered point of his left ear. “If we were not Draleid, these people would have slaughtered us centuries ago.”
“But we are Draleid, Voranur.” Eltoar grasped the collar of Voranur’s tunic, wrapping his fingers in the cotton. “And we made a vow to protect the people down there. To protect the people who need us.”
“You sound like the council.” Voranur sneered at Eltoar, lightning flashing in the sky behind him. “Like Alvira.”
Eltoar clenched his jaw, his fingers tightening around Voranur’s collar. The earth shook as Helios landed behind him, a deep rumble resonating in the dragon’s throat. Helios lowered his neck, looming over Eltoar, forelimbs pressing into the soil.
Seleraine dropped behind Voranur on the downward slope of the hill, talons holding her in place. She was half Helios’s size, but still an immense creature in her own right. The horns that framed her face were thick and sleek, the colour of deep ice, and angled outwards like the spikes of a morning star. Her muscles were lean and powerful, as quick as she was strong.
The two dragons towered over their soulkin, thunder rolling in the skies above. Eltoar could feel the rage smouldering in Helios’s chest, the dragon’s protective instincts taking hold. His fury would make the flames of Argona look like a campfire.
After a moment, Voranur rested his hand atop Eltoar’s – which still had hold of the elf’s collar – and shook his head. The tone of his voice was no less than a lament. “Uvrín mír, akar. Myia saleere tanathil mír.”
Forgive me, brother. My pain devours me.
The words rang in Eltoar’s ears, and he stared into Voranur’s eyes. Over the centuries, he had watched the elf grow darker, pull into himself.
Eltoar let go of Voranur’s collar and clasped his temples, pulling their heads together, then wrapped his arms around his kin. The two had never been close. Before The Fall, they had known each other only in passing, and since then, they had been bound by little more than their choices. But at that moment, Eltoar squeezed Voranur as though the elf was the dearest friend he had ever known. Eltoar squeezed him as though he were Alvira, as though he were Pellenor, as though he were everyone Eltoar had ever lost. There were so few of them left now, all they truly had was each other.
Voranur pulled away and turned back towards the city, Seleraine bowing her head and pressing the tip of her snout against his chest.
A crack of thunder opened the skies, and rain sheeted down over them, cold against Eltoar’s skin. He leaned back his head, letting the droplets crash against his face and soak into his clothes. A shadow spread across the ground before Eltoar, the rain abating as Helios’s wings unfurled to form a canopy. Helios stretched forward and nuzzled his head into Seleraine’s jaw, a low whine escaping his throat.
Eltoar brushed the wet hair from his face and made his way to Voranur, who dropped himself to the ground and looked out through the downpour.
Eltoar sighed and sat beside Voranur, the already sodden grass squelching beneath him.
They sat there in silence, the rain drumming against the two dragons’ scales and wings, thunder cracking overhead, lightning flashing across the horizon.
“I know what they became,” Voranur said, finally. “Jormun and Ilkya. I watched the darkness take them. But they were everything I had.”
“I know.” Eltoar leaned forwards, wrapping his arms around his knees, cold rain trickling down his cheeks. He understood Voranur’s pain. Losing Pellenor had set him in a dark place, but this wasn’t about him.
“I don’t regret what we did all those years ago.” Voranur sucked in his cheeks and shook his head. “The Order had run its course. It was rotten. But I do regret that we couldn’t show more of our brothers and sisters the light. I remember every face, the roar of every dragon. They haunt my sleep.” He wiped water from his eyes. “I wanted to create something better, something worth fighting for.”
The short laugh that Voranur choked out held as much joy as a funeral pyre. “Tell me, brother.” He turned his head from the horizon of sheeting rain and locked his gaze with Eltoar’s. “What is the point of tearing something down if what we build in its place is no better?”
Eltoar wished he had an answer, but the question was one he had wrestled with for a long time.
As they sat there, the words Tivar had spoken to him in the temple at Dracaldryr drifted thorough his mind. “I will not put another of our kind in the ground. I will not tear another soul in half. Not on the word of that monster you call a friend. That demon you brand an emperor.”
At first, when Voranur had told Eltoar and Lyina that Tivar had betrayed them, Eltoar had been furious. A rage had burned in him like little else he’d ever felt. She was the closest thing he had to a sister. Even after his brother had fallen, Eltoar had still loved her like family. She was family, if not by blood, then by bond. Her betrayal was a knife in his heart.
But slowly, the rage had faded to sorrow and eventually to understanding. Tivar had not betrayed him. She had simply done what her heart required of her. Calen Bryer and his soulkin were the only thing that stood between their kind and extinction. She had always been a protector, always been driven by the need to help others. That was her way.
“Eltoar! Voranur!” Lyina’s voice broke the monotony of the rainfall.
Both Voranur and Eltoar glanced at each other, then rose.
Lyina marched towards them in her full white plate, dark blonde hair tacked to her face, rain rolling over her skin.
“This was in the tent when I returned from patrol.” Lyina lifted a sheet of parchment as she stepped beneath the canopy of Helios’s wings. Her eyes were dark, brow furrowed, rage etched into the lines of her face. She shoved the parchment into Eltoar’s hand.
“They want to meet,” she said through gritted teeth. “By the old temple on the hill to the east.”
“The temple to Elyara?” Voranur leaned across Eltoar, reading the letter.
Eltoar,
It is time we talked. Meet us by the temple of The Maiden atop Darnírin’s Hill.
We will wait.
Salara
“Salara Ithan…” Eltoar stared at the name, his finger brushing over the ink. That was not a name Eltoar had expected to see. “It can’t be. She wasn’t at the Three Sisters. She…”
“Whether it’s her or not, we need to go.” Rage simmered in Lyina’s voice.
Eltoar swallowed, a knot forming in his throat.
“Lyina is right. We must go.” Voranur crossed his arms, staring down at the letter in Eltoar’s hands. “Whatever the outcome, they are the last of us.”
Eltoar nodded, lifting his gaze at the sound of wingbeats. Karakes soared over the treeline behind the command tent at the bottom of the hill, alighting behind Helios, rain splashing off his scales.
“We will go.” Eltoar folded the paper, keeping it in his hand. “Voranur and I.”
“What?” Lyina rounded on Eltoar, her stare hard and cold.
“Sister.” Eltoar made to rest his hands on her shoulder, but she swatted them away.
“Don’t treat me like a child, Eltoar. I don’t have the patience for it.”
He took a breath, then looked to Voranur and back. He would give her honesty, as he always had. “You are not ready, Lyina.”
“Not ready?”
“The elven Draleid killed Pellenor.” Eltoar’s stomach turned as he spoke. But still, he pressed onwards. He found no joy in twisting the knife in Lyina’s heart, but he did what he needed to do. “They ripped Meranta’s wing from her body, tore out her chest, and snapped her neck.”
Lyina’s eyes widened, her mouth opening. She staggered backward as though Eltoar had punched her in the gut.
“They took him,” she whispered. “He was good.” She clenched her jaw, muscles twitching “And they took him.”
“They did, and you would kill them all if you had the chance.”
“You wouldn’t?” Lyina stepped closer to Eltoar, tilting her head as she stared into his eyes. The next words were not a question. “You wouldn’t.”
Eltoar shook his head.
“He was our brother, Eltoar. He was better than me and he was certainly better than you.” Tears mixed with rain on Lyina’s cheeks. She shoved Eltoar, her gauntleted hand slamming into his chest. “Did you not love him? Do you not feel his absence like I do? Am I mad, or are you cold and heartless?” She shoved him again. “Answer me!”
“Of course I loved him,” Eltoar said calmly. “But he is gone.”
“And they took him from us.”
“And we took more from them. How many of their loved ones did we kill that night? And in the years following ‘The Fall’? If you ask them, I’d wager they think the scales are far from balanced.” Eltoar shoved the folded letter into his wet pocket, then pushed Lyina’s hands aside and cupped her cheeks. “I will feel Pellenor’s absence until the day Heraya takes me from the world. He was my brother, and I loved him. But hearts grieve differently. Yours needs to bleed, needs to rage and weep so it can heal. Mine needs to push forward, lest it will break.”
As Eltoar spoke the words, Helios’s mind brushed against his, warmth flooding from the dragon’s soul. Their hearts broke together, their wounds both doubled and shared.
Lyina held Eltoar’s gaze, then brought her left hand up to rest it atop his. She didn’t speak; words would have held no meaning.
“Vir v?ra v?na aier andin,” Eltoar whispered. “Nur anis, aiar alura.”
We will see them again. For now, they rest.
Lyina nodded softly. “You and Voranur go. You’re right. I would kill them before they opened their mouths.” She brought Eltoar’s hands down and pulled away. “What if it’s a trap? What if they’re trying to draw you out?”
“I wish luck to anyone trying to trap him.” Voranur looked up at the towering figure of Helios.
The great dragon shifted, and the rain broke through, drumming the ground and splattering against Eltoar’s face as he looked up at his soulkin.
Helios stood over them all. The endless rain drummed against enormous wings, crimson moonlight glinting off the ocean of black scales that flowed over his body. He craned his head down so Eltoar could rest a hand against his snout. “Let them try.”
The rain fell heavier as Eltoar and Voranur flew towards the old temple that stood atop Darnírin’s Hill, some fifty miles east of Elkenrim. So heavy in fact, and Helios moving with such speed, that Eltoar had pressed himself against the dragon’s scales, closing his eyes and allowing his mind to drift into Helios’s.
There was no greater existence. They were one. Soul, heart, blood, eyes, scales, limbs. Eltoar was nothing more than an extension of his soulkin, and Helios the same. Thunder rolled across the skies, a flash of lightning igniting behind a bank of dark clouds to Eltoar’s left. To his right, Voranur sat at the nape of Seleraine’s neck, white plate armour pressed against scales of deep blue.
It wasn’t long before the ruins of the old temple came into view a few miles ahead. But it wasn’t the ruins Helios focused on. It was the gargantuan shape beside them. The dragon stood twice as tall as the destroyed temple, easily larger than Karakes, with a thick neck and powerful wings.
Even from that distance Helios’s keen eyes could pick out the stunning red of the scales that covered the creature’s back and wings, along with the deep gold across his chest and speckled along his snout. Both Eltoar and Helios would have known that dragon anywhere, though he was far larger than when Eltoar had last laid eyes on him.
Vyrmír.
An elf stood at the dragon’s feet, golden armour and red cloth matching Vyrmír’s colouring.
Without a word, both Helios and Seleraine angled their wings and swept downwards, riding a gust of wind.
Screeches and roars rippled through the night, breaking the monotony of the wingbeats and rainfall. Through Helios’s eyes, dark shapes moved in the clouds, flashes of lightning illuminating winged shadows.
How many dragons had survived and stayed hidden within the bounds of Lynalion? Eltoar had pondered this in the years following the elves’ retreat into the woodland. But when decades passed and turned to centuries, he’d all but dismissed the thought. The fighting had been so thick in those last years, so many dragons and Draleid cut from the world. For so long he’d believed the Dragonguard were the last of The Bound.
Helios folded his enormous wings and plummeted towards the earth, wind crashing over his scales with the force of a broken dam. Had Eltoar not been pressed against the dragon’s neck, scales moulded to his body, he would have been ripped from dragonback. As it was, he drew a deep breath through his nostrils, filling them with the scents of turned mud and fresh rain as Helios alighted on the ground, his talons sinking into the earth beneath his weight.
It was in that moment, as Eltoar opened his eyes and lifted himself upright, that the eerie silence of the rainfall settled into him. Heavy rain had a strangeness about it, a way of evoking a sense of calm and stillness that pure silence could not emulate.
He took a moment, staring up at the cloud-blanketed sky, the rain cold against his face. Whatever happened next, he would be glad of that moment.
With one last long breath, Eltoar wove threads of Air around himself and slid from Helios’s back, boots sinking into the sodden grass.
Seleraine alighted beside Helios, a crack of her great wings sending the rain swirling in spirals.
Voranur dismounted. “You saw the skies?”
Eltoar nodded.
“I counted seven.” Voranur looked to the clouds, then over towards the waiting Vyrmír and Salara. The dragon loomed over his Draleid, head lowered, eyes fixed on the new arrivals. “Eight. Are you ready for this?”
“No.”
“If it goes sideways?”
“Then we kill them.”
Eltoar turned and made his way across the grass towards Salara and Vyrmír, Helios following, Voranur and Seleraine at their side.
“It’s been a long time, Master.” Salara’s voice rang out, piercing the rainfall. She stepped forwards, her left hand resting on the pommel of the sword at her hip. She wore no helmet, her long black hair flattened against her head by the rain.
It was beyond strange to see her in the red and gold of Lunithír. When she had first come to Dracaldryr and held Vyrmír’s egg in the Cradle of Fire, she had been a fisherman’s daughter of no more than fourteen summers. From then on, the only armour she’d worn had been the white plate of the Draleid.
“It’s been even longer since you’ve called me by that title.”
“I’ve called you many things since then.”
The drum of rainfall filled the emptiness between them as Salara stared at Eltoar, the rise and fall of her chest slow and steady. She advanced until she stood only ten feet away, her hand never leaving her sword’s pommel. Vyrmír tensed, lowering his head, the red and gold frills on his neck standing on end, his monstrous teeth showing.
The dragon’s eyes were like those of a wolf, ever shifting molten gold. When he had first hatched for Salara, talk had spread through the entire Order that the most beautiful dragon the world had ever seen had just been given life. Now, seeing him fully grown, Eltoar knew that statement to be true.
“I would have thought you’d have more to say, Master.” She lingered on the word ‘master’. Salara tilted her head, her stare never leaving Eltoar’s. “It’s been a very long time, and when last we spoke, you tried to convince me to turn on my kin. You had a lot to say then.”
“I thought you were dead, Salara. If I’d known?—”
“You’d have come to kill me yourself?”
“No, I…”
“Stop with these games and get on with why you asked us here.” Voranur took a step closer but stumbled backwards as Vyrmír moved over Salara, threw his head forward, and unleashed a monstrous roar.
Both Helios and Seleraine shifted, lips curled back, teeth bared. If the three dragons fought, this entire valley would be nothing but dust and ash.
Eltoar made to speak, but before he could, roars blended with wingbeats and dragons burst through the dark storm clouds overhead. He counted seven, just as Voranur had. They swirled through the air, twisting and turning through the rain before crashing to the ground around Eltoar and the others, tearing up chunks of earth and clay as they landed.
He recognised a number from the Battle of the Three Sisters: the crimson-scaled dragon with scars along his wings where Helios had ripped him open, along with the three others with scales of purple, black, and blue.
Eltoar scanned the remaining dragons who had not fought at the Three Sisters. The first, he did not recognise. The second, larger than the first by some distance and covered by deep green scales accented with cream, was Dravír with his soulkin Irulaian. The third, with pale pink wings and dull yellow scales, was Andrax, soulkin of Lomari. Eltoar knew them well.
All seven of the surrounding dragons closed in, deep rumbles resonating from their chests, their soulkin sitting at the napes of their necks in golden plate.
Helios lunged forwards, the talons of his forelimbs digging deep into the ground on either side of Eltoar. The great dragon swung his neck side to side, unleashing a visceral roar, his rage flowing over Eltoar’s body.
The air shook and the earth trembled at the mighty dragon’s fury.
A flicker of hesitation swept through the others. None were a match for Helios in size or strength, not even close. If it came to it, with Seleraine at Helios’s side, the likelihood was that no soul would leave this place.
The only dragon to stand their ground was Vyrmír. The dragon leaned further over Salara, frills raising higher, lips pulled back, chest puffed out. At two-thirds Helios’s size, Vyrmír was the largest elven dragon. His muscles were thick and dense, his shoulders broad, his eyes fierce and unyielding.
Salara drew a breath, then moved to within arm’s reach of Eltoar, Vyrmír’s head moving with her, his eyes never leaving Helios.
“I didn’t bring you here to talk of the past. Let me make things clear for you.” She leaned closer, staring into Eltoar’s gaze. “You burned my world. You slaughtered those I held dear. You murdered my master and put a demon in his place. You are not Eltoar Daethana, though you may wear his skin. You are a pale imitation, a shadow, an empty shell. There is not a word you can say, not a thing you can do. Forgiveness is not within your reach.” Salara clenched her jaw. Even through the rain, Eltoar saw a tear fall, and what was left of his black heart broke. “I will kill you.” She shook her head, pressing her tongue against the inside of her bottom lip. “For everyone you turned your back on. For those you swore to protect. I will kill you, and I will bring our people into the light again.”
The rain fell harder, splashing in the puddles at Salara’s feet and rolling down her face.
“But not today, for I still hold to the honour that you cast aside. No, I will kill you in the skies on Helios’s back, with a sword in your hand. And I will look into your eyes when I do it. I will give you the death you did not give our brothers and sisters. Not because of who you are, but because of who I am.”
Eltoar stared back at Salara, at the elf he had known since she’d been but a child, the elf who had been like a daughter to him. When she had refused to fight by his side, he had bound both her and Vyrmír and left them on Driftstone so they would not fall on that first night and so that she might come to her senses. But when he had returned, they were both gone. He had heard reports of them after that but never again laid eyes on them. From the reports, they had died in the Battle of Andillar Hill.
As he looked upon her now, standing tall in her gleaming golden plate, the fierce lines of her face and fire in her voice, he held no anger at her words. Eltoar had not earned the right to anger. No, he was instead flush with pride. For it was every master’s dream that their pupil would one day be their better.
But with the pride came the shame. “Ask me what you called me here for.”
The tears in Salara’s eyes were gone, replaced by hardness. For a moment, Eltoar thought she would rethink everything she had said, but then she let out a breath and spoke. “We have heard word of a hatchling. Of a white dragon born to a human. Is it true?”
“It is.”
Salara’s eyes widened and she leaned forwards. “You’re sure?”
“I did not see the egg hatch myself, but?—”
“Then you’re not sure.”
“I fought them.” Voranur moved closer to Eltoar and Salara. “The dragon is too small to not have been hatched recently.”
Salara raised an eyebrow. With anyone else Eltoar would have thought the curl on her lips was a touch of amusement, but with Salara he knew it was fury bit back. She shifted her focus to Voranur. “So you bring our entire race to the edge of extinction, and then you to try to kill the first of us bound in four hundred years?” She narrowed her eyes. “You said you fought them, but you didn’t say you killed them. Did they kill any of you?”
Voranur’s jaw clenched.
“They did.” She gave a slight nod. “Good. Less work for us.”
“How dare you.” Voranur marched forwards, reaching for his blade. Eltoar cried out to him, but Voranur’s rage drowned out his words.
In the span of a second, everything shifted.
Seleraine roared and launched herself over Voranur at Salara. But the dragon never reached her target. In a display of speed and strength that would have been rare even in the old days, Vyrmír surged forwards and slammed into Seleraine’s chest. The earth shook as the dragon crashed to the ground in a writhing tumble and then again as Vyrmír landed atop her.
The red and gold dragon sank his talons into her chest and legs, scales cracking. As he made to wrap his jaws around Seleraine’s neck and rip out her throat, Helios spun, his tail slamming into Vyrmír with such force that the large dragon was knocked free of Seleraine and sent sprawling through the mud, the ground quaking.
Voranur howled and ran to his soulkin.
Pure, untempered fury surged through Eltoar from Helios, and the dragon hammered into Vyrmír, sending him careening back even further, wings tangling in themselves.
Three of the other elven dragons alighted beside Vyrmír, snapping and screeching at Helios, while the others lifted themselves into the air and circled.
Eltoar’s soulkin stood over Seleraine and unleashed a roar that shook through the earth, his crimson frills standing on end. Even outnumbering him four to one, the others hesitated. They were nothing but hatchlings in his shadow.
Eltoar rounded on Salara, who stood calmly with her hand resting on her sword pommel. “What happened to your honour ?”
“I think you’ll find he attacked me first, Master .” Again, she emphasised the word, seeming to find joy in repeating it. “It is not my fault if your traitors cannot control their tempers.”
Salara stared over at Voranur, a look of disgust on her face. He had dropped to the ground beside Seleraine, hands crimson with the blood flowing through the broken scales as he tried to offer comfort. From where Eltoar stood, Seleraine would live, but the wound was deep.
“I can put her out of her misery,” Salara said, motioning to draw her blade as Vyrmír rose behind her, shaking off mud and rain.
Eltoar opened himself to the Spark, pulling threads of all five elemental strands into his body, and summoned his níthral. Tendrils of piercing blue light burst from his hand, coiling around each other until the light-wrought greatsword was fully formed.
Vyrmír unleashed a mighty roar over Salara’s head, his frills shaking, his wings spreading wide.
Eltoar didn’t allow his gaze to shift from Salara even for a second. “Take another step, and your soul will wander the void until time breaks. Do not test me.”
Salara waved her blade at Eltoar in much the way a mother might wag a finger at a child. As she did, the three circling dragons dropped to the ground behind Helios, each roaring. The Spark thrummed in the air around the Draleid that sat astride the dragons. “Choose your next move carefully, Master. You might strike me down, but even the great Helios, the Black Sun, cannot stand against eight of his kin. I meant what I said. Today is not the day I kill you, not unless you force my hand.”
She turned her gaze from Voranur to Eltoar. “Do you know how hard it was for us to remain in Lynalion’s depths while you hunted your own kind like animals? Every passing day was agony. We are Draleid. It is not in our blood to stand by and do nothing, to let the world burn, to let the rivers run red. Each night I closed my eyes and lay there knowing that while I slept, you hunted my kin. We couldn’t take more of us in. Too many and you would have come looking. We needed you to think us dead. I hated myself for centuries while we waited and waited. If we emerged from Lynalion too early, it all would have been for nothing.”
“This isn’t the way, Salara.” Eltoar released his Soulblade, reaching out an open palm. “There are so few of us left.”
“Because of you!” Salara raised her sword at Eltoar, all semblance of calm vanishing. Vyrmír moved forwards, spittle flying as he roared like thunder, mirroring Salara’s movements. “I loved you. I worshipped you.” Her voice trembled, hand shaking as she held her blade. “And you brought us to this. You broke us. Why? Was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted?”
Eltoar once again found himself lost for words.
“I told myself I wouldn’t let you in. Told myself you would hold no sway over me, that I would be steel. But even after all this time, you still make me feel like a child.” She drew a breath, a steadiness returning to her voice. “It’s time you leave. From this day on, you will know what it is like to be hunted. I will kill you all, one by one, and I will burn your empire to the ground.”
Eltoar touched his hand to his breastplate, sensing the gemstone that hung around his neck beneath the steel. It had been a lifetime since he had tapped into Essence, since he had felt its power coursing through his veins. If he called on that power now, he could end everything there and then. None of them would leave this place alive. But as he stared at Salara, Tivar’s words from the temple at Dracaldryr spoke to him.
“He manipulates us, Eltoar. Can you not see it? Can you not feel how that stone twists and turns you? How it seeps into your mind.”
Eltoar had felt it… felt Efialtír’s touch stoking his fury, feeding his blood lust.
He looked around, seeing the elven dragons surround Helios, their frills raised, muscles tensed.
He rested his palm against the cold white steel of his breastplate, feeling the Essence pulse. All power came with a price, and Essence was no different.
“Do it.” Salara’s voice cut through the haze of Eltoar’s focus. “Call on your Blood Magic, just as you did back then. Your god’s moon hangs in the sky.” She gestured towards the crimson circle that had found a gap in the dark clouds. “But if you do, neither you nor your soulkin will leave this place. This earth will be your tomb, that much I promise you.”
Eltoar looked from Voranur to Seleraine and back to Salara. He could kill her, of that he had no doubt. But if he did, the others would fall on Helios and Seleraine in a heartbeat. They would never survive such an onslaught.
His mind flickered to Lyina, who waited at the camp near Elkenrim, her heart already broken from Pellenor. He could not leave her alone to face this storm. And then, there was the new Draleid: Calen Bryer. With his soulkin’s hatching, there was once again hope for the future, hope Eltoar had thought he’d all but destroyed… hope that needed to be protected.
Slowly, Eltoar pulled his hand from his breastplate and allowed the power of the Essence to fade from his mind. He took a step towards Salara, his gaze never leaving hers.
She didn’t move.
“You will know the pain soon.” Salara slid her blade into its scabbard, her stare unwavering. “Go, fly back to Lyina. Lick your wounds. And when I kill her and this traitor—” she gestured to Voranur, who was now coaxing Seleraine to her feet “—I will give you the courtesy you never gave me. I will let you mourn, let you weep. And then I will destroy this world you have stitched together from the carcass of the one you ripped apart. I will burn it to the ground, and I will kill everything and everyone your black heart still cares for.”
Eltoar stared into Salara’s eyes, then turned and walked towards Helios, the rain falling around him. Salara didn’t call after him, and neither did he speak. All the words worth saying had been spoken. She was right. Forgiveness was not within his reach. He didn’t deserve it, nor did he crave it. He had earned every word. He had made his choices, and he would face the consequences as he always had.
But that did not mean he would simply bend and break. Everything he had done had been to create a better world.
Maybe the world they had built was no better than what they had destroyed, but what was done was done. The old world was gone. But the elves had razed every city from Easterlock to Steeple. Half a million dead. Whether this world was better or not, he would not allow them to continue ripping it to pieces.