80. Daughter of the Sea
Chapter 80
Daughter of the Sea
22 nd Day of the Blood Moon
Firnin Mountains – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Coren twisted to avoid the thrust of a Lorian blade, grabbed the man’s wrist, then drove her own sword into his throat, blood sluicing as she ripped it free. She let the body drop, carving a path through six more of the leather-clad soldiers, opening their throats and bellies with clean strokes.
The bastards had found a way in through one of the scout tunnels. She had sealed each of the tunnels with the Spark herself two nights before – all but the sally port. She’d also set guards along the various mountain paths, but it clearly hadn’t been enough.
Coren turned back and charged towards the tunnel mouth as more Lorians flooded through.
An arrow flashed past her and dropped the first man, a second hitting the floor just as fast. She lunged as more rushed through, turning the first swing of Lorian steel to her left, then bringing her blade across and opening the throat of a second soldier before driving it back and through the throat of the first.
She let go of the hilt and leapt backwards as a downstroke threatened to relieve her of her arms. Coren drove her back heel into the dirt, slid a knife from her belt, and rammed it up between the ribs of the woman who had swung the blade. She twisted the hilt, angling it upwards, before ripping it out, flipping into reverse grip, and driving it into the woman’s neck.
The body dropped, and two more arrows flitted past in quick succession. Two more Lorians dead.
Coren pulled her sword from the corpse she’d left it in and carved a path to the tunnel mouth. These Lorians were green as newly ripened fruit. They were clumsy, hesitant, and fought as individuals. She felt guilt at the thought of slaughtering so many who were so young, men and women dying in a war that had started before their grandparents had been born. But that guilt did not extend to the blade in her hand.
She dropped low and sliced a furrow along the thigh of the nearest soldier. He screamed and fell, his lifesblood pouring into the rock as Coren moved past and opened another soldier’s chest from clavicle to hip.
A soldier roared and charged at Coren, swinging a two-handed blade over his head. Coren stopped the sword mid-swing with a thread of Air, and as the shock spread across the man’s face, she jabbed her blade into his neck, just enough to slice through the flesh and into the spine, then pulled it free.
The soldier choked on his own blood, dropping his blade and grasping at his throat. Coren stepped over him and stared into the tunnel mouth. The thing was black with shifting bodies, only the thinnest strands of light piercing through, voices and crunching dirt echoing.
She gave a soft sigh, then pulled threads of Earth into herself and spread them through the rock above the tunnel.
She felt mages within probing at her threads. That must have been how they’d gained entry, by searching for hollow points in the rock with the Spark. It was a clever tactic, but they were too late now. As they tried to sever her threads, Coren pulled on the elemental strand of Fire in her mind, its warmth filling her bones and sweeping over her skin.
Aldryn pushed his strength into hers as his mighty wings bore him across the sky. While the mages attempted to stop the tunnel from collapsing on top of them, Coren unleashed a plume of blazing fire from her hand, her heart bleeding just a little as the screams pierced her ears and the smell of burning flesh and leather filled her nostrils.
Those screams were soon swallowed by the crashing rocks as the tunnel’s ceiling broke and the burning Lorians within were crushed.
She turned back and strode towards Suka, who stood on the other side of the chamber, pulling a knife from the last Lorian. As the guilt of snuffing out so many lives at once crept into her veins, she pushed it down and buried it deep. Her master had always told her to hold on to that guilt, lest it be lost, and that was what she had always tried to do. She let it in, then cut it down. These soldiers had come for the people she loved, and so they would die or she would die. There was no middle ground.
“We need to make sure Farwen and the others have a clear path back towards the sally port in case the gates fall. Take these warriors to the other tunnels and set defensive lines. We can’t allow them to get in behind us. I will hunt down any still alive within and make my way back to the gates.”
Suka wiped the blood from her knife and sprinted off down one of the interior tunnels, taking fifty or so with her.
Coren set off through the same tunnel but turned right where Suka had turned left. She gathered any and all souls she could as she passed. They moved from one tunnel to another, through the interconnecting chambers, following the shouts and sounds of crashing steel until they came to the common quarter, a massive cavern ringed with terraces that were split by Spark-carved steps. Buildings of brown stone littered the cavern, and a central plaza dominated the bottom level. Lorians had swarmed in from a different tunnel and were now slaughtering everything that moved. Man, woman, child, it didn’t matter. For a moment, Coren was horrified at the butchery, but then she saw glowing red gemstones that hung from mages’ necks, and her mind flickered back to the carnage the night Ilnaen fell.
Those gemstones twisted people, warped them into things they were not. And beneath the light of the Blood Moon, it seemed that gifted savagery was untethered. A strange sense of relief swept over her, for now there was nothing holding her back.
Coren sprinted forwards and leapt from the closest ledge. She drove her sword down into a Lorian mage’s back as she fell, releasing the hilt as her feet hit the ground and she rolled. Coren sprang up and wrapped threads of air around a spear that lay in the dirt, then whipped the weapon through the air, past herself, and into the chest of a Lorian soldier, pinning them to the rock wall.
She turned and planted her foot into another soldier’s chest, kicking him down into the plaza five terraces below. Arrows flitted past her head, slicing through the Lorian soldiers, but as Coren turned, two Battlemages appeared on the top terrace and unleashed pillars of fire down over a clutch of rebels.
“No!” Coren sprinted up the steps, snatching up a spear as she went.
The first Battlemage whirled threads of Fire and Spirit around himself, flames flickering in his palms. Coren hurled the spear, and as the man turned it to ash and cinders before it struck him, she pushed threads of Earth into his breastplate and crushed his ribs.
He dropped to his knees, coughing blood and choking.
Coren closed the distance between herself and the second mage in a heartbeat. A red glow emanated from beneath his breastplate.
She whipped a thread of Air into his right leg, bones snapping through flesh and blood spraying over the rock. As he dropped, howling, Coren reached out with threads of Earth and pulled shards of broken rock and stone into her fist, softening them with threads of Fire and forming them into a stone spear.
The Battlemage lifted his hand, the red gemstone glowing furiously beneath his breastplate. Before the man could take another breath, Coren drove the stone spear straight down into his open mouth, feeling the slightest resistance as it hit the back of his skull and burst out the other side. She released the spear and let the body fall.
Coren turned to find herself staring at a face she had once known, an Imperial Justicar by the name of Kalirist Mahkar. A red gemstone dangled from a chain around his neck, pulsing with a red glow, and something unseen wound around Coren, binding her tight.
Kalirist held out his sword so it pressed to the flesh of Coren’s neck. “Coren Valmar. I knew you weren’t dead. I’d heard tales.”
The steel stung as it pressed deeper, drawing blood.
“Do you know how many people died when you attacked Berona?” He scoffed, deep blue eyes staring into Coren’s. “You always thought yourself better, but you were only ever blind.” Kalirist’s lips curled at the edges, and the whites of his eyes took on a red hue. He drew back his sword. “Sleep well.”
Ella leapt through the portal that Una had opened, her hackles raised, the wolf howling in her blood. The chamber on the other side was all blood and steel and shouting. A tingling sensation ran up her spine, and she twisted at the waist, the wolf within demanding she do so. A sword sliced through the air where her abdomen had been, surprise painting the face of the Lorian soldier whose fingers were wrapped around the hilt.
The red mist fell over Ella’s vision, the wolf within her coming to the fore. But no longer were they two parts of a whole; they were one. She let the creature’s instincts take hold. She swept the Lorian aside with a ferocious backhand, her dark claws ripping through his leather helm as though it were mere paper.
Diango and Aneera rushed past her in their wolf forms, their eyes wild and claws rending whatever Lorian dared approach. Once more, a shiver ran down her spine, and she snapped her head around to find Fenryr holding a Lorian by the throat, the woman’s sword arm still stretched towards Ella.
Fenryr, all clad in black plate with pauldrons wrought into roaring wolfheads, tilted his head to the side as Faenir often did, then rammed his fist through the woman’s steel breastplate, obsidian claws breaking free of the flesh on her back. He tossed her to the ground, body still twitching, and proceeded to rip a Lorian Battlemage’s throat out with a single swipe.
As Kaygan, Boud, and the three Jotnar stepped through the portal, Ella scanned the chamber, trying to find some semblance of order within the chaos. That was when she saw Coren floating in the air, a Battlemage’s sword held to her neck, something almost imperceptible tangled around her. Only a faint shimmer let Ella know that some strange power held her friend, a distortion in the air where there should have been none. The wolf could smell it, feel it.
Ella did not need to utter so much as a whisper. Faenir bounded past her, his muscular legs launching him across the terraces with ease.
She broke into a run after him, the wolf growling within her, then skidded to a halt as a Lorian soldier leapt from the ledge to her right and came a heartbeat from cleaving her in two with a shimmering steel sword. She howled and thrust her left hand forwards, claws plunging into the man’s wrist, slicing tendon and flesh and scraping bone.
Ella drove the claws of her right hand up beneath his chin, watching his eyes roll into the back of his head. She ripped her claws free of the man’s skull, and the spray of blood that followed drove the wolf within her wild. Ella grabbed the back of the dying man’s head, pulled him closer, wrapped her jaws around his neck, and ripped out his throat.
She spat the hunk of flesh into the dirt, twisting in the same motion to bound up the steps.
Another soldier leapt at her but fell from the air with an arrow bursting into his eye, blood and fluid spraying. At the edge of her vision, she saw Therin nocking another arrow, having stepped through the portal with the Aetherdruid, Una, at his side.
Ella focused ahead to where Faenir had wrapped his jaws around the Battlemage’s head and Coren had dropped to her knees. Another Lorian blade came for Ella’s shoulder as she reached the terrace, but the wolf in her blood pushed her knee to the ground and the blade slid over her head. She sprang upwards, raking her claws across the soldier’s chest, then sweeping into a backhand that tore the man’s face to ribbons of flesh.
Faenir gave a terrible wrench of the Battlemage’s head, and Ella heard a bone snap and watched the man go limp.
Coren knelt before her, gasping for air as Faenir leapt past her and dragged another Lorian to the ground, tearing apart his breastplate as though it were made of clay.
Coren lifted her gaze, dark skin marred by dirt and blood. Ella gave a grim smile, opening her hand. “Try to keep up.”
“What are you doing here?” Coren asked, taking Ella’s arm and hauling herself upright. She glanced to where Faenir drained the last vestiges of life from the soldier behind her amidst a chorus of snapping and gurgling.
“You called. We answered,” Ella said, picking a piece of flesh from between her teeth with her tongue and spitting it onto the ground.
“But how?” Coren looked down to the lower terraces where the three Jotnar cut down any Lorians that crossed their paths, then took a step backwards as Aneera and Diango drew closer, hackles raised and teeth bared.
“The how of it is best explained another time,” Ella said, watching as Fenryr seized the last Lorian in the chamber. The god barely showed a semblance of effort as he grabbed the woman’s skull and ripped it free from her body, her dangling spine still tethered to its base. Part of Ella wanted to vomit at the sight, but the wolf in her howled with abandon, revelling in the spilt blood. She turned back to Coren, whose eyes were wide. “We’re here now. Tell us where you need us.”
“The Lorians have found their way inside. I’ve sent warriors to hold the other tunnels in case of further breaches. Farwen holds the main gates, but she won’t be able to do so for long,” Coren said, gesturing towards a large tunnel on the other side of the chamber. “I’d hoped we could hold them longer. If we can somehow stem the tide, there’s still a chance of holding Tarhelm while your brother breaks them outside.”
Kaygan appeared at Ella’s shoulder, Boud and Una beside him, both of their short swords wet with fresh-spilt blood. There wasn’t a bone in Ella’s body that trusted the kat god – or Una and Boud for that matter. She wasn’t sure if it was the wolf within her or just her own nature, but all of them set her hackles on end. They smelled of deception. In truth, the only one her wolf didn’t growl at was Tamzin.
“Ah,” Kaygan said, stepping past Ella and staring at Coren. “You are… fabulous. Another living nexus. So many paths. So many possibilities… It’s all coming together.”
Ella’s hackles rose once more, and Faenir turned, snapping and snarling as the god stared at Coren with an unsettling intensity. She stepped between the two, unflinching under Kaygan’s gaze. “Dream of harming her,” Ella said, the red mist descending over her vision, the wolf taking hold, “and I will know the taste of your heart.”
Faenir moved to Ella’s side, snarling, blood dripping from his jaws.
The god stared at her for a moment before his gaze softened and the tension evaporated from his muscles. “My, my, my. You truly are precisely what I had hoped you would be, Wolfchild.”
“Speak again, brother, and I will have your tongue.” Fenryr placed a hand on Kaygan’s shoulder, stepping past without so much as glancing at him. He looked to Coren. “It is an honour to make your acquaintance, Coren Valmar, Daughter of the Sea.”
Those words seemed to physically punch Coren in the gut. She stumbled backwards, staring at Fenryr as though she had seen a ghost in his eyes. “How did you…”
“She died with pride in her heart. You should know that. You were in her thoughts when her light faded.”
Coren’s jaw trembled, and she stared at Fenryr. “Kollna? How… She…” the woman stuttered, her words failing her. Ella had never seen Coren be anything but sure of herself. “What are you?”
“If we survive this, you will know more. But I thought you deserved to know this now. What is our next step?”
Coren stood in silence for a few moments, her eyes wide, blood dripping from the tip of her sword. “We…” She swallowed hard. “We need to get to Farwen and help her reinforce the gates. I’ve sent warriors to blockade any other potential entry points. The longer we can hold the gates, the more time we give Calen to break the army outside.”
Therin gave a sharp nod. “Then let’s go.”
Coren led the others through the maze-like tunnels of Tarhelm, gathering any scattered rebels as they went.
She couldn’t get that man’s words from her head. “Coren Valmar, Daughter of the Sea…You were in her thoughts when her light faded… She died with pride in her heart.”
Only Kollna had ever called her ‘Daughter of the Sea’ and only on the night her old master had died… the night Ilnaen fell. How did this man know her words? Words that had dragged up wounds she’d thought long healed.
A swelling, pulsing sorrow flowed through Aldryn and into Coren. The dragon’s heart ached, his wings feeling heavy, his soul bleeding at the memories of Kollna and Tinua – the only family they had ever known. So many nights had been spent wishing they had refused to leave their masters the night Ilnaen had fallen. That they should never have allowed it to be so, that they should have died that night, side by side with the ones they loved.
There are more we must protect now, my heart. That is what they would have wanted. You have waited long enough. It is time to rise so that others rise with us.
A fire burned in the dragon’s heart, an unquenchable fury that seeped into Coren, and Coren found herself feeling just a touch of sympathy for the Lorians at the gates. For centuries, Aldryn had remained hidden, moving from eyrie to eyrie, from Dracaldryr to Stormwatch, to the Burnt Lands, and so on, and so on. He had done so at Coren’s demand. She had refused to allow her soulkin to be ripped from the world like all the others.
“Our duty, above all else, is to our soulkin,” Kollna had told her.
He had waited while she had fought with his strength in her veins. She could survive moving through the shadows, she could go unnoticed and still make a difference – he could not. And so they had waited, and waited, and waited, and now the time was here. The time when Aldryn’s strength could make the difference, the time when the Dragonguard could not simply tear him from the skies.
She let her mind drift into his, feeling the powerful beats of his wings, the fire raging in his blood, the fury burning in his heart. All her doubts, all her fears and worries, melted away. Their purpose was singular: save as many lives as the gods would allow.
“There!” Ella called out as they exited a tunnel into the chamber that fronted the gates. Hundreds of rebels formed a shield wall, five rows deep, while more stood upon ledges higher up, arrows stacked in buckets, bows and javelins ready.
Farwen stood at the chamber’s centre, seven mages around her, the power of the Spark pulsing furiously in the air, threads of each elemental strand winding and twisting in a storm of power. Three bodies lay on the ground around Farwen, their eye sockets black and scorched.
Coren could see the threads smashing into the gates on the other side, see them seeping into the rock and the wood and the metal, attempting to twist and snap and crumble.
She moved to stand before Farwen, lowering her voice to a whisper so as to not break the elf’s concentration. “I’m here.”
Farwen’s eyes were closed, her jaw twitching with effort. “We won’t hold it long,” she said, voice trembling. “They’re using Blood Magic. We can’t see the threads.”
As Coren looked closer, she could see two of the mages wove threads of Spirit and Earth through their bodies and those of the others, fortifying their bones and hardening their flesh to keep the Blood Magic from tearing them apart.
“Calen is here, and he’s brought help. We?—”
An enormous explosion sounded deeper in the mountain, screams and shouts echoing.
“We shall go.” The one who spoke was the man Ella had threatened. The one who had stared into Coren’s eyes with those irises of blue-grey. Two others went with him, women, both looking sharp and dangerous.
Coren turned to Asius, Thacia, Moras, and Therin. “Will you lend your strength to the gates?”
“It would be our honour, sister,” Thacia said, her blood-red hair gleaming in the sunlight that shone down through the shafts carved into the mountain.
A sudden surge of the Spark erupted outside the gates, and the mountain itself seemed to shake, dust and debris breaking loose from the ceiling.
Therin leapt forwards and the power that flooded into him was like the light of the sun as he wove threads of Air and Spirit around himself, Ella, and Faenir.
A second explosion sounded, and the gates erupted inwards. Coren brought her hand to her face, opening herself to the Spark and erecting a ward around herself and anyone else she could reach – the Angan, Farwen, and a number of others. Stone dust filled the chamber, shards of wood and metal exploding inwards.
The mage nearest Coren ruptured in a cloud of blood and bone as a chunk of rock crashed down atop him. Another was skewered by a length of iron.
She stumbled forwards, thin strands of light spraying through the dust that filled the air. Screams and shouts rang out around her. She kicked something and looked down to see a woman’s severed torso, spine shattered, innards spilling into the dirt.
The floor was littered with bodies.
Coren coughed as she dragged in a breath of dust. She called out, “Farwen?”
“Here.” A hand pressed against the flat of Coren’s back, and she looked up into Farwen’s dark eyes, the panic in her heart settling.
More shapes appeared in the dust, gathering about her: Ella, Therin, Faenir, the man with the wolfhead pauldrons. Others appeared, men and women with shields and spears, blood clotting in the dirt that coated their skin.
Coren stood upright, placing a hand on Farwen’s shoulder. “We need to fall back.”
A chorus of chants and howls erupted, and a glowing red light carved through the dust-occluded air, joined by another, and another, until six shapes, illuminated by crimson runes, took form, each holding blood-red níthrals.
Arrows rained down from the ledges above, skittering harmlessly off silver armour.
The six warriors clad in rune-marked steel marched slowly into the chamber, crimson light swirling and flickering with the dust.
For a brief moment, there was silence, only dirt crunching beneath boots, and then the first of the warriors swung their crimson blade and carved a rising man in half with a single stroke, and the chamber descended into chaos. Lorian soldiers flooded in around the silver-clad warriors, hundreds of them.
Coren pulled on threads of each elemental strand and summoned her níthral in her fist, a spear that burned bright white. She grabbed Ella by the collar. “Take whoever you can and run. The sally port lies in a chamber behind the armoury, marked by a red stone. Go!”
Farwen stepped between them and pushed Coren towards the tunnel. “You go with her.”
“I’m not?—”
“You are whole, Coren. Aldryn needs you. Your fight is not over, but I am tired. Syndril calls to me.” She looked to Moras and Thacia, the two Jotnar Rakina stepping from the dust. “We will hold them here, and we will leave them bloody.”
Tears were already dripping from Coren’s nose and chin. She knew the look in Farwen’s eyes. Knew the acceptance and certainty for what it was. If they all stayed, they would all die. She grabbed the hair at the back of Farwen’s head and pulled them both together. “I could never have survived without you.”
“And I would never have wanted to without you.” Farwen pulled away. “You are the greatest soul I have ever known. Being near you has been my privilege. You are not alone anymore. Escape this place and fly beside him.”
“I was never alone,” Coren whispered.
“Neither was I.”
Coren wiped the tears from her cheeks and stood straight. She grasped Farwen’s forearm. “Die well, sister.”
The words brought a cracked smile to Farwen’s lips. She nodded, tears welling in her eyes. “Live better.”
With that, Farwen turned to face the monstrous steel-clad warriors, who were tearing a path through the surviving rebels, and the soldiers flowing through in their wake.
Both Thacia and Moras inclined their heads to Coren. But as Moras joined Farwen, Thacia paused and held Coren’s gaze.
“Aldryn lives?” There was no judgement in her eyes, though Coren would have held nothing against her for it. She and Farwen had not told a soul.
“He does.” Coren couldn’t help but allow the shame and guilt to seep into her voice. She had lied to the others all these years, shared their pain when she knew nothing of it.
“Keep him safe,” Thacia said. “I would give everything in this world to have Myrax by my side again. Now I will go to his instead. Tell Calen Bryer I am proud to have called him kin. And I am sorry for failing him.”
Thacia gave a slight bow and opened herself to the Spark, threads swirling around her as she charged into the fray.
Coren allowed herself a heartbeat to watch as her friends, her kin, fought to give her and the others time.
Dragonbound by fire, Broken by death. Here we wait. Here we rest. Until we are called to make whole what is half.
She grabbed Ella by the arm and pushed her towards the tunnel mouth. “Go!”
“But we can help, we can?—”
“Go, or they die for nothing! Tarhelm is lost. We must save as many as we can.”
“We can make a difference,” the man with wolfhead pauldrons said, his voice calm.
“Can you lay low ten thousand souls? Twenty? Thirty?”
He shook his head.
Ella stared at Coren, the gold in her eyes supplanted by a vivid blue for just a moment. She nodded and turned for the tunnel, shouting, “Fall back! With me!”
The Angan and the man with wolfhead pauldrons followed her, as did any warriors not embroiled in the fighting at the gates.
As Coren did the same, Asius came stumbling through suspended dust, a shard of wood the size of Coren’s arm sticking from his right shoulder, blood smeared across his chest.
She pushed him towards the tunnel and ran, calling out for the others to fall back.
Farwen sliced her blade across a Lorian throat, blood spilling, then dropped to one knee, spun, and cleaved a leg along the shin. The bone yielded to her elven steel, the soldier screaming as he hit the ground.
Dust still filled the air, constantly whipped about the chamber by threads of Air and Earth and stirred up by the unceasing slap of feet and dead bodies.
She got to her feet and carved a path towards the six warriors clad in silver steel. The glow of their níthrals and the runes in their armour shimmered in the dust, a beacon calling to her.
Farwen turned aside the swipe of a blade, then opened the wielder’s throat with a backswing, shouting to Thacia and Moras. “None of us fall to a níthral, no matter what, understood?”
Thacia moved past her, shards of broken earth swirling about the Jotnar. “Do what needs to be done, sister.”
Moras grabbed a Lorian mage’s throat and slammed them down against the ground, splitting their skull, bone and blood smearing the stone. Every soldier that dared come close was sent to Achyron’s halls as the three Rakina fought like demons.
The three of them fell upon the closest of the six rune-marked creatures. The monstrous warrior was almost as tall as Thacia and Moras and far broader with shoulders clad in silver plate.
Thacia blocked the first swing of the warrior’s níthral with a thread of Air, holding it in place. As she did, Moras formed a spear of stone in his hand, threads of Earth, Air, and Fire pulling the rubble from the ground. He drove the spear through the warrior’s chest, not letting up until it burst out the other side. And still the man did not fall.
This was no mortal creature.
The runes in its armour glowed with a furious light. It reached out a hand and pulled Moras through the air with threads unseen. The creature relinquished its níthral, only for Farwen to see the crimson light once again coming to life as it thrust its fist towards Moras’s chest.
Farwen surged forwards. She knew her blade had no chance of piercing the creature’s seamless armour, so instead she dropped it and grabbed hold of the creature’s arm and dragged it down, the crimson blade scorching into the stone below.
Holding the blade arm down, Farwen reached within herself and pushed threads of Earth and Fire into the stone below the creature’s feet. She moulded a spike as fine as a needle and pulled it upwards with all her strength, letting it widen as it moved.
The spike ripped through the creature’s groin, into its stomach, then chest, before finally bursting out through that gleaming silver helmet, blood sluicing over the steel. Its arm went limp, and Farwen staggered backwards, the drain sapping the energy from her bones. She had already used so much holding the Lorians from the gates. The broken shards of her soul were aflame.
The rune-marked armour melted away, leaving the pale-skinned body of a young man, eyes black as a Fade’s, flesh marked by deep-gouged runes into which the metal flowed. These ‘things’ were human after all… and yet, they were not.
She turned her head to see Moras’s feet hitting the ground, her lips curling in a fragile smile. A crimson light shimmered and Moras’s head was cleaved from his shoulders, his soul shorn from the world. The Jotnar’s knees hit the ground, his skull a moment later, then his body collapsed.
One of the rune-marked creatures stood over Moras’s limp body, níthral blazing in its fist.
A roar sounded behind Farwen as Thacia threw herself at the creature. Threads of each element whirled around her, lightning crackling over her fists. The Jotnar slammed a fist into the creature’s side, sparks flying, energy pulsing. The impact sent a web of cracks through the pristine plate, and the creature staggered backwards. Thacia roared again, this time smashing her fist into the creature’s chest, sending more cracks shivering through the steel.
Farwen pushed down the pain that burned within her and joined Thacia. As the creature made to hack its níthral down into her collar, Farwen held its arm in place with threads of Air, fire igniting in her veins.
Thacia took advantage of the creature’s immobilisation to grab hold of its helmet and unleash a surge of lightning so powerful the force of it rippled through Farwen. The Jotnar roared as sparks flickered around her hands, blue and white light sparkling in the shifting dust.
Farwen held the creature in place, her bones aching, soul screaming. Its silver helm began to glow a bright red. In a matter of moments, the helmet collapsed into globs of molten steel, smoke billowing into the air as the flesh beneath burned. And for the briefest of seconds, Farwen saw the soul beneath. It was a woman, her eyes deep and black, her face marked by runes. And then her flesh was slopping from her bones, lightning crackling, molten metal searing down to her bones.
She dropped to the ground, the armour already slithering back into the runes in her skin. A flash of motion signalled to Thacia’s left, and Farwen leapt forwards. She grabbed the shaft of the spear before it pierced Thacia’s back and drove the tip into the ground. Farwen threw her elbow back into the Lorian soldier’s nose, rewarded with a crunch and a burst of blood. She whipped the spear around, the steel tip carving through the soldier’s cheek and the bridge of his nose, his helmet lost somewhere in the chaos. As he flailed, Farwen stabbed the spear into his throat and turned back.
She pressed her back to Thacia’s as more Lorian soldiers swarmed around them. Here and there, as the dust settled, she could see clutches of rebels holding their ground, shields and spears raised. But the Lorian numbers were too great, and the Battlemages simply carved paths before them, paths paved with blood and bone.
“Det er ata haydria na daui nai din siel, Farwen, davitir un Yanw?,” Thacia said, the power of the Spark pulsing from her.
It is an honour to die by your side, Farwen, daughter of Yanw?.
“Ar det harys von myialí na solian nai diar,” Farwen answered, gripping the spear shaft with both hands. “Draleid n’aldryr, myia yíar.”
And it has been mine to live by yours. Dragonbound by fire, my friend.
“Rakina nai dauva.”
The Lorian soldiers fell upon them like a flood. Farwen moved with every shred of strength in her body, twisting away from spear strikes and the swing of swords, pulling deeper and deeper on the Spark. Every second she lived was a second bought for Coren, for the one who had been her anchor, her pillar, her star. For the one who had pieced her soul back together when Syndril had been ripped from her. She owed Coren an eternity, but she could give her a few minutes. That would be enough. It had to be.
A burning sensation ignited in her side as a spear caught her, slicing through leather and flesh. She rammed the butt of her own spear into the wielder’s jaw and sent them sprawling before opening the throats of two others and jabbing the tip into the fallen man’s heart.
The drain pulled at her, and her legs begged her to stop, to lie down and die. She pulled the spear free of the man’s chest, only for a sword to arc downwards and carve through her left forearm. She roared and reeled backwards, attempting to move fingers that were no longer attached.
Farwen found the sword’s wielder and drove the spear through his cheek and up into his skull, yanking it free with her remaining hand and turning to call out for Thacia.
The Jotnar knelt in the dirt, two spears through her gut, one in her leg.
One of those silver-clad monsters stood over her, Soulblade igniting, arm poised to strike.
“I denír vi?l ar altinua,” Farwen whispered. In this life and always . She pulled her arm back and launched the spear.
And for a brief moment, when the spearhead sliced into Thacia’s back and then her heart, Farwen felt a shred of peace within her. The Jotnar collapsed on her side before the creature’s níthral fell. Thacia would find warmth in Myrax’s soul once more. That was the smallest of gifts Farwen could give her.
Farwen let out a grunt as pain flared through her, and she looked down to see the tip of a spear jutting from her belly. She dropped to her knees, drawing in rasping breaths. She closed her eyes and opened herself fully to the Spark, drawing more than she ever had in her existence. Her blood ignited, her bones screaming in agony as the power of the Spark flowed through her like lightning. And still she drew more. Her soul was broken and shattered. She was half of what she had ever been. But she was still a Draleid, and she would give everything she had left.
A dull pain throbbed in her back, more steel piercing her flesh.
As she pulled on each elemental strand, as the raw energy of the Spark burned through her and her eyes filled with a white light, Farwen heard a dragon’s roar. It was a beautiful thing, as it always was.
She heard Syndril calling to her, felt his strength in her sundered soul. A dragon did not die quietly, and neither would she.
“La?l sanyin det panthar mír tiélahar,” Farwen whispered. I’m sorry it took me so long.
Syndril roared in her mind, and Farwen gave one last push. The Spark burned through her, erupting in a blinding light. Every moment was pain and agony, and she cared little. The ground shook beneath her, and screams rang out in the periphery of her mind.
And finally, she rested.