Chapter 55
Reyla
“You don’t know love,” I shouted. “Not the kind that not only fights to come back but chooses to stay.”
I flung up power, but it only partly blocked her blast. Stunned, I was thrown backward. I landed hard near the pool’s edge. The talisman lit from center to edge until it glowed like a second sun.
Farris yelped, choking on a growl that cut off too soon.
I dropped my forehead to the stone beside the pool.
“Help me,” I whispered. “Please, help me.”
The talisman didn’t answer in words, but it grew hotter. Blazed brighter than a thousand suns.
I closed my eyes and opened up every bit of myself, exposing every fear. Every hope. My love for Farris. For Lore. For the people who had fought beside me and broken so that something whole could remain in this world to make it better.
A roar erupted from deep inside me, bowing my back.
I thrust my hand up, lifting the talisman high.
“If giving away my love curses the world, then let it break,” I yelled. “Because I will not take back my love.”
Wind howled across the cavern.
Prager shrieked and lunged toward me, spewing a storm of curses.
“Reyla,” Lore cried, rushing my way.
The pool exploded with light, and power rushed over and through me.
My vision tore apart. Everything turned white, then shattered back into full color.
When my vision cleared, horror struck me. Farris was writhing on the stone, his form flickering like a candle in the wind. The blast hadn't stopped Prager—it had given her an opening.
Prager kept coming. Flames licked up her arms.
Farris let out one final howl.
Rising, I rushed to him, landing hard on my knees beside him. The talisman blistered my hand, but I held on. I tangled my fingers in his fur, but I couldn’t hold him back. He was being stolen bit by bit.
“Farris! “
His paws twitched, and he scrambled across the stone, trying to stay with me.
Shadows had gathered around the pool, along the edges of the cave, and even on the stone reaching into the ocean beyond the entrance. I'd never seen so many of them in one place.
A meaty growl echoed from the cave mouth, and the queen dragon stepped forward, her wings curling down onto her spine. Her silver-blue flame blasted in a roar that shook the cave.
The flames wrapped around Prager’s body, but she didn’t fall. She laughed, a sharp, awful, twisted sound that tore through me. The dragon fire peeled back. Red flared around Prager’s arms and chest as she fed on every shadow in the cavern, rebuilding herself with what she stole from them.
Her face started to knit back into that of the gorgeous woman who'd possessed Erisandra. Her body reshaped itself into the lush woman dressed in red who'd stood at King Tallin's side.
With each shadow she sucked into her maw, Prager grew prettier, deadlier.
“She’s feeding on them,” I breathed. “Sucking them in to remain alive.”
Each stolen shadow was a piece of someone's essence, their capacity for hope and love. She was literally consuming what made them whole.
Farris was barely here now.
“If she gets his shadow—” I couldn’t even finish the thought. I knew. That would be the end of my friend.
The talisman shook in my grip. Its light arced across my skin.
And the answer slammed through me. This wasn’t only about the Iskar Cor.
The final answer has been inside me all along. Seek within to find the parts of yourself that are missing. Fuse them to heal the wound that has long gaped wide. I'd thought the elder's prophecy referred to the talismans, but all this time, it was me.
All the pieces of myself I'd hidden, denied, buried—they were what needed fusing. Until I became whole, the Iskar Cor couldn't reach its full power.
It hadn't been waiting for the three pieces to unite, it had been waiting for me to stop fragmenting myself.
I tightened my grip around the Cor.
“I’m whole now,” I said. “And I will not let her win.”
Hands shaking, I gave everything I’d buried and refused to expose into the Cor.
All the times I’d smiled when I wanted to scream.
All the grief I swallowed so no one would worry.
Every inch of rage I wasn’t brave enough to show.
Each time I walked away when I wanted to stay.
Every goodbye I never healed from. Each scream I didn’t let out.
And every drop of love I thought I wasn’t allowed to give.
It surged out of me and into the Cor.
It was hungry.
I rose to my feet with my wrath churning through me.
Night slammed across the cave in a wave. The shadows swirled, circling the pool, the walls, and rising toward the ceiling.
They waited.
“Shadows.” My voice came from marrow deep. “Take back what she stole from you.”
The Iskar Cor wasn't only channeling my power, it was amplifying my connection to every shadow Prager had stolen. Each one recognized me as their path home.
They spun upward like wings unfolding.
These shadows carried echoes of magic and buried pain. They needed somewhere to belong. Prager had stolen that from them too.
As she barraged my friends, and as she tried to steal what was left of Farris, the shadows snapped through the air.
They roared over her. Through her.
She staggered backward, her arms lifting.
It was too late.
The Cor blazed into shards of every color, and the shadows surged around her, plucking away at what she'd stolen. Faint faces flickered in the air as they peeled out from inside her, finally wrenching free.
As they left her, she withered, twisting back into a caricature of what she used to be.
Her skin tore. The red blazing across her body cracked. Her perfect face melted to bone and ash.
She shrieked, clutching at the wisps of darkness and light she couldn’t catch. “No. No! You're mine.”
With a grunt, the queen dragon opened her jaws wide and breathed fire. It wrapped around Prager in an almost loving embrace.
The Cor heated in my hand, and I charged forward.
Her body had turned to fire and bone, cracking and curling in on itself. Bits of ash floated from her skin. She lifted terrified eyes my way, but I didn't think she feared the flames.
She was afraid of love.
Her horrified shriek pierced the cavern.
For one instant, we stared at each other. In her eyes, I saw not the monster she'd become, but the woman who'd been broken by forced love.
“This is mercy,” I whispered.
I shoved the Cor into her chest.
Light exploded from it, brighter than the moon and the stars and the sun combined. It didn’t burn, it cleansed, filling the cracks in the earth and sky and bones and memory.
Raw magic poured from her in a howl that nearly shattered me. She clutched my arms, but her fingers dissolved into light. Her scream twisted into the air and the wind consumed it.
A bang, and she exploded into ashes that sifted down the floor.
The Cor dropped to the ground, and I grabbed it, holding it tight in my hand.
Silence echoed in the cavern. The shadows that had once sustained Prager vanished along with her.
Prager was dead.
I stumbled, vaguely hearing Lore cry my name.
He caught me before I could slam into the rocks covering the cavern floor.
“I’ve got you,” he said by my ear, gathering me close. “I’ve got you.”
I tried to open my eyes, tried to speak, to tell him how much he meant to me. But everything was heavy, even the light.
Laphira’s voice floated over me. She pressed her hands to my belly and chest, and warmth flowed into me.
I blinked, barely.
Farris.
He lay beside me. Whole. No longer fading. But…
“Is he—” My voice gave out.
I felt the shift in Lore before he said anything. “He’s breathing.” A flash of his power, and Farris’s nose twitched. His tail flopped on the floor.
“Is it over?” I managed to whisper.
His arms tightened around me. “It is, Wildfire. The curse, Prager, all of it.”
I closed my eyes, finally allowing myself to believe. The Iskar Cor lay quiet in my hand, no longer burning. It felt…peaceful.
We were free.
Tears hit my face, though they weren't mine.
No, they were Lore’s.
And I hated that I'd hurt him again.