CHAPTER 24 #3
I can hear the fire begin to crack in the mouth of the dragon. Sizzling heat expands in the air around me, almost suffocating me. My eyes open, accepting my fate at last as I see the fire flicker inside the mouth of the dragon.
“No!”
I glance over my shoulder, watching Koen fall to his knees as he grips the ground.
His knuckles are bloody and bruised as the ground beneath him seeps through his fingers.
But I lock onto my favorite thing about him—his emerald eyes.
His beautiful emerald eyes, with kisses of golden flecks, widen as he watches.
I am grateful for the chance to gaze into his eyes one final time.
I don’t fear the man he thinks he is.
I fear the thought of never truly having him because we both won’t allow us to.
His veins bulge in his neck, pulsing with rage and fear. A tear escapes his eye, tracing a path down his face, gliding over his bottom lip before falling to his chin. I can hardly grasp the sight before me. A tear… shed for me.
“Gods, don’t take her!” Koen screams, begging to the sky above us.
But it's no use. The Gods won’t save me here.
The Gods know I am not from here. They don’t listen to my cries, my begging.
Flames engulf me, surrounding my sight with their fiery, red glow, making the view of Koen impossible to see. The crackling fire fills the air, scorching it as my skin feels the rising heat. This is it. My death.
“Fight it!” Fingers stretch through the flames that scorch the air around me, an arm reaching into my burning death.
As my arm stretches, I catch sight of my bare arm starting to scorch, charcoal flakes floating around like a violent tornado.
But that’s when I see the markings along the wrist—the language of the flames he once showed me—and I know, Koen is burning alive just to save me.
“Koen, no!” I scream at the top of my lungs. My head burns not only from the fire that suffocates me, but from running out of air as I yell out to him.
His arm forces through the fire, and my fingers reach out to touch his. If only I can feel his skin, one last time, death won’t be so bad.
“Please don’t leave me!”
But as I go to say my last words to him, his arm vanishes as the fire thickens, consuming the air and land around me.
He tried. He was going to give up his own life just to save me. I can die knowing I saw the Koen that made my heart flutter each time his eyes locked on mine. Not the Koen who wanted me dead.
“You gave in so quickly.” A voice resounds around me, as if the fire is speaking to me. “I had thought the Scorching Queen would have put up a fight against a dragon?”
I lift my gaze from the ground, gradually, feeling the heat radiating off my body as I fall back into a normal temperature. But the fire circles around me, the dragon still scorching me.
“I’m sorry, what?” My breath hitches, sucking in the smoky air. “What the hell is happening?”
“We knew you would come, we’ve been waiting.”
The dragon's eyes beam a soft, silver hue through the fire that surrounds me. Its neck swivels as it studies me, watches me, waiting for me to respond. Am I talking to a damn dragon?
“It’s time, child. Are you ready to show the Realm who you are?” It lowers its head, the scales reflecting the raging blaze. I’m unsure how this beast is communicating with me as fire still breathes from its mouth. “The time has come—war is coming, we need you.”
“You don’t need me!” I scream out. “You don’t need me.”
“The Gods need you to be ready, let the stones guide you. Don’t fight it. Give into it.”
Knowing that is exactly what Florian told me to do, I clench my teeth, not understanding how any of this is possible. I should be burnt to ash, my bones the only remaining thing of me, yet I am not. Can they all see this as well?
Can Koen see that I am not dead?
“I will find you again, when the time is right.” The eyes of the dragon close before reopening. “This will hurt.”
“What will hurt!” I bellow out from the depths of my stomach.
And then it happens. The dragon sucks in air before letting out a blazing inferno of fire, soaring around me, scorching my skin but not burning me.
I wince, my skin prickling as it feels like lava being poured on me.
My arm aches from where the stone is, boiling as I tremble out to reach it, trying to do anything to take away the pain. But I can’t. Everything burns.
I hesitantly stare at my arm, seeing that my skin is no longer burnt, but glowing, and my loose strands whip at my face from the power of the scorching blaze.
I notice stones are rising from my skin.
The raven lines that were once under my arm rise up, soaking through my skin to become more visible to the eye.
My eyes widen as I hold in my breath, holding in the painful scream that wants to yell from within.
One stone, a soft emerald green, emerges from my arm right under the silverish white.
Then a sunkissed yellow, followed by a ruby red.
At last, a blood orange. Five stones. All of them, scorching the absolute hell out of my skin.
I fall to my knees, groaning in agony, my back flinching forward as I gasp for air. Ash flies around me, swirling with the strands of my hair, and fire embers dance across the gravel.
“You will know what to do, child.”
The edges of my eyes burn with tears, sucking in air that won’t come when finally, the fire is gone. The dragon before me falls to the ground with a powerful thud, rocks kicking up in the air with impact as hundreds of people scream at the top of their lungs in the arena.
“A dead dragon!” a man blares in the crowd. “She killed a dragon!”
I heave, catching sight of people running, shoving each other out of their seats, fleeing for their lives as the dragon from the Darklands blazes a forceful fire against the shield that protects those on the outside.
The shield begins to burn, scorching a hole right in the middle as the fire travels down like a dome over us.
The dragon snaps its gaze at me, its eyes of fire flickering with intensity before leaping outward.
Its wings gust wind downward at us, and it takes off, soaring in the sky as the archers try to kill it.
But they miss.
And the dragon vanishes.
My sluggish body falls to the ground, staring above at the golden hour glow that begins to darken. Fire embers flicker in the air overhead and through my blurred vision, Kaine and Theon come into view. Their heaves and gasps are muffled as they pick me up, but drop me just as fast.
“She’s burning!” Theon shouts over, both of their eyes glued to their palms.
Kaine gasps in pain, twisting his lips as he hisses. His hands tremble around me as his brows pull together tightly. “My palms are boiling!” He glances over to Theon. “How is this possible?”
“How can I help?” Another man who was in the games with a shaved head and a midnight-black goatee rushes over to help. I wince as I try to move, to beg him not to touch me.
“Don’t touch her!” Kaine warns, trying to stop him with his trembling hands.
But as he picks me up, I can hear his gasps and him clenching his teeth to force through the pain.
He grabs my hand, pulling my body around him. “I can help. I can take her to the healing corridors,” he grunts before falling to his knees and then… ash floats in the air before my back slams into the ground.
I hear the gasps of those around me as I dig my elbow into the gravel, forcing my trembling body off of the ground. The sounds of boots tripping over another and gravel breaking underfoot echo around us. My eyes trace those in the crowd who rush out, staring at me as if I am a monster.
I’m the monster, not the dragons.
“She burned that man to ash!” a woman cries in the arena, her words silencing the crowd and those who have survived the first round of the battle games. “Kill her!”