Chapter 34 #2
Trella caught a draft and leveled into a glide, rain sheeting off her feathers. No razorwings in sight. For now.
Below, the Blackreach churned. Across the western inlet, Vesryn and the rangers swept low above the water. Fire and lightning crashed into the enemy fleet. Sails charred and hulls blackened, the sea turning to smoke.
“Vesryn won’t be able to hold the line if Rimeclaw joins the battle,” Aesar said quietly.
“Go,” Lykor ordered Zaeryn. “Take Trella. Aid the prince. He’ll need your fire.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but his glare severed her words before they could form. He’d brought her into this carnage, but perhaps she and Trella could survive it.
Already, the dragon barreled through the Maw like a living siege, closing on the divide where the Blackreach rammed into the mountain’s northern rise. Sunfire still burned from the peak, the storm focusing its fury on the summit.
Lykor refused to follow the thought that came next, the shape of dread uncoiling. Whether Serenna was failing or prevailing, he couldn’t afford to know.
Wrenching himself free from the saddle, Lykor warped. The world folded, then spat him out clear across the Maw, above the dragon’s descent.
Flaring his wings wide, Lykor snagged the wind just as Rimeclaw thundered beneath him. The wake tore the sky apart—currents rupturing, air spinning, rain slicing sideways.
This was his fault. Rimeclaw existed in torment because Lykor had stayed his hand. Had spared the beast when killing would have been the kinder act. He’d mistaken mercy for grace, and now the world bore the cost.
And yet, a part of him still wanted the dragon to remember what it meant to fly without the noose. Whatever magic bound Rimeclaw through the Heart of Stars—whatever collar Galeryn gripped—wasn’t absolute.
Lykor knew something in the dragon fought against it. A sliver of self, an ember of choice smoldering in the dark. He gambled everything on that ember.
He hadn’t come to slay the beast. If he even could. He only needed to hold Rimeclaw’s gaze and keep him away from the summit. Away from the others. If the dragon still remembered choice, could fight for a breath, that had to be enough.
Aesar braced. “Let’s hope.”
Lykor hauled on the pressure in his chest. Rimeclaw’s gift rose like a tide. Ice crackled across his scales, plating his limbs in frost until he gleamed like a shard of the storm itself.
Then he snapped his wings shut and dove, racing headlong into the dragon’s path. Lightning slashed around him, blinding trails cleaving the sky. Ice and hail battered his body, sleet scouring his vision.
He plunged faster, until the world became nothing but motion and blurred sound.
Closer now.
So close that when he swept the ridge of Rimeclaw’s spine, the dragon’s exhale seared the frost clean from his scales. Held in the stillness between gust and gale, Lykor rode the chaos in the leviathan’s wake. He skimmed the curve of his skull before dropping past the dragon’s snout.
Twisting midair, Lykor banked hard until the wind screamed along the membranes of his wings. He aligned himself squarely in Rimeclaw’s path, forcing the dragon’s gaze.
Crystalline eyes locked onto him, depthless as the void between stars. Fangs gnashed in a glacial crack as he thundered past, the roar that followed rupturing the sky. His voice echoed next, bludgeoning through Lykor’s mind.
“Flee, whelp. The chains still bind.
I’ll rip your wings and freeze you blind.”
Lykor didn’t answer. He only bared his teeth to the wind and veered from the dragon’s shadow, away from the summit where Jassyn stood—if he still stood—within the mountain’s heart.
Diving low across the lake, Lykor slammed into the shore. Rocks sprayed beneath his boots, stones tumbling into the black water. He lifted a hand, his breath spilling in a plume of white.
Ice answered, racing outward from his feet, seizing the shallows in a sweeping arc. Frost spread across half the Blackreach, freezing the lake toward the horizon. An invitation and a challenge, a place for the dragon to land. If Rimeclaw still possessed the will to choose it.
Overhead, the clouds bruised to black, lightning writhing in their depths. Rimeclaw wheeled through the storm, wings scything the air. Shards of ice peeled from his hide, spiraling downward like an avalanche in slow descent.
As Lykor waited, water and ice braided restlessly around his fists. He didn’t move as the air froze around him, snow sheeting sideways in the dragon’s approach.
When Rimeclaw landed, the earth heaved. His talons punched into the frozen lake, the impact reverberating through the ice. The shockwave cracked the air, deep and shuddering, an earthquake rolling through the bones of the world.
The ice shrieked and fissures veined outward, racing toward Lykor like faultlines ready to rupture. Power bled from the dragon, freezing the Blackreach from surface to silt, frost crawling beneath the ice.
Time held its breath as all sound died.
Then Rimeclaw lowered his massive head, eyes gleaming like shards carved from the Heart of Stars. His exhaled chuff tore past Lykor in a blast of heat, frost steaming from his hide.
“This wound is yours,” the dragon hissed, scorn scraping inside Lykor’s skull. “The tyrant plucks at my bones, and my claws obey. I begged you for peace so I would not become what he’s made me release.”
“You think I should end you now?” Lykor’s fingers twitched as frost crawled along his arms. “One merciful stroke to sever the leash? That’s not the fucking bargain we made.”
“Easy,” Aesar urged. “We’re not here to provoke him.”
Rimeclaw bared his fangs. “And if I slay everyone here? Freeze every scalebound to defend a fleet I never chose to protect?”
“You haven’t yet,” Lykor bit out.
He’d spared the dragon once out of mercy.
Now mercy felt like a blade turned inward.
This was the knife’s edge—belief balanced against ruin, restraint against war.
He could end it now, before the slaughter began.
But that would be Galaeryn’s victory, turning Lykor into the executioner of the very beast he’d sworn to free.
“I won’t cut your throat while you’re still shackled,” he growled. “You’ll get your choice, dragon. But only when your voice is your own again.”
“Your oath is ash.” Rimeclaw’s snarl split the air like breaking stone. “The tyrant breached my mind and knows Skylash is chained here. He bade me bring storm’s daughter, wrap my jaws around her thunder, and bear her across the sea like stolen spoils.”
His wings shuddered as frost bled to water, silver beads racing down his flanks. “Now I must unmake all who stand. Strike me down or blood will stain your hands.”
Before Lykor could draw breath to answer—or dread if Galaeryn knew of Cinderax—the sky convulsed.
Rimeclaw twisted with a growl as pressure plunged, a seismic rumble rising from the mountain’s heart. The column of sunfire unraveled, its glow devoured by the storm.
The summit detonated.
Lightning burst from the peak in every direction, a corona of sparks and crystal ripping the air apart. From the mountain’s shattered core, Skylash emerged.
Haloed in radiance, her sleek wings unfurled, membranes of deep amethyst stretching wide. Claiming the sky, she surged upward and climbed.
Sparks cascaded along her scales as she split the storm open, each beat of her wings cleaving the clouds. And when her jaws parted in another roar, lightning poured from her throat, feral and wild.
Lykor could only stare. They’d done it. Jassyn and Serenna had freed her.
Pride ignited in his chest, burning bright, only to gutter a moment later. Jassyn was still inside the mountain the dragon had just sundered, and Lykor had no idea if he’d survived.
As the sky split wider, the dragon’s rage ignited unchecked. Skylash’s magic thrummed through the Maw, every bolt of lightning bending to her call.
Lykor’s gaze snapped to the summit, where all of the druids’ fire died.
Figures tumbled from the rim. Those with wings dove to catch Daeryn’s warriors mid-fall.
Portals flared. Wraith warped. Those still standing braced against the gale, their ranks splintering beneath the tempest of Skylash’s ascent.
Rimeclaw tracked her rise into the clouds. His crystalline eyes pinned, scales tightening in a ripple that shuddered down his spine. Ice cracked beneath his weight when he lowered his head, claws gouging deep.
Then he charged.
An onslaught, each step thundered across the frozen water, geysers erupting in his wake. Ice shattered beneath him as his wings exploded open. Membranes flared like ragged sails with enough force to send Lykor stumbling.
Rimeclaw surged skyward in a brutal bound. Ice peeled from the shore. Great slabs sheared away as he rose, his wake twisting the clouds into a vortex of mist and frost. Titanic wingbeats hurled hail and rain into orbit, sculpting the storm.
Lykor’s heart hammered in time, snared between awe and horror. If Rimeclaw delivered Skylash to the king, Galaeryn would hold both storms, binding lightning and rain. The war would end in ice, the sky turned into a weapon. And it would be Lykor’s hand that had orchestrated the dragons’ fall.
Above, Skylash veered into a spiral, violet wings slicing the updrafts like twin blades. Sparks danced across her scales as she turned in a vicious arc, shooting toward Rimeclaw.
Their eyes locked across the churning sky. For one terrible beat the world went still.
Until Skylash roared with challenge.
Lightning speared from her jaws, jagged brilliance flung across the void. It struck Rimeclaw’s chest in a burst of blinding light. She wheeled hard, racing around him, slipping past before he could turn.
Rimeclaw snarled, wings thrashing in pursuit. But she was already behind him. Younger. Sleeker. Barely two-thirds his size, yet she flew like wrath unbound. Sparks streamed from her wings as she twisted through the clouds, faster than any predator had a right to be.
Another bolt fired from her throat—a taunt—slicing past Rimeclaw’s snout in a hiss of heat.
He bellowed in answer, ice erupting from his maw in a volley of frozen spears. But Skylash was gone before the shards could land, a dark blur swallowed by the clouds.
In the space between blinks, she plunged from above, a thunderbolt unleashed. Wings folded tight, body sheathed in crackling arcs. Faster than sound itself, she dove straight for Rimeclaw.
He pivoted too late.
Skylash struck, the talons at her wing tips slicing deep into his flank. Lightning detonated on impact, shockwaves rippling outward. The sky buckled as the storm shattered around them, ice raining down in razored sheets.
The blast of wind carved across Lykor’s face. His magic lurched in his chest like a beast straining to break free to join the battle. Dread seeped into him, cold as the surrounding ice. He wanted Rimeclaw to live, to taste freedom in the sky.
But the dragon was shackled to the fight, forced to war against Skylash even as she turned the storm against him. All Lykor could do was stand beneath them, a powerless witness to the ruin he’d released.
Though not everything slipped out of his control.
There were those he could still protect.
Jassyn came first, but he could at least ensure Cinderax escaped alive if Kaedryn hadn’t had the sense to flee with him.
That whelp wouldn’t survive a minute if either dragon turned their wrath his way.
And Lykor refused to grant the king further victories.
Baring his fangs, Lykor snapped his wings open and vaulted into the storm, racing toward the mountain.