25. Chapter 25
AMARIA
Pyrrath folded his wings and dropped from the sky like a falling star. Bone and ember, ancient beyond measure, plummeting toward the first caravan with the weight of centuries behind him.
Pyrrath opened his jaws and the world became light.
Pure, blinding white—the color of the sun's core, the color of destruction so absolute it transcended heat and became something else entirely.
The fire hit the first caravan and the road turned to glass.
Stone liquefied, flowed like water, hardened into a smooth black mirror reflecting the inferno above it.
The carriages vaporized—one moment solid, the next simply gone.
The soldiers didn't scream. There wasn't time.
Pyrrath pulled up. Wings spread wide, blocking out the sun. Dreadscale sat motionless on his back, watching his work with the calm patience of a craftsman examining his art.
Smoke rose in thick columns, curling toward the clouds. Where the King's carriage had just been, there was nothing. No bodies. No wreckage. Just a smoking, mirrored crater and the settling silence of absolute annihilation.
We hovered. Watching. Waiting.
The smoke drifted. Nothing moved in the wreckage below.
My chest loosened. The breath I'd been holding escaped in a rush.
It's done. We did it. We actually did it.
Eryndor's face was slack with the same disbelief. His eyes found mine across the space between us.
It's over.
The King was dead. The harvest would stop. The Veil could heal.
We'd won. We could bond…
Eryndor's shoulders had dropped. The rigid set of his spine, the one he'd carried since the day I met him, was gone. He looked... lighter. Younger. Like someone had cut the strings holding him taut and he was finally allowed to breathe.
I was going to watch him sleep tonight. Not in a creepy way—just. I wanted to see it. Wanted to see him close his eyes without that furrow between his brows, without his hand reaching for a weapon, without jerking awake at shadows that wore his father's face.
Maybe we'd go back to that lake. The one I'd tried to run to before the tether snapped us together like idiots. Maxx would make it weird. Serenya would document the whole thing in that godsdamned Codex.
We could have that now. Stupid, ordinary moments. Before we had to sacrifice ourselves for the Veil anyway. Maybe a nice week-long vacation first.
My eyes burned. I blinked it back.
Don't you dare cry. Not yet. Save it for when Serenya remembers your name.
The smoke began to clear.
Wind swept through the valley, pulling the black columns apart, revealing the devastation below. The glassed road. The scorched earth. The perfect circle of destruction where nothing should remain.
But something moved.
A figure. In the center of the crater. Standing.
No.
The smoke parted further. Details emerged through the haze.
Blackened skin. Cracked like dried mud, fissures running across his face, his arms, his chest. Clothing burned away. Body ruined beyond recognition.
And then—
A sound. Wet. Organic. Like meat being dragged across stone.
The cracks in its skin began to close. Muscle rebuilt over bone with a sound like tearing fabric in reverse.
Flesh crawled back into place, pink and raw and glistening, and I could hear it—the wet click of sinew reattaching, the soft pop of joints resocketing, a sound that shouldn't exist. My stomach heaved.
His face reformed. Feature by feature. The nose. The jaw. The eyes.
The King looked up at us.
His voice carried through the smoke. Clear. Amused.
"Is that all?" He smiled.
Behind me, Eryndor's hands gripped my waist hard enough to bruise. He let out a ragged breath, the sound entirely stripped of the CrownForged's iron control.
He knew that smile. He'd grown up under that smile. It was the smile his father wore every time he proved that resistance was futile. Every time he broke something Eryndor loved just to show he could.
The patience of a male who had been waiting. Who wanted us to try. Who wanted to see the hope on our faces so he could watch it die.
The King spread his arms wide. His skin finished healing—smooth now, unmarked, as though the fire had never touched him.
Dreadscale pulled Pyrrath up hard.
The colossal dragon's wings beat once, twice, holding them steady above the crater. I twisted on Umbra's back to look at him.
His face had changed.
In all the time I'd known Dreadscale I had never seen fear on him. Not once. He was the immovable center. The anchor. The one who saw everything and flinched at nothing.
He was afraid now.
"Dragonborn," he whispered.
"What?" Maxx's voice, tight with panic.
"The King is Dragonborn." Dreadscale's jaw worked. "Dragon fire can't kill our own. It's not a matter of strength or heat or—the fire is literally incapable of destroying dragonborn flesh."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"We could hit him a thousand times," Dreadscale continued. "Ten thousand. He would stand up every time. It’s the regeneration that makes us nearly indestructible—he has it. He's had centuries to weaponize it."
Below us, the King waited. Patient. Smiling.
Dreadscale stared down at him. At the creature wearing his own invincibility like armor.
"I am useless here." The admission seemed to cost him something vital. "We cannot touch him."
The most powerful weapon we had. The heavy artillery. The Dragonborn warrior who had burned a princess to ash on her own dais.
Nullified. In an instant.
The Fury ignited into an inferno—roaring up through my ribs, flooding my veins, painting the edges of my vision red.
That smile. That godsdamned smile on the face of the male who had tortured my brother, who had bound Eryndor with Oath-stone, who had fed villages to the void to fuel his own immortality.
"Then we go down." I growled. "Dragon fire can't kill him. Fine. Let's see how he handles blades and teeth."
"Amaria—" Eryndor started.
"He's one male." I was already urging Umbra into a dive. "One male against five warriors and three dragons. Who have teeth as well as flame. Eryndor knows his fighting style. My Fury is burning hot enough to melt steel. We hit him together, we hit him fast, we don't stop until he stops getting up."
I gave the silent command, and Umbra answered with a bone-rattling roar. We tore out of the sky and plummeted toward the King.