Chapter 38 Remember #4
She considered it now. She hated the King of Lamar.
If he had it his way, he’d continue the war even if it didn’t need to be fought, paying his Paragons to be actors in a grand show to the rest of the world.
Her cousin, King Greggor of Skol, was no better.
He used his armies and Paragons to fight to the death for his profit while others in the North suffered.
And Barrik knew. Barrik didn’t try to change or stop it as Lark had.
Barrik was the corruption’s greatest champion.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You said you wanted to know why I betrayed you,” she replied.
“I saw why you betrayed me. You did it for the Morsythians. Do you know what they could do to us if they had that kind of power? That’s why we needed to control them.
We couldn’t beat the Morsythian if they gained dragonriders, just like we can’t beat the rimeshade and their corruptive influence,” he said.
“You can’t know that. Even if you did, what are you suggesting, that Skol either controls the world or join those who seek to dominate it?” Lark gawked.
“That’s the Nordraven way. You see that now, don’t you?”
“No. You’re wrong, Barrik. You’re wrong about everything.
I didn’t betray you for the Morsythians.
You saw it through my memories and you’re still wrong.
You’ve been wrong since the day you failed my father and betrayed your King’s wishes.
The day you allowed that backstabbing fraud you call a son to take my father’s throne.
” She was shouting now. Gaining more certainty on where she stood in this larger conflict.
“Enough!” he snapped, power coiling around him.
Lark felt a sense of calm washing over her. Whether it was the loss of blood, the blinding pain, or the crippling expenditure of energy she’d used, she felt euphoric. She started laughing and said, “Underneath it all, you’re a coward, Barrik.”
“Careful, Ella. Push me too far and I’ll do to you what I did your precious fire fae,” he said.
There was something familiar about the state of mind she’d passed into. Something that gave her strength and she realized something.
“You know, the thing about fire fae is, they’re just like the phoenix. They always rise from the ashes,” she said, drawing on a new sense of power.
Barrik backed away, Killaborden stooping his head alongside him. The dragon peered at her, his glossy white eyes like two clouded spheres of mystery. Lark saw the dragon anew with the foresight of her past, and she recognized him with shocking clarity.
It’s you, she projected to him, though Barrik had ahold of his mind through warging.
Lark turned to Barrik, and said, “Nix may be regenerating in the fae realm and my powers are weakened without her, but so are yours. You’ve been warging into two dragons all evening.
The unbonded was desperate to break free.
I can only imagine the toll it has taken on your powers in your attempt to control a much stronger dragon, like White Eye. ”
Barrik’s frustration flashed across his face.
He twitched, and for a second, the dragon she’d assumed was Killaborden changed slightly.
His eyes cleared for an instant, exposing the ring of gold around the white before Barrik took control again.
As he did, Lark felt the confirmation she’d already known after seeing her dragon through her memories.
Barrik hadn’t flown Killaborden to Red Lodge.
“Keeping White Eye hidden from me for this long must be wearing you down. You’re the strongest mage capable of warging in the North, but this time you’ve spread yourself too thin, Barrik. You can’t control the will of two dragons.”
Lark fully realized the sensation stirring in her bond.
The familiar warmth of power vibrating through the part of her that had been missing for so long.
A power thousands of times stronger than the thin line tying her to the fae realm.
She opened the flow of magic, the power of a god pulsing through her.
“Anak Nye.” She cast the spell with complete understanding. The power poured forth. Celestial light, bright white and pure, soared from her.
Barrik countered, funneling earth in to block it. Lark’s power peeled apart the shields Barrik offered. Stone overlapped itself but she pushed harder. Barrik’s shields fell faster than he could replace them. His legs shook from the effort to keep them coming.
“You can’t defeat me,” he said, dropping to a knee.
She pressed forward, her new sense of strength fading quickly. “You will never defeat me,” she forced out, vision blurring.
Lark forced more of herself into the spell, drawing on more than just the dragon’s power, but her connection to the fae realm.
The starlight ripped through Barrik’s shields, blasting his wards apart, and sending a ripple of bright light throughout the dais.
The ray of light cut through the fortress walls, sheering them in two before dissipating into the night.
Lark staggered, willing her eyes to stay open, searching for Barrik. Downdrafts pounded the demolished throne room. Lark dropped to her knees, exhaustion taking over.
“Anaci,” she whispered, ending the spell with a final whisper.
The flow of magic stopped. Lark’s body gave out and she fell in a heap on her side.
She lay there broken and bleeding, Barrik was nowhere in sight.
She rolled onto her back; the world spun around her as she struggled to cling to consciousness.
She stared up at the vastness of the night sky, looking for the stars.
But a deep blackness blotted out the sky.
For a moment Lark thought she’d already passed out.
A large black dragon with white eyes rimmed in gold, descended.
Lark smiled. She knew he was himself once again.
White Eye’s intentions came through as though they were her own thoughts.
Their bond was whole, their wards strengthened, and he exuded an overwhelming need to protect her.
White Eye’s wings closed in around her. She experienced a feeling of weightlessness as he picked her up, cradling her gently in his claws.
Lark was sure she’d died, but the cold northern air kept waking her, the pain of her injuries shouting that she was still in the land of the living.
She let her head fall limp, hair blowing in the wind as she cracked her eyes open.
Hundreds of feet below, a force of elves, humans, and dwarves were fighting Red Lodge’s orc troops in the forest. Lark finally knew who she was and what she really stood for as she closed her eyes, falling asleep to the steady beating of her dragon’s wings.