Chapter Thirty-Five #2
The she-dragon was free to make her own choices. No matter how many humans died on the ground, their race had to endure. Without Terrea, there was no more hope for the dragons.
As if enraged that the she-dragon had escaped him, Kolreath opened his mouth, embers burning at the back of his throat and scales glimmering. Wings poised above him, barbed tail lashing between powerful back legs, the male stretched his neck down toward Dildain and released his fire.
A seemingly unending stream of white-hot flames poured down on the pine forest. Sap exploded, branches incinerating, and the screams from Aemyra’s soldiers doubled as they raced away from the inferno now consuming the town.
“What’s the plan, Aems?” Adarian called out, galloping up the hill as Terrea took flight again. “By the Goddess, it better be a good one.” He groaned when he saw her expression. “A dangerously half-baked one then.”
“My favorite kind. Get me my sword,” she said.
To his credit, Adarian kicked the mare into a canter and disappeared between the streaming soldiers crashing their way out of town like salmon swimming upstream.
Then disbelieving shouts joined the screams, the fleeing army slowing to a trickle as people turned their faces to the smoke-filled sky.
The last four dragons in existence were gathered together once more.
Aervor appeared, fluted wings close to his sides to increase speed. Fiorean’s red hair was streaming behind him as they aimed for Kolreath.
Aemyra’s heart stuttered, and she wasn’t sure if it was in relief or fear.
The other two males were engaged in aerial combat and did not see them approach.
She felt a wry sort of satisfaction come through the Bond as Aervor summoned his courage. The younger male had never liked the golden dragon, but Fiorean was with him. He would not be afraid.
Certainly not with Terrea circling high above, like a puppet master controlling her marionettes.
“Get my troops evacuated to the other side of the river,” Aemyra ordered the nearest warrior. “And stay out of the dragons’ way.”
The phoenixes were already ferrying people across. Packs and wagons clutched in straining claws as the town was consumed by Kolreath’s fire. If they lost any more supplies, Aemyra’s army wouldn’t be able to march on Edinbane before winter.
Adarian came galloping out of the smoke and threw Fearsolais toward her just as Aervor managed to separate Kolreath from Gealach.
It was almost time.
“Not sure if you’ve noticed the second enemy dragon above us?” Adarian asked, reining his horse to a halt.
Aemyra pulled Fearsolais free from its scabbard in one fluid motion and took a deep breath.
“Clearly you missed the Dùileach on his back,” she replied.
When Adarian faced the sky again, an incredulous look crossed his face.
“I should have known better than to believe you could hit a moving target,” Adarian said.
“Everything is under control,” Aemyra said, centering her thoughts.
“Sure looks that way,” Adarian replied, gesturing around the completely obliterated camp in the grips of wildfire.
When Brodie’s shout came from the bottom of the hill, Adarian galloped off to help.
Aemyra practiced mind-stilling like Riya had taught her. Then, holding Orlagh’s words close to her heart, she trusted herself.
“Let me do this, Fiorean,” she whispered, smoke choking her as Aervor chased Kolreath closer to the ground.
Aemyra shook out her curls, letting her long auburn hair fly free in the wind. With a battle cry, she raised Fearsolais into the air and cut her palm in a stinging slice.
Kolreath turned his massive head, pupils narrowing when he scented her blood.
Aemyra held her ground even as the wildfire drew closer.
“Brigid, bringer of light, I command my soul into your embrace. I make an offering of myself as your queen. I give myself over to the fear that has been my captor and ask for your deliverance,” she said, planting her feet.
The golden dragon landed hard on the ground, the remnants of houses buckling under his massive claws. Flames licked from behind his teeth as he snaked his head closer to Aemyra.
The queen stood firm.
“Aemyra!”
She heard her father’s shout from high above and ignored him.
“I am Aemyra Daercathian, descendant of Queen Lissandrea Daercathian,” she called up to Kolreath. “She Bonded your sire, Kolgiath. If you seek a Bond, come and claim it.”
“Aemyra, no!”
She sighted an emerald dragon through the smoke as Draevan tried to stop her. A flare of blue wings, a flash of fire, and Aervor herded him away, leaving the queen alone with Kolreath.
The way it needed to be.
The dragon turned, a horrendous clicking noise reverberating inside his chest in a way that made Aemyra’s legs feel weak.
She should have been afraid, but when she looked upon the ancient beast, all she felt was pity.
Kolreath’s left wing was hanging at a disturbing angle and how he was still able to fly was a mystery.
The scales of his belly had begun to decay, infection creating large pockets of pus that were so pungent they turned Aemyra’s stomach.
The dragon who had once ruled this territory was rotting from the inside out.
She had spent ten years looking to the skies of àird Lasair, dreaming of the day she could call this dragon her equal. Every day she had prayed to the Goddess for a Bond to Kolreath, that she would have the strength it took to claim him.
It was only fitting that she should be the one to kill him, alongside the woman she used to be.
So she could truly become the queen her people needed.
“I am here,” she said, softly this time.
Kolreath’s claws raked through the ground as he dragged himself toward her.
But the look in his starfire eyes spoke of grief, not madness.
Through cruel twists of fate, Kolreath had found himself Bonded to Daercathian after Daercathian for nigh on two hundred years. He no longer knew how to live without it.
His eyes never left her as he limped through the rubble, as though her blazing hair and familiar blood called to him.
In his mental state, he didn’t seem able to sense that she was already Bonded to another. Or his desperation for a Dùileach was so great that he didn’t care.
She felt Terrea’s warning through the Bond.
“I know,” Aemyra said, not sure if she was speaking to her dragon, Kolreath, or herself. “It will all be over soon.”
Held in Kolreath’s gaze as he drew closer, Aemyra spoke to Brigid, ensuring her intentions were clear as well as her words this time. “Forgive me as I have forgiven myself.”
She felt Kolreath’s breath on her face, could see hope in his eyes, and she steadied herself.
Raising Fearsolais to shoulder height, she gripped the hilt with her left hand and anchored it with her right.
A flaming presence engulfed her, protecting her, and Aemyra knew this was the moment.
Bunching her legs underneath her, Aemyra leaped toward the dragon, toward destiny.
She took aim…and drove her sword through his eye.
Kolreath screeched and the world erupted into fire.
Aemyra fell to the ground as a flood of flames poured from the dragon’s mouth, consuming her. Bright light filled her eyes, heat searing her nostrils.
Aemyra heard screams and she was unsure if they came from her own lips as Kolreath’s dying fire poured over her like molten gold.
The first blast rattled her bones, but the Goddess did not let a single flame touch the queen she had chosen. Instead, Aemyra crouched beside the dagger-sharp teeth, feeling Fiorean’s terror for her through their mental link.
Finally the flames diminished, the cascade of heat growing weaker with the last beat of Kolreath’s heart. When the last embers choked up Kolreath’s throat as he died, Aemyra felt Brigid finally answer her prayers.
The well of magic inside her chest burst open, flooding Aemyra’s system with power once again.
In forgiving herself, she was no longer so afraid of what her magic would do to those she loved. No longer afraid of what the Chosen would do to her for possessing it.
A trembling gasp escaped Aemyra’s lips as she got to her feet, flames of her own creation licking their way across her skin.
Conjuring felt as easy as breathing, but there was a lingering gift from the Goddess in the form of a glimmering pair of fiery wings spread between Aemyra’s shoulder blades, lighting the queen on the hill like a beacon.
A cheer went up from the other side of the river as Aemyra pulled her sword free of Kolreath’s eye with considerable effort.
Laying a crackling palm on the golden dragon’s snout, Aemyra said, “Be at peace, mighty one. May the Otherworld be kinder to you than this one.”
Turning away from the body of the ancient beathach, Aemyra delighted in the sensation of fire crackling through her veins once more, shivering with sudden energy.
The mark still remained on her palm, a reminder of what the queen still owed the Goddess, and Aemyra silently promised Alfred’s life in offering.
Soon.
Having expected Terrea’s triumphant roar, Aemyra frowned when it didn’t come. Instead, all she felt was fury. Digging deeper into the Bond, Aemyra’s vision blurred as she merged their consciousnesses. Terrea was descending toward the town, ready to sink her claws into Gealach.
Because Draevan had engaged Fiorean on dragonback.
Slamming back into her own mind, Aemyra’s fiery wings fluttered out in a puff of smoke.
“Fucking men,” she muttered, just as Draevan raised Dorchadas upon his emerald dragon, aiming right for Fiorean.