Chapter 29 Drake
Drake
Beware the Tower card and the destruction it brings, heralding sudden change and crisis.
SHIT.
I spin around, racing backward, shoving the mossy curtain aside. The light from the hollow’s opening is blinding compared to that dark sanctum. I sprint, putting as much distance between me and the beast as I can.
When I stagger into the clearing, my eyes meet Draven’s, and his expression cycles from confusion, to desire, to fear.
“DRAKE!” I shout.
As if waiting for an introduction, the beast bursts in, destroying the mossy covering, loping after me, too smooth and fast. I need a weapon, but every time I’ve tried summoning the Star, which would allow me to forge a blade made of light, I’ve failed.
It doesn’t have wings but is far bigger than the wyverns, at least sixty feet tall. It has scales like the bark of a felled oak tree, overrun with moss and ivy. Plates of chitinous armor flank its chest like an insect. A glowing green sack of acid rests just beneath its chin.
The others scream and scatter. I keep running, but another second and I’ll be flattened—the entrance to the cave is too deadly to cross. For those without wings … we’re trapped.
The drake’s browned, sharp teeth open to snap me up.
Fable dives into me and we slam to the side, just before I would’ve been devoured.
It turns, bearing down on the others instead.
Bewilderment turns to terror as the beast flattens one elf to pulp, biting down on one of Soto’s soldiers and snapping him in half, gore spilling at its feet.
Where is Draven?
Fable yanks me upright and snarls, “MOVE!”
She drags me away as the beast whips around, her magic freezing it in place, but from the grit of her teeth and the strained grunt she gives I know it won’t hold.
The beast is too strong. Two versions of us twinkle to life, the air warping like a mirage around us.
I look up—Draven’s across the chamber, creating two false versions of us, sending them running the other direction.
It pulls the drake’s attention just as Fable’s magic gives out, her card sparking and sputtering to the ground.
The drake charges after the trick and Fable scoops up her card and zenith.
Mine’s in the pack over my shoulder and I’m still holding the wand, so I shove it through the deep V-neck of my tunic, tucking it between layers of cloth at my ribs so it won’t get lost or touch skin.
We run, making for the opposite direction.
Fable chances a glance over her shoulder, blond hair flashing in the sunlight, eyes wide, and I know from the vibrations at our feet that the drake has altered course.
“Get down!” Malik hollers as we race past a small hollow of downed, rotten trees.
Fable shoves me into one, but there’s not room for two.
My panic peaks as she leaves me, and through a hole in the trunk I watch her run a few feet more, desperate for cover.
Malik protects her with a makeshift shield of oak, a sword in his hand, the illusions of his Devil Arcana making them disappear.
Acid sprays from above us. An unlucky elf screams as he gets a face full.
Draven? Where is Draven? I can’t find him through the chaos.
I need a weapon.
The drake blows a cancerous plume across the space, and like the smoke from a fire, a bog rises.
Trapped in this warped tree there’s nowhere for me to go.
I pull my hood up over my head, rolling my back toward the small opening in the tree, breathing into the crook of my arm to try to filter out the spreading toxins.
The drake stalks past, shaking the ground, and the tree’s bark flakes into my hair.
There’s a huge boom, and I turn just as the drake crashes to the ground, moss and dust billowing. Someone must’ve attacked it.
Draven runs from it, sprinting my way, and I squint through the haze as he nearly collides into me, both hands grasping my face. “Are you okay?” he asks, and I nod, blinking against the burn. “Follow me!”
He pulls me out and we run—the ground vibrating beneath us, the beast regaining its strength, stumbling to its feet.
We put in some distance between us and the drake, away from the toxic fumes, but we’re farther from the exit now.
The drake blocks the only way out. Others are screaming, dying, some of Commander Soto’s soldiers are fighting it with magic, others with spears and swords, yet beyond them I see elves fleeing, leaving us behind. I can’t see Fable, Malik, or Scorpius …
Draven holds my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.” My exposed skin says otherwise. The back of my neck burns, some of my right arm is bright red, but at least nothing is bleeding. He notices, sliding me a stern look, and summons the Empress, beginning to heal me, his hands trembling as he takes in the damage.
“Summon the Star, you need a weapon.”
“Yeah, no shit, but it’s not that easy.” I shake my head. Even Ember hasn’t been able to help me learn her Arcana, the gift of light, of armorers and bladesmiths.
He holds both sides of my face, hands in my hair as his brow rests against mine, the two of us taking shaky breaths together. “It just needs hope.”
But that’s something I don’t have to give.
“Draven! Rune!” It’s Fable and the others at the edge of the cavern; they’re trying to get us to reach them as Soto and his men fire Arcana at the drake to distract it.
Draven nods at them, and then turns to me. “We skirt the edge. There’s no winning here. We take whatever zenith we can and flee.”
“What about the rest?” I ask.
“I’ll blow the place to high hell before we leave.”
“What were you going to say back there? Before?”
“You’re asking now?”
“We’re probably about to die, so call me curious,” I snark, and he huffs an incredulous sigh as he finishes healing the worst of my burns. He scans the cavern, but the drake is still distracted.
“That I will always be yours. Until the stars burn out. Hatefully and adoringly, my wicked heart is yours alone.” He gives an incredulous sigh. “If you want it.”
“Why, Draven Vos …” I look into his eyes. Chaos reigns in the background. “You’re so very dramatic.”
“You are impossible, Rune Ryker.” He scoffs, but I yank him down to meet my lips. The moment burns between us, brief, but scalding, blinding in the darkness.
A nearby roar shakes us from it.
“Run,” he whispers.
I rush around a pile of black crystal and sprint toward the others, Draven right behind me, the sack of zenith I’ve managed to harvest jangling off my hip.
The ground beneath us shifts sharply, and we skid down, feet crunching over something that squelches under my feet.
It’s the remnants of eggs larger than I am, littering this area.
Draven urges me onward, and I don’t stop to gawk at the smoking sacks, throwing myself up a wall of bones and tumbling down the other side of it.
The drake rounds the corner, cutting us off from the exit.
Draven flicks his arm to the side, that magical sword of his forming from his ring, burning.
The drake slams its claw down at him, and Draven cleaves a finger from its deadly paw.
The beast rears back, screeching, and Draven summons the Sun, fire burning to life in his open hand …
illuminating the smaller, lion-sized drake, rising behind him.
“DRAVEN!” I shout, and he turns, eyes widening, fire shooting out at the drake’s murderous hatchling. His friends and guards are screaming for us, rushing our way. I throw myself between him and the mother drake.
The sight of Draven in danger forges something powerful and raw within me.
He’s helped me finally feel the thing I haven’t dared to since I could remember. Hope. In all its messiest impossibilities. He is the light I’ve searched for. One I refuse to let be stomped out.
The drake’s mouth froths with acid that could strip me to bone. I summon the World, with the Star rising in front of it, focusing on a vision for my family, my friends, and for a better future, with him.
Hope that I can heal.
A shield of starlight forms across my left forearm, my right suddenly weighted with a sword glowing with heavenly fire. As the drake bears down on me, it shoots acid, and my shield protects us both.
Draven steadies me from behind, stopping my feet from slipping, and when the beast clenches its stained, blade-sharp teeth on the sides of the shield, threatening to yank it off me, I hear his voice in my mind, Strike it now!
I charge forward with that sword, remembering the lesson between him and Kenzo, every emphasis on pivoting my hips to pack a harder blow, and thrust that blade straight into the drake’s feral eye.
Blood and gore bursts forth, the monster reels, and I release the handle, just as Draven blares his might into the Sun card, channeling his fire, protecting our back as more of the smaller drakes come streaming over the ridge.
One slips his defenses and snaps around his leg.
I channel all my rage and fear into my cards.
The drakes can have their zenith, can have the world, but he is mine.
I drop the Star and summon the Sun, too.
My anger scorches through it, my flames dancing with his, exploding through the space around us, encircling us and engulfing both drakes.
Fire and starlight explode. I switch back to the mother and even when my arms shake from the effort of holding that fire I don’t relent, knowing I’d rather die standing here than let it get any closer to him.
The mother screeches, vibrating the hollow, and drops with a mighty thud, smoking.
“Are you okay?” My eyes rake over him, searching for injuries.
“I will be.” Draven’s gaze is hungry, like he wants to kiss me right here. But he staggers, the bite on his leg bleeding heavily. I throw his arm over my shoulder, and we hobble toward the exit.
There’s more distant screeching as the surviving drakes divert toward the others, scared away from us, and crest the hill behind, snarling and calling to each other in a strange whooping cry.
More surge from all over, a veritable army.
Commander Soto and his soldiers take the smaller drakes head-on, but it’s deadly.
A drake tackles a druid to the ground, jaw clenching around his skull, bursting it like a cherry.
“Retreat!” Draven calls to his friends and Commander Soto. Malik grabs Zara’s hand as they run and leap over the chasm from where we came. Scorpius ushers Fable ahead of him, both of them taking wingless soldiers. I watch winged druids dive over the chasm, buffeting to their escape.
Draven picks up a shard of zenith with his bare, un-channeling hand, and it activates, veins glowing and sparking within it. He throws the crystal back into the cavern, landing in a large pile of zenith.
He sweeps me into his arms and I grapple onto him, barely secure, as he dives off the side of the cliff. I watch the drakes rise, blasting acid and smog at us just before the zenith blows, swallowing them in flames.