Chapter One Hundred Six
Live… Or Die
The Ruakite fell in fire—the storm itself breaking on his body.
Ashakar’s roar split the sky, fire-rocks shrieking down like the wrath of a broken world. Lines scattered. Mirrors flared. The smell of burning men clung like pitch.
Viktor drove through it.
Pain cut sharp—ribs grinding with every breath, arm numbed to fire.
Azrikel’s shadow kept to his flank, voice slicing through the storm.
“Through them. To him.”
Viktor’s jaw locked.
Every heartbeat drew him closer.
His blades hummed in his grip, lightning twitching down their edges, eager to be loosed. Somewhere in the smoke, Gabriel’s rockets shrieked, Carys’ arrows fell—but all Viktor felt was the pull. A pulse in the storm. The same as his own.
He pressed low over Vorathen’s neck.
The storm thickened, answering his vow.
He would not stop.
Not until he found his brother.
Vorathen screamed beneath him, hooves striking sparks from the glassed earth. The ridge cut sharp ahead—the path narrowing toward the fire-mouthed mountain.
Above it, wings blotted dawn. One pair burned blue.
Viktor’s chest seized.
Every scar, every breath he’d carried since Westport, since Adamar’s last rasp—answered. He stood in the stirrups, ribs shrieking, lightning burning his fists.
“Now—”
Vorathen surged, a final bound up the ridge.
Viktor threw himself into the storm.
Armor and steel and fire hurled skyward.
Claws raked for him—he twisted, one blade catching scale, the other sinking deep. The impact ripped through his shoulder, spun him hard across the beast’s back. Heat seared his skin, sulfur choked his lungs. But he held.
The beast bucked, wings thrashing, a storm made flesh.
Claws swept—one caught him across the back. The Velascarin screamed, scales tearing, blood spilling hot down his spine. Viktor bit back the cry, teeth grinding, arms locked tighter on the beast’s ridge.
It rolled.
The world inverted—sky, sand, storm.
His vision blackened, his grip slipping.
“Hold!” Azrikel’s voice snapped like thunder.
Viktor drove one sword deep.
“I will not fall.”
The dragon screeched again, twisting its head back.
Those blue eyes locked to his.
“Brother.”
The word ripped from Viktor’s chest.
His own face stared back at him through the flame.
The fire of life.
The ice of death.
The breath of Azrikel: “Now.”
Viktor’s eyes burned white. His Endowment surged into the dragon’s spine. Rending scales. Tearing flesh. Opening the other side.
Flame became shadow. Shadow became chains.
Darkness. Silence. Void.
Awake.
Stripped of armor.
Mantle rent.
Caged behind the dragon’s eyes.
Viktor stood in a hall of iron light, air thick with ash. A thousand souls breathed in chains, rattling like wind through bone. But one called out above the rest. The voice, an echo of his own.
“Viktor…”
Adamar’s gasp ripped through torn lungs.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Viktor crossed stone and ash, both hands clutching his brother’s face.
“I’ve come to set you free.”
“You can’t.”
Adamar’s voice shook the dark.
“She wants us both. She’s paid the price.”
“I’ll burn before I leave you.”
Lightning crawled Viktor’s veins, storm thrumming in his bones.
“I couldn’t save you then—”
The cot. Westport dusk. His brother’s breath rattling, stolen. Powerless.
“—Never again. Not you. Not her. Not anyone. I can now. And I will.”
The prison shuddered.
Souls screamed.
Ashakar bellowed.
Adamar’s hand lifted to Viktor’s.
Grief shattered his face.
“Leave me, Tory—GO!”
The world tore.
Viktor slammed back into stone and glass, blades flashing wild. The dragon crashed over him, claws raking sparks. He stabbed upward, black blood spilling hot across his armor. The beast pressed harder, pinning him down.
A talon swept—razor edge catching his face. Fire ripped from brow to cheek, blood blinding his left eye. The shock staggered him, head snapping to one side.
He never saw the second strike.
A talon slammed down.
Bone shattered.
His left hand crushed beneath iron weight.
His cry was not human—it was agony and storm, the voice of a man breaking and refusing to break in the same breath.
He tore free, right blade stabbing deep, lightning exploding through the dragon’s wrist until the beast recoiled shrieking.
But the storm inside him faltered.
His ribs screamed.
His breath failed.
The prison he had reached for slipped back into fire and shadow.
Adamar’s blue eyes flared, swallowed in flame.
Viktor staggered to his knees on glass and blood. Around him, the world broke apart—Ashakar spewing fire-rock into the dawn, the Sagittarii breaking, men scattering, horses shrieking.
Smoke.
Terror.
A realm on fire.
He knew then.
Not like this.
Not with blades.
Only one way remained.
He hurled himself across Vorathen’s saddle, forcing the stallion up the ridge. Samson broke from the line to meet him, face pale, eyes wide.
“Commander—”
“Hold me up.”
Viktor’s voice was ragged steel.
Samson caught him under the arms, braced his weight. Viktor fumbled beneath his cuirass, found the stone his father had pressed into his hand. Cold still, though fire burned him alive.
“Tell her,” Viktor rasped, every word torn. “Tell her I kept my vow.”
Samson’s eyes blurred.
“No…”
“Let go.”
“I won’t.”
Viktor’s teeth bared.
With the last of his strength, he kicked.
Samson hit the ground, breath driven from him.
Viktor raised the stone high.
His voice split the storm:
“Live… or die… Amerei—”
Lightning swallowed him.
The Ruakite fell in fire, the storm itself breaking on his body.