Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
The dampness of the cave is the first challenge I face.
It makes it difficult to find any trace of the fire I need—even when Sesca folds her senses into mine and helps me see the dark space with greater, more magical clarity.
No less than an hour passes while I struggle to breathe in and out with measured focus, to gather the elements from the air and manipulate them.
The other challenge is trying to do any of this while not attracting attention from the soldiers stationed around the cave's entrance.
There are six that I can see. Huddled and miserable in the cold, most of them complaining about being left behind on guard duty while other regiments are following their new king into a more exciting battle.
I distinctly hear one mention that there's no need for them all to be here, given how secure I am in my bindings, and how sick I must be after the attack they carried out against my dragon.
From their conversation, and from others I've been eavesdropping on throughout the night via my bond with Sesca, I've concluded that it was some sort of extremely rare and potent poison that made her—and by extension, me—so disoriented.
We recovered quickly enough, but these soldiers clearly believe there's lingering damage.
I agree with one part of their conversation, at least: there is no point in all of them being here. Or any of them being here.
One guard or one hundred, it makes no difference to me.
I'll be leaving soon, regardless.
The fire Malachi sat beside last night is nothing more than charred wood and ash at this point, but it's ultimately what I end up focusing on.
There are still wisps of pale red moving deep within the black debris, and I eventually manage to catch hold of one, to twist it into a brighter, more solid shape. That's all I need; just a clear ember.
Once I have this, I pull it into myself, settling it and willing it to ignite into something brighter.
As it does, it suddenly becomes easier to see similar sparks of red energy in the air—like calling to like, until threads of fiery potential are spinning all around me, sinking in and becoming a part of me that’s as natural as my breathing.
When I call for Sesca to help me weave these threads into something more substantial, she doesn't hesitate; the force that rushes through the bond is nothing like the small, careful summonings and manipulations we've practiced before.
It's like the difference between taking a sip of something warm and falling into a raging inferno, and for a moment, the building heat inside my body becomes so overwhelming that I can't do anything but brace myself and let it wind through me.
Fear almost resurfaces at this point, because this heat makes me think of Emberfall. Of lying on the ground while the fires ate everything around me, while the city I loved was reduced to ash and ruin. I think of how small I felt that night. How weak. How finished.
Not this time.
This time, I control the fire and send it only where I want it to go—toward my wrists, to the places where the tightest of the chains meet my skin.
The fire I control doesn't burn me. But as the metal links absorb more of it, it gets harder to withstand the searing heat they're giving off.
The scent of burning flesh tickles my nose.
I don't let myself think about how much it hurts.
I stay focused until the chains soften enough to sever, falling away like shed skin.
I move on to the other chains holding my arms together. This time, I hastily yank them apart as soon as the metal starts to weaken—preventing them from searing my skin, but also making them pop apart with a force that sends pieces flying.
The soldiers at the cave entrance hear these pieces clinking and clattering over the stone, and suddenly I have company; all six of my guards crowd into the cave, regarding me with a mixture of confusion and dawning alarm.
We need to finish this. The thought is oddly calm and entirely certain as it presses through my mind and toward Sesca.
Be still, she replies.
Without question, I obey. I breathe in slowly, and as I do, her essence and mine blend even more fully together, until every chain wrapped around me is suddenly heated and glowing.
I don't have to think about what to do next.
I just know.
I stand as if nothing is there to stop me.
Strength surges through me like a living, bristling beast, exerting pressure against everything still holding me back.
The bindings all give way at once, and the fire that flares around me in the next moment is so bright it's like the sun itself has tumbled into the cave.
Cries of surprise and distress erupt from the soldiers. When the light dims, all six of them are cowering away from me, arms thrown up to shield their faces. Two of them turn and run from the cave immediately. The other four are braver, backing slowly toward the exit while keeping a wary eye on me.
My skin is smoking, still woven through with fiery veins. Inhuman strength continues to ripple through my muscles. My vision is part human, part dragon, full of burning rage but narrowed in with newly-focused purpose.
One of the fleeing soldiers dropped his sword as he ran.
I pick it up on my way out. It's been some time since I've wielded a blade, and it feels good to balance it alongside the fire coursing through me—a physical counterweight to this magic with no definite shape. When I swing it to test its weight, flames trail after the steel like words scrawled across a page. Like I’m signing my name to the air, fully claiming this moment.
The remaining soldiers exchange nervous looks, each daring the others to step forward and try to stop me. None of them end up doing this—though one does go for the signal horn at his hip, grasping it with a shaking hand and raising it toward his mouth.
With a precision that surprises even me, I incinerate the horn before it reaches his lips.
He drops to his knees, hands swiping over the burnt remnants of it as they scatter over the limestone. I pause and stare down at him. He goes still, like a rabbit caught in a predator’s gaze, and it occurs to me that I could end him as easily as I ended the horn.
I could end all of them.
For now, I turn away and keep walking toward Sesca.
An out-of-body sensation threatens at first. But it lessens with every step I take, until I feel as if I am more me than I have ever been, unfolding with the rising dawn and no longer making myself small in hopes that all the kings and gods and divine fires of this world might overlook me.
I am the divine fire.
And I burn a path straight down the mountainside, parting soldiers as I go.
The few who try to intervene are met with magic that I don’t even think about summoning; it just rolls off me like a sentient accomplice that’s fully aware of my plan, determined for us to see it through together.
Sesca's eyes meet mine as I approach, their usual gold burning closer to the color of bluish-orange flames.
The chains binding her begin to glow the way my own did, and she shakes them off with all the casualness of a dog shaking water from its coat.
The sound and sight of the links snapping and flying, still glowing brightly as they soar through the air, is deeply satisfying.
A few of the camp's leaders are circling toward us now, trying to manage a more coordinated response to my fiery march toward freedom.
Even the bravest of them stumble back as Sesca lets out a thundering roar and rises to her full height, wings flaring wide. The sunrise catches in those wings and they seem to burn from the inside out, as if they were the source of all that light rather than merely receiving it.
Staring at her, I would swear she's grown several more feet since last night—or maybe just since the moment I finally stood up and fully embraced what we are together.
She lowers herself as I step forward, one shoulder dropping toward me. Strength courses through my arms, and I grab hold and swing up without any hesitation.
She launches into the air the moment I settle between her bony shoulders. I'm prepared for the suddenness of it, this time, so I've already got one hand woven into the feathery hair at the base of her neck while the other still holds my stolen sword.
Any trace of lingering fear is replaced by exhilarating clarity as we climb higher. I lean even more completely into our connection so I know what movements she’s going to make before they happen, allowing my body to automatically shift to stay in sync with her, maintaining perfect balance.
Faster, I urge, and she obliges, catching a current of wind and barreling upward and onward.
I grip her mane more tightly before peering down, watching the world race by below us: the camp shrinking at our backs; the mountain peaks sliding past, gradually becoming more like mere hills; the lines of soldiers weaving in and out of the rocks and through the increasingly thick clusters of trees.
I focus the longest on those lines, knowing Malachi is somewhere among them.
It's been too long since he left the camp. I'm worried about how far ahead he already is, what he's already had time to put in motion.
Am I too late to stop this from turning into a deadly, devastating clash?
Faster, I desperately think again, and somehow Sesca manages it, leaving me breathless as she tears through the cold morning air and turns the world below into a blur of green and grey.
Within minutes, we crest the last of the mountain ridges.
A valley opens up below us, and I see it immediately: the two armies converging toward one another.
Dralsk's forces wind out of the mountain hills like a rising river, more and more dark water spilling over the banks until it eventually floods the entire area.
Mouren soldiers await this rising flood in neat, orderly rows, their banners flashing bright and bold as the sunrise bleeds through them.
The front lines of both sides are already breaking against each other, while outer flanks wrap around to cut off any chance of retreat, the whole terrible machinery of it grinding together with an inevitable finality that makes my stomach drop.
And above it all, there are dragons.
Seven of them that I can see from where Sesca and I have stopped to hover.
They swoop and dive in ways that seem erratic at first. But after a minute of watching them, I begin to notice patterns—to see the way they're all ultimately drifting in the same direction.
Something is organizing them. Something is steering them toward the Mouren lines.
I don't have to guess at what that something is.
Sesca lends me her vision again, and with it comes the ability to spot the culprit quickly: Malachi is standing atop a hill overlooking the valley, a sword hanging casually at his side.
He's not fighting. He's barely moving. His eyes are on the sky—on the dragons—and as I breathe in and open my senses to all the magic in the air, I can feel it: the control he's exerting.
It's like a current building beneath the still surface of water, silently reaching, catching at whatever it finds and pulling.
I can almost see it winding through the air, similar to how I can pick out elements—though it looks less like wispy threads of creation, and more like wires that are nearly translucent, shimmering noticeably only at certain angles.
These wires wind around the dragons, leashing them, and one by one they begin to drop toward the Mouren Army.
A massive black-scaled beast with a broad head and curved horns takes the lead.
Mouren's soldiers hold their formation until this dragon is low enough that its wingbeats create a spinning storm of dust and dry grass, and then they all seem to realize at once that they are its target.
And it isn't stopping.
Screams ring out.
The beast opens its mouth, something dark and churning gathering around its mouth.
No.
It's a quiet rebellion in the back of my mind.
Not even a thought so much as a reflex. But somehow, it's enough to make the beast hesitate, its bat-like wings unfurling with a suddenness that jolts its flight to a stop and sends it tumbling end-over-end.
It rights itself quickly, giving several furious flaps to stabilize.
The dark energy around its mouth thins out, dispersing like harmless smoke into the wind.
It snaps its jaw shut on nothing, confused and looking for direction.
The other six dragons careen toward it, and they all collide and tangle together in a chaotic knot of snapping teeth, flashing talons, and lashing tails, seemingly fighting to determine who will take the lead next.
Be still, I think—another quiet refusal of the violence, the chaos.
The dragons untangle themselves and turn slowly toward me, hovering with slow, methodical beats of their wings, mirroring Sesca’s calm, watchful body language.
Malachi's attention follows a moment later.
The moment his eyes land on me, pressure strikes my arm. It shoots through the Flamebound mark, sinking deep into my bones and settling with a heaviness that takes genuine effort to breathe through.
Sesca tucks and tilts her wings and we soar lower.
Low enough that the violent energy of the battlefield rises over us in palpable waves.
Close enough that I can truly catch and hold Malachi's gaze across the distance between us for one long, deliberate moment.
Another pulse of pressure claws through my arm.
I push through it.
I think of what he said about love being weakness. Of the life I once knew going up in flames, leaving nothing but embers behind.
I think of another fire rising up from the ashes of that old life, and of everything I have survived to make it here, to this point, rising above it all on the back of a dragon with divine power and potential and world-altering magic coursing through my veins.
Then I say to Sesca: Bring me to him.
She answers with a roar that shakes the air.
We descend.