Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
The other dragons are already shaking off whatever hold I had over them.
They're circling restlessly, taking aim once more at Mouren's lines, so Sesca doesn't hesitate after dropping me on top of the hill where Malachi stands; she banks hard the moment my boots hit the ground, wheeling back toward the sky and streaking off to corral them.
I watch her for an instant, concerned about how outnumbered she is.
But I have my own fight to focus on.
Malachi is already moving toward me.
The battle continues to build above and below us, the noise of it enormous and strangely distant all at once.
Malachi strolls forward as if he's forgotten about everything except me, wearing an odd expression that takes me a moment to pin down.
It looks almost like respect, or maybe intrigue—both of which feel more dangerous than the anger I expected.
I can almost see the wheels turning behind his dark gaze, his desire to possess me surging into something even more maniacal than before.
“This is surprising,” he says, once we're close enough to speak without shouting. “I didn't think you had it in you to escape.”
“You have no idea what I'm capable of.”
“Clearly.” He glances at the sword in my hand while readying his own. “All the more reason we should stop playing this foolish game and reunite properly. Think of what we could learn and accomplish if we worked together and trusted one another as we once did.”
“I've thought about it,” I say, glaring. “And my answer is still no.”
A smile slowly stretches across his face.
His gaze darts toward the dragons. I sense the currents of controlling magic rising around him, the strands of it reaching out.
As subtle as it feels, it's still enough to make one of the lesser dragons let out a shrieking cry before diving toward Sesca with newly-focused ferocity.
I see that dive in the corner of my vision—still enhanced through the divine bond—but I don't allow myself to look too closely.
I know he's trying to intimidate me. To distract me. I have to turn this around somehow. To distract him instead, and do it long enough that Sesca can pull the other dragons far away from here, somewhere beyond his reach.
With this goal blazing in my mind, I strike first.
He's ready for it. Of course he is; aside from Briar, there's no one I sparred with more when I was learning to properly wield a blade. Nevertheless, I keep attacking, spinning and swinging with increasing fury and frustration even though he parries every. Single. Attempt.
“Five years since we last did this, and your movements are still far too exaggerated,” he taunts, catching yet another attempted strike and shoving me back hard enough to make me stumble. “It makes you easy to predict.”
“Be quiet,” I snap. I've heard this particular critique from him a hundred times before; he's not wrong to point it out.
But I am not the same person I was five years ago.
I remind him of this by pulling threads of dark grey energy into my blade—the predominant element of the very earth underneath our feet.
He blocks my next swing, but my sword has now become a conduit for earth-aligned magic, and that magic still lands; a violent tremor radiates from the point where our blades collide, rattling his sword hard enough that he nearly drops it.
His smile finally disappears as he takes a step back and struggles to readjust his grip.
My muscles pulse and my sword shivers with building magic. Blinking, I see more elements in the air all around me, brighter than ever before, as if the entire world is opening up, drawing closer and just waiting for my command.
Malachi rebalances his blade and drives in harder.
Again and again we clash. I lean more fully into the divine sight I've been given, trusting the magic filling the air, channeling it into powers that I still only somewhat understand—until Malachi finally draws back, appraising me with a fierce gaze as he heaves for breath.
A tense minute passes.
Then he straightens, takes a much calmer breath, and looks skyward.
I sense more controlling threads of power lashing out from him.
Another fearsome, bone-chilling shriek sounds from one of the lesser dragons.
A surge of alarm from Sesca follows, and this time I can't ignore what's happening above; my eyes are automatically drawn toward her just in time to see a dragon slam into her side.
She tumbles through the air and meets the waiting claws of the massive black dragon that nearly obliterated the front lines of Mouren. That dragon moves with terrifying speed, slashing at her with a fervor matched only by the madness of the king controlling it.
I do my best to spot the threads Malachi is wielding, to gather them the same way I've been gathering elements of other energy. After a few attempts, I have some success, and for a moment we're both holding the same invisible wires, pulling in opposite directions.
But I can't drag them fully from his control.
For all my magic and the divine guidance behind it, he's had much more practice when it comes to wielding this particular kind of power.
Manipulating beasts proves entirely different from shaping wisps of raw elements.
Much more complicated. It's all I can do to try and interfere with his will, much less control anything myself.
Then I feel his eyes drop to me.
Without warning, he releases his hold on the black dragon.
The sudden loss of pressure destabilizes and disorients me.
I realize what he's doing—and why—half a second too late.
After I'm thrown off-balance, he rushes in and aims a kick at my side, then immediately slams his sword into mine, disarming me.
As my sword spins away, he knocks my staggering body to the ground.
I end up on my back. Before I can recover, he's kneeling over me, one hand pressing my wrist to the ground, the other pinning my opposite shoulder down with a strength that makes struggling feel pointless.
“We could have avoided this.” His voice is quiet. Gentle, almost. “There's a much more harmonious method of what I'm about to do to you, just so you're aware.”
Before I can ask what he means, the hand on my wrist moves to more completely cover the mark he burned into my skin.
I sense the subtle coil of controlling magic again, except now it's circling toward me rather than at any of the dragons overhead. It wraps around my wrist, around the mark, settling like hooks that sear and catch into some part of me far deeper than my skin.
“It was a great honor to be Flamebound, once upon a time,” he says, almost to himself, both his voice and his gaze frighteningly distant.
It's as though he's fully lost himself in whatever visions of grandeur he's concocted in his mind.
“The first mark was created by a king who understood the need for a dragon's chosen one to have a more earthly counterweight.”
I writhe against his grip, willing myself not to cry out as the sharp pain in my wrist claws up my arm.
“Dragons recognized it too, back in the grander ages,” he continues in the same low, dark voice. “The words I spoke over you that night in Halvgate were not of my kingdom, but of some place far more ancient—the original tongue of the dragons themselves.”
The sharp pain spreads into my chest and becomes something worse: a deep pressure pushing against my sternum, as though something is being gathered up and pulled out against its will.
“It was a vow, just not in the way you understood it. A vow to shape and change this world. And I thought that was what you wanted to do.”
“It is.” The pulling sensation worsens, and I swear my heart is moments away from being wrenched from my chest. My breathing comes in labored gasps, weakening my voice to a whisper, but I grind the words out anyway. “It is,” I repeat. “But not with you.”
The pressure explodes into something beyond pain. My vision goes white and soft around the edges. My body feels like it's coming apart at the seams, like it’s being ripped in a dozen different directions, leaving me with no center, no fixed point to cling to. Everything is scattering. Flickering.
I'm likely a moment away from fainting when a change comes over Malachi's face. Subtle at first—so subtle I think I'm imagining it. But no; the distance in his expression is gone, replaced by sharp awareness. Recognition. Alarm.
He grabs his sword and tries to leap up and avoid the figure charging toward us.
The King of Mouren proves faster.
Malachi manages to lift his sword into a guard position at the last moment, but Reave still hits him hard enough to send him tumbling several feet down the hillside.
Instead of countering the attack, Malachi shifts his attention immediately back toward me. His gaze narrows with cold, deliberate focus.
A fresh wave of agony tears through my body. An involuntary hiss of pain escapes me and distracts Reave for an instant—just long enough to give Malachi time to get back to his feet and into a proper fighting stance.
I press my lips together and steel my expression to mask my pain, trying to keep Reave from worrying about me as Malachi slices toward him.
Their blades crash together, the ringing collision of metal louder than all of the surrounding chaos, and then they step into a furious exchange of blows that's hard for my still-spinning vision to keep track of.
A small group of Mouren soldiers crests the hill seconds later. They glance uncertainly between me and their king, their weapons half raised.
“Help him!” I cry.
“...Our orders were to get you to safety first,” says the soldier closest to me. He hesitates only a moment more before kneeling and sliding an arm under me, helping me sit up.
I desperately, clumsily pull myself out of his grip, unwilling to tear my attention from Reave. He should have known better than to give such foolish orders; I’m not going anywhere without him.