Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Sesca soars underneath me as we head back toward the battle, occasionally using a combination of her wings and magic to create warm updrafts for my own fledgling wings to catch and rise upon.
Whenever this doesn't work—whenever I start to drop too low, too fast—she rises, readily offering herself as an emergency landing spot.
It never becomes a particularly graceful flight on my part, but I manage to maintain our course well enough.
Within minutes, we're gliding close to the hilltop I was taken from. I immediately try to find Reave, my stomach in knots as I scan over fallen bodies and sparring soldiers, searching for him among the chaos.
But it's the dragons who catch my attention and keep it.
They're hovering above the battlefield like gods in repose, watching it all unfold without intervening.
“They seem strangely calm,” I say, more to myself than to Sesca.
They felt our bond expanding, she explains. Even a hint of divine blood makes them sensitive to it. They're waiting on you, now.
Her voice trails off, but an unspoken understanding settles in the silence; they may be waiting for the moment, but their stillness isn't indefinite. It's one thing for them to recognize the shift in my power and potential. It's another for them to realign themselves around it.
Everything hinges upon what I do next.
I study them more closely, and I realize there are only six of them.
I find the seventh quickly; it's dead, its body broken and splayed over the rocky ground far below, reddish-black blood pooling around it.
The same color blood is splattered across Sesca's shoulder and the edge of one wing, I notice.
One of the mindless, cursed beasts of Mouren, she informs me. Unnatural. It could not feel the bond. It did not stop with the others.
As I stare at the fallen creature, I feel a complicated mix of emotions from Sesca—acceptance tinged with sorrow. Not regret. She did what she had to do to get away. To reach me.
I understand it, but a sickening feeling still curls through my gut as I wonder if this mindless beast used to be someone Reave knew. Some relative who succumbed to the curse that could very well take him and the rest of his family before the end.
Sesca's next words come more urgently, as if she's trying to keep me focused only on the present danger: The others have divinity in their blood, however faint, however long ago it originated. They will yield to us, if you make them.
Something about the way she says us makes me feel brave enough to try, even though I'm dangerously close to being overwhelmed by all of these new powers and this more fully realized version of our bond.
I take a steadying breath, rebalance my wings as best I can, and open my eyes wider.
As before, I find that trying to draw dragons in is different than gathering elements of the world around me.
But now I can see why it's different; a new filter seems to have fallen over the vision Sesca shares with me, and when I truly peer through it, I understand that these creatures are something layered and ancient and alive in a way that all the other entities of the world simply aren't.
They're not made of the elements I've learned to observe—they are the elements. The magic. Not to the extent Sesca is, perhaps, but there's an undeniable piece of each of them that doesn't fully belong to this mortal plane.
Find this piece, I think. Or maybe it's an instruction from Sesca; it's getting harder and harder to tell which thoughts are mine and which are hers.
Wherever the instruction comes from, I follow it, briefly studying each dragon until I manage to see the divine spark shining in each of their bodies. It's as though I'm staring up at the heavens and finding hidden stories among the stars again, mapping my way through new constellations.
As I chart each divine point, the dragons turn toward me one by one, each seemingly aware of the very moment I see them—truly see them.
Months ago, this would have terrified me. I would have dropped straight out of the sky to avoid their attention, to keep myself from being perceived by anyone at all, much less by such powerful creatures.
Now, I want them to see me. All of me. And I look back at them with the same recognition, some ancient understanding passing between us, followed by a rush of collective power and movement until they're all facing the same direction I am.
Then we fly, just as Sesca said we would.
She remains steady in her supportive position just below me, while the other dragons take up a V-shaped formation behind us, fanning out on either side.
Nothing about their movements feels tamed. Not leashed, the way Malachi tethered them. Their deadly, otherworldly power doesn't lessen under my grasp—and I don't want it to. I am finished with playing small myself, and I don't want to ask these mighty creatures to do that either.
If I am to be the living embodiment of a divine flame, then the dragons who heed my call will be a reflection of that.
We soar and circle lower, and I finally spot Reave. He and Malachi are locked in close, vicious combat, surrounded by more soldiers than when I left them. Both look up at almost the exact same moment as my dragons and I descend, bringing their battle to an abrupt halt.
Most of the soldiers scatter for cover, but the two kings remain still even as the wind from eight pairs of wings flattens the grass around them and whips their clothing viciously about.
I want to look only at Reave—to study his face, to make sure he's still in one piece—but I can feel Malachi's hold tightening on the Flamebound mark the moment I let my guard down.
I feel him reaching for the dragons too, the way he has all morning, currents of control snapping outward through the air.
The dragons’ formation becomes looser, messier, restlessness overtaking them.
Resist, I order.
And they do.
At least for the moment.
Malachi's attention shifts my direction. He regards me with a careful, questioning look. Not fear. He's not panicking, as I'd hoped he might. Just recalculating.
Once those calculations are finished, he sheathes his sword with deliberate calm and takes a few slow steps away from Reave, his eyes still fixed on me.
Rage roars through me at the thought of him walking away untouched. I look to the dragons, considering all the ways their teeth and claws might punish him. They feel it, I’m certain—this anger wrapping like thorns around my heart, piercing me more deeply every time I try to breathe through it.
They have to be able to feel how badly I want to tear him apart, to gut him the way he’s gutted me.
But they don't move.
The mark, Sesca says, the word accompanied by a low, resonant growl. It protects him in ways they don't fully understand. They don't want to approach him.
It's the same thing that kept him from being killed on the night of Emberfall, I realize.
Questions and frustration crowd together in my chest. “Will it protect him from me?” I wonder aloud. “What happens if I try to end this myself?” My voice grows quieter than I'd like toward the end, as the reality of what I'm actually asking settles over me.
Even after everything he's done—all the ways he's hurt and diminished and used me—the thought of personally driving a sword into the heart of the man I once loved makes me recoil.
Not to mention the other things that give me pause.
What happens to the mark and its magic if he dies? What happens to me because of our connection, because of those threads that still tie us together in ways I don't yet understand?
Sesca remains silent—the prickly, frustrated silence that means she doesn’t have a clear explanation to give. But beneath it, I sense her fear, and that's enough of an answer. Enough to tell me that nothing about the Flamebound mark and its magic will unravel simply.
Malachi glances back one last time as he walks away, a hint of a smirk crossing his face as his soldiers fold protectively around him. As if he's fully aware of what I've realized—that I can't end any part of this as quickly and cleanly as I'd like to.
I avert my gaze, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing my anger. Or my exhaustion, which is growing by the second, between the wings and the dragons and all these new, half-understood realizations pulling me in every direction at once.
Something tells me he's fully aware of that exhaustion, too.
Which is why I can't stay here.
I need to lead these dragons somewhere far from his reach while I can still manage it. I'm resigned to this, ready to dart upward and away and begin the long work of figuring out what comes next—
Until I look down and see Reave standing in the same place as before, watching me.
All the world still seems to be lying in wait for my next move, but suddenly the only person I care about moving toward is him.
Sesca exhales and a warm wind rises beneath my wings like a gentle shove, filling them and nudging me forward.
Speak with the king, comes her voice. We'll keep you safe for a moment.
It seems like an impossible promise. But safe is exactly what I feel as I look back at her and the other dragons, and that feeling only grows when I look down and meet Reave's eyes again. The sight of him steadies something in me despite my exhaustion.
I'm nervous about trying to balance well enough to successfully plant my feet back on the ground, but I can't think of a safer place to land.
Before I've fully decided to do it, I'm already gliding downward—touching down with as little control as expected, coming in far too fast, my feet tripping over themselves and the rest of me following in a graceless stumble.
Reave catches my hands and braces me through the entire clumsy landing, walking backwards until my momentum slows enough that we can both find our footing.