Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Kallias
The dragon’s roar split the sky, a violent tremor that rattled my teeth and burst against my skull. Air shook. Stone quivered beneath my boots. I flinched and dropped low, spinning on my heel.
Greaves’ body flew through the air.
No.
My feet were already running. Hard stone jarred my knees. Breath tore at my throat.
Elohios, no.
Breon shrieked and dove for Greaves. The green caught his calf, a curved claw punching through muscle with a wet rip.
Blood sprayed hot across the cobbles. It wasn’t enough.
Greaves’ back slammed into the street of Sol, armor buckling on impact.
His head struck the unforgiving stone with a sickening crunch that carried through the clash of steel and scale.
The sound hollowed my chest.
I gasped and ran past him, away from the broken shape crumpled in the road, toward the green and blue dragon trying to carve a new entrance into the mountain itself.
Tsunami clawed at the house Nienna was in like a hunting hound at a burrow. Her tail lashed, smashing shutters, scattering soldiers like toys. Marble split beneath her talons, thick gouges ripping through white stone. Dust clouded the air, chalky and bitter on my tongue.
Then she froze.
The serpentine length of her body locked in place.
Tension rippled beneath sea-colored scales, each plate shivering as if a current ran through her.
Soldiers surged behind me, boots pounding in uneven rhythm as they formed ranks.
Greaves would have protected Nienna. He would’ve stood between her and the world.
I reached the wall of scaled muscle and slammed my fist against her side. The impact jolted up my arm, radiating through my gauntlet. “Let me in, Tsunami!”
Nothing.
Her great body trembled, a quake that rolled through her ribs and into my bones. Fear. Rage. Both. Her head remained buried in the jagged hole she had torn through the mountain, forepaws braced on either side as if holding the earth apart.
She recoiled with a wail.
The screech pierced my eardrums, thin and shrill enough to drive soldiers to their knees. Gauntlets clapped over helmets. Men cried out as the sound carved through them.
Dragons landed around us in thunderous crashes, talons biting into rock as they inched closer. Wings beat debris into spirals. Tsunami shook her head in violent arcs, as though something unseen clung to her skull and refused to release.
Gods, no. Please, Elohios, no.
Her golden gaze snapped to me.
Pupils narrowed to slits. A roar blasted into my face, hot and fetid, reeking of brine and char. Strings of saliva struck my armor in sticky lines. I bowed my head against the force of it, bracing my stance as her fury battered me.
Then the embers came.
They crackled along her teeth, bright and hungry.
“Shelter!” I screamed, driving my sword up through the soft flesh of her mouth. The blade sank in. Blood slicked the hilt. She did not falter. Oil sprayed past me in a dark arc, thick and gleaming.
Sparks kissed it.
Flame swallowed the world.
Heat slammed into my back. Men behind me shrieked, their agony rising above the roar of fire. The stench of burning oil and scorched leather clogged the air.
Tsunami wrenched away. The movement caught me like a storm wave and hurled my body across the street. Stone met my spine with a resounding crack that rang through the chaos. Pain speared upward, sharp and blinding, stealing breath from my lungs.
For a moment, the sky tilted.
I had been too slow.
My limbs felt carved from lead. Each motion was slow and painful. I planted my sword against the ground and hauled myself upright, metal scraping stone. Nausea rolled through me. My armor had buckled somewhere along my back. It would’ve been wise to take it off.
But time had no mercy.
In a blind surge of rage, Tsunami slammed a massive paw above the door. Wood and stone collapsed inward. The frame caved in with a splintering roar.
And sealed Nienna inside.
“Ronan!” My arm lifted, sword pointing toward the giant black dragon.
He was already moving.
Gyrak barreled toward Tsunami, short legs churning in an uneven gallop across fractured terrain. His black scales flashed like wet obsidian. Fangs caught the sun, sharp and eager.
I forced myself forward, trusting the prince to master his dragons. Agony tore through my back with every step. Sweat pooled beneath dented plates. My breath burned with every inhale.
“Rally to me!” My voice cut through smoke for any soldier still standing.
A nearby door refused my first shove. I drove my shoulder into it. Wood splintered beneath the impact. The taste of dust coated my mouth as I stumbled into someone’s home, a table overturned, cups shattered across the floor.
I moved fast, tearing through narrow rooms. Curtains smoldered near a cracked window. A child’s toy lay abandoned beside a hearth gone cold.
The hall that led to the Heart stood ahead.
My pulse staggered in my chest as I shoved locks aside.
The Heart lay quiet.
Dead.
Darkness pooled along the walls. No shouts. No struggle. Only the faint drip of something striking stone.
A door hung ajar.
Weight settled over my ribs as I jogged toward it. Blood marred the ground, deep and bright against pale flooring. A red footprint marked their path. The stride stretched too far. Too long.
The Ichors had used their speed. Catching them would be impossible.
Helplessness wrapped around my throat like iron bands. I shoved the door wide and stepped into the widow’s home, dust drifting through a thin beam of light. Hope flickered in my chest, fragile and desperate.
She had to be here.
They could not take her.
“King Kallias! It will collapse!” The soldier’s warning struck my back and fell away.
The kitchen remained half intact.
Fallione’s body lay crushed beneath fallen beams. Rubble pinned his legs. His torn neck seeped dark blood that pooled across broken tile. My advisor’s head rested at an unnatural angle against a cabinet, white hair soaked scarlet.
The metallic scent filled my lungs.
A long streak cut through the crimson puddle.
Dragged.
No body.
My lungs seized. Blood thundered in my ears, each pulse a violent tremor. I sank to my knees amid shattered crockery.
They didn’t kill her.
They needed her alive.
Those monsters captured Nienna, the Dragon’s Heart, and took her to Vellos.
They had my wife.
Fury tore free. A scream ripped from my throat until it burned raw. Light flickered beneath my skin, racing along veins in molten lines, pushing past the presence of dragons outside these walls.
We couldn’t chase them. Speed belonged to the Ichors. Dragons could not outrun that blur of shadow. An army would never close the distance.
All the soldiers in the world couldn’t get her back.
She was gone.