Chapter 64
Chapter Sixty-Four
Kallias
He flinched, his brows twitching into a frown. Not at me. No, Tallon didn’t fear me. Whatever Nienna was doing with his magic twisted something inside him; his power sour and wrong.
The Velli surrounding us shifted, armor rasping, reading my intent before I reached him. He might have ordered them to stand down until his command, but they understood the truth carved into the air between us. When he fell, they would be next.
His gaze fixed on nothing, unfocused. His nose wrinkled. He lifted his canteen and took long, heaving gulps; a line of crimson spilled down his chin, darkening the leather at his throat.
I didn’t slow—didn’t hesitate. I charged, boots tearing through trampled grass, lungs filling with smoke-thickened air.
A scoff slipped from him, arrogance curling across his face in a lopsided smirk. He blinked, jerking toward me as if noticing me for the first time.
But my spear was already flying.
He had trained with me countless times. Every warrior carried a pattern, nearly impossible to break. I knew Greaves as well as my own body, the way it wanted to pivot, the habits stitched into muscle memory. A warrior had to change. Had to be unpredictable.
But lessons only settled into those willing to learn. Tallon never wanted me to teach him anything.
He turned and ran.
No sidestep. No feint. He relied on speed, sprinting in a straight line just as I knew he would, boots pounding a desperate rhythm into the earth.
The spear caught him low, slicing through his kidney. The impact pitched him forward. He screamed, raw and animal, throwing a hand out to catch himself, but the force of the throw pinned him to the grass, the shaft quivering with the echo of the strike.
The Velli surged, racing toward us in a wave of steel and fury. I bared my teeth, tasting ash, hoping the riders had enough sense to burn a circle around us and hold the line.
My boot struck Tallon’s back, and I wrenched the spear free, hot blood slicking the shaft.
With a kick, I rolled him over and stared down at the terrified face of a boy I once tried to love.
Each breath pushed crimson between his fingers, his futile attempt to keep his life from spilling onto the dirt.
“Father, please.”
I knelt beside him. His face had gone gray beneath the grime, pupils blown wide with shock. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the chill likely creeping into his limbs.
There should have been a fragment of my soul that ached. I had raised him as my son for nineteen years. He was still so young—a full life ahead of him. Despite his heritage, he had potential. He could’ve been so much more.
I lived his entire life believing he was mine, anticipating the day he would stand at my side as heir. Nearly twenty years expecting him to take my mantle one day.
It should have been hard to accept.
I grabbed his collar and hauled him into the air. His mouth fell open, feeble hands clawing at my wrists, boots kicking uselessly.
“Please help me!” His voice cracked, panic shredding it thin. “You’ve been the only father I’ve known!”
“And yet not the father you chose.” Dragonfire roared around me, the thunder of wings and talons shaking the earth. Heat rolled over my back in blistering waves. “I would’ve endured you, Tallon. You could have cut me to pieces, drained me dry. And I would have let you.”
My jaw ticked, fury coiling tight. “But you had to have her. Had to touch my wife.”
He thrashed as I shifted the spear tip beneath his chin. The blade pressed into soft flesh. He kicked at the shaft, trying to shove it away, breath wheezing through his bloody teeth.
“Today you die, Tallon of Vellos. Renounced heir. Traitor to Radaan.”
I released him.
His weight drove him down. The blade punched through his chin and into his brain with a sickening give. His arms dropped to his sides. The body slackened. The spear tip burst through his skull, blood arcing from the wound in a violent spray.
Numbness seeped through me, cold and heavy. It was done. The boy was dead. A strange sense of loss brushed against that truth, thin as smoke. I shoved it aside for another day.
Screams and shouts crashed into my ears, and my awareness snapped to the battlefield. I yanked the spear free, flung Tallon’s body to the ground, and ran toward Nienna’s slumped form.
Grass tore free under my knees as I slid to her, cradling her head. “Nienna. Curse it all, I didn’t rescue you for you to come back!”
Her eyelids fluttered, and a weak curve touched her mouth. “Do I ever listen?”
“Not nearly enough.” I pulled her against my armor, feeling the tremor in her limbs, and scanned the chaos.
Dragons were not made for ground combat. Not against Velli surges that swarmed like fire ants, overwhelming through sheer number.
“Tell those who are bleeding to take to the sky. If a Cruor gets their blood, we’re back where we started.
” I used her as my messenger, relief cutting through me when Artorious and Dyre shot upward, wings carving through smoke.
“Get Tsunami over here. Gyrak secures our perimeter. Matalino to the eastern flank.”
Orders flowed without effort. Calculation steadied me.
From the ground, I anticipated movements, slicing through the enemy’s momentum.
Above us, Gyrak galloped past, claws flashing inches from my face, clearing space.
Tsunami barreled in after him, jaws wide, leaving a sweeping trail of flame that swallowed Velli whole.
Nienna sagged, struggling to support her own weight.
I lifted her, letting her wrap around me, legs locking at my hips, arms tight at my shoulders.
Tsunami snarled but flattened herself to the scorched earth.
This time I pinned Nienna between my body and the dragon’s scales, hating the way her breath hitched at the pain.
Still, she never complained as we took to the sky.
That day, Vellos burned. The palace collapsed into embers. The city hub became a wasteland of flame and falling stone.
Tsunami’s wings beat hard, wind tearing at my hair. Gyrak flew alongside us. The rest of the fleet fanned outward, dark shapes against a bruised sky. In the distance, they swooped low, smoke trailing behind them in thick black ribbons.
Radaan wouldn’t stop with the capital. We’d burn cities, towns, houses—reduce them to skeletons of charcoal. Anything east of the Craggs would feed the fire. Smoke would hang for weeks, dragonfire devouring the land like a starving god.
This marked the end of the kingdom of Vellos and the beginning of a new reign in Radaan.