Chapter 29
twenty-nine
My resolve hadn’t lasted as long as I hoped it would.
It waned right around the time Mourns’ beats grew weaker and further apart.
The blizzard eased and lightened, allowing small bits of sun to seep through the gray cloud tops, illuminating the weathered castle.
It didn’t spiral into the sky like the pearlescent spires of Eltidian, but even so, its eroded bricks were unmistakable.
It wasn’t that sight that tightened my guts, though. It was when we briefly lost altitude, diving to treetop level in a matter of seconds.
I tightened my grip around Mourn and tried to steady him, but it made no difference. The wall grew ever closer, and I feared we might fly through the masonry itself.
My breath hitched in my chest, and I let out a song. But it wasn’t my melody that spiked our path skyward, it was the will and energy I forced directly into my dragon. I dug my fingers deep beneath his scales, directly into his flesh, and poured myself, funneling my desire up.
He screamed at my touch, but drank in my lumen. With a long and forced flap, he thrust us up. His tail grazed the edge of the wall, but it was enough to save us from death. The stone crumbled, but the crowd’s cries were swallowed by the wind and my gasps.
The castle presented itself, coming quickly into view as we gained altitude. We had enough height to stop dodging buildings and the makeshift towers of the Underquarter.
I pressed my fingers in deeper, then summoned the pain, anguish, and will that consumed me.
But when I tried to feed him my energy… nothing came.
I searched harder, mulling in those seconds on everything I’d been through, and finding Deldren’s pallid, decapitated face.
But it changed nothing, and no lumen swirled in my chest or flowed from my fingertips. Whatever well I’d had was tapped dry.
But without my raw energy, the only path was downward.
“Mourn, we need to land!” Not a song, but a scream that hailed above the wind.
He didn’t need my screamed instruction, as before I finished, he missed a wingbeat, and we dropped.
The buildings soared closer, and he wrenched himself from side to side to avoid them as we rapidly descended.
We barely missed a house, his tail knocking bricks free and throwing them to the stairs below.
I wanted to beg him to slow down, but it was too late. The collision threw us into a spiral, and we crashed into the top of the stairs in a single fell swoop. His wing cushioned me, but not enough to stop all the air from being ripped from my lungs.
The impact was brutal. I would have screamed if I could. The world spun around me as I dragged myself from Mourn’s wings.
I couldn’t let myself stop. Despite the blooming pain, I forced myself to my feet and started forward. With a slow, jerky gait, I headed toward the castle that rose above me. It wasn’t half as tall as the spires of Eltidian, but was three times as intimidating.
Before I got past Mourn’s wingtips, guards began flooding outward to surround me. With the stairs at my heel and a multitude of armored soldiers circling, there was nowhere to go.
I couldn’t give up. This was my city, and these were my people. A crowd formed, but its thinness was a dagger through my heart. Where was everyone?
Were they already slaughtered?
But their faces were painted with fear and anger, not welcoming arms or joy at my return. I pressed on anyway.
“Hear me. I come to set you free, not harm you further. I’ve seen the pikes,” I shouted. “It pains me the king has done this to you, but I won’t lay a finger on you. This ends today.”
A hush rang out through the whispering crowd. The soldiers appeared to consider my words, nodding and talking amongst themselves. But the somber look returned when they faced me.
“Please, I will die for you, for my people. But you must lead me to him. I’m the only one who can end this.”
“He commands us to imprison you,” the guard at the front shouted.
Not Hrothgir, his head was still outside.
Some other propped-up man whose face I recognized, but whose name I never knew.
His armor differed from the others, instead bearing the larger, pauldroned set that the previous, now-dead general wore.
For a moment, I wondered if they stripped it off him when he was dead or alive—but the answer didn’t matter as the result was the same.
Both were bastards, and I’d have to appeal to their baser urges: power.
“You don’t need to listen to the king. Once I dispose of him, I’ll give you everything he has, and more—along with the promise to not slaughter you the way the king killed Hrothgir.”
They tipped their heads back and laughed, roaring like the wild dogs who’d torn peasants apart.
“You believe it’s the king who empowers me? No, the highest has blessed me. Something a false heir like you’d never know. Bastard child.”
Empowered by anger, stupidity, or the dull of battle haze, I stumbled forward and let the knights scatter. They tried to edge closer, but Mourn’s scraping claws and snapping teeth discouraged them.
“What do you speak of? Where’s my father?” But I was met with knowing smirks and chuckles. “Stop that,” I snapped. “Tell me.”
“I owe you nothing,” said the bastard knight. “He commanded I imprison you!”
Whispers of “He’s coming” rang out across the soldiers.
The centerpiece knight threw up an exasperated wave. “He wishes to deal with her himself. Let him.”
My heart thundered against my breastbone so intensely it ached, somehow drowning out the many contusions and bruised bones I’d strained in the crash. But the general’s voice wiped any plan away.
“Men, bow yourselves for our Lord, Ovatar.”