Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
SERAFINA
Chanting filled my ears, a sinister melody that slithered through my skull. Panic burned through my veins, urging me to move. To flee. Something grievous was happening. What, I couldn’t remember. My mind was a tangle of fear and confusion, urgently scrambling.
Wake up. Wake up!
I forced my eyelids open and groaned at the dull ache in my sternum. Stars twinkled in my vision, whether in the sky above or bursting behind my eyes, I wasn’t sure.
Despite the invisible boulder that sat on my chest, I dragged myself upright. Memories surfaced. The Dark One’s general. The blast of searing power.
Flark. I sucked in a ragged breath.
The eerie whinny of a horse sliced through the night, yanking my head around.
The fallen king loomed outside the blackened circle that surrounded me.
His demonic steed waited a short distance away, snorting and pawing the earth.
The general’s soulless gaze locked with mine, a predator watching his wounded prey.
He wasn’t alone.
A shadowed figure stood beside the general, his presence a dagger to my gut.
I gasped. “Alaric.”
If he were here, then—
My pulse seized, an icy fist crushing my heart. “Where’s Thorne? What have you done?”
Alaric’s lips curled, his voice a frigid snarl. “What I should have done years ago.”
The words shattered me like glass. “No.” Tears welled to strangle me. He wasn’t dead. I’d have sensed his loss like the destruction of my own soul.
My mate was alive. I just knew it. And no matter the cost, I would find him. But first, I’d need to save myself.
I darted a glance at my surroundings, taking in the devastated landscape. I sat in the center of a pentagram, the earth brittle and lifeless. Everything I touched was dead, as if the life had been sucked away. I gathered my legs beneath me, preparing to run—
The ground quaked, a deep guttural tremor that vibrated through my bones.
Fates. I knew that sound.
Before I could gain my feet, decaying hands thrust from the soil, grabbing my arms and legs. Cruel fingers bit into my flesh, and I roared my outrage. “Release me, you rotting bastards!”
The grip on my limbs grew tighter, pulling me flush against the ground.
“This will be less painful for you if you don’t struggle,” Alaric said, faking concern for my well-being.
“May as well save your energy. The Dark One’s army has breached Slyborn’s gates.
Carcerem’s king and queen have failed in their duty, their kingdom in disarray.
Their magic will be gone before they even register what is happening. ”
My eyes burned. No, this couldn’t be true. Carcerem couldn’t have fallen. Alaric was lying. Please let him be lying.
“It is time,” a crackling voice said, the general stepping closer. His rotting stench wafted beneath my nose. He smelled like a grave and broken oaths.
I thrashed against the undead hands that bound me, their claws biting into my skin. “Damn you, Alaric. How could you stoop so low as to aid The Dark One?”
“Surely someone like you can understand the value of freedom,” he said in an emotionless tone, as if removed from the atrocity he was about to commit. “To be trapped by circumstances you didn’t choose. Forced to live a life that is not your own.”
“I was sacrificed, abandoned, and enslaved,” I snarled. “Still, I wouldn’t have saved myself at the cost of another’s freedom. Nor does your suffering entitle you to inflict pain on others.”
“And that is why you will remain a slave.” He shrugged, casual in his cruelty. “I learned at an early age to watch out for my own interests. Nobody else was going to. Why the hell should I care what happens to anyone else?”
“You're wrong. You should care because it’s those bonds that make life worth living. And you’ve shattered every one of them. Your people, your family.” My voice broke. “Thorne.”
“Poor Serafina and her fairy tales. Those bonds never brought me anything of value,” he scoffed.
“It was The Dark One who freed me from the arbor’s whispers.
From my father’s judgment. He who gave me a choice when Hathor left me none.
So yes, twice now, I made a bargain. Because at least he kept his word. As will I.”
His gaze raked over me, cold and covetous. “It only seems right that Hathor’s handmaiden repays the debt that I owe. That it is you who grant him the power to burn it all down—the goddess, her sacred arbors, obsidian. All of it. You will be the key to her destruction.”
The general’s outstretched hands began to glow, his eyes lighting with a haunting gleam. The marking on the surface beneath me burned with an eerie blue light.
“Alaric, please. Don’t—”
Agony tore through my sternum, a searing force that split me apart from the inside out. I screamed as a brilliant sphere of white energy exploded inside of me, pulsing in time with the pentagram, each throb sending shockwaves through my body.
Through a haze of pain, I registered Yaga’s pendant wrenching free of its chain. The stone floated upward, trembling as if it answered an ancient call. A sharp crack rang out, and the pendant split. From its shattered core, a delicate sapling with two tender leaves emerged.
Wh–what was this? Delirious, I struggled to make sense of it. The stone was a seed?
The sprout drifted down to rest over my heart. The moment it touched my skin, warmth exploded outward, not in fire, but in something gentler—richer. Like sunlight filtering through a canopy.
Energy flowed from the sapling. It seeped through my flesh and spiraled deeper. Deeper inside of me, then through me. Searching. Stretching.
Connecting.
Finally. It all made sense.
Carcerem’s sacred arbor didn’t reside in Slyborn Castle; its roots extended throughout her kingdom. Threaded through plains, pastures and mountaintops. Floated in her streams, racing in her rivers. It wove itself into the fabric of the land and her people.
Every one of my nerve endings came alive. I was an open tap connected to the source, and it was glorious. Tears filled my eyes, rolling down my cheeks.
“Beautiful,” I sobbed. “It’s so beautiful.”
“She’s in. Do it now,” growled a distant voice.
Deep-throated chanting rang in my ears, the sound shattering my nirvana.
The ground rumbled, and a chill washed through my bones.
Darkness approached, a storm that drove away all that was bright and lovely. It reached out, grasped and tore, leaving behind only a hollow void.
I ached to run, escape, but I was trapped.
And it was too late.
The earth cracked.
Blackened roots slithered out like living nightmares, twisting toward me.
One circled my leg. Its thorns pierced flesh and muscle, sending fire racing through my veins.
I cried out, thrashing. Another lashed my wrists and slithered up my forearms. Barbed daggers stabbed my skin, snaking around my throat.
The Dark One had me in his clutches. His foul presence coiled around my soul, a parasite that sank its hooks deep. He was using me to siphon magic from Hathor’s sacred arbor, twisting it into something vile.
Acrid tears washed away my previous joy. No. This couldn’t be my fate. To be used to bring about the destruction of a great kingdom.
Desperation clawed at my chest. I threw my head back and unleashed a scream of pure anguish—one that tore through the night, through the heavens themselves.
And then—
A roar answered.
Not just any roar.
A bone-chilling, rage-fueled war cry.
My heart leapt as the sky thundered.
Pounding wings hammered the air, relentless, unstoppable, the sound like battle drums. I peered up, meeting a pair of fiery blue eyes. Blood poured down my dragon’s powerful torso, his scales drenched in crimson. His mighty wings—torn, tattered—carried him to battle.
“Thorne,” I whispered, worried he was a hallucination, afraid to hope.
“Close your eyes, my love.” His voice poured over me in the sweetest of caresses. The supernova deep within his core ignited. His massive jaws parted, flames crackling at the back of his throat.
He’d either save me or end me. Either way, I would be free. A strange sense of peace washed over me, and my straining muscles gave up their useless struggle.
If this was my fate, then let me meet it in the embrace of my dragon’s fire.
Alaric’s curses rang out, along with a great whoosh of wind, the sound like a tidal wave crashing against the rocks.
Liquid fire exploded from Thorne’s powerful mouth, pouring in a molten stream. The crackling inferno rained down on top of me, the sheer force of the blast battering my frame, the heat staggering. My blood sang, invigorated by the beast’s unimaginable power.
Nothing could survive such a deluge, save for a dragon’s true mate.
Piercing screams cut through the chaos. The hands that gripped me incinerated, turning to ash. A hellish screech rent the night—the dying wail of the general’s monstrous steed.
Peering through the smoke, I caught sight of The Dark One’s general awash in fire. His withered flesh charred, becoming crimson embers that floated away on the breeze.
As the fire died, the soil beneath me rumbled. From deep within the earth came a sound—a horrendous, keening roar. The Dark One bellowed his rage. The air trembled with it, the vibrations rattling my bones. I clamped my hands over my ears and shuddered as the feral cry clawed at my soul. Then…
Silence.
Frozen in place, nude body trembling, I glanced around me. The pentagram I had lain upon was gone, erased as if it had never existed. The sinister vines that held me captive had withered to nothing.
Where the general and his monstrous steed had stood, only a smoldering mound of noxious ash remained.
Trees splintered and cracked, and I spun as Thorne’s massive dragon fell from the sky. The brutal impact rattled the earth. “No. Thorne,” I yelled, snapping out of the icy shock.
I attempted to go to him, only my legs had other plans, collapsing beneath me.