Chapter 34 #2
A sound like the world itself were cracking open followed next. Then, through the windows, we all watched a massive dragon land on the jagged roof of the keep.
Pyrion.
Blessed Mother it was Pyrion. I would have thought my eyes had deceived me if not for the shocked, terrified faces around me.
My heart sped again, but this time, it filled with hope.
Stone shrieked against stone as talons carved deep grooves into the ancient stonework. Then another impact shook the eastern tower as Hedion assumed his post.
Pyrion and Hedion.
If they were here, then it had to mean he was here, too.
Wolfe.
His name barely entered my mind when more dragons landed on the surrounding walls of the castle. They were smaller than Hedion but dragons all the same.
My journal made mention of Wolfe training other dragons than the twins at Vyrenth Hollow. These must have been them.
Pyrion and Hedion lifted their heads toward the sky and released twin torrents of blue flame that painted the morning in sapphire light. The other dragons joined in, but their flame was red with streaks of gold.
The crowd erupted into chaos, but my heart soared. And I searched for Wolfe.
Just as the crowd began to surge toward the exits, the air at the end of the aisle tore apart. A portal blazed to life where moments before there had been only been garlands of roses.
Now, silver light crackled and danced in a perfect circle that hung suspended in the air like a doorway between worlds.
The stampede toward safety froze instantly. Nobles pressed against pillars and pews, caught between the terror of dragons outside and the impossible magic manifesting before their eyes.
Through the shimmering portal stepped a massive black stallion, its hooves striking the marble with a ring of steel on stone. Steam rose from its flanks, and its eyes burned with intelligence that was far different from any horse in the mortal lands.
Astride the beast sat Wolfe Nightblade, his long black hair flowing behind him on the currents of magic and his face imbued with vengeance.
My lungs seized.
He was here. He truly was here. This wasn’t a dream or some hallucination.
Wolfe Nightblade was here. And he was armored in burnished gold, with the seal of Galaythia embossed across his chest—the black dragon. At his back, a sword nearly as tall as he was had been strapped in place, its hilt wrapped in black leather and crowned with a pommel that gleamed like the sun.
He was war incarnate. Vengeance given form.
Wolfe's burning gaze swept the hall until it found mine across the sea of frozen nobles.
And in that look, I saw everything.
He'd come for me.
But how was this possible? What was he going to do?
I didn’t get time to think about the question.
A heartbeat later, the Bloodsworn followed—Bastian, Alaric, Garrick, each mounted on a horse and armored identically to Wolfe.
Sirril followed next, waving the royal banner.
Kaem, the sea captain who’d gotten us out of the Land of the Dead, strode next to him.
And behind them came twenty Galaythian Fae warriors in perfect formation, their armor shimmering with barely-contained magic.
An army.
Wolfe brought an army.
I couldn't process what this meant. Wolfe had torn through the barriers between worlds and brought an army to…what? Rescue me? Start a war?
My thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm, leaving only the impossible sight before me.
The wedding, Thayden, the hundreds of nobles, and everything else blurred into meaningless background noise as Wolfe stopped his horse’s march just before he reached the altar. The others stopped, too.
When he dismounted his horse and stepped forward, the Bloodsworn were suddenly beside him, walking in step with him. And the theatrics weren’t over.
A swirl of silver light appeared next to Bastian and took form, becoming Arielle. The silver around her moved like starlight caught in a wind, glowing from head to toe.
When Wolfe stopped at the base of the altar, two giant figures shimmered in next to him. Wolfe was already seven feet tall, but these beings… they had to be at least ten feet.
One was a platinum-haired, bearded man wearing gray robes.
He looked like the statues depicting Zeus.
The other person had long hair, too, and wore the same type of robes.
He looked like the Fae, but he wasn’t. His ears were similar but sharper, there was a celestial glow to his skin I’d never seen before, and he had more chisel to his jaw that made him look like he’d been sculpted by the Gods.
Elf-kind.
Blessed Mother, he was an elf.
Maybe a high elf. They were unheard of now, but Father had told me there’d been one left on the seat of the judges between realms.
Wolfe stepped forward, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a vial.
The vial that Erethis had used to trap my soul.
“What is the meaning of this?” Prince Maelor marched closer to meet Wolfe.
Beside him, Thayden stood still as a statue, a muscle ticking in his jaw. A sign that what lay before him had landed exactly as Wolfe intended.
Wolfe held the vial higher. “This ceremony will not proceed,” he declared, his voice loud enough to reach every ear and wall in the hall. “Elariya Grayson belongs to me.”