Chapter 40 #2
“You should go mourn your friend.” Cindel pushes Dazni, and I swear I see one of the twins hold the other back from punching her.
A part of me wishes they wouldn’t—Cindel should get what’s coming to her eventually.
But they don’t look strong enough to stand up in a fight, and now is not the time.
“You’re all Undercrust cowards.” Cindel casts a withering gaze their way and leaves.
Lucan pulls us off to the side farthest from the body. “We don’t want to be an easy target,” he whispers. “Seeing so many together, vulnerable, might draw a dragon.”
I look up at him, searching his face for some kind of fear.
But his brow is furrowed with intensity.
In fact, he doesn’t seem afraid at all. If anything, he’s furious.
He’s ready to roar louder than the cry of the dragon that screeches across the sky and sends half of the supplicants to their knees, covering their heads, muttering as our thoughts scatter once more.
He looks like a Mercy Knight, already vetted and ready to do battle.
A dragon swoops down, charging the wall in the distance.
The pale moonlight might just be playing tricks on my eyes, but I think it’s a Silver Dragon.
Mercy Knights fire ballistae and weighted nets, covering its wings.
The ropes, even woven from metal, won’t hold its steely wings for long—every scale is sharper than a knife.
Knights rush the beast, overwhelming it.
Silver Dragons are hard to shoot down from the sky, given most projectiles do nothing to them and they’re too nimble for cannon fire.
So getting in close is the best chance to get under their scales.
The kill demands a high cost from the knights. The dragon swings its tail and arm, sending Mercy Knights falling from the wall like little more than scattered dolls. I’m too far to see them hit the ground, but I can feel it in my bones, and it knocks the wind from me.
Finally, the beast is felled.
As if in retaliation for its fallen friend, another dragon roars—louder than any before—and explodes over the sky of Vinguard. I collapse this time, my knees meeting the stone. Steal the inquisitors’ daggers. Eat a rock. Kiss Lucan. Jump off the roof. The thoughts are scattered, racing. Maddening.
The purple dragon is still alive.
“Isola!” Lucan shakes my shoulder. As I come to, I nearly heed the suggestion of the madness and kiss him. But I refrain, grateful for the night to hide the flush that covers my face. He points at the shadow in the sky. “Purple dragon. Snap out of it.”
“I know; I’m fine, I’m fine.”
We get Saipha back to the present, barely. She doesn’t want to stop rocking and shivering. The rest of the supplicants are struggling worse as fear and purple dragon madness overtakes them. Some have scattered to the edges of the rooftop. Others tug on their jerkins and hair. Some are laughing.
A deafening boom resounds from behind us. That pulls everyone back to reality.
A beam of pale light streaks across the darkness in response.
Whatever knight took the shot will be awarded with a handsome feast for sure, because it’s a direct hit—rare to shoot them down from the sky.
The purple dragon cries out in agony. The sound rips between my ears, and I grip the sides of my head with my hands.
It feels as though it’s tearing my mind apart as its final act.
But its dying cry is short-lived. The dragon falls to cheers from the other supplicants.
I force myself to clap as well…to look happy.
But I feel no joy. Relief, maybe. All joy within me has been rotted away by blood and chaos.
By one near-death experience after the next.
By having sense beaten from me at the vicar’s hands—by being his toy, his experiment.
By starving at the hands of people who’d call themselves my fellow citizens.
This can’t be the only way to live… There must be a better way.
It’s treasonous to even think, but I can’t accept that all this death and destruction is good for our world. I can almost feel the flow of Ether shift as the dragon draws its last breath. A void where there was once vibrancy.
My eyes drift to Lucan’s profile. He’s as still as a statue. Expression unchanging. Somehow…I know he’s thinking the same as me. That he feels the same. As if sensing my attention, he turns all that intensity on me. There are a thousand words unsaid. Words I can’t even fathom but ache to know.
Do you think like me? Feel like me? Do you want to see the dragon scourge ended without blood? Or, Lucan, are you really the Mercy Knight I caught a glimpse of shining in your eyes?
“Lu—” I’m interrupted by a screech so close I can feel the heat of the dragon’s breath.
We all turn in unison, facing the monstrosity that glides toward the rooftop with outstretched wings and a body larger than most houses.
It’s a yellow dragon. Gold glimmers off its slick scales in the moonlight.
Etherlight fills the air with an effervescent quality.
My head spins from the sensation washing over me.
The dragon lands on the edge of the rooftop, talons sinking in. Spiderweb fractures splinter the stone, and supplicants frantically attempt to keep their balance. Saipha lets out a scream unlike any sound I’ve ever heard from her.
I don’t say anything. I can’t even breathe. It’s just like that day six years ago. It’s as if I summoned the beast by allowing myself to remember. My heart feels like it’s stopped completely and abandoned me.
But the only people who have abandoned anyone are the inquisitors. As I search for someone to help us—to intervene—I realize they’re absent from the rooftop. They just…left us here.
The dragon sweeps its unfeeling gaze across the rooftop, as if assessing which tasty morsel it wants to consume first. No one moves. Everyone is too terrified to even make a sound. For once, I’m not alone in my fear.
Maybe now, they’ll see it’s not so unreasonable… Now that they’ve all been face-to-face with one of the monsters. It’s so easy to imagine yourself as brave when you’ve never known true fear.
The dragon shifts, leaning back. Its long neck stretches. Jaw relaxes. It’s going to bite and take out all the supplicants clustered together at once.
Someone has to do something.
I look for the inquisitors, but they’re not here. I look to Mercy Spire, but I don’t see the glint of a cannon. It must need to collect more Ether.
Someone has to do something.
Someone…
You saved me that day. Lucan’s words from earlier resonate within me, repeating with every quickening beat of my heart.
Being Valor Reborn was always a hollow title placed upon me by a man I’ve come to hate more than anyone in the world.
It felt unearned and undeserved, especially when I’ve never been able to do anything else befitting of Valor.
But Lucan…he really believes I saved him that day. Maybe I did.
And then there was what happened in the sundering pit when I drew Ether without a sigil.
Something wild and untamed pulses through me. I lunge forward, sprinting across the rooftop.
“Isola!” Saipha shouts after me, Lucan’s voice joining hers in shock.
The silver of the inquisitor’s dagger protruding from Yenni’s body glints in the moonlight. Clumsy of the prelate not to sheathe it again. Mercy Knights are supposed to guard their daggers at all costs.
I grab it as I run, using the blood that’s collected on the guard to draw a sigil on the back of the hand clutching the knife.
I take my stance, holding out the blade. The dragon looks at me, and I can almost imagine its scaly forehead rising as if to say, What do you intend to do with that?
Ether moves within me and around me—deep below, churning in the Font. Rising through stone and mortar. It moves through me, to the dragon, and back. The sensation is so sharp and present, it’s almost as if the magic replaces my own breath.
The dragon’s eyes shimmer like molten gold, as though it can feel it, too. As if we’re having a conversation with magic alone. As though I can almost understand the beast.
Something about standing here, now… I can’t imagine killing it.
Maybe that’s why even though Ether begins to collect around me with tiny sparks and hazy swirls, I can’t bring myself to unleash it.
I was prepared to have the dragon lunge for me and use the armor sigil to protect myself while I cut out its throat from the inside.
The dragon leans forward. Its massive neck is able to span halfway across the rooftop to me.
In so doing, its forearms come forward, sending the other supplicants scattering.
One doesn’t get out of the way in time, and in my periphery, a splatter of crimson accompanies a sickening crunch.
Others scream, but I don’t react. I can’t. I can hardly breathe.
The dragon’s eyes bore holes into me, consuming me.
The air between us begins to spark like stardust. The dragon’s face is so close that I can feel its breathing. Its face is monstrous, wider than I am tall. But I don’t sense any animosity from it. It doesn’t lunge for me. It doesn’t bite. Just like the dragon that day, it studies me with curiosity.
With a huff through its nostrils that blows my hair from my face, the shimmering magical aura that surrounds the beast lowers. The act almost feels like…it’s saying hello.
The moment it drops its barrier, I can sense even more about the creature. Etherlight runs along its scales—that must be how it makes the protective aura. It’s not using Ethershade… It’s using Etherlight, just like us…
My elbow unlocks. Muscles relax. “Tell me,” I breathe, audible only to the beast and me. Everything beyond the walls, the truth about the world and magic, about your kind. Tell me…
It lowers its chin, as if to say in reply, You already know. Its eyes drag down to my chest—right to my heart, where the other dragon’s claw carved into my skin. There’s something akin to recognition within them.
I open my mouth again to demand to know what secrets it holds. As if it could speak. As though it’s a breath from returning to whatever unfortunate soul it once was before the person transformed into a monstrous dragon.
Without warning, a deafening boom explodes from an upper level of Mercy Spire.
The beam of light blinds me. The meditative flow of Ether that had surrounded the dragon and me is disrupted by what amounts to the sensation of a cleaver striking stone.
The cannon fire strikes true, straight through the beast’s center.
For its final second, its eyes widen, staring straight through me, as if to say, How could you?
An apology burns my tongue unbidden.
Then, the yellow dragon rears back and lets out a dying scream. It staggers, shudders, and tips away, falling off the edge of the monastery and into the dark night.