Chapter 21 Axel
Axel
From the moment I hatched, Hyperion was a legend. The prince who would doom us.
While I would save us.
You’d think it would be demoralizing.
Other than Euphrasia, I’m not sure anyone believed that prophecy. Dad might have, but even he didn’t want it to be true. Mostly though, I was a reminder to everyone that the blessed needed to be saved.
Hyperion grew up in the midst of mocking and taunts about being our people’s doom.
I grew up with the opposite.
Neither of us had it easy. The difference is that I had him to make it easier. When I drag his body through the portal. . . It hurts, watching him like this, limp, prone, and pulsing with unhealthy, ominous blue light.
Hyperion.
Liz wings her way through, and I close the portal. If I’d come sooner—checked on them instead of getting everyone else through, but I never thought Hyperion wouldn’t be able to. . .
“It was Gideon,” she says. “My mom and Gideon.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “They used my sword. It’s my fault.”
It isn’t, Hyperion says. You wanted to save your mother—what they did was smart. It was one of the first smart things I’ve seen the humans do. That Gideon is almost a worthy opponent. He can’t help being so small and weak.
And now Hyperion’s convulsing again.
“I don’t know much about dragon anatomy,” Liz says. “But this looks bad. Really bad.”
We have to get that spear out, I say. If we can’t. . .
“His body can’t heal while it’s in there.”
Liz. Hyperion opens one great eye and stills. His legs are twitching a little, but he’s clearly trying to stop. We talked about this. It’s time.
Time for what? I ask.
Liz shakes her head. “No. We talked about this, and I said no. I told you that your plan’s terrible—it makes no sense. Your death could be the very thing that dooms your people. Listen to me.” She kicks him. Then she hits him.
That doesn’t hurt me any more now than it did before. But Hyperion’s smile is pained.
Liz spins on me, her eyes flashing. “He’s giving up.” She kicks him again. “No, you can’t give up, you stupid brute. I forbid it.”
He’s lived his entire life with the weight of knowing that, if the prophecy is true, he’ll destroy his people. But now, on Earth, he’s done nothing to harm us. He hasn’t betrayed the blessed. He’s been brave, and strong, and good, and true.
Even so, I understand.
He wants to die, because he’ll finally be free of the weight of it all.
Liz.
She ignores me.
She yanks the remaining blade out of the sheath on her back. “I’m cutting my sword out of your belly, you big jerk. Do you hear me? You can’t keep it!” Before I can stop her, she scrambles up toward the top of his belly.
Liz, stop, I say. I understand his desire. He’s not insane. It’s rational.
“Just because you’re stupid too doesn’t mean it’s right.
We need him. The blessed need him. Don’t let some idiotic thing—” Liz is crying, rivulets of tears running down her face.
“My mom told me I was promised to the crazy people who came to kidnap me. She traded my life to those people who dragged me away from my home and tried to throw me in that volcano.” She tightens both her hands on the hilt of her one remaining sword.
“My mom made a deal, after I died in her stomach, that if they brought me back and I got a childhood, they could have me. She traded my life to them.”
That’s. . .insane. Hyperion coughs. I’ve never seen a dragon cough, unless they had a rock or a small animal caught in their throat. She’s insane.
“You’re just as bad as she is,” Liz says.
“Worse!” She looks down at the glowing blue spear inside Hyperion’s belly.
“I’m going to perform the first-ever dragon surgery, and I’m going to pull this stupid ice spear out of your dumb belly, and then you’re going to bond a human and recover. Do you hear me?”
Before I can stop her again, Liz slices his belly open.
At least, she tries. Even badly injured, Hyperion’s magic is strong, and his hide is even stronger. She’s barely sliced through the scales when the blue line that’s glowing inside his stomach explodes, tiny blue and red glowing specks swirling wildly.
What just happened? Liz is blasting her questions far and wide. What was that? Is he—did that—
Blessed are gathering now, flooding the flat top of the mountain north of Selfoss where we’ve been gathering.
Gordon and Rufus. Asteria and a dozen of her strike blessed.
They’re coming from all over, and their ensnared have come with them, too.
No one can look away from the blue and red lights chasing one another around in Hyperion’s stomach.
I can’t blame them. I’m staring, too.
His head has gone limp. His eyes are flat and dark.
He’s dying.
You have to let him go, I say. It’s what he wants.
“You have got to be kidding me. This is so messed up,” Coral says, hopping off Asteria’s back and jogging to Hyperion’s side.
Before any of us can stop her, before we can say a single word, she braces both her arms against the bright red scales of his right flank, and there’s a sucking feeling, and then the room’s flooded with a brilliant golden light.
The word Liz says is one I haven’t heard very often, and she looks very displeased.
Coral straightens. “He’s not dead yet, and now if he dies, I do too. So, tell me again what he wants, and how we need to let him go?”
Liz’s face blanches. “We have to get him over to that cursed volcano, right now. I think maybe only that heartstone can save him.”
NO. I forbid it.
“It’s Coral,” Liz says. “She’s bonded to him, so spare me the lecture, and fly your stupid brother to Eyjafjallajokull before I stab you!”
Ah, Coral. What a stupid human baby.
I have no idea what Liz thinks she’s going to do at the volcano. Even if she leaps back inside, there’s no way she’s going to save him in time, but there’s no reasoning with her. If I ignore her, she’ll do something else just as drastic, and with her wings she could fly there herself.
So I open the portal.
And then I drag my poor, mostly-dead brother onto the warm, jagged ground in front of the mouth of the angry volcano. The second Liz flies through, the creatures milling around in the bubbling lava begin chanting. I may not be able to see them, but I hear them well enough.
Gullveig.
Hjartanu.
Gullveig! Hjartanu!
Gullveig! Bjargaeu okkur! Gullveig!
I hate them—more even than Liz’s mother. I want to rend them into small pieces, or fly her away from here and never return. But it’s not an option right now, because now that we’re here, my stupid bonded human is literally sprinting toward the dumb lava.
I’m not going in again, Gordon says.
No one else will, I say. That’s an order.
Before Liz leaps into the lava, she points at Coral, who has jogged through the portal after her almost-dead, bonded, flame blessed prince.
“Do. Not. Die. Do you hear me? You take one hundred and ten percent of that stubborn, pain-in-the-ass nature that you have, and you cling to that for all you’re worth until I’m back. Do you hear me?”
Coral nods, tears running down her face. “Please Liz—you made it out last time. Do it one more time.”
Then Liz leaps from the edge of the rock into the lava. I’m only half a step behind her, but it’s enough. I have to watch as her body hits the lava—which has a more substantial form than I thought it would. She hits it more like a wall than a pool. Her body blackens, and then she screams.
And then I hit too, and the world’s nothing but fire and ash and pain.