Chapter 60
Chapter Sixty
I try to move, to throw myself in the weapon’s path, to burn it to ash. But my exhausted body betrays me.
The lance soars over Sterling’s shoulder—missing him by a hair—and continues its deadly flight.
It strikes a massive tentacled creature that had been crawling out of a portal behind us, piercing straight through its chest. The monster convulses once, twice, then collapses into a heap of twitching limbs.
Sterling staggers, knees buckling.
The Guardian crosses the remaining distance in three long strides, seizing Sterling’s arm and hauling him upright with supernatural strength. “On your feet, son. It’s not over.”
All I can do is gape at him, uncomprehending.
Did he just…help us?
The Guardian, staunchest defender of the gods, Zeru’s most loyal servant?
He meets my gaze, his starry eyes unreadable. “Yes, Queen Lark, I am helping you. For now.” He surveys the battlefield, his expression hardening. “The situation has…evolved.”
Another crack—the loudest yet—booms from above. Trees shake. Clouds form and dissipate. A rainbow sprouts and disappears as quickly as it arrives.
The creatures surrounding us pause again, as if receiving new instructions.
“The portals are unattended. Unfocused. You will see things humans were never meant to see.” The Guardian lifts his hand, and by magic, his lance is clasped within his fingers once again.
“Were never supposed to find in the mortal realm. And most of them will hunger for your flesh. For any physical flesh.”
I don’t understand what he means, but there’s no time to ask.
Sterling somehow raises his glaive. “To me!”
The stunned humans rush toward the only hope of survival left.
We gather in the center of the arena. Mortals and now two guardians.
Even with his help, we’re outnumbered and outpowered. Already exhausted and burned out.
Swarming from all sides, the new creatures attack with renewed ferocity.
The Guardian wades into the thicket of monstrosities, his glowing sword cutting through divine skin as if it were nothing but parchment.
I fight mechanically now, my body operating on instinct rather than conscious thought. My fire comes in weak, sputtering bursts, barely hot enough to singe the monsters’ hides. Each time I call on my magic, the response is weaker, the well of my power nearly dry.
A bugle splits the air, and I could weep with relief at the sound.
The dragons have returned.
In moments, they appear, already tearing through the creatures with brutal savagery.
For every beast we destroy, though, two more materialize from the rifts that continue to open around the arena’s perimeter. A never-ending horde of monsters.
A barbed appendage penetrates Sterling’s defenses and slashes across his torso. The blow should kill him.
He staggers but doesn’t fall, tumbling forward with a defiant roar. Blood streams from the wound. His flickering ice blade, though nearly transparent, is still sharp enough to sever the creature’s attacking limb.
But he can’t keep this up.
None of us can.
Our eyes—Sterling’s and mine— meet across the chaos, and a moment of terrible clarity passes between us.
We’ve failed.
Revealing the truth about the gods wasn’t enough. Their power runs too deep. The creatures they’ve set against us are too strong, too numerous.
I’m sorry, I mouth.
I will him to understand everything I don’t have the strength or time to say. Sorry for not being enough, for not saving them, for the future we’ll never have.
Our merge has collapsed completely. I can no longer feel him in my mind. We’re isolated in our own exhaustion and despair.
I gather the last remnants of my energy, forcing my fire blade to reform one final time. If this is the end, I’ll go down fighting. For Sterling. For our friends. For the hatchlings. For the dragons circling desperately overhead. For Leesa’s unborn child. For Tirene. For everyone.
Just as my power reaches its absolute limit, a sound rises above the chaos. Not the terrible booming from above, not the shrieks of monsters or the clash of weapons, but something else entirely.
A song.
Clear and pure, a child’s voice lifts in melody.
Not the same melody Rose hummed to the hatchlings, but eerily similar to that lullaby of protection and love.
A fresh wave of terror raises the hairs on my arms.
How can Rose be here? She was supposed to be safe, far away from the arena. Inside the capital with the alicorns and the families and protected by the army in our desperate attempt to save the Tirenese people from total erasure. Ready to flee in case we fail.
When we fail.
The song grows louder, more confident. Stronger.
I turn, searching for its source, and spot Kin instead. The flame familiar is dancing through the air between the arena floor and stands.
The small flame expands, dividing into beams of light that extend outward like sun rays. The beams that split from the original spin on their own. A chain of glowing orbs spreads out, flanking Kin.
Within each one, a vision forms.
Scenes from across the kingdoms. Northern temples in Meridia, where priests stand with outstretched arms. Southern villages in Aclaris, where farmers pause in their fields.
The capital of Tirene, where alicorns and dragons stand ready to fly.
Glimpses of countless other kingdoms, other lands.
And in each vision, voices join Rose’s song.
First children, then adults, then entire communities raise their voices in harmony.
The wind sweeping through the arena carries the combined melody.
It smells of honeysuckle and wood fires and dying fir, scents of home and hearth and hope. The creatures falter, shrinking back from the musical wind as it swirls around us, bringing with it a strength I believed lost forever.
My fire flickers, then steadies, burning brighter as the wind caresses it. I feel Sterling’s presence again, faint but growing stronger. Our connection reestablishes itself as if nurtured by the song.
How? Why? What’s happening?
Then a screech splits the sky. High and piercing and somehow majestic.
From beyond the arena wall, bright flame erupts. Spots dance across my vision. Through the afterimage, a bird of inconceivable beauty comes into view, its wings trailing fire as it banks over the arena. Each feather shimmers with colors no painter could capture, its crest a crown of living flame.
A phoenix.
But they’re supposed to be gone.
I saw them in my vision in the Hidden Valley.
Watched the story of the wounded princess who saved the phoenix chicks, whose blood and tears mingled with theirs, and who gained the gift of phoenix fire that also burns in my heart.
Learned about my dragoncaller heritage, my ability to feel and share emotions with animals, and my healing tears.
But to meet a living phoenix, here, now…
Another joins it, slightly smaller but no less magnificent, its tail a comet-streak across the blue sky.
Their emotions drift over me. They’re not angry, not filled with rage. But they are determined, and they’re sad things had to happen like this.
Together, they plunge toward the battlefield, their blazing wings scattering the divine creatures like smoke before a storm. The monsters that try to stand against them are consumed by phoenix fire. Not just burned but unmade, as if their very essence is incompatible with the phoenixes’ flame.
At that, the remaining creatures flee through their portals, back to wherever they came from.
The crowd, which has been alternating between terrified screams and stunned silence, falls completely quiet. All eyes track the flaming birds as they wheel overhead. Even the dragons pause in their attacks, hovering respectfully as the phoenixes dance through the air.
I drop to my knees, my legs giving out as emotions overwhelm me.
My legacy. The dragons. And the phoenixes.
They’re so happy they were called back. That the song was finally sung again. They’ve been waiting.
All of them.
In the sudden silence, a warm laugh bubbles up from somewhere near the arena wall, followed by the enthusiastic clapping of small hands. “I knew you’d be happy!” Rose’s voice carries clearly across the field, innocent and delighted.
She’s standing beside a section of collapsed seating, Kin hovering above her shoulder.
Her blond hair is tangled, her face smudged with dirt, but her smile is radiant as she watches the phoenixes circle overhead.
She claps again and again, completely unconcerned by the battlefield around her, the monsters retreating from the phoenixes’ light, or the recovering fighters struggling to their feet.
Rose raises her arms to the sky as if greeting old friends, and the phoenixes respond, dipping lower in acknowledgment.
As I watch this child—this remarkable, precious child who somehow called creatures of legend back into our world through nothing more than song and belief—my heart swells with a hope I thought long extinguished.
But the battle isn’t over.
The booming sounds from above continue, the rifts still stand open around the arena’s edge, and a few of the divine creatures, though cowering now in the shadows, remain.
But in this moment, as the phoenixes soar above a battlefield where minutes ago we faced certain death, I allow myself to believe that, perhaps, we haven’t failed.
Perhaps we’ve only just begun to fight.