53. The Sacrifice
THE SACRIFICE
DAWN
If we are the gods, what happens to our souls?
Everything faded but Ehrue. No collar. No cage.
Hands folded in her lap. She wasn’t restrained, or fighting, or running away.
There was something wrong about her face, a faint tremor in her left cheek, there and gone.
When Elanwei’s hand settled on Ehrue’s shoulder, she tilted into it like a tamed cat.
How long had she been this way?
Elanwei’s voice buzzed like an insect in the background, then her hand moved and the floor tilted. Air turned to syrup, and Dawn’s muscles refused to cooperate. She reached for fire and hit a wall. Something was blocking her.
Ehrue’s power, Dawn knew with sick certainty. Elanwei and Ehrue have a fucking channel bond. Elanwei’s affinity for illusion was exceptionally powerful. Drawing from a dragon’s magic reserves would make her nearly untouchable. Ehrue was ten times older and more powerful than Dawn was.
Elanwei shackled them one by one. Cold metal closed around Dawn’s wrists.
She shut her eyes, and time seemed to ripple.
She was trapped in two places at once. The pillar in Valrotala.
The metal table in Haven. Dawn growled, fighting to keep it together.
If she survived this, she would crush every flux conduit on this continent.
Her vision kept short-circuiting, cutting to black before coming back into focus. Lore was up and walking around. That fucker. He came for Talia, and she refused him.
“That’s my girl,” Dawn muttered through gritted teeth.
Then Holloway—fucking Holloway—took Lore’s hand. Dawn wanted to scream at him. Your brother is ash and memory, and your perfectly alive friends are right here.
“I’m not dying for this shit,” she growled to herself. No idea if she was making any sense.
Then the pillars ignited.
She screamed.
Agony. Pure and uncut. Flux tore out of her flesh like barbed hooks. She watched Riven’s magic burn out, silver tattoos going dark one by one. The bond made it worse. She felt Talia’s heart falter. Dawn was dying twice over.
She saw Ehrue through the haze. Still and shining, trapped in whatever fog had claimed her. Power flowing out of her.
Dawn couldn’t lose her again.
She reached out with her mind. Their mating oath had withered to a thread, but it was still there. She tugged on that silver thread gently, like a lifeline.
My love, she sent.
The connection caught. Held. She felt a flicker of presence on the other end, faint as starlight.
Thauni? Ehrue used her old name. The only one she knew.
Relief crashed through Dawn so hard she nearly passed out. I’m here. I’m right here.
Physically, Dawn was shackled and fading. Within the mating oath, her mind was all there. She pushed forward.
Ehrue’s mind was not all there. Deep cracks scored through it. Dawn went carefully, following the thread through Ehrue’s ruined consciousness.
The first layer was Elanwei’s voice. The mortals killed us. They killed your friends. They must pay.
Dawn bared her teeth. Bullshit. That’s poison she fed you. That’s not the truth, and you know it.
She pushed deeper. Past the lies. Toward the truth beneath.
The second layer was mired in guilt, crushing and absolute. Images hammered her: blood in the streets, Ehrue racing through the citadel, white light breaking everything. Screams. Bodies breaking.
I killed them all. I deserve to be punished.
No, Dawn snarled. Outside, her body was failing. She was aware, numbly, as her vision blackened. Her heart skipped beats. You broke their chains. It was never going to be clean, but you did your best.
Dawn pressed forward, toward what remained of the woman she loved. Her own heart.
The deepest layer was theirs alone. Mountain air under unclipped wings. The frost caves where they’d made love in every possible form while snow swirled outside. Promises whispered: Always, no matter what…
The fog shattered, and Ehrue’s presence surged into focus, frayed at the edges but whole. Dawn felt her mate’s soul wrap around hers like a pair of wings.
You came back, Ehrue thought, wonder threaded with grief.
“I never stopped looking for you,” Dawn said aloud, voice raw.
You’re dying, Ehrue observed. Your friends are dying.
“I’m right here.”
Oh, Thauni. Warmth spread over her, scattered and steady at once. This body is an echo of a dead star. My true light burned out when I broke the chains. We can’t keep this.
Dawn wanted to argue. Wanted to rage. But she could feel the truth across the connection. Ehrue’s awareness was flickering. Those cracks in her psyche ran too deep. That’s what this was about all along. Lore brought Dawn here to be Elanwei’s new power source. Over my dead body.
“Take me with you,” Dawn whispered.
That was when Ehrue shared an image of her lingering starlit power channeled through Dawn’s fire. They could shatter every conduit in the chamber. Free her friends. But it would burn Ehrue out to do it.
“No.” Dawn’s chest cracked open. “I just found you.”
You never lost me. Warmth again. I waited, and we’re here.
Talia’s pulse was slipping. Riven’s body arched toward her. Even in agony, he tried to shield Talia from what came next. Dawn’s own vision was going black. They were all out of time. Dawn had come here with every intention of living or dying with Ehrue. But it was either that or save her friends.
“Do it,” Dawn said. “Burn through me.”
I love you.
“I love you too. Always—”
Power flared and filled the room. It didn’t hurt. Ehrue’s power was silent and white, and it poured into Dawn. Dawn’s own magic surged to life behind it, wild and clean, and for the first time since she’d flown with Ehrue, all those years ago, she let her fire run free.
The shackles on her wrist detonated, throwing off shards of metal.
Dawn’s bones lengthened and cracked into new alignment.
Scales erupted over her shoulders and down her back before locking into place with a cascade of small clicks.
Wings tore free between her shoulder blades—that fucking hurt—and she beat them furiously, sending wind swirling through the chamber.
Somewhere in the background, Talia’s voice echoed. “Oh, shit—”
Dawn threw her head back and roared.
She didn’t go for Elanwei. She ignored Lore and Holloway standing at the apex of the channel network. She went to Ehrue. One gliding leap took her across the floor. She curled herself around Ehrue’s small human-shifted body, wings creating a sheltering cave.
Ehrue stood, shaking, light leaking from her eyes and mouth. She smiled and pressed her forehead to Dawn’s nose.
I’m glad you’re the last thing I’ll see, she sent, tender as ever.
Dawn made a sound low in her throat, between purr and whimper. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.
I’m not, Ehrue thought. You lived. That’s all I wanted.
We’re doing this together? Dawn asked.
Together.
Power slammed out, down those little paths in the throne and straight into the pool of flux at the center of the room. Runes flared white and died. The channels blew out like glass under a hammer. The reservoir erupted in a fountain of liquid light that rained down and hissed on the stone floor.
The pillars split and fell one at a time. Fractures spiderwebbed across the floor. Stone screamed as millennium-old enchantments shattered. She felt Elanwei’s control falter as Ehrue ripped the power out from under her.
At the confluence of the channels, a surge of fire overtook Lore and Holloway.
The look on Holloway’s face was frozen somewhere between bliss and horror as white and blue fire crawled up his legs.
Dawn saw the two figures wreathed in flame, hands clasped together, arms lifted, before it became too bright to look.
When her vision cleared, there was nothing left.
The power pulsed once and then surged through the channels, reaching beyond the room and away. Who knew how far.
She should probably be more affected by watching their companions get incinerated, but she found it hard to care. All her attention was on Ehrue.
Her mate was burning out from the inside. Her skin went translucent, black lines shearing across the surface. Light poured from her eyes. From her mouth. Dawn could see the magic tearing through her, unmaking her. She still smiled. Kept her forehead pressed to Dawn’s scales.
And in those waning moments, Ehrue’s mind touched hers and placed something there. An image of a cold cavern with a cache of pale shells. A secret location with a treasure. A future. Dawn’s breath caught as she understood what she was seeing.
Then Ehrue thinned like smoke, and the shape of her came apart between Dawn’s claws.
Dawn howled until the sound ran out, and she could only stand there, wings trembling, cradling ash that had been the center of her world.
Quiet settled in. Smoke. Scorched stone.
Slowly, she became aware of the damage around her.
Talia and Riven stood, free from the broken pillars. Talia was staring with her mouth open. Riven gave a single nod. We’re with you.
Movement flickered from a collapsed area of wall. Elanwei rose from the wreckage, silks torn, face streaked gray. Her hands fisted at her sides as power swirled around her—dimmer than before, but still deadly.
“You bitch,” Elanwei said in a low shaky voice. “She was all I had left.”
Dawn set the ash down gently. She spread her wings and moved her body between the princess and her friends.
Flux coalesced into a blade of pure light in Elanwei’s hands.
Dawn bared her teeth as Elanwei stepped forward and lifted her sword.