Chapter 41 #2
Maelor’s drake dove. Shadows poured from its mouth like liquid night. They swarmed upward, twisting around Nyxariel’s wings, dragging at the air, thickening it like tar. Thaelyn felt the bond strain, the magic between them stretching thin.
“I can’t—” she gasped. “I can’t break it!”
Fight it!
She reached deep for her power, but it slipped away like water through broken glass. Her hands trembled, light flickering at her fingertips and dying. The shadows coiled tighter. Nyxariel’s wing clipped a ridge; the dragon staggered mid-flight.
“Thaelyn!” Brynnek’s voice cut through the chaos. He was close now, Tieren injured but climbing. “I’m almost there!” Another blast struck. Brynnek’s dragon shrieked, spiraling downward, vanishing into the fog.
Rhys dove after them, blade drawn, but the second rogue dragon intercepted him. Screams echoed.
Thaelyn’s scream tore from her throat. “No!”
The necromancer’s laughter echoed through the clouds.
“You burn too bright, little heir. Let us see what your light becomes when broken.” He raised his hand, and the chains of shadow snapped taut.
Nyxariel shrieked, a sound that shook the clouds, and the bond between them blazed white for a heartbeat.
Pain lanced through Thaelyn’s chest. She clutched the harness, gasping as light poured from her eyes, her mouth, her hands.
The Aether surged, desperate, wild. She let out a boom of air blasting through the sky. But it wasn’t enough.
Nyxariel rolled midair, crushing one mage beneath her massive wing joint.
He disintegrated in a burst of withered magic.
Brynnek leapt onto Nyxariel’s back and swung his sword at the mages, but they were quicker and stronger with the dark magic present in them.
The mage drove a dark blade that was glowing red and powerful, full of dark magic, against Thaelyn’s side.
The flash of red light swallowed her, and her body crumpled.
“Thaelyn!”
Nyxariel’s scream was no longer a sound but a storm.
Lightning surged across her scales. The force knocked off Brynnek.
Another mage tried to wrench Thaelyn from the dragon’s back, but the ancient beast twisted, bit clean through his arm, and sent him spiraling.
Kors’ necromantic chains were thrown on top of her and constricted, dragging her from the saddle.
She felt herself being ripped backward, through cold air and darkness.
Nyxariel roared, thrashing, clawing at the sky. Thaelyn!
“I’m sorry,” Thaelyn whispered. The last thing she saw was her dragon’s wings folding inward, her roar echoing through the storm as the world turned black.
“Bring her, Maelor’s voice commanded. His skeletal drake sailed through the air. “The Sovereign will be pleased.”
Then silence. Only the whisper of the Rift remained. The sky sealed behind them, leaving nothing but drifting ash where the patrol had been.
Above the Asgar Training Academy, the skies exploded.
A deafening scream echoed first, a dragon’s cry, followed by the unmistakable hiss of magic ripping through the air.
Fire streaked across the blue sky, curling smoke and ash in its wake.
The sound of clashing spells and roars of battle thundered like war drums.
In the council room, Commander Dareth and Kaen froze.
“What in the abyss was that?” General Solas snapped.
Another boom. It sounded closer this time. Commander Dareth moved first. “To the field. Now!”
Kaen was already running, crimson cloak flaring behind him as they all burst through the great doors. The royal guards mobilized, sprinting behind. They reached the flight field in time to see dark shapes swirling above, shadowy figures mounted on grotesque beasts, flinging arcane dark fire.
“Mount up!” Commander Dareth roared. “Royal Fleet, airborne defense formation!”
The spell was done, and it was too late.
Thaelyn’s vision blurred. A flash of blood, the sound of Nyxariel’s roar, and then everything shifted.
A portal cracked open in the air like shattered glass.
One moment, she was above the academy, and the next, in a flash of burning magic and smoke, Thaelyn vanished. Torn from the bond and sky.
Nyxariel spiraled upward, howling to the heavens.
She incinerated one of the fleeing necromancers, her jaws brimming with white-blue fire.
The others she chased across the sky, reducing them to ash.
Nyxariel let out a scream that shook the heavens.
She blasted the necromancers’ fleet in a final devastating wave, disintegrating the last shadowed mage, but the damage was already done.
It wasn’t enough. “She is gone,” came the whisper through her grief. Thaelyn was gone.
From the flight field, Commander Dareth, Kaen, and Solas descended into the air and watched in horror as the sky blackened above them.
“Sound every alarm,” Solas barked. “Now!”
Kaen’s face was unreadable. “They were waiting. Watching.”
Commander Dareth drew both swords, eyes locked on the distant clouds where a flicker of violet fire still raged.
“That was her. That was Nyxariel.” Commander Dareth’s heart turned to ice.
He watched Nyxariel’s scream echo across the valley, saw her circle violently in search, and then collapse to the mountainside in a tremble of fury and sorrow.
He turned toward his own dragon. “Call to Vornokh!” he told Razorth. “Tell him what has happened if he already doesn’t know from Nyxariel.”
Thorne wasn’t here or in the vicinity. He was dispatched on his own mission. But he would feel it one way or the other, and when he did, his world would burn.