23. Lady Death’s Dragon
TWENTY-THREE
lady death’s dragon
Arcane
Fire washes through the cavernous room, spraying over students and lighting up their every step as they burn into bloody, charred remains right before our eyes. Some of them turn back, rushing out as quickly as they’d rushed in, but some of them continue on. Blades slash through thick scales, cutting into the heart of the smaller beasts who cower in the corners.
The shrieking cries of the dragons are just as tragic as the screams of my classmates. Roars of rage shake the room, bringing down rock and dust all around us. Keira rushes from one person to the next, moving so quickly, it’s impossible to see her until she’s ripping their blades from their hands.
“Get out!” she screams at them, and some of them retreat, and some of them never make it out of the room at all.
Aelix has found a worn blade. He swings it down hard in a fierce arch of power just like Dad taught us. It crashes down, locking onto the length of the sword of someone I hadn’t expected to see here: Clawd. The two of them push against one another, but their crossed weapons aren’t all that separate them.
“The academy is wrong, Clawd. This is wrong!” Aelix tries to tell him logically, but the other boy only bares his teeth and shoves him off, throwing him into the enormous column of a beast’s leg just behind him.
The dragon’s monstrous head swings back to look at my twin with the bloody blade held in his hand. A puff of smoke plumes between them just before . . .
I throw myself into his side, sending us tumbling into the wall and out of the line of fire that blazes through the center of the dungeon.
“Aelix, get them out of here!” Keira screams, but the fumes cloud our lungs.
He coughs at my side, and it’s hard to even see now.
“Get back in there!” A familiar voice bellows over us. “You owe your lives to the academy, to these dragons. You must complete the trial!” Reign screams through the room as dozens of students shove past him to get away.
Bony fingers grip around a girl’s wrist. Before she can make her escape, he tosses her small body back in at the feet of a dragon. Sharp deadly teeth snap into her midsection, lifting her from the floor and swallowing her whole. Without flinching, Reign steps back, lifts his hand, and pulls down heavy black bars over the door.
“Complete the task!” he orders over the cries of his students, his cruel gaze watching us from behind the barrier.
On storming steps, I’m pushing through the crowd. Fire licks at my boots from pools of flames staining the ground. The heat of the battle burns over my skin, and Reign’s eyes widen the moment he sees me.
“I knew you’d do great things,” the headmaster says with a pleased smile as he takes in the blood splatter adorning my face. “I knew I made you captain for a reason. I knew—” His words cut away as my hand thrusts through the bars separating me from him, and I jerk him forward so hard, his skull hits the metal with a satisfying ring.
His grunt of pain crawls from trembling lips, and he looks up at me with pleading, fearful eyes.
“You’re a fucking fool. And you’ll never terrorize another generation of children ever again,” I promise him, and the sharp spade of my tail flickers forward so fast, the gasp of his discomfort is the only sign at all that he’s been impaled.
Hot blood slides down my scales. Frail hands slip over the blood-soaked place where his heart was just beating. I hold him there against me, watching the cruel light that always shined in his eyes fade out into dense darkness. My tail slides out with a slick sound, and I release my hold on him at once. He hits the floor with a heavy thud, revealing the figure standing just behind him.
Correll’s mouth is parted without words. She rushes forward, stepping over the headmaster’s legs to grab the rope on the wall. Her small body pulls hard. Old mechanics squeal as the bars rise higher and higher. She ties the rope off at the metal handle, and then she’s assessing the chaos of the room behind me.
“Stop!” she orders, and the smallness of her voice gets swept away in the violence. She clamps her mouth hard, and this time, when she speaks, it shakes through the room like a loudspeaker of magic that I didn’t know she possessed.
“All academy students, exit the trials. NOW!” At the booming command of her words, everyone’s pushing past me. Only a few men still slash through the room with slicing blades and bloodlust eyes.
On thundering steps, I grab the nearest one by the shirt collar and throw him at Correll’s feet. I move on to the next, and just as I’m about to pull him off of the dragon in front of him, I hear a deathly scream that cuts right through my heart.
The pain of it slices in, grazing a part of my heart that might never be the same again.
My Sweet Twin Flame Boys, my Mother says in the darkness of my memories and suddenly I can’t breathe through the pain in my chest.
I turn on the heel of my boot and my heart drops at the sight of them.
Clawd’s body is strung tight, his muscles poised for destruction. The end of his blade is unseen, buried deep into the stomach of the man before him: Aelix.
Aelix’s eyes soften, the rage slipping from his features as he looks down at the blood spreading wider and wider across his button-down. The sword in his pale fingers rolls from his palm. It clatters forgotten at his feet. His brows lift slightly in surprise. His head tilts, and eyes so filled with fear I feel it within me meet my gaze. His hand leaves his blood-soaked shirt and lifts as if he’s reaching for me.
Then Clawd’s dirty boot slams to Aelix’s stomach, and he shoves him off his blade. My brother’s knees hit first as he crumbles to the floor. Droplets of blood splatter to the dirty floor at Clawds side as he storms away but I don’t see where he goes as he disappears into the smoke and ruin. Everything grows silent around me with only the thundering of my heart filling my ears. I’m running on quiet steps to my twin’s side. Glossy eyes look up at me. I fall to my knees, and I take his hand firmly in mine like we’ve never hurt each other in all our lives. His lips part to say words that I’ll never hear. He blinks only once. And then, with a bleeding ache in my heart, he’s gone.
A lifetime of fighting and bitterness burns through my thoughts, but a fonder moment in time is protected in the depths of my memories: Two little boys chasing dragonflies in the meadow. Two little boys so inseparable, we’d share a bed at night for fear of the darkness. Two little boys who hadn’t yet been broken by the world around them.
Two best friends.
Who never got the chance to really exist. All because of a cruel twist of Fate.
His blood seeps into the cloth of my pants as a gentle hand settles around my bicep. Tears pool in her pretty eyes as she fades away from me, her form turning translucent and cold. The barrier of life and death separates us once again so she can guide him from this life and into the next, and I want to scream at how easily Fate is able to rip her away from me again and again.
“He’s here with me.” Her words tremble, but she tries to carry on just to ease my own pain. “He’s waiting for me to lead him to the in-between,” she says, and streaks of sadness stream down her pale face.
My throat tightens, and I try hard to swallow down the emotion that threatens to come out.
She’s all I see as I consider what I’m about to ask of her.
“Don’t take him,” I plead on a jagged breath, and a line presses to her brow as she looks up at me with heartbreak shining in her gaze.
My hand clutches around her wrist, and I don’t know how I do it, but I pull her from the barrier that keeps her from me once again. A gasp rips from her lungs. Her soft skin is against mine, and I can’t help it. I brush my mouth along hers the moment I’m able to. The kiss is slow and gentle. I don’t pull back, but linger there, breathing her in like it’s the last time I might ever see her. “Take me instead,” I whisper against her lips.
She shakes her head at me hard, but I catch her chin between my thumb and forefinger.
“I belong to you, yeah? You woke up in my bed for a reason, Haunting.” A smirk tilts my lips, and she’s still shaking her head hard at my suggestion. “I love you, Keira. I want to be with you.” My lips brush hers once more as I whisper, “ Forever .”
Then, before she can utter a single word, I seal my lips to hers. My tongue slides forward, and she opens for me, letting me claim her deeper as the world around us spins in smokey clouds of chaos. The bond that I’d once thought I’d lost forever tingles through my veins once more. I feel her with every beat of my heart.
I belong to her. I’m Lady Death’s Dragon. It’s the only title that’s ever felt right. I’ll wear it with honor for the rest of our lives if she lets me.
When my lashes slowly lift, Hades is there. The enormous wings of the dragon steal away the space of the room with his massive tail curling around to touch all four walls. I never realized how big he truly is until I look upon him now. His large silver eyes study me with a tilt of his curious head.
I lift my palm to him, but his scales never warm my skin as my touch slides right through him, and he breathes out a frustrated breath at that. Incorporeal fingers dance before my eyes as I take in the sudden paleness of my hand. A gentle touch slides through my hair, and my body buzzes from her nearness alone.
Time has slipped by. I don’t know how much, but a substantial amount is missing as the dust and charred remains are all that’s left in the empty dungeon now.
“It’s done?” I ask, and I can’t keep the skepticism from my tone.
Her hand takes mine, and she peers around my shoulder at the body lying there.
Aelix’s lashes flutter as his eyes shift beneath the lids. I don’t move an inch. I don’t even blink as I wait for him. His eyes open slowly. He looks around in the solitude of the room, finding only Hades there for company.
“Arcane?” He says my name in a way I’ve never heard before in all my life. It’s filled with quiet and sadness like somehow, he knows without even being told: his twin is gone.
He’s alone.