Chapter 43 #3
Fissures split outward from his fingertips. Lykor ripped the frost from Skylash’s wings in jagged plates, freeing the joints while ice remained fused thick across the membranes.
The lower islands whirled past in broken tiers. Mist streamed around them, cold and wet against his face, while each passing shelf left less sky between Skylash and the ground.
Her wings convulsed through a fraction of a stroke, ice grinding against strained muscle. Sparks battered the casing, charges still trapped inside a body built to wield the storm.
The final island vanished above them.
“The river!”
“HANDLE IT,” Lykor gritted out.
He kept both hands buried in the frost, dislodging it from Skylash’s wings. Below them, a river cut across the earth, the border between the Aetherveil and the Everglow Rainforest.
Aesar seized the deeper current of Rimeclaw’s gift and wrenched the river skyward.
A wall of water reared beneath Skylash, broad enough to absorb her frozen fall. It struck her underside with a roar, ice bursting along her belly.
The impact rebounded through Skylash’s spine and slammed through Lykor. Aesar held the river under her while a dragon’s weight crushed down upon it, the strain cinching their chest until breath and sight narrowed together.
They were going down with her if they didn’t—
Aesar warped them clear.
Their wings vanished as the world inverted. Lykor struck the northern bank shoulder-first and skidded hard through the mud. His legs collapsed when he tried to rise, each breath scraping through his chest.
Before him, Skylash crashed into the waterway.
The river exploded high enough to erase the southern shore. Spray hammered the bank and knocked Lykor back against the ground. Beneath the churn, Skylash thrashed, violet lightning flickering through the foam. Aesar curved the current, steering her body toward the shallows.
By the time Lykor staggered to her, Skylash lay half-submerged in mud, her sides heaving. One wing trailed limp behind her. The other sprawled across the bank, its membrane shredded by ice.
Lykor pressed a palm to her neck and drew the remaining frost from her scales. “Easy. You’re out.”
Skylash’s eye rolled toward him, the vertical pupil contracting to a slit. A growl rattled through her chest as she bared her fangs.
Aesar pressed close through his skin. “Let me.”
Lykor yielded, and Aesar settled into their limbs. Crimson light gathered beneath their palms and sank into the ruined membranes. Ruptured vessels closed as the widest rents drew together with bands of mending that braced the frayed edges.
“This will take time,” Aesar murmured.
Skylash’s growl softened to a wounded rumble as the rigid line of her body slowly eased. Through their shared fingertips, Lykor felt the reverence of a prince who’d first loved dragons in stories, before Galaeryn had made weapons of every myth.
As Aesar reached to close another tear, the earth shuddered. Ripples climbed the river against its own current, pebbles leaping along the bank.
Lykor glanced across the waterway where the southern bank emerged through the thinning spray. The edge of the rainforest had been leveled to churned earth, broken roots, and shattered stumps. Helms and spearpoints flashed through the wreckage as an army sharpened into view.
Thousands of human soldiers filled the devastation, pockets of Essence glimmering around the elven officers scattered among them. White trillium banners snapped above the ranks, whatever dregs remained of House Vallende still commanding them.
At the army’s head, Blossom waded into the river.
Lykor’s palms tensed against Skylash’s neck as he took in the crystalline cast of the Bramblemaw’s eyes. An elf stood at her flank with a Heart of Stars blazing in his grip, its light pulsing into Blossom’s body. No sign of Bhreena near the dragon she’d delivered back into chains.
Blossom advanced one crushing step at a time, the current climbing her legs and breaking around her bulk. Vines uncoiled from her hide, speared into the riverbed, and rooted through mud and buried stone.
Blossom pressed deeper into the torrent until the earth under the water groaned.
Other vines climbed into the wind, reaching hundreds of feet toward the lowest floating island. They spread across its stony underside, bored through soil and stone, and drew taut.
Blossom lowered her head and hauled.
The island lurched sideways, shattered rock pouring from its rim. Cracks raced through the tapered point as the entire mass tipped toward the river.
She pulled again, yanking the island free from the sky.
It fell point-first.
The impact heaved the bank as it punched into the riverbed. Water erupted around the descending mass, swallowing Blossom to the shoulders and blotting out the army beyond her.
Blossom’s roots overran the wreckage and wove through every fracture, fastening the island to the riverbed. Above her, more vines lifted toward the next isle.
Through the settling spray, Lykor realized the army needed no portals to reach him. Blossom would drag the Aetherveil down one island at a time until thousands could march across the river.
Toward him and a grounded dragon.