Chapter Thirty
A TREMBLE ROCKS the world as I ease Zhoric to the ground.
There’s a static to the air, an energy that feels heavy and oppressive.
Peering east, far across the Sere, and above the dispersing mists of the Realm, I see draconem rise.
My fingertips slide along the smooth, empty skin of my sternum. My mark is gone.
It’s done.
I offer Zhoric one last fleeting glance. My elahi pulled his energy into me. I don’t know enough about draconem magic and energy to know if it will stay with me, never to return to him, or if it’s something that he’s able to regenerate, like a cut limb.
I don’t stay to find out. I can’t.
Once, not long ago, I imagined taking a dagger to his heart after this moment.
But now that I’m here, after I’ve seen him night after night, after he’s offered small pieces of himself that feel as real as any piece Ninon or my sister ever gave to me, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can leave him though.
I head into his rooms, intending to find Kalixta, but as I do, there’s a twisting, snarling voice inside me demanding I go back.
The trembling of the world intensifies so much that what little items Zhoric has around the room rattle.
Inside, my draconem roars at me, a knowing instinct thrashing, warning that danger is near and I need to protect what’s mine.
No. Not mine. It doesn’t matter what I tell myself, though.
I’m ripping myself apart the farther I am from Zhoric.
I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut.
I can’t imagine how Zhoric’s bonded was able to hurt him.
How was she able to fight against this tearing sensation within herself to do what she did to him?
Booms and cracks split my ears and I drag my feet towards the arched openings on the far side of Zhoric’s bed.
All around Dyēus, as far as I can see, draconem take to the skies, flitting back and forth, sensing the impending doom as well as I.
The sun is a half orb on the horizon behind a heavy haze, casting a red-orange glow on the craggy land below and blanketing the sky above in gold.
The battle between the Realm and Dyēus is inevitable. The women of Nevoba are free to choose their sides. I look down at the god scale in my hand, cold and heavy. Why then, do I feel like I’ve unleashed another sort of curse upon the world?
My gaze tracks to the place in the sky where the gods eyes are meant to be…and they’re gone. Dread sucks the air from my lungs.
With a violent lurch, the world tilts, taking the ground from my feet.
I stagger, barely catching my balance. Furniture scrapes and screeches as it slides on the marbled floor.
The tea set hits the ground and shatters, piercing the air with its sharp cry.
Zhoric’s wide bed groans as it slides towards the balcony—towards Zhoric.
I move before I have chance to think. I race back across the room, hurtling over the fallen bedside table, and in the next instant, I’m transforming and gripping Zhoric in my talons, vaulting out the balcony window and up into the open sky.
The view of Dyēus is so baffling that at first, I don’t realize what I’m seeing. The islands tilt heavily to one side. I stay in place in the sky, but the land drifts down and away. Clarity rocks straight through me, bile collecting in my throat.
Dyēus is falling.
With Zhoric between my talons, my first thought is of Kalixta, her babies. The nursery.
I jolt myself out of my stupor and hurl through the air, following the steadily gaining trajectory of Dyēus’s downward spiral.
I’m dizzied as the land moves in one direction beneath me and I in another.
Anything unsecured flutters up and fills the sky with debris, joining the draconem escaping the impending fall.
I dodge both as I speed towards the nursery.
I grasp onto one of ledges leading into the nursery with my forelegs, my rear still holding Zhoric.
Tucking my wings in tight, I scrabble to get through the window and when I land ungracefully on the other side, there are four dragons already there, turned to me, teeth bared. I recognize Thrace first.
Next to him is another dragon. It’s not the identical gray scales to mine or the color of her eyes, or the unfamiliar lavendar silk of her mane that I recognize. I know her on instinct alone. Kalixta.
Kaisa. Help.
I don’t waste another moment. Leaving Zhoric’s prone form by the window, I move through the space and scoop as many children into my claws as I can.
What happened? Thrace growls, wrestling some of the older tots in his arms, his gaze set on Zhoric.
I don’t answer. I can’t. I don’t know what I’ve done.
Dyēus lurches again, in time with the sickening crack of a collision somewhere far off. It knocks all of us except Thrace to our bellies.
We need to go, he roars.
I take Zhoric in my taloned foot and we all vault out of the window, rising up as Dyēus falls.
I watch the land plummet. It races away, yet it seems as if it’s sliding through sand instead of through thin air.
Thrace guides us away from Dyēus, moment’s away from crashing to the ground, and behind the safety of a wide expanse of rock monuments.
As gently as I can, I put the three children I carried down on the ground, their cries washed out as the first of Dyēus’s islands smashes to the earth, thundering in my ears.
Oh gods. Bile fills my mouth. So many people. So many women who didn’t know they could shift. Kalixta did though. And whoever helped us with the babies. Maybe they made it. Maybe—
My gaze locks onto Kalixta’s. She looks at me in horror. What did you do?
My nostrils release a steam of air. I freed us.
Kalixta turns to Thrace, her bonded.
His eyes bore into me.
Go to Nevoba, I plead him. Help them. Please.
Where will you go? Thrace asks.
Back to the Realm, I answer.
With him? He looks at Zhoric.
If I go with you, the elites will follow. It’s safer if I take him with me.
Thrace growls. He doesn’t like it. Why would he? He’s spent years protecting Zhoric and I’m the one who just put him at the greatest risk.
I’ve got him, I promise. I couldn’t let harm come to him right now even if I tried. Not until I remove the bond.
Thrace seems to know this, to sense the change in Zhoric, if not myself. Then we’ll separate. For now.
I swivel to catch sight of Kalixta. She says nothing, but I know it’s because she has too much she wishes to say. I have too much to answer for. I’ll see you again.
She huffs hot air from her nostrils and bows her head.
Then I surge upwards, Zhoric still in my grip.
I tear through the air, but stay low to the ground, under cover of the dust kicked up from Dyēus’s fall and from the recent storm.
I can’t stop the tide of panic at the chaos I’ve unleashed.
What have I done? What have I done? I don’t notice the draconem until it barrels into my side.
I grunt, hitting the ground, spraying more dust into the air.
I tuck Zhoric close to my body and launch back into the sky.
It’s easier now, since I don’t have to fight to remain in this form, but I need more energy.
If they keep coming for me like this, I need more.
And, just as Ozias said, the moment I will it, I feel it happen.
I suck energy from the passing storm into me.
From the draconem flying too close. From the power of Dyēus’s fall.
Anywhere and everywhere, I take. I wonder how much more I can fit inside me, but I don’t stop.
I’m so consumed with calling energy into me that I miss when another draconem manages to get close enough to sideswipe me.
I lose my hold on Zhoric. I roar and twist, my teeth catching a draconem’s throat.
I jerk my head and rip it out. The draconem’s body twists and plummets into the swirling dust below.
Then, like a rope tied around my soul, I feel a tug towards Zhoric and dive for his falling form. I pitch my body at a sharper angle and dart under him, and he lands on my back, cradled in the soft waves of my mane moments before hitting the ground.
I growl as I sense more dragons from Dyēus joining the hunt for me.
Or for Zhoric. Perhaps both of us. I could steal their power and take it into me.
But I don’t want it. I simply want them gone.
I release my hold on the power I gathered and stole from the world around me.
I let it blow out of me like a raging tempest, and the dragons of Dyēus closest on my tail shoot backwards, tumbling through the sky, tangling with others following our trajectory.
Behind me, the sky is a riot of draconem. A swarm of angry bees against a red backdrop. They know as well as the Realm what’s happened and they will fight with all their teeth to take back what I’ve reclaimed. But they’re too far behind to catch me now.
I loosen Zhoric’s power from the depths of my well. I feel movement as it leeches out of me back into him. His head lulls side to side, groaning.
The sun hasn’t moved any farther down the horizon, like we’re stuck in a permanent twilight, and the haze has grown thicker.
I tell myself I’m imagining it—that the sun has moved, and everything else that’s happened since I bonded with Zhoric and released the god scale took no time at all.
It’s a pretty lie that covers a brutal reality—something is happening.
Something I can’t begin to understand, and can only hope someone else does.
Zhoric’s moving more now, his body adjusting against my back, maneuvering around until he’s fully seated across my neck.
His chest lays heavy against the back of my head.
His hold on my mane is tight, reminiscent of when he held me back from his neck.
My ribcage heaves to catch my breath. So much energy.
In and out so quickly. I feel dizzied and drained.