Chapter 44 #3
But before they could digest the information, before they could taste the freedom, Scornszar’s wings whooshed around the tower, onyx eyes watching them like prey.
As if he was beckoning them.
He liked to play with his food.
And just like that she knew exactly what had to be done.
“I’m going to distract him,” Ellaryn said, drawing her sword and handing it to Xander.
“No.” Xander shook his head, refusing to take it. “No. The ring. You’ll die. You won’t come back this time.”
“I know.” She breathed, eyes welling. She inched the weapon closer to him. “Take it. Please take it.” Resolve hardened in her features. “And pierce his fucking heart.”
She held his stare for a moment, a thousand words within that single look and then the corners of her mouth upturned a little.
Xander took it, hesitantly, eyes sorrowful, but he took it.
Ellaryn unsheathed the daggers at her thighs, twirling them in her hands and walking into the smoke towards the beast.
Her heart thumped so hard against her chest that her ribs ached. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, or perhaps that was the feeling of her heart breaking in two. The moment she realised she might never see Xander again.
She would see those eyes though, the way they welled for her, until she took her last breath. Proof that even as a monster she was loved.
Scornszar was circling the tower now, breaths coming in ragged gusts. Anger dissipating off of him like smoke. He was biding his time, waiting for one of them to make a move, to step out of the lighthouse of souls.
Ellaryn swallowed and calculated the exact moment she would run. The fear she felt was buried deep; her chin lifted higher, her heartbeat steadied as she let go of a long breath. Anything that even resembled apprehension had been transformed, reshaped, tempered into something harder.
Then finally, she ran as fast as she could, daggers clutched in her palms as she made for the window and jumped.
The open air rushed her, thrashing her braid in the wind, as she fell.
For a heartbeat she thought she had calculated wrong—that she would plummet straight onto the marble and break her neck.
But then her hands met a warmer surface.
Rougher, more like jagged rock than marble.
It jostled and jolted and thrashed as her daggers plunged into its surface for grip.
A slight smile claimed her lips. She had landed on Scornszar’s back.
She held on as he writhed, steam curling from his jaws.
The scale of the dragon seemed even larger from where she was, as if she had scaled a small mountain.
Her palms ached as she gripped harder onto the daggers.
The world around her tilted violently with his movements, and she struggled to fixate on one thing.
Cinders was just shapes and whirls with the motion of the beast.
Then the wind was knocked out of her just as violently as Scornszar thrashed his body against the stone of the castle.
Ellaryn’s heart jolted with the impact, her body aching and bruised as she slid down the castle walls, landing on the balcony.
Her vision swirled as the dragon stalked closer towards her.
Peace.
She had finally accepted that this would be her end.
No magic meant no immortality, which meant that Scornszar would be the last thing she saw. For real this time.
Silently, she prayed to the Gods that Sailen would be okay without her, that Xander would butcher the King and take back his throne.
A shaky breath escaped her as she closed her eyes and braced for the burn.
Only one thing shone in her mind. Xander.
His eyes, bright and unnerving. His warmth that could shift even the darkest places into something radiant. His careless smirk that she once hated but now craved gleamed behind her eyes.
This was it… and somehow, in that moment, she was okay.
She could feel the heat as Scornszar stalked towards her, sense the inferno that was imminent. The fire meant to burn, to char, to break.
But it never came.
Gingerly, she peeled her left eye open, then the right, and that’s when she saw it.
Scornszar—jagged teeth not pulled back in a grimace, smoke uncurling from his jaws, onyx eyes narrowed but not on her.
If she didn’t know any better, she would think he was confused.
Ellaryn matched the puzzled expression.
Then she noticed the blue ember drifting towards him fast, colliding with his solar plexus. It bathed him in cobalt, as if the entirety of him had just been engulfed by a blue flame.
“His soul.” Ellaryn breathed.
The dragon had been reunited with its soul.
For years it had been bound, just as she had. Forced to do the King’s bidding. Forced to guard his own soul.
Ellaryn swore she saw a tear glide down the beast’s face as he looked at her once and then flew away.
She watched dumbfounded as the copper dragon glided through the open skies into the clouds, until she couldn’t see him anymore.
Ellaryn couldn’t help the smile that crept on her lips. That smile, however, left almost as quickly as it formed, because just as fast, the shadow wall began to pulse, as if it were in tandem with her own heartbeat.
They didn’t have long.