Chapter 40 Astraea
Astraea
The dragons swooped down to land as I did, but the horror that crashed into me kept me from any immediate step forward. I stared at the cave opening that led into the underground sanctuary … and it was completely sealed off by rocks.
“No…” I breathed in complete denial.
My movements were jolted into action. I didn’t know how long ago it could have happened, but my adrenaline pushed me forward, believing it wasn’t too late to save people.
My fingers ripped across rocks and debris, pulling some out of the tighly compacted pile, which tumbled others.
I couldn’t feel the pain, but I saw the blood smearing the stones more with every desperate attempt to shovel my way through the thick mass of broken rock.
Arms clamped around me to prevent my next reach, and I cried out, struggling against them.
“Astraea, stop,” Nyte said calmly in my ear. But it was a distant echo through the wild pounding in my ears.
“There were thousands of people in there!” I cried.
How did this happen? It couldn’t have been natural. No … someone had murdered them.
“Father…” Antila’s voice was too young to carry such heartbreak.
Had Dawn been truthful in telling them Zephyr was here?
A new scream tore from me, and I broke free from Nyte’s hold to claw at more rocks as if I could reach my friend inside.
Nyte hooked an arm around my middle this time, hauling me away from the slope.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” Nyte tried to console.
I cried into his chest with that fact beginning to settle.
“Father!” Antila yelled, though it wasn’t in pain. It was joyous.
Pushing away from Nyte, I whirled around, gasping at the celestial who descended gracefully.
Zephyr’s eyes were wide, trapped with terrors. He kept them on me even as Antila barged into him. Raider embraced him too, and Zephyr snapped his attention from me, checking them over with the panicked worry of a father.
I sniffed, wiping my disbelieving eyes as I approached him. His children let him go, and he reached for me as I did for him.
“I thought you were in there,” I croaked.
“I was,” he replied, haunted. We released each other. “I got as many out as I could, but there were still so many left behind … hundreds of lives … I couldn’t save them.”
“Thanks to you, we have survivors,” I said, my heart ached at his devastated look over my shoulder.
“I don’t know what happened. The water system …
it had to have been tampered with. In all the centuries the pipes have never come close to leaking, never mind bursting to flood the place, which inevitably caved the structure in on itself.
Even with my ability to control the element of water, it was too much. ”
The sanctuary column was colossal.
I exchanged a look with Nyte, then Drystan, but they seemed as clueless as me. Until I realized …
“The trident was taken by someone to reach the underwater temple,” I said, puzzling over who could have possession of it.
Nyte’s expression fell as he and I combed over the potential list, which wasn’t long.
“It has to be our father,” Drystan said first. “I just can’t figure out how he managed it when last I heard he sits on the throne of Vesitire.”
“From whom and when did you gather that intel?” Nyte demanded.
“I’ve been asking around,” Drystan said vaguely. “All that matters is that we find out if he’s responsible for this.”
“But why?” I asked, mulling it over in my mind. “What reason would your father have to collapse the sanctuary?”
“Maybe he heard about it from Auster somehow and shares the same prejudice against the Nephilim and wingless celestials,” Zephyr supplied.
That conclusion didn’t settle right with me. The powerless celestials and the Nephilim were shunned by the gods of Dusk and Dawn.
“He didn’t do it by Auster’s bidding nor his own,” I said, drawing only one conclusion. “He’s acted on behalf of Dusk or Dawn, maybe both, and Dawn wanted me to see this as a warning.”
Nyte’s hand caressed my back in comfort. The devastation of losing the sanctuary and the hundreds of innocent souls inside tore a fresh wound in me.
“Well, we know where the bastard is; I say we rain hell on Vesitire to tear him from the throne for the last time,” Drystan said resentfully.
“We need the key,” I said. “There’s one more temple here; then we’ll meet back with the others. Your father is no doubt protected by Dusk and Dawn; I need the key before I face them again.”
“They need the key to kill you,” Zephyr said.
“I’ve gathered that,” I said.
“They need a High Celestial to do it, or using it will kill them too.”
The next beat of silence hung heavily. Nyte shifted, ready to block Zephyr’s path to me, as if he might produce the full key right now and lunge for me.
“How do you know that?” Nyte asked, his tone edged with a warning.
Zephyr shifted a pained glance to his children, who watched us talk. Antila clasped her hands to her chest, her wide blue eyes fearful. Raider stood cross-armed, attentive, as though he were part of their battles.
“Take your sister to the dragons,” Zephyr instructed Raider.
“But Father, I want to—”
“Now, son.”
Raider’s jaw worked, but he respected his father’s order.
“I knew it wasn’t her the moment I saw her.” Zephyr’s voice lowered torn and shallow. “Dawn came to the sanctuary and tried to bargain with me. If I kill you, Katerina will live.”
That triggered Nyte and Drystan to firm their stance and shuffle closer, almost shielding me.
I didn’t want to believe Zephyr was capable of killing me, but this was his wife, who came above his friendship to me.
“After she left, I planned to retrieve my children and look for you, but then the flood happened,” Zephyr explained. “I don’t know what to do … if Dawn is even telling the truth.”
“She’s not,” Nyte said grimly. His protectiveness of me soured any gentleness for the topic. “Katerina is gone. Her mind could not have survived this long with another’s consciousness implanted within.”
“How can you be certain?” Zephyr said as a plea.
“You either trust me or you don’t. But I warn, the latter doesn’t end well for you if I think for a second you’d side with the gods on a fool’s hope and make an attempt on Astraea’s life.”
Zephyr’s grief-stricken eyes shifted to me. I pushed past the partial blockade of Nyte and Drystan to approach him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing they were three words that couldn’t add a stitch to the wound he carried from losing Katerina.
“There’s only one way to avenge her then,” Zephyr said, his voice a shell of the joy that once filtered it. “She would want me to help you kill Dawn.”
I reached for him in solace.
“Drystan will take you somewhere safe while Nyte and I complete the last temple,” I said.
Zephyr nodded his agreement.
Nyte rode Eltanin to the temple, and I flew beside them. Landing, I used my magick to clear the snow off the final dragon painting.
I was shocked to find the black painted lines. Yet, unlike Eltanin, this dragon wasn’t feathered. It wasn’t a celestial dragon.
Eltanin roared behind me, and I whirled at his sudden cry. He paced, clearly distressed, and it was frightening to see such a powerful creature this way when he could destroy things with any wrong flick of his wing or tail or step of his giant taloned feet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked with my heart in my throat.
“I’m not sure,” Nyte muttered, closing in protectively beside me.
Eltanin roared again, and his tail flicked instinctively, swiping at my ankles before I could jump or avoid it. I went tumbling into Nyte, who was also thrown off balance, and we went crashing to the ground. The glass vial of Eltanin’s tears flew out of Nyte’s hand and broke against the stone.
Right over the painting, which absorbed it instantly.
The ground beneath us rumbled, and the black lines shimmered.
I was too awestuck to move but thankful Nyte had his senses as he leaped to his feet, dragging me up clumsily.
He pulled me into a run as the painting started coming to life, and we took cover at the tree line.
The black dragon emerged as though pulling itself out of a deep grave. It grew taller and taller, and Eltanin became so anxious it filled me with fear.
“By the gods,” Nyte said in disbelief. It was rare for him to sound so stunned and maybe even fearful himself.
The black dragon with leathery wings finished awakening, and its roar trembled the ground, so loud I had to cover my ears with a pained wince.
Eltanin tried to back away, crashing into trees as the bigger dragon turned its head to him.
“What is happening?” I cried, shaken and not knowing what to do.
“It’s … it’s Eltanin’s father.”
That slammed me with shock. Then complete confusion.
“It doesn’t look like a happy reunion,” I said, observing the duo that looked primed to fight, which could turn devastating for everything in their surroundings. There were villages nearby.
“Dragons are very primal and territorial. Do you remember how we found his mother long ago? She was wounded very badly, and while I think the wing clipping was done by humans, I’d bet many of her wounds were from fighting.
Despite being his blood kin, this dragon doesn’t accept Eltanin.
In the draconic hierarchy, his father should rank below Eltanin.
Celestial dragons are royalty. I think this is him challenging that rank.
If he kills Eltanin, even though he’s not a celestial dragon, the others will recognize his father as their king in his place. ”
“We can’t allow that.”
“I won’t,” Nyte said, his tone so set and determined.
Both dragons drew breath at the same time, and I reacted out of instinct. I couldn’t stop them attacking each other, but I had to try to prevent the catastrophic blast of their colliding power from obliterating half of Zephyr’s province.
As they let go of their breath, I let Lightsdeath surge to the surface.
My wings shot me high, and a gale of light expelled from me, creating a dome around the small forest the temple was within. The dragon’s dark power slammed against my shield, and, in a second of panic, I thought it would break easily.
Lightsdeath wouldn’t let the darkness win. It reinforced the shield with more light, and I trembled with the velocity of the magick and the strength it took to hold it against the battering resistance of dragon breath that rippled ferociously against it.
When the dragons ceased their collision, I let go of my magick for a moment to collect myself. I didn’t know what to do, how to stop the powerful beasts from destroying each other.
We couldn’t lose Eltanin.
Nyte was on the ground near the battling dragons, and my protective instincts flared for him. I dropped down by his side. He scanned me over for injury.
“Eltanin won’t leave. He’s staying to protect us against his father,” he said.
My chest pained for the smaller black dragon.
So selfless and brave. The bigger dragon’s jaw opened and it lunged for Eltanin, and I screamed, casting out a flare of light.
My light stuck the bigger dragon, but though it spared Eltanin from its jaw, its front claws ripped across Eltanin’s chest instead.
Both dragons emitted ear-piercing screeches. I winced, folding into myself. Then I remembered …
Edasich … I’d been able to stop her from attacking me after I’d killed Auster.
Straightening, I didn’t know how that command had come out of me then, but I knew I had to try to find the voice again.
My fingertips clasped in front of me as my eyes slipped closed.
I took a long, stilling breath, which cancelled out the chaos around me.
I didn’t know how I was doing it, but I let my instinct guide me.
Eltanin wasn’t bonded to me, but I could communicate with him.
Even with Athebyne there were times I felt her emotions though I’d never had need to intervene with her.
I had a connection to dragons like no one else had, and it was from that acknowledgement, my acceptance of this power, that I found what I needed.
The black dragon’s name.
My eyes opened, and a tone that was new to me echoed over my voice as I spoke.
“Rastaban.”
The bigger black dragon drew away from Eltanin upon hearing his name. He turned to me, and Nyte stepped forward a little more, bracing with the frightening attention on us now.
“You will not harm him. You will leave, now.”
Rastaban’s growl rattled through my bones, and he stepped closer, bearing his teeth.
“Astraea,” Nyte said my name like a warning that we should run.
I stayed put, challenging a beast over a hundred times my size, and maybe I was delusional to think I could influence something as mighty as the dragons.
“Leave,” I warned a final time.
Faith and instinct were all I had in this deadly standoff. It might be the death of me but …
Rastaban’s head bowed.
It wasn’t friendly, and his malice still rippled through me, but he submitted. When he straightened, preparing to take off, my heart slammed to a thunderous beat.
“How the hell did you do that?” Nyte said, incredulous as we watched Rastaban fly away.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I said, dazed with the reality sinking in as the adrenaline cooled.
Nyte sighed with relief, cupping my nape and resting his forehead to mine.
“You can be incredibly reckless sometimes.”
“I never thought releasing any of the dragons could be a bad thing. They’re powerful allies when they’re with us, but against us … they could be catastrophic.”
“There are battles for power and dominance in every species. It was a fairytale to think that awakening the dragons again would be without any consequence or conflict. I’m sure Drystan will have more reports on the other freed dragons, which we’ll hear about when we catch up with the others after this trial. ”
“Do you think we have to worry about Rastaban?”
“You can predict that more than I could. I’m still trying to process how you found his name and managed to command him. I could feel it through your voice as you spoke to him … even I felt a certain compulsion of obedience from it. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
“I didn’t know I could do that.”
“You continue to amaze me.” He kissed my forehead.
Eltanin’s rattling wails had us running to him. He was bleeding from his neck and front leg, licking the latter wound.
“Let’s be quick. Eltanin needs help from Nadir and Lilith to heal these wounds faster,” Nyte said, distressed over Eltanin’s injuries.
I nodded. “Let’s see what wicked final game the key has in store.”