Chapter Twenty-Three
ELYSSARA
The world fractures in the space of a heartbeat.
The air holds its breath with me.
I stumble to a halt on the causeway, bare feet scuffing along rough stone.
My eyes whip to the battlements where Correk moves from archer to archer, drawing a blade across their throats as they train their arrows on us, unaware of the fox in their henhouse.
His shield winks in the moonlight, and I know he’s been waiting for this moment.
I hear whispers from the others—something about The Shield’s Apprentice, but I’m too stunned to decipher what it means. Because that’s when I see him—
“Ronyn!” My scream tears out of me, throat splitting, as he drops to his knees.
His bow clatters from his hand, forgotten, a hollow sound against the stone. His chest—gods, his chest—is slick with blood, dark and endless.
The Marked soldiers descend upon us, only a dozen or so left now, surrounding us like duskprowlers, maws practically dripping in bloodlust. But I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take any of it.
I look for Jax in the chaos of the causeway. “Take from me, Jax. Drain me dry. Use every shred of magic I have left. Just get them off us—whatever it takes,” I choke out, my voice cracking.
I see Kael about to protest, but Jax doesn’t wait. She drags on my magic, and pulls it to her fingertips, staring down the Marked. Starlight flares—crackling, blinding—cleaving through the night air. Mine—vengeful, untamed, destructive.
“You have ten heartbeats to leave before I drench the castle in magic of the Lightborne! You know who I am—you know what I am. The last living Luminaar. This will be the only mercy I offer,” she projects. Within a single heartbeat, the soldiers turn and run.
But I don’t care.
Because… Ronyn.
I stumble to him, hands shaking, useless, trying to press around the arrow that’s lodged in his chest—shot clean through. I add pressure against the wound, trying to hold him here, trying to keep him tethered to me. “No, no, no, stay with me, you stubborn bastard—”
He smiles through bloodied lips. A broken smile, weak and crooked, and it undoes me more than any wound ever could. “It’s a bit ironic that an arrow is the thing to take me out, El,” he rasps, voice thin as smoke.
But I can’t stop. Tears blur everything, smear his face into light and shadow. My magic sparks uncontrolled in my chest, the mark burning, desperate to heal him—I concentrate my magic on his wound, but Kael gently says, “You can’t heal him with the arrow still in, Duskae.”
“Then take it out!” I scream, jagged and raw.
“He’ll bleed out, El,” Kael breathes in a voice so soft it breaks me. Because he’s soothing me—he thinks Ronyn won’t make it.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I sob, shaking him, my hands slippery with his blood. “Ronyn, you hear me? You can’t—I need you. Seren needs you. You’re the best of us, the optimist—”
“The best archer in Aevryn,” he croaks through the blood, not even the looming Final Gate enough to quell his jokes.
I try to breathe a ragged laugh, but it comes out a strangled cry.
His hand—gods, his hand—is cold when it brushes my cheek. “Forgive him, El,” he whispers. His eyes find mine, fierce even as the light fades. “And finish this. You… were always meant to.”
I notice Seren holding his hand. Perhaps she’s been here the whole time. I don’t know.
Ronyn is too good. Too light. Too full of life to have it ripped from his body.
Kael and Therion kneel at his side, Morrathys hovering over us all. They know. They know this is it.
No!
But Morrathys does something unexpected.
He holds arrows across the palms of his hands in some sort of rite.
“I bless these weapons with the might of the gods. I bestow the bearer, Ronyn Holt, with these weapons for his courage, bravery and loyalty in the face of battle. May these weapons bind to him, and serve him now and in every life hereafter,” he bellows.
I sob, uncertain of whatever is transpiring. A divine blessing? A sacred rite for the journey to the Final Gate?
The air trembles, humming with power as if the world itself recognizes his words.
The arrows bow around his words, responding to something divine and ancient.
He passes the arrows down to Kael and Therion, their calloused hands gripping the shafts. The arrowhead is different, though. A dark, metal head glints in the night air, and I know it’s not normal. It’s the same metal as Kael’s swords. The kind of metal that feels other.
They lay the arrows on his chest, pressing their palms across the shafts and into his flesh.
Ronyn’s glassy stare locks on Kael’s, searching.
“The first god metal archer in Aevryn,” Kael manages, voice breaking. “May the Stars welcome you as you pass through the Final Gate… brother.”
“Brother,” Therion echoes, voice thick with emotion.
Ronyn sucks in a garbled breath, and smiles, his eyes glassy with tears.
“Brothers,” he whispers fondly.
And then—
His gaze goes distant. His chest shudders once. Stops.
The silence that follows is unbearable. I press my forehead to his, rocking, keening, a wounded animal. The world should end with him. It should. Because how can I breathe, how can I fight, how can I be, when Ronyn is nothing but stillness in my arms?
And that’s when I know what I need to do.
I scramble for the clasp of the Heart of Ashara that hangs from my neck. “Get it off. Get it off,” I panic, and the others watch. Hesitation heavy in the air, as if they’re nervous to give me false hope.
You will know when and how to awaken the Flame-heart. There will come a time when you will be faced with loss, and you will know.
Nehvara’s words fill my mind.
Because I do know.
Now is the time.
With shaky fingers, I unclasp the necklace, the jewel pulsing in my hand—as if it, too, knows something monumental is happening.
I draw on my memories of Nehvara again: The Flame-heart is not just any dragon, Starbound.
The Flame-heart is the soul of Tarrakai—the most powerful dragon in history.
His form is gone, but his soul lives on in the Heart of Ashara—a jewel.
For Tarrakai to awaken in dragon form, he will need a worthy vessel—someone brave, who holds love for the Dravari line, loyal.
Tarrakai needs Ronyn.
I’m certain.
He’s brave. And Stars damn it, he’s the most loyal man I know.
I press the Heart of Ashara into Ronyn’s chest.
It’s burned everyone who’s tried to touch it. But with Ronyn… nothing.
I push harder, forcing the Heart to react. To do something. Anything.
“It might need a living vessel, El,” Seren’s gentle voice cuts through my focus. And I fucking hate her for it.
“No!” I resist. I refuse to accept it.
I push again, forcing the jewel to do something. Anything.
I beg all the gods, despite knowing they’re not here. They can’t help me.
I spin. “Morrathys,” I beg. “Please help him. Do not let him enter the Final Gate.”
Morrathys looks down upon me with… empathy. With a kind of kindness that surprises me.
“He has not yet arrived at the Final Gate, Elyssara. But because I did not orchestrate his departure, I cannot stop the events already in motion at the hand of someone else,” he explains.
“This can’t be it!” I cry, and a broken scream tears from my throat.
My palms feel warm, still pressing into Ronyn’s chest.
I look down, and the Heart of Ashara pulses a vibrant red-orange light.
Is it… awakening?
Ronyn’s skin blisters under the heat of the jewel, and before I can pull it away, the jewel and Ronyn’s chest begin to meld together, as if they each sense a likeness within the other and can’t bear to stay separate.
Awed sighs fill the night.
The red-orange glow beams out from his chest, a pulsing, beautiful thing that resembles a small lava lantern Revryn kept from the volcanoes of Vyrhal.
A moving, living, pulsing glow. But where is the life it feeds off?
Ronyn is loyal, loving and brave. He is a vessel. So, where the fuck is Tarrakai?
“We need to get to Mavyrn, El,” Seren sniffles, jostling my arm.
“They’ll be pulling soldiers from outposts as we speak. We have mere moments to get to that Gateway of Threads before we’ll have to draw our blades again,” Therion confirms.
“I’ve got him, Duskae,” Kael says, bending down to pull Ronyn into his arms, bringing the arrows with him. What did he call them? God metal?
I nod solemnly, but the cascade of recent events obliterates me.
“Wait!” I shout, as I see Correk running toward us down the causeway.
Daelen steps forward brandishing his broadsword.
“No! He’s a friend,” I say, squeezing his arm.
Correk’s big frame heaves with exhaustion as he approaches, blood smearing his cheek, and gore spattered across his shield.
And that’s when I see it—
His shield bears the inverted triangle of the Zerynthian rebellion.
“You must be The Shield’s Apprentice,” Kael says with measured calm as he approaches, as if all of this makes sense.
“King Kael,” Correk hails, dropping to one knee and bowing his head in reverence. “The rebels have made great progress here.”
Correk works with the rebellion? With Kael?
“Good,” Kael affirms, impressed. “Time to go,” he commands the group, his eyes lingering on me.
I have so many questions, but right now, I don’t fucking care.
Because all I can think is: my best friend is dead.