Chapter Sixty-Seven
ELYSSARA
The castle shudders like a living thing dying in slow motion.
Mavyrn’s chambers rattle like thunder, and the furniture shakes, rasping across the onyx floors.
“What is that?” I breathe, my heart racketing against my ribs.
Stone dust rains from the ceiling, tasting of ash and blood.
Kael’s palm wraps around my wrist in urgency, pulling me from the chambers with a desperation he rarely shows.
He drags me down the halls, our boots crunching through a river of shattered glass and flame.
“They’ve breached the castle walls. Fuck!” Kael grunts.
The floor lurches, the stones scream, and still, we run. Fast.
Mavyrn’s eerie words of Lightborne barriers, puppets, prophecies and Lara still crawl through my veins like some insidious creature, but I thrust it aside as the castle crumbles around me.
The prayer chamber lies three levels below, but every stairway we come to is cracked open like a wound—jagged and broken.
“Faster,” he says, his voice all gravel and command.
Another blast tears through the hall. The air ripples, light turned weapon.
“Caelorian cannons,” he explains between pants.
Elandor told me about them, but experiencing them goes beyond myth. They’re sacrilegious. A weapon that requires no courage to wield—a coward’s invention.
The noise hits bone-deep, a frequency that makes teeth ache and magic stutter.
“We’re almost there—”
The floor ahead gives out with a deafening roar. A yawning pit swallows half the hall, a fiery void between us and the carved arch that leads to the chamber below.
Kael swears under his breath. “There’s another way—”
He doesn’t finish.
Because the air shifts.
Heavy. Wet. Metallic.
A smell I know too well—rot wrapped in perfume.
I freeze. The hum of my power falters.
From the haze of smoke and debris, a figure steps forward, limping slightly, her hair matted and her mouth twisted in a grin that should’ve died with her. Those deep-brown eyes I stared into for mercy find mine once again.
“You thought you could be rid of me in death, Gutter Rat?”
The voice spears through me.
And my stomach lurches into my throat.
Vessira.
“I feed on death.” She drags her blade along the wall, the metal singing. “I’m Marked, remember?”
A revenant.
My body has already locked. The blade in her hand catches the light—black glass and memory. I see chains, the dungeon floor slick with my own blood, Kael’s hands carving fatal wounds into my loved ones, her laughter echoing against the walls.
The castle trembles again; the ceiling cracks open.
“Elyssara—” Kael’s shout cuts off as a beam collapses between us as he reaches for me, a rain of fire and stone separating me from him.
Smoke. Screaming stone. And Vessira stepping through it all like she’s walking home.
I try to steady myself, to find the quiet place inside myself to find my Lightborne magic. I claw for Duskae, for the hum in my bones, but my hands shake too hard. My breaths come too fast. The noise in my head is louder than any god’s voice.
Not again.
Not again.
Phantom chains of lillath snap around my wrists—manifestations of my own fear—and Vessira laughs, low and delighted.
Kael limps into my line of sight.
He stumbles from the rubble, a fragment of wood splintering through his shoulder, blood already oozing from the wound.
His palm grips around it, and a muffled grunt is the only noise he makes as he rips it free from his shredded skin.
“This will not end well for you, Vessira,” he growls in warning.
Fear squeezes like a serpent coiling around my neck—and Vessira uses my paralysis for her gain. She’s on me.
Her blade of nightmares presses to my throat, the edge meeting my skin so my pulse thuds against it.
“Love is such a weakness, Kael,” Vessira taunts, ignoring his threats. “You suffer the same affliction as your father—on your knees and still unwilling to make sacrifices,” she lilts in a mocking, sinister tone.
“I bow for no one,” Kael growls, “but her.”
I hunger for power. To do something. Anything. But I’m frozen in place, terror gripping my throat.
The siege is here. Caeloria has breached Kryntar’s walls. We have only heartbeats before the realms as we know them end.
But all I can think about is the fucking blade at my throat.
Not because I fear death.
I don’t.
I fear nightmares.
Kael stalks forward, so Vessira draws blood—
Nightmares flood my mind.
I’m drifting between visions and reality.
The trembling crash of walls, the shatter of glass. Reality.
Seren’s lifeless body lying in the dirty, empty streets of Virellin. Nightmare.
I try to keep them separate. To remember.
But something doesn’t fit. Doesn’t make sense.
The scent of fresh bread and apples cuts through the chaos.
And it feels like joy.
My eyes snap open, because I realize—
Ronyn.
“You’ll want to remove that fucking blade from my best friend, thank you very much,” he says nonchalantly from behind, and I already know he’s leaning casually against the wall. Kael’s mouth tilts into a smirk that can only mean one thing: violence and victory.
The fresh bread and apples soften in my nose, replaced by the scent of burning fire.
The crack of bones, the tearing of sinew, the snapping of flesh into place echoes through the halls.
Then the roar comes.
Deep. Ancient.
My best friend.
Vessira’s grip on my throat slackens, her blade clattering to the ground as the shadow of a great beast stretches over her.
Get on the floor and do not fucking move until I have scorched this abomination from the known realms. Tarrakai’s rasping command blazes through my mind, and I don’t hesitate. Neither does Kael.
I throw myself heavily to the castle floors, armor scraping like a blade grinding through bone.
But I don’t look away.
I watch in awe.
A beast made of flame and shadow bursts through the rubble—Tarrakai unleashed. His wings unfurl in the confines of the corridor, fire spilling from his lungs as he shields me, as he burns the nightmare from the earth.
The heat scorches the air. The walls scream.
But I can’t move.
Can’t hear.
Can’t breathe.
I can only watch the monster I love turn the world to ash while the ghost of my captor laughs through the flames.
The heat from Tarrakai’s breath licks at my skin.
But somehow, I feel safe.
Vessira disintegrates to ash. The falling motes land beside my face like gray snow.
The brand between my shoulder blades tingles in resonance.
A stark reminder of who’s still standing.
The inferno stops, the blaze receding, though Tarrakai’s power is anything but gone. No. It’s palpable. An undeniable weapon.
I go to him, his humid puffs drenching me.
But there is only one feeling: gratitude.
Tarrakai lowers his head, his belly, almost as if he’s submitting to me.
When my palm meets his scales, the hum of the cosmos answers, and for a single heartbeat, I remember what it feels like to be infinite.
I remember what it feels like to be soul-bound to the dragons.
As if this sacred rite is a truth in my blood.
“Thank you,” I breathe, and the prickle of tears sting my eyes.
But I can’t feel that here. Not now.
So, I lift the corners of my mouth, all cheek and audacity, and say, “I thought you weren’t Melding again until we’re fighting for Dravara.”
A short huff of hot air snorts from his nose derisively.
You are Dravara.
And his words stun me.
But I have no time to process it—
“My love, we need to keep going. They’re almost inside the castle,” Kael urges, his bloodied shoulder and ribs crippling his movements, and the Caelorian cannons still thunder through the skies.
“Let me heal you,” I plead, grimacing at the sight of the crusted blood of his ribs.
“Later,” he grunts. “Let’s end this.”
Tarrakai’s hulking shadow shrinks, the grinding sounds of reforming bones crackling through the air, reverberating off the walls.
Ronyn’s stark naked frame lies heavy on the floor, his face tipped into a goofy smile.
His eyes fly open. “That was fucking incredible,” he declares, bounding to his feet.
And I can’t help it—a laugh rips from my throat unbidden.
I don’t try to stop it.
And despite everything—cannons, castles, culling—this feels like the rebellion.
This is the reason we need to remake the realms.
“I’d hug you, but ahhh… you’re naked,” I choke out through my laughter.
His hands shoot to his hips, and he lifts his chest proudly. “I have a theory, dear El, that clothing is just a way for men with small dicks to hide. I, on the other hand, would proudly go everywhere like this,” he throws his arms out in a theatrical flourish, as if we’re not in the midst of war.
“I fucking believe it, brother,” Kael laughs, clapping Ronyn on the back.
I bury my face in my hands, shaking my head at his ability to have this charming effect on everyone.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass all the lads, though,” he says, rummaging through the halls to find trousers, and pulling the boots from dead soldiers.
“Why were you even out here, Ronie?” I ask, voice transforming into calculated calm.
“Looking for you, actually. You were taking a while, and Teddy sent me on a mission. Bloody lucky I turned up, eh?” he bounces his eyebrows up and down irreverently.
“Is everyone okay? Do you have Maldrak?” Kael snaps, ignoring the joke.
Ronyn’s face shifts into something serious. Something loaded. “We’re ready to perform the spell,” he answers with gravitas.
I look around at the rubble, the path to the prayer chamber blocked with crumbled stone.
“Before you put on more clothes, do you think you could clear the path to the chamber?” Kael asks, face a feral invitation.
Ronyn’s mouth presses into a thin line of annoyance. “The dragon says he’ll only do it if El asks. Soul-bound to each other and all that,” he says, voice indignant. “Not sure he really likes you, Kael.”
Kael huffs a laugh, but raises his hands in mock surrender.
“Tarrakai, will you please clear the path?” I ask, barely containing my smugness.
Without a word, Ronyn struts toward the rubble, hands back on hips, chest lifted proud.
“Now would be good, Tarrakai, my friend,” he beckons, as if talking to a barkeep.
The air shifts instantly.
The scent of brimstone coils through the hall—smoke, sulfur, and stormfire.
Ronyn whips his gaze to us and throws us a playful wink.
Then his flesh ruptures, making way for a great beast.