Chapter 26
Zenevieve
The sounds of battle are all around us, the roars of dragons and the whir of wyvern wings as they dive at the enemy spellcasters.
Emmeric has summoned a great undead army to defend his stronghold.
A shiver goes through me as I witness that the bad-tempered, spiteful boy I once knew is capable of so much evil.
One of Stesha’s arms is tight around my waist as Nilak flings a boulder at the sea of undead soldiers, tumbling through the enemies like skittles and shattering them into bony splinters.
She snatches the boulder up again, and we climb higher.
Stesha’s face is grimly determined, and I can feel his focus as he silently communes with his dragon.
This time, Nilak hurls the boulder at a turret, and then another at a wall.
She roars in triumph as it comes tumbling down, then paints a line of dragonfire on the ground, incinerating the undead and giving us a safe space to land.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I draw my new sword, and Stesha draws his.
Nilak turns to replenish the flames to keep the undead on the battlefield away from us.
There appears to be no one moving inside the castle, at least in the part we’ve broken open.
Stesha and I exchange looks, then clamber over the rumble to get inside.
My heart rate quickens. The hole is large enough for Shar to pass through.
This is the way we’ll lead him out of the prison Emmeric forced him into and lead him back to the flare.
Stesha points to our left, toward the base of the tower that’s shrouded in darkness. “Shar is that way, if Lady Isavelle described this place to us correctly.”
The air is dank and stale as I hurry forward. Up ahead, I see a faint glow and a large, dark shape lying on the ground, and I break into a run.
He reaches for my arm. “Zenevieve, wait.”
But I’m wound too tight with hope and anxiety to listen.
As I draw closer, I see the glow is from giant manacles that are clamped around all four of the dragon’s legs.
Isavelle described how Shar was being kept, but nothing prepared me for the ghastly sight of a dragon in chains.
His beautiful body doesn’t move. His scales are dull and lifeless, and his eyes are closed. I swallow down a sob at the sight.
But Shar is not alone. There’s a tall figure with his back to us, brandishing a dagger in his shaking fist and muttering to himself. He raises his voice and lowers it again. “I won’t. Shut up. Shut up.”
Emmeric’s tight, angry voice sends cold shivers through my body. Clammy sweat breaks out on my brow and my lower back. I fear this man for many reasons, and most of them I can’t remember.
Emmeric hears our footsteps, and rounds on us with a gasp. As he looks first at me and then Stesha, there’s devastation in his eyes. Then his eyes narrow with hate, and I realize why he’s brandishing a dagger. He’s here to kill Shar.
Stesha raises his sword, and his free hand closes around my wrist, drawing me back and stepping protectively in front of me. “Emmeric. Put the knife down.”
Emmeric looks back and forth between us with an expression of disgust. “So you found your way back to each other.” He draws a deep breath into his lungs as he stares at me, then he flicks his gaze at Stesha.
“But you’re still as miserable as ever. Good.
” He smiles, and there are no dragines in his mouth.
The black, midnight blue, and gold have faded from his eyes and hair, just as Minta’s coloring has faded from mine.
I wonder how that can be when Shar yet lives.
“Your barrier is breached,” Stesha tells him. “There’s an army at your gates. It’s over, Emmeric.”
“Do you think this castle is what’s protecting me? I’m immortal. The whole world is my castle.”
“Please don’t hurt Shar,” I plead with him.
“What, this thing?” Emmeric asks. He waves a hand, and his eyes flame green.
The magical, glowing chains locked around the dragon vanish.
I hold my breath, waiting for Shar to open his eyes.
Lift his head. I know he lives because his chest is faintly rising and falling. Otherwise, Shar is as still as stone.
“Shar, please wake up,” I call to the dragon. Tears are welling up in my eyes. I have a horrible feeling I’ve seen Emmeric smirking at me while standing over an unmoving dragon.
“Do you hear her, Shar?” Emmeric kicks the dragon, but he still doesn’t move.
“Stop that!” I scream, and I try to run at him with my sword, but Stesha holds me back as Emmeric laughs.
As I struggle to free myself, a hot, sick sensation plunges down my body.
A splinter of a memory stabs through my mind.
A day long ago that feels like yesterday, when I was weak and sore and tired, and I wasn’t able to protect Minta.
Emmeric was there, and someone else was as well. An Alpha with white hair.
Oren.
Why was Oren there?
Then I remember. The Alpha soldier was on his way to the southern towns with word of the king and queen’s assassination when Emmeric found me. He was… Oren tried to…
I make a choking sound as the memory washes over me. Oren, dead on the ground, a gaping wound in his chest, dying as he tried to protect me. Emmeric watching with a nasty smile on his lips.
And then he killed Minta.
I fall to my knees with a ragged cry as the memory slams into me.
Emmeric paralyzed my dragon with a spell, and then he cut her open from throat to chest while she screamed in agony.
As blood poured out of her, he reached inside her chest and pulled out her soul core.
He was saying something about experiments with dragon magic.
More power. Better power. I wasn’t listening.
My dragon was dying. She was calling out to me with her mind to save her, and I couldn’t.
I couldn’t. I felt all of Minta’s pain and terror through our connection.
I can feel it now. She was dying, and the moment she slipped away from me felt like my own heart was being ripped from my chest. My own soul dragged out of me with white-hot pincers.
And then my mind just…snapped.
My hands are pressed against the dirty ground, and I rock back and forth as I take shuddering breaths. Distantly, I hear Stesha’s voice. The ring of metal on metal, and an angry gasp of pain. There’s a flare of light, and then everything goes silent.
Then there are gentle hands on my shoulders, helping me to my feet. Stesha’s scent is coppery with blood, but I’m blinded by tears. For a moment I’m afraid he’s hurt, but I know his scent and the blood is not his.
Cool fingers caress my face, wiping away my tears. “Zenevieve, we must leave,” Stesha says gently.
“But Shar. Don’t forget about Shar.”
“I’m sorry, Zen.”
“What do you mean?” I open my eyes. Shar is lifeless on the ground, as still as stone. A sob rises up my throat. “No, Shar. Please, you can’t die.”
I fling myself to my knees beside the dragon, but there’s no spark of life. His chest no longer rises and falls. The beautiful dragon is dead.
A wail of pain is ripped from my throat. “No,” I cry, wrapping my arms around his neck and sobbing onto his cold scales. “No, no, no.” I scream in anger and despair at Emmeric and all the senseless pain he’s caused. There’s not a mark on Shar. He shouldn’t have died. Why did he die?
I feel a warm hand on my back as Stesha kneels next to me. “I’m so sorry, Zen.”
“What happened to him?” I manage to choke out between sobs.
Stesha caresses Shar’s scales. “Emmeric kept him in chains for too long. Shar was too weak, and the spell was too careless.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and bow my head. To treat his own dragon this way. I already knew it after everything he’s done, but Emmeric truly is a monster.
“I remember everything,” I finally admit.
“Emmeric didn’t hurt me like he hurt Mirelle.
I know you were scared about that. He found a different way to destroy me by killing Minta.
She died in pain. She was so afraid, and I felt it all.
It was too much, and I blocked all my memories out.
Seeing Emmeric standing over Shar with that knife brought it all back. ”
“I’m so sorry, Zen,” Stesha whispers, taking me in his arms and pressing my face to his chest, one large hand supporting the back of my head.
His scent grows stronger in his attempt to soothe me, but for once, it doesn’t work.
The pain and anger inside of me is a well that runs too deep, and I’m tumbling into it as memories pour over me.
After Minta died, I was like the living dead.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t react. Emmeric seemed to lose all interest in me after he realized he could no longer torment me.
I think he put me away not long after that, discarded me into another realm the same way he trapped the dragon army.
He didn’t wake me up until he needed someone to spy on them.
With Shar dead, I’ve lost all hope that I’ll ever feel like myself again. I sob in Stesha’s arms, wishing that I’d never remembered Minta’s terrible, blood-soaked fate.