2. A Death of Hope
Chapter Two
A Death of Hope
Farda shifted his weight as Shinyara weaved between the crush of dragons.
She lurched forwards and drove her talons into the chest of a smaller creature with scales of muted blue and a soul that smelled of burning elderberries.
She knew the dragon. Asherin. He had a kind heart.
Eltoar was right. They needed to know the ‘why’ of this.
As Shinyara’s talons sank deeper into the meat of Asherin’s chest, a weight slammed into her side and ripped her free.
The Spark crackled in the air around them as they careened through the sky.
Farda could feel the talons raking Shinyara’s side even before he saw the wings of the dragon that had charged them.
It was a creature even smaller than Maquil’s soulkin, Carasín, with deep red wings and dark horns that slicked across their jaws like polished obsidian.
He recognised neither the dragon nor the Draleid perched upon their shoulders. They were young. Too young.
A pulse of the Spark erupted from the young Draleid, and an arc of lightning tore towards Shinyara’s throat.
Farda pulled on threads of Fire, Air, and Spirit, creating a ward upon which the lightning crashed.
As the young Draleid pushed harder and his soulkin attempted to tear at Shinyara, Farda wove separate threads of Air and wrapped them around the smaller dragon’s tail. He pulled.
The creature shrieked as they were dragged free from Shinyara, flailing in the air. Shinyara made to dive after them, but Farda pulled at her with his mind.
No. I would prefer not to break any souls today if we can avoid it.
Shinyara unleashed a visceral roar of defiance.
Images pushed from her mind into his, flashes of Farda’s body broken on the ground below, of his skin aflame, his flesh sundered.
She would not risk his life for the lives of traitors.
She would not risk his life for anything.
He was her light, her warmth. Even if he was a fool.
Shinyara cracked her wings and swooped down after the smaller dragon, seeing Vyldrar and Carasín battling with three of the others to her left.
She would not risk their lives either. The thought of it sent an indomitable rage blazing through her.
That rage burned in their shared soul, consuming even Farda’s thoughts as Shinyara crashed into the younger dragon, sank her talons into their chest, and opened them from neck to groin, gore and innards spraying into the wind.
At that same moment, she leaned forwards and unleashed a torrent of raging dragonfire over the young Draleid, quieting the screams that had erupted from his throat when his soulkin had been torn open.
That was the least Shinyara could do. She would not allow traitors the time to take her light from her, but neither would she force any to live even a moment they did not have to without their soulkin.
She did not wish them pain, nor did she hate them.
She simply could not allow them to live while they threatened those she loved. And it broke her heart.
She watched the young dragon fall, hot blood trailing in their wake, her shared soul aching. Then she angled her wings, caught an upwards current of air, and rejoined the carnage.
Closer to the city, Helios held a dragon with scales of dull yellow in his jaws, two more of the traitors diving at him from both sides.
Three dragons, all the size of Shinyara, did battle with Vyldrar and Carasín. The young silverwing was wounded along the right flank, strips torn through the membrane of the wing on that side.
Through Shinyara’s eyes, Farda spotted a blaze of light far below.
One of the traitors doing battle with Helios had peeled away and continued to pour flames over the dying city.
What manner of madness would cause a Draleid to turn their back on the battle before them, simply to slaughter more men and women?
A high pitched shriek pulled his attention back up to where the others were fighting, and Shinyara was already peeling back through the air before Farda had even laid eyes on the muddy brown dragon with its jaws around Carasín’s neck.
Threads of Fire, Air, and Spirit lashed back and forth between Maquil and the traitor Draleid. The Spark surged outwards from Maquil, his panic evident, fear pulsing through every movement.
“Tear it from the sky!” Farda roared, his voice crashing against the rushing wind. All thoughts of a peaceful resolution evaporated in the fires of his mind. He would not allow Maquil and Carasín to fall. Eltoar would never forgive him… and he would never forgive himself.
Pillars of dragonfire spewed across the canvas of blue and blotched white as Vyldrar attempted to get to young Carasín, but the traitors blocked his path, the pair of them pecking at the mighty dragon like vultures at a black lion.
No such impediment stood in Shinyara’s way. She hit that traitor with the force of a battering ram, little care for self-preservation crossing her mind. The world was a tangle of claw and fang and tail as she ripped the dragon away from Carasín.
A talon plunged into her side and would have opened her if Carasín hadn’t swept about and rejoined the fight, clamping her jaws on the traitor’s wing and snapping.
A frantic eruption of the Spark ignited from the dragon’s soulkin, threads of Air wrapping around both Farda and Maquil. Farda had a thought to push back through the threads, to see whose soul was stronger, but it would have been a waste of precious energy.
With its wing broken, the dragon was already falling from the sky, his soulkin howling into the wind, grasping desperately at the Spark with every fibre of her being.
It would almost have been a mercy to end it there and then.
The power of the Spark rose and rose within her until her eyes erupted with searing white light, and Farda could almost feel the devouring of her soul from the inside out.
The threads of Air that held Farda tight melted, and just like that, two dragons and two Draleid had been torn from the world, and the only victor was the darkness.
It had been more than a decade since Farda had been forced to take the life of another Draleid. It was a feeling he would rather never touched his heart again.
“Farda!” Alvira’s voice boomed as though it were thunder itself, carried by threads of Air and Spirit.
But even with Alvira’s power amplifying her words, it was too late.
Farda turned his head in time to watch as one of the dragons battling Vyldrar swept down towards Maquil and Carasín.
Farda recognised the blue of Asherin’s scales.
With barely eighteen summers at his back, Maquil had committed a fatal mistake: he had allowed himself to think the battle was won.
A single heartbeat passed, and Asherin was upon them.
Carasín, for all her youth and speed, could do nothing as Maquil was stripped from her back, talons wrapping around the young man’s face and legs.
Had he seen more battle, Maquil might have reached out to the Spark, might have struck with lightning or sheared through the red dragon’s legs.
He might have done something, anything. But as it was, he froze.
Just for a moment, just the briefest of hesitations.
That was all that was needed. The dragon cracked his wings, lifted upwards, and, in the same motion, pulled his talons apart and burst Maquil across the waist like an overfilled sack.
A second heartbeat passed, and Vyldrar collided with the traitor.
A second too late. Vyldrar tore at the blue dragon with a fury like a raging storm.
In a single motion, he ripped the dragon’s wing free, blood and bone in his jaws, savage rage in his eyes.
From his back, Alvira unleashed arcs of chained lightning, her fingertips scintillating, the Spark pulsing from her in waves.
It was a display of sheer power and fury that caused even Shinyara to watch in awe.
But beneath it all, so too could Farda feel a sadness, a guilt that crept from Alvira and Vyldrar.
The next sound to pierce Farda’s ears was a soul-crushing shriek from the jaws of Carasín.
Farda’s heart dropped into his stomach as though it were made of lead, every hair on his body pricking.
He could feel the sorrow in Shinyara, feel the ache that carved into her soul at the sight of young Carasín’s soul shattering.
To become Rakina was an agony none could dare dream of, but to become Rakina, to become Broken, with so few summers beneath her wings was unspeakable.
As Vyldrar pulled away and let the maimed blue dragon fall, Carasín’s sorrow grew into a frenzied madness.
The small silver dragon folded her wings and dropped.
She crashed into the falling dragon and proceeded to tear at its already savaged body with a ferocity that could only be born of grief.
She bit and clawed and tore, shredding his wings, opening his stomach, and ripping chunks of flesh from his neck.
Within moments, Asherin and his Draleid were little more than a falling cloud of blood and bone.
But when all signs of life faded, Carasín did not pull away.
Instead she continued to tear at the falling chunks of flesh, blood spraying in her wake.
And as she fell with the corpse of her soulkin’s killer, Farda saw the light fade from her eyes.
The frenzy abated, an emptiness taking its place, an apathy.
Through Shinyara’s eyes, Farda watched as Carasín plummeted and wrapped her wings around the two halves of Maquil’s mangled corpse, bringing them together in mid-air. She pulled the light of her short life into one final embrace before hitting the ground below.