3. Whispers of Things to Come #3
But when Panakír’s eyes began to glow with searing white light, Alvira grabbed Eltoar by the shoulder.
“Stop.” She pulled harder. “Eltoar, stop.”
“No.” A surge of the Spark erupted from him, and light burst from Panakír’s eyes, bright as stars, her sockets melting. When her screaming finally ceased, Eltoar dropped her to the ground like a broken doll, and a new scream pierced the sky.
Above, Doaxes peeled away from the fighting and plummeted towards the city. The dragon’s roars set ice in Alvira’s veins. Another Rakina. Another soul shattered.
Doaxes dropped low, kicked back his head, and unleashed a river of fire over the southern quarter of the city before rising again and tearing straight towards Eltoar and Alvira.
Panic set in to the soldiers about them, shouts and roars rising into the night, but as Doaxes drew closer, the burgeoning clouds above him began to take on an incandescent glow.
Alvira inhaled sharply, feeling that pressure build within her, shaking her bones and clenching her lungs.
She closed her eyes, allowing her mind to drift into Vyldrar’s as the dragon burst through the clouds, a river of fire spewing from his jaws.
The flames crashed over Doaxes’ back, knocking him off balance in the air before Vyldrar descended upon him and drove savage talons into his back. As Vyldrar closed his jaws around Doaxes’ neck, all he felt was sorrow. His heart wept.
Doaxes thrashed and unleashed plumes of blazing fire into the air, trying desperately to twist his head. Pure, unfettered rage flowed from him, permeating through Vyldrar and into Alvira. Loss and anguish followed, as though Doaxes’ soul was crying out.
Vyldrar ended the struggle with a single mighty wrench, shattering scales on Doaxes’ neck, teeth sinking deep into flesh, hot blood spilling like rain.
The kill was swift, cutting short Doaxes’ moments without his soulkin.
Alvira’s entire body shook as Vyldrar opened his jaws, spread his wings, and let Doaxes fall.
The dragon dropped for but a few seconds before slamming down into the host of Antiloch soldiers on the opposite side of plaza and sliding through their ranks to crush everything in his path.
Doaxes’s body came to a halt some twenty feet from the circle of soldiers who surrounded Eltoar and Alvira.
Steam rose from the hot blood that still pumped from the wounds in his neck, but his soul already journeyed to Heraya’s embrace to find Panakír once more.
A great cheer rose up from the Vastillion soldiers as Vyldrar passed overhead, silent but for a single wing beat that carried him upwards.
Despite herself, Alvira did not share in that same sense of triumph. She truly hoped the two soulkin would find each other in death. Panakír had seemed lost, broken. Hers had not seemed the heart of a traitor… and yet, there Alvira stood, in the cost of Panakír’s treachery.
Roars tore through the sky above as Vyldrar returned to the fray, ripping one of the smaller dragons from Helios’s back.
Eltoar looked to the sky, then turned back to Alvira. “Go. Tell The Order what has happened here. The truth of this treachery must be known. I will see to it that you are long gone by the time they take chase.”
Alvira shook her head and clenched her jaw. “You stay, I stay.”
She would not be moved on this.
“I will not lose another soul. Do you hear me? I will not—”
“You stay,” Alvira repeated, once more calling upon her níthral, its light shimmering in her palm, “I stay. They will die for what they have done.”
Both Alvira and Eltoar turned their heads as more shouts sounded around them.
To the west, Shinyara appeared, drifting between clouds and high peaks. And she was not alone. Tarast and his wing had finally arrived. A weight lifted from Alvira’s heart to see Farda return, to see him and Shinyara safe.
She looked back to Eltoar. “We will tear them from the sky, and we will raise a mountain where Maquil and Carasín fell. I promise you, Eltoar, they will know peace. They will.”
Eltoar nodded sombrely, but his expression didn’t change. “I should have been there. I should have kept him by my side. I will not make that mistake again.”
Eltoar closed his eyes, and in the distance, Alvira watched through Vyldrar as Helios wrapped his jaws around one of the traitor’s forelimbs and ripped it clean from the dragon’s body before tossing the creature through the sky to smash against a cliffside.
“Draleid n’aldryr,” Eltoar whispered.
“Rakina nai dauva,” Alvira answered back.
After a moment, Eltoar opened his eyes. “He had a good heart.”
“He did.”
That was the first time Alvira ever saw a tear in Eltoar’s eye.
He drew a long, slow breath. “You spoke to her before she died.”
Alvira nodded. “None of it made sense.”
“We will find out why this happened, Alvira. And we will ensure it never happens again. But now, fly with me. Let us end this day. There is much blood to be spilled, and I am tired.”
As the last word left Eltoar’s lips, a shadow swept over them and across the city beyond as Helios descended from the sky.