Chapter 37
FLORENCE
For one brief moment, I thought we’d done it. Nyxaris’s last blast had left Viktor aflame. The Inferni was reeling and shrieking.
Blake was gone. We’d defeated Vorago. Now Viktor was falling, too.
Neville shivered against my breast. The fluffin let out a strangled whimper.
“What—” I started to say.
The sky split. A red shape shot up from below us.Viktor drove himself upwards with murderous speed, ramming his jaws straight into Nyxaris’s throat. My dragon roared.The impact snapped through the Duskdrake’s body. I felt his pain echo through my ribs and screamed.
“Nyxaris!” I could hear the scales snap. Feel the hot blood as it splattered across my cheeks.
Fireheart … Nyxaris’s voice was strangled.
“Hold on!” I clamped Neville to my chest, fishing for a Godsbane bolt.
Breathe. Steady, now, I warned myself. This is no time to mess up. I wedged the crossbow over the dragons’ ridge, scanning the Inferni as he banked away from Nyxaris. There: a patch of scar tissue where Viktor’s corrupted scales overlapped.
I squeezed. The bolt slammed home, just below his sternum.
Viktor recoiled with a screech, diving away.
Nyxaris’s blood was flowing heavily, streaming down his neck.
But he wasn’t backing down. His chest inflated, every plate along his neck suddenly glowing furnace-bright.
An inferno erupted from his jaws. Flames wrapped across Viktor’s left wing, the membrane instantly catching the blaze.
The Inferni beat his wings, desperately trying to smother the fire, but the Godsbane I’d shot into him was tunneling through his blood, slowing him down.
A hole slowly formed, getting larger and larger.
Viktor lurched, lost lift, and began to wobble.
First a slight topple, then a sudden plunge.
Down, down he fell, towards the city below.
“You did it,” I breathed. “Nyxaris, you did it!”
I waited for him to turn, to dive, to follow Viktor down to the ground so we could finish him off once and for all. But my dragon didn’t answer.
Beneath my palms, I suddenly realized his scales were slick. Nyxaris, talk to me.
I peered over the curve of his neck, Neville still whimpering against me. Blood poured from the gash Viktor’s fangs had opened. The wound smelled strange. Foul. Wrong. Gallons of dragon blood poured out, falling onto the city below.
I felt choked with panic. Nyxaris, you’re wounded. We need to get you down to the ground. Land. Land now.
Fireheart, he rasped, you are safe. That is … sufficient.
That’s not sufficient for me. I don’t care about Viktor. I care about you. Now, land, dammit.
Nyxaris began to drop. A pulse of amusement brushed my thoughts. Very well, little rider. I shall obey.
For once in your life, I muttered, trying to make him laugh.
But no such luck. His breathing had grown unsteady.
I closed my eyes, matching my breaths to his—steady where they were broken, trying to force him to match my rhythm.
His wings angled downwards as we flew towards the edge of the city.We circled, then landed in an open field.
I slid from his back, opening my arms to catch Neville as he jumped. My crossbow fell at the ground at my feet, the instrument of violence suddenly feeling unwelcome and unnecessary.
Talk to me. I moved to Nyxaris’s head, wiping my blood-soaked hands on my thighs, then running them gently over his scales.
How bad is it? The dragon’s head lowered until the tip of his muzzle rested in the trampled grass.
I pressed both palms to the great line of his jaw, feeling the warm blood seeping through my fingers, then leaned down, resting my forehead against his warm snout.
How bad is the bite? I whispered. Tell me, Nyxaris.
Fireheart, such worry does not suit you.
I gave a ragged laugh. Fireheart? Why do you keep calling me that? Worryheart, more like. I worry every moment of my life. You know me. You know that. I hiccupped. Now, you’re bleeding like a fountain. Tell me how deep the bite is. Tell me what I can do.
A tiny scratch. Pay it no mind. Calm your racing heart.
He lifted his head, trying to nudge my cheek with his nose—an awkward, affectionate bump. My heart went very still. It was the first time he’d ever done such a thing.
Stop changing the subject, I insisted. The fact that he kept doing so frightened me more than if he’d given me a straight answer.
You must have wondered why I never ended Viktor before now. The truth is I tried.
I have never wondered. I have never doubted you. You don’t need to explain yourself to me.
He ignored me. I knew him once. Long ago. He is a remnant of a former world. One I thought we had wiped clean.
I stared. Before you were turned to stone, you mean?
Yes. In the tower, that day, I finally recognized his stench. When he threatened you, I knew he could not live. I sensed what he was. But he has always valued that particular secret greatly. He paused, his breathing heavy. We all have secrets, fireheart.
You mean you knew he could shift into a dragon? That he was like Blake?
In dragon form, he is nearly indestructible, Nyxaris continued. I got the feeling he wasn’t ignoring me so much as he needed to get the words out. So I stalked the highblood man instead. I waited. Hunting. But he was canny, traveling only underground, through tunnels that lie beneath the sea.
Medra told me about those tunnels. She said they lead to the Sanctum and Veilmar, too.
Yes. Around his chambers in the Black Keep, wards had been drawn up.
Sigils of blood magic. Powerful and potent.
Nyxaris drew a heaving breath, and my heart froze.
He exhaled, and I let out my breath. I knew you would not wish for me to attack him in the school.
The loss of life would have been … significant.
Thank you for that, I whispered. You’re right.
Yet now I wondered just how right I was. If Nyxaris had attacked Viktor in highblood form when he’d had the chance, would he be here now, bleeding in my arms?
He was nearly in my grasp that day in the tower.
But he fled like the coward he has always been.
Another sigh, more ragged than the last. I forced you to accept the engagement.
Forced you to lower yourself by accepting the hand of a man you …
did not care for. I let another do what I should have done.
That’s over now. You’ve always tried to protect me. I ran my hand along his jaw. You always do your best. I trust you. I will always trust you.
I would matter little to you if I could not keep you safe.
A shard of ice pierced my heart. Not true. I shook my head. You matter to me because you’re you. Not because you’re some kind of a shield. I leaned my head against his scales. You saved Veilmar.You saved me.You’ve tried to protect me, even when I never knew it, even when I didn’t deserve it.
You deserve a very great deal, fireheart. Far more than I can give. Nyxaris drew a gasping breath. Tonight, I went to the refectory. I was so close. I nearly had him. As soon as I appeared, he melted away. Vanished before I could sink my teeth into him.
Don’t worry about Viktor now, I whispered. We’ll finish him off. Together. His time is over. Tell me how you feel. Tell me how I can help you.
His breath warmed my face. You are … absurdly stubborn.
I laughed shakily. We’re quite a pair, then, aren’t we?
Neville was at my feet, winding between my ankles. He’d stopped whimpering. I picked him up, holding him against me and the dragon. His owllike eyes opened wider—and they began to glow.
Fireheart, you cannot save me now, my dragon murmured.
My heart hammered. What do you mean? Nyxaris, what are you saying?
The fluffin made a little growling sound that sounded stubborn, even to me.
The audacity. Nyxaris sighed.
Three stubborn creatures, I whispered. The fluffin wriggled in my grip. “Easy,” I murmured. “What is it, Neville?”
To my shock, he answered with a wheezing snort, then hacked up an enormous wad of orange straight into my palm. I yelped. Then I sniffed. The lump smelled familiar. “Emberfern!” I stared at the chewy lump of pulp, my palm already tingling. Slowly, I looked at the field around us.
The field was full of stalks of golden wheat. But scattered in between the gold were shorter, slender shoots of green tipped with orange fronds.
Fireheart, it is pointless. The poison in the highblood’s fangs was older than kingdoms and more loathsome than the grave.
I flinched from the truth, the words like a dagger to my heart. “Pointless, my eye,” I snapped aloud. “You’re the most important thing in the world to me, Nyxaris. When will you get that through your thick dragon skull?”
I was having a kind of epiphany. Placing the fluffin gently on the ground, I walked around to the side of the dragon’s neck where the gash began.
What are you doing? Nyxaris sounded weary yet curious.
Good. That meant he hadn’t given up hope.
Wait and see. Hesitating only a moment, in my palm I scrunched the sticky wad Neville had been chewing, then slapped it across the bleeding gash.
A hiss like the quenching of coals rose up.
Tendrils of smoke spiraled from the wound.
My hand burned. I yanked it back. Then grinned in triumph.
Where the emberfern touched, the skin beneath the broken scales was tightening and pulling inwards.
The bleeding in that area slowed to a trickle.
I ran into the field, ripping up fistfuls of emberfern, shredding the fronds between my fingers until the sap ran in fiery rivulets.
My eyes watered. The plant burned my skin worse than nettles I’d once had the misfortune to sit in as a small child, but I barely felt the pain over the hammering in my heart. This could work, I thought.
I wrenched and tore, racing back and forth between the field and Nyxaris, slapping handful after handful of the emberfern mash onto the gaping gash along his neck. Slowly, the edges of the scales began knitting together like ripped cloth made whole.
“It’s working,” I crowed. “You see? You just have to stay stubborn a little longer. That’s all.”
But Nyxaris didn’t answer. The fluffin had climbed back onto the dragon. Now he sat on Nyxaris’s shoulder ridge, his tiny head tipped back, and began to sing again.
“Nyxaris?” I laid both my blistering palms against his muzzle. “Talk to me. Please.”
His massive chest had fallen into a more shallow rhythm, I realized abruptly. Each breath was shorter than the last.
“Nyxaris …” Panic flooded my veins. “No, no, no.”
Neville’s song rose in a sudden, piercing swell. The little fluffin’s throat vibrated and puffed.
I looked up at him. “Neville?”
His large eyes glowed down at me. Everything about the tiny creature was glowing, I realized. He sat in an aura of golden light. The fluffin suddenly sprang forward, leaping into my hands, as the world … tilted. Nyxaris’s vast form shuddered. His wings folded close, trembling.
“What’s happening?” I whispered. “Nyxaris?”
I staggered back, my mouth dry, heart slamming against my ribs, as light flared from the creature in my arms—blinding and purifying.