Chapter 67
G arrik’s tent, to her surprise, was still standing. The entire camp was. She had imagined when Thalon and their Shadow Order portaled to the border of Zyllyryon and the Blackstone Mountains last night, that not a speck of dust or footprint would remain.
Despite the rain, Alora noticed a few belongings in open canvases as her boot sunk in mud. Tents were fluttering open, soaked from the storm. Fires drenched, hitching lines broken, weapon racks emptied.
Before they ducked inside his tent, Smokeshadows dawned the Shadow Order’s canvases away. No doubt erected in Dellisaerin. Aiden and Eldacar were sure to be thrilled as soon as they saw their precious books and bounty returned.
Thunder rattled the ground.
She listened to rain pebbling on the canvas while Garrik rustled through maps and correspondence on his table, dawning the stacks away to … she never knew where exactly.
Thalon had decided on searching tents for the remaining Dragons while Aiden and Jade retained their duties in Dellisaerin, overseeing the new camp settlement with Eldacar and Ezander by their side.
Alora sunk into Garrik’s pillows, content to listen to the thunderstorm, and pulled Soulstryker from its sheath. Twisting the tip on her finger, marveling at the whorls and embellishments, at the handle and empty setting waiting for Blood and Death.
The bed dipped, and she may have taken a little longer to meet his eyes. If she looked inside, not a trace of serpent darkness would stir—not since walking the steps inside his mind that morning. Her gaze raked over the sword by his side, his muscles, up those solid arms and chest.
Garrik gave her that irritating—irresistible—smirk and held out his hand, motioning for Soulstryker. When the serrated obsidian blade balanced in his palm, Garrik produced the gemstone they had suffered for and cautiously held it over the empty teardrop setting.
“It won’t be like last time,” Alora murmured as he hesitated, settling her chin on his shoulder.
Garrik loosened a deep sigh. His thumb traced the cut of the stone, the rigid edges and point, the curve of the bottom. The stone met leather as Garrik vowed, “One step closer to Magnelis’s death.” He swallowed hard, and clenching his eyes, settled Blood in place.
Lightning cast a crimson hue across the canvas. Thunder cracked, rattling the furniture.
Pearlescent light gleamed along the canvas walls first. Alora could’ve sworn she heard a female voice humming like the first breath of life. Then a rich ruby glow sparkled along with it. It illuminated Garrik’s tent in shards of red, pulsing like a flawless heartbeat.
It didn’t stop—the light show. Continuing as if inviting another to join.
But when nothing did, the humming and pulsing died.
Alora imagined heartbreak. As if stones could feel an empty loss. Pain.
She brushed her finger along the hilt. Along the empty coffin setting. Feeling the sister stones’ grief.
“Kerimkhar said that perhaps these stones can lead to the last,” Garrik confessed and handed Soulstryker to her. He stood, offered his hand, and pulled her to her feet. Frigid hands cupped her waist, adding, “Aiden’s book might provide instruction.”
“We’ll find it,” Alora promised, voice stern. “Then once Soulstryker is complete, devise a plan for who in Galdheir deserves death by wielding it. Even if we have to force them to.” As Aiden had planned to do, avenging his best friend—his sister’s husband.
Garrik’s face paled before his attention snapped to the entrance. For a heartbeat, his eyes went distant. When he turned to her, he smiled as shadows caressed her mind, dancing past her wall of flames until Thalon’s voice began.
Our missing Dragons have returned. We’re waiting outside. So, whatever you two are doing… That warm voice carried something like judgment, but it was more of a tease than anything. Wrap it up if it isn’t already. It’s miserable out here, and my tent is gone.
Alora snorted. We can keep our hands off each other, you know.
Garrik smirked, squeezing her hip bones.
She shot him a glare.
Oh, really? Where are his hands right now? Thalon’s accusation had them instantly separating. Releasing ridiculous laughter at the perfection of their timing before Thalon argued, Mmm hmm. My point entirely. Come on. The storm is getting worse. The sky looks ? —
Another strike of crimson instantly followed by deafening thunder, which drowned him out.
They walked to the door, pausing to scan the tent one last time. Everything traitorous had been dawned away, safely secured somewhere Garrik only knew and could reach. Only furniture remained.
“Typically, I send things to the Dawnspace inside identical rooms like my mother’s chambers,” he answered her unspoken thought. “I will return it all when we arrive in Dellisaerin.” With a smirk, Garrik entangled his fingers in hers, knowing it was partially for the enjoyment of teasing Thalon. He kissed the back of her palm before leading her through the door?—
“Wait.” Pausing, Alora squeezed his hand, stopping him. He tracked the movement of her slipping inside her leathers as she said, “I’ve wanted to give you something since we left Airatheldra. I thought I lost it, but Miwa, when she packed my belongings…”
Garrik grinned like a faeling on Winter Solstice morning. The polished silver of his eyes beamed.
Holding her palm in a fist, the item tucked inside, Alora took Garrik’s hand that he expectantly held open for her. “You gave me everyth?—”
A sharp gasp ripped from Garrik’s mouth. Arching forward in pain , his eyes narrowed, and she grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling.
Somehow, she felt it. Like a dagger to her chest, his magic—something tore through it—through the shield surrounding camp.
Thunder rumbled.
Endless branches of crimson lightning sliced the air.
With every strike, a silhouette expanded against the canvas. And drifting behind the figure … countless more.
“No,” Garrik breathed. Before his Smokeshadows could sweep over her, night exploded.
The tent combusted into blue flames.
Where is Alora?
Rain pelted the mud, louder than the night-blue flames that devoured every tent around him.
Heat—a scorching infernal heat—had him gasping, feeling burned alive, choking on the air coated in a veil of smoke.
Garrik’s hand slid in mud, arms buckling as he tried but failed to push himself up. But the shock from the explosion left him disoriented. And the mud and rain soaked inside his leathers, stinging wounds where that fire—that magic —had ripped through.
He knew that fire. The images of it. The memories blended with the pain and slammed into him.
Where is Alora?
That thing in his chest—that silver tether—it was still there . Connected to her.
Alora? He shouted across.
Nothing answered.
Clutching his leathers, Garrik peeled back his charred collar, allowing his throat to open and desperately heave in air. Though it helped little.
Rain and smoke irritated the pathway, and Garrik could do nothing more than cough into the mud, pebbling beads of blood into the soupy mixture.
A thick handful of mud was Garrik’s only hope of moving forward. A pointless effort.
He had to get up. Had to find Alora. Had to find Thalon. Had to?—
Through the fire, a hundred feet away, steps approached.
Another blast of night-blue flames fortified a wall between them. Something shrieked in the sky as crimson lightning struck nearby trees.
Not allowing himself to dwell on that sound, Garrik gnashed his teeth and forced his body to move. Aiming for those flames.
Slipping forward, toward his Dragons’ screaming and burning. Toward the ashes and embers covering their ravaged and destroyed camp. As he bit back the pain of standing, Garrik thrust his sword into the mud, using it as an anchor to keep him steady.
Another step. Another inch. Another?—
The wall of flames.
It died as a smooth, reptilian voice crooned over the flames, “It would be wise to not fight this, Garrik. You know how this ends.”
The High Fae male from his nightmares. From his dungeon… He sauntered forward.
“ Malik ,” Garrik spit the name along with blood. Raising his sword, shadows stormed from his shoulders. “What is the meaning of?—”
With little effort, Malik flicked his wrist. Like a backhand, flames as dark as Malik’s blue eyes barreled into Garrik. Careening him twenty feet across the mud.
“Don’t insult my intelligence.” The scales of Malik’s jacket rippled as if a beast was coming to life but never fully manifested.
When Garrik pulled himself to his feet, something like wicked delight twisted the corners of his mouth. Especially as five Ravens fell into step behind Malik, creating a crescent shape like the pitiless watchdogs they were.
“You are going to need more than that,” Garrik taunted, flexing his hand and gathering shadows in his palm.
Before he spoke, Malik’s mouth turned cold, lethal. “Is that so?” The male needed nothing more than another flick of his wrist. Like waves returning to sea, Malik’s flames resigned to his command. That monstrous force swelled to the sky … then dissolved until not one ember ate away at the charred remains of camp.
Then Garrik saw it.
An army stretched to the horizon. That overwhelmed the perimeters of camp so terribly their silver armor looked like a liquefied ocean of steel. Hundreds of Ravens. Thousands. Too … too many.
“I thought you might say that,” Malik drawled.
Had the smoke not cleared, he may have ripped Malik’s head from his neck if only to rid the realm of the beast before he, too, called upon Firekeeper. But when the male side-stepped … and those blazing, gemstoned eyes met the abyss of his …
Alora.
There was a hand around her throat, a sword at the nape of her neck.
Terror ignited in her eyes. Her leg looked broken.
Thrashing, flanking her, amassed on their knees and bound in chains… His Dragons. Thalon.
“If I see a lick of shadow, they’re all dead,” Malik warned and paced a line between them. He scanned the prisoners, so slowly, before some sort of mild contentment swept over his features.
Garrik tracked the movement with lethal focus, snarling, “You should have nulled me. Because there is nothing stopping me from making good on my promise to you the last time we met.”
“Now, where would be the fun in that? I want to see your face, knowing you hold tremendous power yet you ”—Malik traced his gaze to his captives on their knees— “ can do nothing .” His attention snapped to Garrik when the sky cracked with crimson.
An ear-piercing shriek accompanied the lightning.
The sky gathered in a vortice of pitch-black. Parting the swirls, the half-skeletal raven head and inked dagger-like feathers of Nevilier appeared. Its talons flexed as that monstrous head swept side to side as if on a hunt.
But the raven Made for Magnelis was not searching for its kill.
Garrik realized the bird’s head was only thrashing because ropes coiled its beak. And controlling them … held by a demon on its back …
“Time to go home, High Prince. Your father expects you for dinner,” Malik said.
Garrik’s face paled.
That wretched, soulless snake landed and dismounted ahead of a battalion of Ravens.
Thalon roared so loudly Garrik thought his ears would bleed. A soldier’s pommel cracked into his jaw. His brother fell to the mud.
Viper-like darkness slithered between Thalon and Mavros—a young, orphaned male who had chosen to join the legion when of age. Like poison spreading through a vein, her Snakemares tainted the mud, the very air they slinked through.
The Raven holding the male retreated as Mavros stiffened his neck like a king. Unafraid, boldly staring into the darkness when it burrowed into his unbending will. In one breath, violet eyes faded, leaving nothing but a colorless stare before he stood and mindlessly joined the ranks of Ravens.
Those Snakemares turned to the next. To Lonan and Zeya and Erel.
Malik said they would not die. But this … to be magic-washed … not this.
“Our master has come to collect us,” Malik said to Garrik. Voice clipped, unamused.
Alora let out a sound of terror. A sound of rage and hate.
Reptilian focus alit in Malik’s fiery eyes. The lean-built male tilted his head toward Alora. “That female … how she cries in your name … it sounds as if you’re important to her.” A touch of malice contorted his face before that night-blue gaze flickered to the serpent, gesturing to her . “I’m sure you don’t want her to know about your…” He took in a greedy inhale and crooned, “Mate.”
But Garrik said nothing. Only wrath rippled off him. So violent the ground trembled.
We can fight them. Alora subtly nodded.
He counted her every breath, feeling her fight rising up within her. There are too many, he warned. And if she moved, the serpent … what she would see … what she would do …
And at that moment, he did not care about what it would cost him?—
No, Garrik. We can ? —
Alora did not have a chance to flinch. None of them did.
Because Smokeshadows raged from his body, swallowing his Dragons, his brother, his mate, whole before the full power of the gray-haired demon of Elysian was unleashed.
When the darkness cleared, a storm of flames and shadow engulfed camp.
From across the planes and up a steep hill, Alora forced herself not to break.
There, in the midst of chaos and bloodshed, was her mate.
Hundreds of swords were aimed at their wielders, held by hands of darkness as airwave after airwave rammed into battalions, forcing them back with shattered bones and twisted necks. Another battalion, with too many heads to count, had been vaporized. And through the glowing blue light and dusting of rain, Alora glimpsed the sickly shade of red mist showering the ground.
In the sky, Nevilier slammed into … nothing. An invisible barrier. Though the sound boomed like thunder. And that horrendous thing, over and over, never cracked through.
Alora gripped her leg and crawled— crawled forward, as close to the edge of that hill as she could. Crawled to be closer to her selfless mate.
A voice groaned behind her—more than one. But she didn’t care to see who because Garrik’s shadows …
Malik’s flames blasted an orb around him, shot from his outstretched hands as shadows tore from one of Garrik’s and raged around the male.
She’d seen Garrik’s power before, but nothing like this. Nothing all at once. Not so out-worldly. Not without serpent darkness gripping his mind.
Wind pelted rain into her face, but Alora ignored that too because she had crawled forward another inch when the taste of metal coated her tongue. Static energy surged through her, pushing her back. Alora curled her fists and slammed them forward into a solid wall of air.
A solid shield.
No , she thought to herself. No, she screamed at him.
But he didn’t answer. Garrik pummeled another airwave into storming Ravens, who were rushing for him. Pounded another into Nevilier. But they weren’t like before. Nothing like before. Even the force surging around her—that shield—shuddered.
Garrik’s power—it was diminishing. And soon, he would falter.
Dawn, Garrik. Come to us. We can make it out. We can ? —
Another blast of flame. Another shield in the sky sent Nevilier careening through the clouds. More shadow. More darkness—too much darkness.
Garrik—stop. You can’t!
I have to. They know— I know everything. We cannot leave here alive. This I must do.
The legions. Their allies. How to breach Dellisaerin’s Wall. And so many other things she didn’t know but he did. They couldn’t have him. He knew they couldn’t have him.
And as Garrik shielded another blast of flames, her heart hollowed out.
He thought he could be their sacrifice. That they didn’t need him to fight Magnelis. That if he could kill the serpent and Malik … himself …
You already gave enough! she pleaded, her voice and heart breaking. Thirty years for us, Garrik. And seventeen Blood Years after. We can go home —to our family.
Too much power. Too many of them. They kept coming. An endless sea against a grain of sand.
We can fight another day. Everyone is safe. I am safe. It’s your turn!
Malik stepped forward, a battering ram to a steel door. But Garrik… Those flames. The way his boot slid back in the mud as shadows began to slow. As his strength began to fracture.
Movement behind Garrik stole her attention.
He turned to throw out his hand.
Alora’s body stilled like death just as Garrik’s roar of pain swept toward her.
Not ten paces behind him, the female in Garrik’s nightmares prowled forward—unhurried, unrushed. Streams of serpent darkness slithered from her daggered fingertips dipped in pure ink, feathering to the pale skin at her knuckles.
Blood poured from Garrik’s back—his abdomen—as the sharpened points of her magic impaled him.
She ripped her magic back with a harsh jerk.
Garrik flew toward the female, landing on his back. Malik’s boot pressed into his throat before Garrik’s thumb twitched, twisting a ring on his finger she knew sealed that final shield over the hill as those flames formed shackles around his wrists.
Alora’s head roared with a piercing sound. Despite it, she managed to form starflames in her fists, and demand, Release the shield. I can fight them!
Garrik’s body relaxed. There are … too many, my love. His voice calm, as if he gazed upon her face. And they cannot know about you. Magnelis ? —
I can fight. I can get you out of this. Garrik, please —PLEASE, she shrieked.
Choked coughs wheezed behind her. Ahead, gray hair flattened in the mud as he dropped his head. And as if it took every ounce of strength in him, shadows encircled his fingers.
Alora felt something fall into her hands breaths later.
Glancing down, almost tumbling from her fingers … Garrik’s rings.
Garrik gasped the moment the serpent stabbed a needle into his neck. You were … worth finding, Alora. You were worth it all.And if somehow the stars grant me another life, I will find you sooner … so I make up for the mistakes I made.
Tattooed arms were pulling her from the ground the moment she opened her mouth to scream for him. Garrik, don’t—don’t do this.
Kneeling beside him, the female’s daggered nails brushed through his hair. Her mouth was moving.
Alora vowed to kill her, slowly.
Bury me in Airatheldra, her mate’s voice pleaded, sounding kingdoms away. I will not be their monster again.
The female stroked a finger down his leathers.
Tell my family… His voice cracked. Tell them I regret not having the time to show them what they meant to me. That … that I am sorry I could not return to them—now, and all those years.
Alora sobbed into Thalon’s solid, warm chest that felt wrong as he lifted her. Come with me, please.
She looked down at him, at her husband and mate. We can do this together. You aren’t alone. Hoping to crack his resistance the rest of the way. Hoping he would choose himself—choose her, Alora repeated, I need you. Come with us .
Garrik looked in her direction too. His neck strained against the position they held him in on the ground. With the distance and smoke in the air, she wasn’t sure he really saw her.
But she saw him. And the look on his face.
The doubt. Then … hope .
He closed his eyes, his body struggled but began to reform as shadow, to dawn to her—she felt it— knew that is what he wanted.
But his eyes flew open, the shadow’s misted away as the serpent grabbed his face.
No! Keep looking at me. Garrik, look at me, she cried. He had seconds, maybe, before his powers were leeched from his body— I can’t do this without you. I love you ? —
My love, Garrik’s tender whisper ruptured her soul.
And she knew. Without him speaking the next words. This felt like the end.
Wherever there are shadows, I will always be ? —
No, Garrik. Please— please , don’t, she pleaded.
But he continued, Even in death, my soul will find you. To remind you that you are stronger than you know. Far braver than you think. Live for me—not just survive—live. Muffled now, Garrik’s voice faded but held love and peace and home. Held every perfect memory they had shared, as he said, From now until the next life, and far after that. I love you, my clever g ? —
Then. Silence.
“ GARRIK !” The sound barrier split, cracking the shield. Rattling the Blackstone Mountains, the sky, the entire realm.
The female whipped her head up.
And smiled.
“ Let me go, ” Alora’s snarl turned animalistic, not High Fae, not anything resembling a breathing, living thing. “I can save him—I CAN SAVE HIM!”
But Thalon only pulled her into him tighter, and his incredible shadow brightened, roaring back, but she couldn’t hear him.
“Garrik —GARRIK !”
The female pulled Garrik up?—
“I can’t ,” Thalon cried—sobbed—tears spilling down his face. “By my Earned, he made me vow to protect you.” His jaw trembled as his heart shattered. “My powers … I can’t … I can only carry one.” Darkness clouded his eyes as he looked to their Dragons, then Garrik. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
And from behind his back, that shadow fully brightened. Only it wasn’t a shadow…
Those were wings.
Pearly-white, feathered wings.
They unfurled, stretching wide, and the ground dropped from underneath them. And the sky, which they were flying toward, opened with crimson lightning, and dropped a portal to the mud, with turrets and castle spindles on the other side.
Malik and the female shoved Garrik inside before it imploded behind them.
And Garrik was gone.