Page 54 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)
She let out a soft laugh. “How? Easily. He laid there in a drunken stupor, and I implanted myself in his flesh, just as I’ve done with those who may be of future use to me.”
I stared at her evenly. “ How? ”
“Oh, you’re eager to get ahead, aren’t you? I won’t use your flesh as a host, Serafina. That honor is reserved for your children.”
“You say you don’t want to destroy, that you want others like yourself.
” I tried to speak without strangled fury, my claws close to cutting my palms open.
I forced them to relax. “But that’s all you’ve managed to do.
When you perpetuate yourself, you destroy.
Whether you think for yourself or not, you are Ustrael. You spread her despair.”
Her slack face turned to me, something flickering in those deep sockets. It took every last drop of willpower in me to remain planted where I was as her eyes collapsed inward, and those gods-awful wriggling parasites filled the hollows, reaching for me.
“How can I be anything other than what the gods made of me?” the thing in her mouth whispered.
“The gods didn’t make you. Pure mortal foolishness did.”
“Mortal ingenuity. You don’t know what it is to live in endless darkness, Serafina. You think you suffered? Your suffering was nothing. I want to live under the sun. I want my own body, my own mind. It’s not too much to ask.”
“It is when it comes at the cost of all life,” I said quietly. “I don’t think you could be sorry if you tried. Life means nothing to you.”
Yura—no, Ustrael, I would never again use the name of my dead sister, who had never once actually lived, for this thing—stood there, shuddering, her sockets crawling with tendrils.
“You are Ustrael. You think you’re a singularity, but you’re just another corrupted piece of her. You will perpetuate yourself until all life vanishes, and you’ll find a way to selfishly justify it.”
Ustrael sighed, and the slack lips sagged. “You are not the only draga capable of creating strong young. I can use another as easily as I use you. I only gave you this chance because you are the blood of this body I wear. Perhaps some of her sentiment took root in a way I didn’t foresee.”
“And I’d rather be dead than allow you to use me.” I took a step back as she shuddered again, more violently.
“Then see me as I am. I have no intention of allowing you to die.”
This time she convulsed, and her mouth split open along her cheeks, exposing the pale bone beneath.
The skull’s mouth opened wide, crackling as the jaw broke, and I understood instantly how Yura spoke without moving her mouth, how she’d implanted herself into Rhylan, and Tidas, and gods knew who else.
The thing emerging from her reminded me of the sea creature the fishermen had sometimes pulled up in their nets on Mistward, most often attached to the porpoises they were trying to catch: a lamprey.
The long, slick black tube extended from her throat, its mouth a perfect circle ringed with sharp, waving cilia instead of teeth.
In my mind’s eye, I saw it emerging from between her lips, latching onto Rhylan’s flesh and burying into him, laying the parasites that would try to consume their host at their mother’s command.
Bones snapped, flesh shucked away like nothing more than a dress. The emptied skin, all that remained of the true Yura, fell to the floor in ragged heaps.
If I got through this alive, I would take that skin and give it a proper pyre, for a draga who had never had the chance to live.
Ustrael rose from the remains, her flesh glistening black, and slits opened all over her body.
Eyes blinked at me, all of them terrible colors—the sclera yellowed, the pupils shifting like oil in water, among irises the shade of decomposition and rot—and the vaguely head-shaped protrusion swung the lamprey-mouth my way.
“I will become an Ascendant myself,” Ustrael said. “I will create a House undying from your flesh, and I will live . Arise.”
She held out her hand, and for a single confused moment, I thought she spoke to me.
There was a moment of silence. Only the faint drip of water, my own quick breathing, the scuff of a soft footstep in the distance, and…a faint rumble. Like thunder, muffled by rock walls.
The sound of the hundred thousand dead throats in Talariel, all screaming out at once as they obeyed their mistress’s command, audible even under this stone mountain.
And a rustle above us, something uncoiling in the dark. The flash of golden scales, too many eyes.
“You tried, Serafina. It was not enough.”
Dynyr, the Ascendant of the dead House of Gilded Skies, dropped to the floor of the cavern, coiling around Ustrael, letting out a soft, liquid whine as it begged its mistress’s attention. It was no longer a dragon.
“No,” I whispered, gazing at Ustrael. There was horror in me at knowing what my allies faced above.
An army the likes of which had never been seen before, and would never be seen again.
I couldn’t count on them making it through the dead, and I would have to assume that here was where it ended for all of us.
None of us would survive this, even if we brought her down. But the other Houses would remain, and their Ascendants would breed true dragons, and one day, maybe a thousand years from now, there would be new Great Houses and families.
They would only get that chance if I accepted what I was. If we all gave everything we had in one great final stand.
“I haven’t tried yet at all.”
Far above the horror was the fury. The rage that once seemed to consume me, choking me, crushing my chest with its unfairness. I’d held onto rage for so much of my life, and now I saw that it was nothing at all.
This fury was pure and clean, the fury of dragonfire. The fury of a storm, winds battering the world until the land was brushed clean. The fury of a wildfire, destroying all in its path and leaving cleansed ground in its wake.
Father and Mother, be with me .
My claws flexed as the fury climbed through my throat, scorching my lungs, and iridescent silver flames flickered at my lips.
Ustrael took a step back, Dynyr arching his back protectively.
“There is no world in which I won’t stand against you. You made a mistake in underestimating how hard a dragonblood is willing to fight back. I’ll rage against you until the end, even if we’re both burned to ashes.” My mouth burned as I spoke, wisps of flame licking at the air.
“ We .”
The familiar voice drew even Ustrael’s attention. Her lamprey-mouth quivered, eyes blinking and oozing as my sisters stepped into the cavern, scales brilliant, wings fluttering, lips pulled back to show sharp teeth in hungry grins.
Mykah slipped to my right, small and vicious, clutching wickedly sharp, crescent-moon scythes.
Ivoire was all grace, a gleaming snowy beacon in the dark, sword in hand.
Tyria raised her chin, back straight, staring down at the creature like dirt beneath her heel.
Maristela tossed her horns, tail lashing like the razor-studded whip in her hand.
“ We stand against you,” Kirana said, touching my hand as all the Naga stood before Ustrael, willing to defy her to the last.