Page 55 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)
Chapter
Thirty
“ D o you think I fear children?” Ustrael asked, body rippling.
She was changing before our eyes, no longer constrained by Yura’s flesh.
Within moments, the creature was taller than us by several heads, her limbs too long and oddly boneless, her eyes blinking wetly.
“The Naga died long ago. You are but a tiny fraction of those who came before.”
But she took a step back, Dynyr opening his rotted maw to expose blackened fangs and a gray gullet.
“As are you.” I didn’t draw Aela from her sheath; this was a fight of blood against blood. No steel would destroy that flesh. “As you said yourself…you are something new. Something weaker than what you used to be.”
“It’s not too late, Serafina.” Ustrael’s fingers were lengthening, like jointless worms, tipped with dark, dripping claws.
The lamprey-like snout turned towards Mykah, and my blood ran cold.
If she could smile, I had no doubt she would be doing it now.
“Unlike my progenitor, I have mercy. I will allow you and your mate to live. I will allow the daughter of Evarien to live. Lay down your weapons, and I will grant clemency to your loved ones.”
I flexed my claws, my wings forming from stardust and ether and stretching behind me. My body was armored in scales, my skull a crown of horns.
Never had I felt such a strength, the power of a dragon in my blood. I was ready for this, to defend the name of all that was good in our world, even if it meant laying down my life.
In the distance, I felt the connection to Rhylan. I kept my focus turned inwards on this moment, but I sensed his desperation, his willingness to do the same in the face of overwhelming odds.
We were ready to go to Aurae’s arms together, but I would drag Ustrael with us if it was the last thing I did.
“The fact that you offer at all tells me you’re afraid.”
I lunged forward, putting myself between Ustrael’s hungry maw and Mykah, slashing with my claws.
The tips of my sharp nails sliced through her flesh—a meaty, sickening sensation—and black blood spattered to the stone floor.
It hissed and bubbled where it landed, but like living beads of oil, it rolled away from me.
“I am as destructive to you as you are to me,” I hissed, and Ustrael threw herself backwards, stumbling as she clapped a hand to her slashed face.
Dynyr hissed silently, swarming towards me, and the Naga came to my aid.
Maristela slashed with her razored whip, and Tyria fought with her talons as I did.
In a maelstrom of claws and fangs, we fell upon the Ascendant.
Kirana dug her claws into his back, opening deep furrows. Dynyr screamed, and swung to face me.
As he did, I inhaled, touching that flickering light, Naimah’s gift, inside my chest. I gently exhaled, sending a flood of iridescent flames down his throat.
His flesh crackled, burning as he swallowed Myst’s fire. The Ascendant keened, screeching as he thrashed, but Mykah’s sickles were buried in his throat, and Kirana gripped his exposed spine. Her lips drew back over her teeth, eyes focused on the silvery flames spilling from my lips.
“Sera!” Mykah tore her sickles from Dynyr’s throat, splattering more of that darkness. “She’s running!”
“Go.” Tyria stood over Dynyr, claws dripping, and planted a foot on his neck. “Maristela and I will finish this.”
Dynyr thrashed, trying to howl, but his vocal cords were burned away by flame. Only a faint groan emerged, and he was exhausting the dead body’s resources, his movements weakening.
“You stay here, Mykah.” I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, my lips still burning, but I wasn’t bleeding. I wasn’t injured at all.
She looked up at me, betrayal in her dark bronze eyes, and I shook my head. “But—”
“No.” I reached out and touched her shoulder, cautious of the dying Ascendant at my feet. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t bear it if you died here. If one of us lives, it must be you.”
I squeezed lightly, and Mykah blinked, her lower lip quivering only slightly before she set it.
“We’ve got this, Dragonesse,” she whispered, readying her sickles for a killing blow. Maristela’s whip cracked, slicing through Dynyr’s arms, separating his deadly claws from the rest of his body.
“Stay here and live. Tyria, Maristela, take her with you—they’ll need your help on the surface when he’s dead. If we don’t come out…assume all is lost. Flee to the Wildlands with as many of the living as you can.”
There was no time to hear objections. I leapt over Dynyr, trying to shut his dying groans out of my ears. I felt for him, but his soul was gone. He was no longer an Ascendant, merely a piece of Ustrael animating his body. To destroy him would be to bring him peace.
Kirana was at my side as I peered into the cavern, behind the series of pools where Ustrael’s fragment was embedded.
It continued on into darkness, a massive bubble in the earth, a geode forged of stone and crystal, housing something that should’ve remained in the dark.
I blew out, sending a gust of flames ahead of me to light the way. Quartz points caught the light, reflecting it a thousand times, and I memorized the cavern in that single blink of illumination.
Then I strode forward, placing my feet precisely as we left Dynyr’s dying gurgles behind.
“Sera, it’s madness out there.” Kirana pitched her voice low. “Even if we kill Yura—”
“This isn’t Yura.” I had no time to explain. “It’s Ustrael. And we must destroy her at all costs. Even if it takes all of us.”
“And it will.” Ustrael’s voice echoed from the darkness, strangely thick and liquid-sounding. “I will consume you all. I will plant myself a thousand times in fertile ground, until I am all there is, and all there shall ever be.”
I felt, rather than saw, the shudder run down Kirana’s spine.
But I had no more fear. It had burned away in the clarifying heat of Naimah’s gift, the flame burning steadily in my soul.
All I knew was my own determination to wipe her from this earth, to do as the Daughters had asked.
I continued into the dark, following the winding trail, and when I hit the edges of my mental map, I breathed another billow of flames into the air.
The cavern did not extend forever; it terminated in a shallow bowl like a crystalline bubble, and Ustrael waited there.
She no longer appeared even remotely humanoid; she’d given up on holding to that form, now a jumble of limbs and eyes and mouths, crouched over on herself in fear.
I wish I could feel pity for what she had become, but even that was beyond me.
Kirana was breathing rapidly at my side, with deep, short inhales and slow exhales.
“Please,” Ustrael whispered, and she said that word like it was foreign to her, like it’d never passed her lips in her life. Yura’s lips.
And that was why I couldn’t summon pity or mercy of my own.
“I just want to live.”
“Yura wanted to live. The Jade Leaves, the House of Undying Light, the Razored Cinders, the hundred thousand souls in the city outside— they all wanted to live.” My lips drew back in a snarl, flames exhaled with every word.
In the flashes of silver light, I could see Ustrael backing to the far wall, her physical form roiling with sickening undulations.
“You can’t survive at the cost of all else. ”
Kirana straightened, her back stiff, claws splayed and eyes like fire. “Cai is coming. Take her down now.”
Black flames slipped between her teeth, lighting the room with a dark shine.
I didn’t tear my eyes from Ustrael, though I knew Kirana was not afraid—the bond had forged itself, in what she thought were her last moments.
Gods, if I did one thing, I would get her and Mykah out of here. They could flee to the Wildlands together, and I knew she and Cai would care for Mykah.
There was nothing to explain to Ustrael. She was the devourer, the Outsider, never meant to exist here. She would never understand.
So I dug my claws into my palms, drawing fresh blood, and spread my wings, leaping across the cavern and exhaling a flood of flames.
With a burst of silver fire, I plunged towards Ustrael, digging my claws into her shadow-flesh.
She screamed, writhing in my grasp, the fire eating at her skin. But unlike Dynyr, she was not dead and weakening with every moment of rot.
Hands lashed out at me, striking my face, my chest, my legs—leaving behind an iciness so cold it burned like fire. My scales blackened where she struck, and it took all my strength to hold tight to her.
But she was trying to not draw blood; I was deadly to her. Her snout nosed along my arm, flexing and contracting, the sensation of moving cilia puncturing my flesh making my stomach turn.
I blew another flame, scorching one of her eyes shut, and bit down hard on my lower lip.
My sharp teeth sheared through flesh, and the hot iron tang filled my mouth. As Ustrael’s lamprey snout slipped over my shoulder, reaching for my face, I turned my head and spat blood into that slimy maw.
She screamed, limbs bursting in all directions, clawing at me and succeeding only in spilling more of my blood. Disjointed words spilled from her numerous mouths, in Akallan and another language that stung my eardrums, as it dripped over her, eating away at her skin.
I kept my hands around her throat, squeezing, claws punching through until my fingers met.
My vision was darkening, even with silver flames pouring past my lips on every breath. I felt wet and weak all over, and I spat another mouthful, growling as she bucked wildly.
And then Kirana’s dark hands were in sight, pulling the creature’s head backward. She blasted dark flames on a scream, obliterating Ustrael’s face.
We were frenzied, clawing with our own blood, dark and light fire consuming the thing we held.
Ustrael begged towards the end. She pleaded, and for every plea, every cry for mercy, we tore another piece of her away with feral glee.
My throat was burned to ash, the flames dying on my lips as I fell to my hands and knees.