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CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

I clung to the edge of a brick wall which now only stood a foot high, Bastian’s claws having ripped the rest of it from the ground along with the entirety of Echo Fort.

My boots kicked gravel over the jagged edge of Ironwraith as the island groaned and howled, its magic torn away by some unknown force and only the runes imbued with old energy keeping us from plummeting directly to the ground below.

But we were falling.

The enormous sky island, victor of so many battles and bane of the skies themselves was sinking like a ship with a hole torn in its hull.

My heart thundered with panic as I fought to regain my power, the sudden lack of it terrifying.

I didn’t know what foul magic had stolen it from me but only luck had saved me from falling to my death when it was snatched from my grasp.

I’d been mere feet from the ground when my power spilled from my grasp and though I’d hit the dirt hard, I’d managed to save myself from tumbling over the edge of Ironwraith when it had begun to fall too.

The land juddered beneath me and my fingernails cracked and split as I fought to maintain my grip while my magic still failed to rise to my call.

Even my gifts wouldn’t come to me, the desires of the Fae surrounding me hauntingly absent as I was left vulnerable by the lack of every drop of power I could claim.

A bellow of fury made me turn my head to look up at the tilting landscape of the sky island, the whirring of the turbines growing to a desperate whine as they fought to hold us aloft.

Prince Dragor scrambled to find a handhold as he tumbled towards the edge, the fall beckoning him to it with a hiss of prophecy which made my gut knot.

We were much closer to the ground than we had been but not nearly close enough to save that fall from being lethal.

My pulse pounded in my ears, Dragor’s body skidding closer to me, his furious cries of denial colouring the air. At the last moment I lurched for him, my body acting on instinct alone, my hand locking with his before he could go tumbling past me and over the edge.

I cried out as his weight joined with mine, the precarious hold I maintained on the broken wall threatening to fail as I clawed at the bricks and he hung from my grip.

I gritted my teeth and swung his weight to the side, hauling him to me and cursing beneath my breath as he fought to take hold of the edge.

Rocks fell away beneath his hand as he fought to grasp them and I almost lost my grip on him before he dug his fingers into the dirt once more and managed to help me heave him back up to the relative safety of our sinking island.

Dragor took hold of the wall, his fingers meeting with mine, our bodies pressed close and heavy breaths mixing as he met my empty gaze.

The island groaned and shuddered and I sucked in a sharp breath as I felt my magic returning to me at last, the weight of it a balm to my racing heart as it was blissfully returned.

“What was that?” I breathed, still clinging to the wall in case it happened again, not trusting in my magic even as I coiled it around us, using it to anchor our bodies in place.

“The Void has joined the battle,” Prince Dragor sneered. “The Elysium Prophecy is finally coming together.”

I blinked at him stupidly, my eyes widening in shock at that suggestion but my prince clearly had no time for my stunned silence. The Void? How was that possible? But what other explanation could there be for what had just happened to all of us?

“Finish this,” he spat, thrusting something into my hand and snarling at me with such ruthless fury that my cold heart skipped a beat.

“Do as you were commanded, Vesper, or so help me you will spend the rest of your days caged at my mercy and wishing you’d met death alongside your precious sisters. ”

He got to his feet, hauling me up with him and I fought to get my balance as I looked out over the ruined battlefield before us.

The Cascadian fleet was retreating, its ships already distant, its people retreating at great speed. The remaining Pyros soldiers were fleeing in admit of their defeat and Avanis had taken the field and were headed straight for the smouldering, flooded remains of Cinder Vale to claim the city too.

All too many of my people lay in broken heaps on the ground, those who remained now launching themselves skyward towards Ironwraith at speed, terror filling their expressions as they dared to trust the magic which had just betrayed so many of their brethren and sent them falling to their doom.

My attention landed on the heaped and smouldering ruins of Echo Fort directly below us and Dragor stepped closer to me, his fingers curling around my shoulder and breath hot against my ear.

“Do this, my pet, and your place with me will be assured. You won’t be the crossborn whore any longer. You’ll be revered by all as the witch who delivered us the world’s last Dragon. The woman who won us the war.”

His words stirred something inside of me but it wasn’t what I was certain he meant them to. All the same, I tightened my hold on the weapon he’d given me and called the wind to my design.

I didn’t turn to look at my prince as I stepped from the edge of his island. I simply fell into the embrace of the tempest I’d summoned and let it hurl me towards the destiny I’d chosen for myself.