Page 59

That was all it took, the tone in Renwick’s voice. I stood unmoving, listening to how Senaria had ridden down the steep mountain to Gheim Vale with a boy and Essabeth at her side. How they’d battled near the hanging tree, facing the red priests masquerading as the King’s Guard. The wyverns.

The burning .

My mind blanked when Renwick talked about casualties. “How many from the Vale?”

“Three injured. No deaths. The red priests weren’t as lucky.”

“Vasari?”

“He’s recovering,” said Essabeth. She stood with her hands twisting restlessly and her face pale. “I beg your forgiveness, Draakon.” Her lip wobbled. Tears streaked her cheeks. “Please…please forgive me.”

I held my arms open to her and she flew against my chest, sobbing as I hugged her. As I listened to the jerky bits of her story.

After a moment, Fennor came to pull her away.

Renwick offered a glass of something I didn’t want to drink, but he insisted and I swallowed the rum quickly.

“Bailong heard her. Found them on the Samira road. Burned the priests—but they were phantoms, protected with some new magic. Ildoran…”

My face hardened.

“He touched her arm. Inflicted a magical wound. It’s dark magic, Kion. We can’t cure it.”

“Anneli can.” My jaw ached with that truth. “Find the mage.”

“She’s disappeared,” Fennor said. He handed a glass of rum to Essabeth and made sure the girl was sitting down, close to the fire. “Anneli left after Senaria. The spies think she’s gone to the Drifting City.”

A fabled city no one could find.

The perfect place for a high mage to hide.

I breathed in, even though my chest refused to lift. “We’ll go to the Stone Tower. ”

“After Senaria’s defection?” Renwick’s cassock rustled as he turned away. “They’ll add black magic of their own and she’ll be lost.”

My body jerked. “What, then?”

“We’ll find some other way,” my old mentor said. “But there isn’t much time. The healers say Senaria’s wound deepens with every passing hour, and nothing they do slows the progress.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“In the tower room.” Renwick’s voice tightened. “She wanted to be locked away before she did any damage.”

I brushed past Fennor to stride down the hall, but Renwick followed. “Kion…tell her the truth.”

“That she might die?” I snarled.

“What you feel for her.”

I bared my teeth. “I cannot love.”

“You don’t love, or you’ve forgotten how. But she believes what lives in the heart will never be forsaken.”

Renwick put his gnarled hand on my arm, lowered his voice.

“Nothing in life is what you bargained for, is it, my boy? But what are you doing about it? Hiding away, chasing your monsters? You never wanted to feel, and now you have someone you want to love more than you want to breathe, and you can’t forgive her for doing that to you.

But you can’t change who she is, who you are, and the only hope you have is in facing what burns inside you—that she’s what you need the most.”

I closed my eyes, opened them. Stared at the man I considered my father. “I won’t let her die. ”

“Go to her,” he said.

I took the stone stairs two at a time. Reaching the small room, I pushed open the door. She was curled on the bed with her back to me. The silence was that of the tomb, dark and heavy. She wasn’t moving.

Was I too late?

I leaned hard against the doorjamb. This woman deserved more than the life I’d given her.

Senaria deserved the beauty she found in sunsets with the dragons flying.

The laughter when she played with Bogo. The quiet moments over the remains of a meal, as if we could always hold that closeness.

She deserved every smile, every gentle touch and passionate demand…

and I’d let those moments slip through my fingers, when she deserved her dreams. Dreams I couldn’t give to her when all I’d done was wrap her in danger.

My feet dragged as I crossed the narrow room. Light from a candle danced across the wall; the air held the scent of beeswax, a drift of vanilla—a precious healing candle, reserved for those closest to death.

I touched her arm, searching for the warmth of life.

“Sen…” My fingers drifted, lifting strands of starlight hair from her face, sliding them behind her shoulder. “It’s me…Kion. I’m here.”

Slowly, she rolled onto her back, blinking up at me. “The almost…king?”

“Yes.” I sat down beside her and she folded her arms around me.

I hugged her back, my hand cupping her head.

We rocked together, pretending everything would be fine because we willed it.

Pretending that she did not wear a bloodied bandage wrapped around her upper right arm that clawed with dark, vicious magic.

When I covered the wound with my palm, the evil pulsed like a living thing, and I pulled on the magic with every strength I had, every magical gift—magic that had never failed before, or left me helpless.

A dark abyss opened deep within what remained of my soul. The emptiness iced, and grasping hands reached for this woman. Was it the debt of the underworld, demanding payment from one who should not carry the guilt?

The curse tablet sparked until the energy grew painful. Senaria flinched as if she felt it, too, when that should be impossible.

“We are linked, you and I,” she whispered against my chest. “This isn’t your fault, Kion.”

I swallowed on the answer that rose in my throat. How it was my fault. But she found comfort in reassuring me, and I would not deny her that small gift.

“You carry so much pain.” Her fingers trembled as she touched my face. “I’m sorry that I’ve added to your suffering.”

“I haven’t suffered.” The words tore through my throat. “I have enjoyed every minute of your defiance.”

“Enjoyed.” Her laugh was aching. “I’m sure frustration is a pleasure-pain you want again and again.”

“With you, I do.” My fingers softened as I stroked against her throat, the curve of her jaw. “I have not regretted one moment.”

“Not even Sarnorinth, adding weight to your penance?”

“No, not even that. ”

“As it should be for the Angel of Death,” she murmured. “No…regrets.”

My eyes stung. “And you? No regrets?”

“Only the enemies I brought to your door. I regret them and wish I’d protected you more.”

“I didn’t need protection from your enemies,” I scoffed. “Not when your charm undid me. Your laugh made me weak. You nearly drowned me in a tub fighting over the soap, and if I needed protection, then it was from your wicked ways before they ruined me.”

“The mighty Draakon,” she said, her voice wavering. “Have I ruined you?”

“Completely. Utterly. I’ll die of the shame.”

“Not such a monster, after all.”

My vision blurred. She touched my face, traced with her fingers as if she would memorize every detail by touch, lock it in her memory.

“Please take me outside,” she said after a moment. “I need to see the dragons.”

Earlier, the healers—or Essabeth—had dressed Senaria in clean clothes, the shirt and pants she preferred, and I carried her through the castle halls and out into the night.

Carried her down the hill while a procession grew behind us: Essabeth and Fennor, Renwick, the healers. She was a precious burden and I’d carry her all night if that was what she wanted.

But I knew…felt the emptiness cold in my gut.

At the field, Maia joined us, along with the other dragon lords, all of them somber, silent while I helped Senaria stand .

They waited as I waited, watching as she walked alone toward the dragons gathered on the field. The effort walking took was visible. Her arm was tight against her side because the wound was painful and she refused to reveal weakness. I forced myself to remain still and not bolt forward to help her.

Renwick stood at my side. “Bailong says she’s calling the other dragons. All of them.”

“I know.” I’d heard her in my head. Slowly, the sky filled with dragons, trumpeting uneasily, circling low before landing. Lassa arrived, with Bogo flying at her side.

He stumbled when he landed.

Senaria walked to him, hiding the tremor in her legs.

She cupped Bogo’s face, pressed her forehead against his, although he was taller now, and he had to dip his head low to accommodate her.

She whispered words of comfort, reassurance.

Love. I didn’t share those words with the others. Respected the privacy in the moment.

When Sarnorinth arrived, his menacing shadow thickened the already dark sky. He circled while dragons shifted to allow him the space to land. The burning pyres gyrated with the growing tension. Smoke churned upward, glowing red as Sarnorinth approached.

“He’s greeting her,” I said.

Renwick asked, “Angry or agreeable?”

“Wary.”

Senaria was speaking out loud now, as if she wanted all to hear. “I’ve brought danger into your world without intention. That is my crime. The debt I owe you. ”

Bogo screeched and would have leapt forward had Lassa not put her wing in his way.

Senaria said, “When the priests from Thales found me on the Samira road, Ildoran inflicted a magical wound that can’t be healed, at least not by the healers here.”

The dragons arched their necks, swung their heads, riffled their wings. I heard the cries of Skyborne, bristling with anger, sorrow, indecision.

Senaria held up her hand. “The wound worsens every hour, and Anneli can’t be found. There’s no reason to believe the Stone Tower will help when they’re deceitful and vicious. They’ll plant their own magic and turn me into a weapon. You know how this will end.”

Bailong roared. Glaw joined him, then Vetra. Lassa. Each dragon rumbled his or her objection to what Senaria implied.

Bogo, in his agitation, slipped past Lassa, jerking his wings, thrashing with his tail. He rushed toward Senaria, but she told him to stay. Asked the others for quiet.

The skin around my eyes tightened.

“Sarnorinth.” Her voice rose with the command. “I give this task to you.”

No. His voice bellowed.

“Yes. You’ve always understood the risk, what I’ll become if you don’t burn this magic out of me. For the sake of all.”

His lip curled back and he snarled.

Her body trembled, and she said, “If you can’t, or won’t, do this, I will ask a different dragon, but I’d rather it was you.”

Fennor braced. Renwick pressed a hand against his chest, and I worried about his heart. But surely…surely, he had gu essed. Guessed she would make this choice. She was Skyborne.

Sarnorinth’s voice belled in my head. You will lose your magic.

“I will also lose the black magic. There is no other solution except this one.”

Only your bonded dragon can agree to burn you, Skyborne. That is our law, and Bogo is too young.

“You are not too young,” she countered. “You were bonded to my mother. That’s why you went to her when she needed you. Not because she was Skyborne and called out randomly.”

The dragon straightened, his eyes glowing with an alarming volatility.

My heart cracked with the full realization, the secret Sarnorinth had guarded so darkly…

But Senaria spoke gently, reassuringly.

“Anoria burned that village, didn’t she?

” she said, as the pieces fell into place.

“She killed the men hurting her, and you took the blame. Burned the magic out of her when she asked. Took her away to safety. Out of the Faded Lands, where she found my father. But your bond and the mercy you offered her was something you kept secret because of your stupid schism and the hatred toward the priests who destroyed everything. So Orm demanded a penance, didn’t he?

Your fledgling son, bonding with me while I was still a child.

And I’m asking you now, for Anoria. For me.

For Bogo. All the dragons. Show me the same mercy you gave to her.

Don’t let me become a threat. Don’t let me die a mindless monster. ”

The wind picked up, fanning the white-gold hair around Senaria’s head until she became a Goddess of old, gilded by the firelight.

She reached outward, her hands trembling.

“That to which we are most loyal will always be in our hearts, Sarnorinth. But we defeat evil when we act, unafraid. It is the Law of the Unexpected.”

I will not burn you, Skyborne!

His answer rang through every dragon because Sarnorinth wanted no doubt.

But neither did the Skyborne mage. “Do you accept the debt, Sarnorinth? Will you repay it now?”

His roar reverberated from the castle walls, beat across the field. Essabeth had gripped Fennor’s arm. Renwick took a hesitant step.

“Please, Sarny,” she said.

The dragon screamed, and the pain in that sound seared me as Sarnorinth spread his wings. Raised his head. Opened his mouth where the ruby fire gathered in the depths of his throat.

The ragged sound from Renwick was lost in despair.

The curse tablet around my throat splintered into pieces, falling to the ground as I admitted the truth. That to which we were most loyal…

I would not let her face this alone.

“ Sen! ” My voice roared above the dragons. I ripped the scabbard from my back. Dropped away the leather armor as I ran.

She held my gaze as I charged across the field. As ribbons of flame danced, surrounding her, consuming her .

I joined her in the dragon fire, wrapping my arms. Holding on while the flames swept upward in a churning maelstrom, blood-red against the night.

And I knew…what was in the heart did not die.

It did not end.

Not this ending.

We would go on.