Page 43 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

Dracoth

Parting Burns

“ I gnixis!” Princesa’s voice cuts through the fog of my exhaustion, sharp and urgent.

My vision swims as I stagger from the Crucible, every muscle screaming in protest, every breath a battle. The weight of my fatigue feels as immense as the Peaks of Scarn. But it’s the sight before me that truly paralyzes me—a scene that etches itself into my mind with searing clarity.

Ignixis lies cradled in Princesa’s lap, his head lolling against her.

His eyes are barely open, his face contorted in agony.

The runes etched into his body glow like molten lava, hissing and steaming as they devour his black robes and the flesh beneath.

The air reeks of burning fabric and charred skin.

“Fuck!” Princesa snarls, jerking her hand back as flames flare up from his body. Her fingers are red and blistered, and she swats furiously at the embers threatening to ignite her own robes. “He... he’s burning alive!”

Dread coils in my gut, cold and unrelenting. I lurch forward, my own pain and weariness melting away like the charring flesh of my old mentor. The heat radiating from his body is unbearable, like standing in the heart of a volcano, but I don’t care.

I am molten...

I am... desperate.

Desperate to save him.

My hands move on their own, smothering the flames that erupt from his runes.

“Can you speak?” I demand, my voice cracking. The heat scorches my skin, but I don’t stop. I can’t. Not when he’s slipping away before my eyes.

The raw terror of losing him hits like a plasma blast to the chest. He’s always been there—steadfast, infuriating, wise. The thought of him reduced to mere ash, gone forever, cuts deeper than any wound I’ve ever endured.

“Wake up, you stubborn old gas-cloud!” I plead, my voice trembling as I bat away the embers. My hands blister and burn as I press them against his searing runes, but I don’t care. The pain means nothing.

Only he matters.

“Young Dracoth...” His voice is a whisper, barely audible over the crackle of flames. His eyelids flutter open, each movement a struggle. “I failed you... failed Arawnoth... forgive me.” His blistered fingers twitch, reaching weakly for my chest plate.

My stomach twists. “Stop prattling,” I dismiss his words, fearing what they mean, fearing why he’s saying them now. “I’ll take you to a healing pod.” I tear at the remnants of his robes, some of which have fused to his flesh. The stench of burned skin chokes me.

Ignixis lets out a rasping chuckle, the sound quickly warps into a wet, agonizing cough. “You cannot heal... a spent soul. Arawnoth consumes... what was given.”

“No,” I growl, but the truth is already written across his body—an intricate patchwork of boiling suffering stamped in the sacred words. They burn brighter with each passing heartbeat, a dying star on the brink of supernova.

“Your War Chieftain commands you to live!” I roar, desperation twisting into anger, the familiar. But the despair rising within me is something else entirely, a tide I can’t hold back.

I drop to one knee, lifting his frail, burning body into my arms. He feels impossibly light, as if he’s already little more than dying embers.

“You... bow before no one.” Ignixis rasps, his molten hand brushing my cheek. The touch sears my skin, but I don’t flinch. I would endure a thousand burns if it meant keeping his soul from flickering out for just a moment longer.

“A son can bow,” I whisper, my voice breaking. Shameful, scalding tears well in my eyes.

Ignixis exhales weakly, the last of his strength pooling in his gaze. “My son...” His fading emerald eyes glint in the dim purple light. “Etharn... I’m coming, my boy.” His arm rises weakly, reaching for something beyond this world.

Then, his runes flare—blinding white—before his body bursts into flames.

I collapse to my knees, the impact jarring against the marble floor. His burning form crumbles in my arms. The pain of the fire is nothing compared to the one tearing through me.

This can’t be real. He can’t be gone. Not like this. Not so suddenly.

The tighter I hold him, the faster he disintegrates. His body turns to ash, the embers slipping through my fingers, fluttering into the frigid air like black tears.

There is nothing left.

Nothing of his genius, his wit, his love for our people and Arawnoth.

Nothing of the mentor who raised me.

Just dust.

“If only...” I choke out, barely holding back a torrent of shameful tears. “If only I’d known... I would have said the words you deserved to hear.”

The ash in my hands glows faintly, smoke curling upward like a final, mournful sigh. “You were the father I never had, Elder Ignixis.”

My fingers curl into the ash like they can hold him together, like I can force him to stay if I just grip tight enough. I bury my head in the ashes, my shoulders shaking with sobs I can’t control.

This pathetic display shames me. It dishonors my ancestors—a betrayal of everything I’m supposed to be. I hate it! I want to crush it, to stomp it out like the embers of his body.

But the grief is too vast, too consuming.

“Dracoth.” Princesa’s voice cuts through the haze of my sorrow. Her footsteps are soft but deliberate, echoing in the silence. “Look at me.”

I can’t. I won’t. Not like this.

“Look at me!” she commands, her voice sharp and unyielding. Her hands grip my face, forcing my gaze to meet hers. Her mercury eyes blaze with intensity.

“You are the War Chieftain,” she says, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Start acting like it.”

Her words are harsh, merciless. My Goddess of Death—brutal and demanding. She does not tolerate the weak. She does not entertain the broken.

But this time, her words ring hollow.

I am no War Chieftain.

“I am a clone.” The words ooze from my lips like venom, threatening to murder everything I’ve built.

For a moment, through our bond, I feel her disappointment flare, her gaze faltering. But then it hardens, sharper than before.

“I don’t care if you’re made of red-colored silly putty,” she snaps. “You are what you are—my red dragon.”

No. I am a lie—a weapon of death, crafted from the bones of our females. Wielded by an enemy that seeks to eradicate all life.

A faint smile touches her beautiful lips as she pinches Ignixis’s ashes from my hand and presses them to my forehead.

“We carry Ignixis with us. His sacred ashes are touched by Arawnoth himself,” she whispers solemnly, smearing a streak across her own skin. Then, suddenly, her face lights up with excitement as she swallows a pinch of the ash.

“Yes!” she gasps, her silver eyes blazing with fervor. “He resides within us now. Arawnoth’s chosen herald—his most faithful servant. He who burned in divine love. Let the strength of his sacrifice wash away our weakness. Let his ashes blaze a path to strength.”

She presses Ignixis’s charred remains into my mouth.

The bitter taste of soot coats my tongue, but almost instantly, warmth spreads through me. Faint at first—then searing. A molten inferno ignites in my core, pulsing from my forehead, surging through my veins, burning away hesitation, doubt, and despair.

“Scourge the weak, embrace strength. Let the vanquished be reborn in his divine image.” Princesa’s voice rises, her black robes billowing as she lifts her arms.

“Yes,” I growl, my despair evaporating in the heat of my molten hatred. “The Scythians—the Voidbringer—must suffer.”

With a snarl, I activate my plasma claws. The searing blades hiss to life, casting flickering azure across the dim room. With a primal roar, I tear into the hated Crucible.

Fangs bared, Rush blazing.

No technique. No precision. Only raw, unrelenting fury.

I strike over and over, molten slag sloughing off as conduits and connectors rupture, writhing and sputtering like dying creatures beneath my wrath.

The air boils, thick with burning metal and vented plasma.

I inhale it deep, relishing the heat, wishing—longing—that I were hacking flesh and bone beneath my claws.

That I could hear the screams. Instead, I am met only with the cold silence of dying machinery.

“Death to the murder-bots!” Princesa shouts gleefully, yanking me from my misty-eyed rampage.

I pause, chest heaving, my molten breath scorching the air.

Before me lies a broken mound of twisted, melted metal. Unrecognizable. The Crucible is no more. The malignant heart of Ravager’s Ruin—of my people’s suffering—torn asunder.

Silence lingers. Eerie. Unnatural.

Until realization takes root—the static whispering laughter is no more. The temperature is no longer unnaturally cold.

The air itself feels... lighter. No longer thick. No longer wrong. That heavy, crawling pull at the edges of my awareness—gone.

And yet, the real danger remains. It lurks outside, in the void. A near-infinite tide of Scythians. Cold, unblinking metal lenses fixated on us. Watching. Waiting.

I rejected the machine’s offer of slavery. Spat in its eye with the strength of the Gods. And yet—by some miracle—we are not already drowning in a storm of drones and sizzling plasma.

What holds them back?

“Come,” I rumble, offering an arm to Princesa, urgency twisting in my gut.

“Two seconds,” my Mortakin-Kis mutters distractedly, on hands and knees, frantically brushing Ignixis’s ashes into a pouch. “Here.” She straightens and ties the bag’s string around my belt of bone.

My fingers trace the fabric. It radiates a faint warmth. Mere ashes—it should mean nothing. Yet, I cannot deny the comforting presence they convey, the fire it ignites in my soul.

“I will slaughter them all,” I whisper, a vow carried to Ignixis, to our lost females, to all my people. The Scythians will know fear as long as I draw breath.

My final gift to you, my old mentor—fulfilling your prophecy.

“Ready.” Princesa tucks another pouch of ash into her robes, then lifts her arms expectantly, as if beseeching me to rain death upon her enemies.