Page 30 of The Dragon Queen (Ember: Queen Of Dragons #6)

EMBER

It's a whole new kind of nightmare. My gaze swings wildly from Rafe to Jianyu to Malik to Storm. Even Brynn, over in the corner is losing it. Their faces are twisting in gruesome masks of mockery, their taunts echoing.

"She truly is defective then," Malik cackles.

"Insane," Jianyu agrees.

"As if I could ever be connected to someone so small." The humor bleeds from Rafe's tone, leaving only disgust. "You're powerless, penniless, magicless. You don't even have a dragon."

"But--" I start. My throat closes, every insult piercing into my chest.

Because there was a part of me, wasn't there? A part that wondered how any of it could work. My life as the mate to four dragon princes was impossible, created by supernatural magic, forged by a Shadow Dragon artifact.

Without that power, what was I?

If the Shadow Bracer had never fallen into my lap, would they have looked at me twice? If it weren't for the magic of the mate-bond--if it weren't for our strange, impossible destiny, would they have even cared if I lived or died?

Without the bracer... Without magic...

I'm...

"Nothing," Storm growls, and his voice is low, but so loud it echoes through my bones. "You're nothing."

My chest is tearing in two.

"No," I protest, but a piece of me believes him--believes all of them.

"As if anyone could ever love you," Malik sneers, and I'm crumpling in on myself.

Before I can collapse completely, though, the world fractures again. Fragmented glimpses of my nightmare shine through the gaps. Am I in this throne room in Wynrath Crest or on a black stone altar under a rising moon? Is this real?

Am I real?

"Give up," the dead face before me hisses, but between one blink and the next, the gruesome, rotting visage disappears, replaced once more by Rafe--or what I think is Rafe.

"You don't deserve it," Storm jeers.

It? What 'it'?

Malik is standing over me, his tattoos rippling, but instead of bright blue, they're darker--almost purple. "Surrender it. Now."

"What?" Fresh tears stream from my eyes. What are they talking about?

"Give it up." It's Jianyu now, and wasn't he on the other side of me a second ago?

"What do you want from me?" I cry out, and it's pathetic. I'm crying and disoriented and losing my mind.

"Give it to them, you whore," a new voice goads, and it's Amy, her pink hair turning black, her face pale, and all of this is wrong. "You know what they want. Stop playing dumb again, for fuck's sake--"

She reaches out, grasping me by the wrist--not the one that bore the bracer, though. My flesh burns, and I look down, and--

In my hands, I'm holding my own heart.

I gag and sob. The mutilated mass of bleeding muscle pulses in my palms. It's been battered; it's been through so much.

Static scratches at the edges of my vision, and where Amy was a second ago stands a tattered corpse of a man with sunken cheeks and putrefying strings of tissue where there should be a nose and lips. Black smoke pours from his mouth, and he's Rafe, and then Jianyu, and Malik and Storm, and they're all shouting at me.

Their faces blur together, and I just want it to my stop. My chest aches, and my ears are ringing, and it's too much.

"Here," I grit out, and I'm lifting my hands. They can have it. The beating lump of blood and tissue in my palms flashes to dark metal and back, and it's like lightning cracks the inside of my skull.

"Finally," a dark voice answers.

And alarm bells go off inside my head.

Reality flits in and out, and I can't keep track of any of it. The throne room, my mates, the black stone outcrop and the broken sky.

I jerk my hands back toward my chest, and I look at my heart.

And I laugh.

Because it's battered. Just like I am.

But it's not broken.

And neither am I.

"No," I breathe. My own voice sweeps out into the air, deep and resonant in a way that's unfamiliar and yet true. Thunder cracks within my chest.

I don't know where I am or who I am; I don't know if the men in front of me are real.

But I know one thing.

"It's mine."

I press the beating mass of flesh to the very center of my chest, and it merges with me, becoming a part of me--or maybe that's just where it was meant to be all along.

Dark purple waves of light explode outward from the place where my hands are clasped against my ribs. The ground shakes.

In a shuddering jolt, the world begins to disintegrate around its edges, black cracks appearing in the ceilings and the walls.

"No," Jianyu roars, but it's not his voice. His head vibrates in and out of clarity in my vision, and then it's Malik, shouting, "What do you think you're doing?"

"What I should have done from the beginning," I reply, the Air Dragon mansion crumbling all around me, revealing a dark sky and black rock.

Malik's face violently tears apart, leaving Rafe's in its place, and is this what's been happening this entire time?

"You're no queen," Rafe's face spits, but I recognize the voice.

And it's definitely not my mate's.

The illusion is so clear now. Black smoke swirls in putrid gusts, enveloping the man standing before me.

I want to laugh. That stupid, ancient text I was reading last night in the library, when I should have been sleeping.

Prey upon your target's deepest fears--for the best illusion to destroy their will is one they weave themselves.

That's what's been happening here. The Shadow King trapped me in a cage of my own making, the bars built of insecurity and fear. My worries about being nothing without magic. My uncertainty about my mates, and if they ever would have loved me without the Shadow Bracer drawing us together.

But none of it was real.

The smoke coalesces into a twisted, plastic impression of Storm. "You're nothing," he fumes.

And that one--that has power. Once upon a time, Storm said those words to me, and they nearly broke my spirit.

But I know the truth now.

The entirety of my time with my mates washes over me, the illusion shattering and leaving only reality behind. Jianyu, Rafe, Malik, Storm and I may have been brought together by magic and destiny, but what we built from that raw lumber is more than anyone could have possibly imagined. I've come to know them, and they know me--every part of me. They love me, exactly as I am.

And not just because I'm the Dragon Queen.

They love me because...

"I'm just me," I breathe.

With that, another wave of brilliant, white light bursts forth, melting even more of Erembour's spell. My hair stands on end, and I'm rising to my feet, wind whipping my clothes.

The Crown Of Cinders floats up and out of my hands, spinning in the air, its black metal surface glowing. The darkness falls away from it, revealing glittering gold and silver and a pure light that's nearly blinding.

The circlet settles on my head, and both darkness and brilliance flow over me together in a rush. The Shadow Bracer burns, turning gleaming black again. Rhiannon's necklace and Rook's ring ignite with purple fire, and the sheer weight of so much magic is nearly too much to bear.

But I was born for this.

I am shadow and light. I am Stone, Fire, Water and Air.

I am the mother of dragons.

That same deep resonance infuses my voice again. "You have no power here."

And with a flick of my hands, I dispel any remaining shreds of Erembour's deception. Roaring, he twists and shrinks, black wings flaring into life on his back, but they crumble to ash. The mask of a handsome, young man that had hidden his face dissolves, leaving him a pile of rotting bones and decaying sinew.

Far from being defeated, he cackles, outstretching his withered hands, and black flames ignite within his palms. "Foolish girl. You're too late."

"No," a voice says from behind me. "You are."

I don't need to glance over my shoulder. My connections to my mates flare back to life, more vibrant than ever before. The heat and power of our bond redoubles the brilliant magic rising inside of me, pure relief making my throat tighten.

All I feel is love. Their pride sears me, and warmth spreads all the way up my chest.

I shattered Erembour's illusion through my faith in what my mates and I have together--through my faith in myself. My eyes sting, but there's a fierce tide pulling at my heart.

I never should have doubted either--and I never will again.

Jianyu steps forward to stand beside me. He's scratched and bruised, but before my eyes, the worst of his injuries from Erembour's attack fade to nothing. Rafe takes the spot beside him, and the two exchange a look that only makes the well of feeling within me grow more profound.

The two may have started as enemies, but over the past few months, they've come to trust each other deeply. Now that the Shadow King has revealed his part in staging the betrayal that tore them apart in the first place, who knows. The friendship that he ruined may end up becoming stronger than ever.

I can't wait to find out.

Storm takes his place at my other side, absolute love and adoration pouring off of him. It's hard to believe he once denied me; it seems like it was a lifetime ago. Any remaining scars he left on my heart heal over as he takes my hand.

I look up and find Malik gazing at me with soft eyes the color of the ocean, and a wave of certainty passes over me.

I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, utterly united with the men who are meant to love and support me. I accept them, and I accept myself. I'm who I'm meant to be.

Finally.

An electric current passes through our bond, and as one, we launch ourselves into the air. Our dragons burst forth in a rain of scales and flame.

Below, Erembour's wings manifest and fail, again and again, in a nauseating, jittering fog of smoke. He's far from defenseless, though, his skeletal hands twisting in the air. He conjures bolts of shadow magic, hurling black poison and purple jags of lightning at us.

And he's not alone.

Kings Zephyr, Haoyu and Aeden and Queen Dahab of the great dragon nations of Air, Stone, Fire and Water erupt into their dragon forms. They surge forward, their wings slicing through the sky as they lunge at us.

The pain of betrayal ripples through my bonds to my mates as their parents take up arms against them, but the hurt is followed by grim determination.

Storm and his father meet in a deafening crash of wind, as Jianyu dodges the boulder his father launches at him, only to respond in kind with a hail of jagged rock. Rafe leads with balls of fire, his father's great, crimson beast deflecting them with a wall of rippling flame. Malik's dragon roars as he sends a tidal wave up from the sea to envelope his mother, but she shrugs it off, and this is all so wrong.

It only grows worse when the Shadow King's Sorceress drives her staff into the ground, sending tendrils of inky black magic out toward my mates. The ropes of evil thorns lick at their scales, curling around their hind talons and dragging them backward--

Right until another enormous black and silver dragon explodes from the sea.

Mariutza's dragon cackles with glee. Oh there you are, dearie, she whispers into my mind, and I laugh.

I remember her now--floating into the nightmarish illusion Erembour nearly managed to trap me in. She was the one who helped me see past his veil.

Would I have remembered my mates without her? Would I have remembered myself?

Delaynie's black dragon darts away from the battle still raging on the shore. She and her grandmother swoop together as one, dive-bombing the Sorceress.

The Sorceress's black tendrils dissolve into nothingness, and she flicks her hand to create a shield of magical energy around herself, but it's too late. Mariutza and Delaynie rain black hellfire down on her, and she screams before disappearing in a cloud of ash and rubble.

Freed, my mates throw themselves back into the battle against their parents, while I turn my attention to the Shadow King himself. He's throwing shadow bolts in every direction, coming apart at the seams as he bleeds black magic into the very air.

Righteous rage eclipses my vision.

He's torn apart our world. Turned us all against each other. Parents are battling their children, while dragons of every nation join with the King of Shadows to destroy their own kind.

I won't stand for it.

A presence fills me--one I don't entirely understand but which fuels me, infusing me with a power that crackles in waves through my very being. This has happened before, but the strength this time is unlike anything I've ever felt. My wings glow with purple light, the iridescence shining in a mother-of-pearl rainbow that's blinding. Black shadows pour in billowing clouds from my maw.

"I said, you have no power here."

I roar the words, booming them into the minds of every dragon and into the heart of the Shadow King.

"I have all the power in the world, child," he growls. "And I'll have more--any moment now."

You.

Have.

No.

Power.

An otherworldly force possesses me, the Crown of Cinders igniting from within. Black flames envelop me, and I turn the fire on this betrayer. He's hurling his own blasts of shadows in my direction, but they bounce off my scales.

Letting the power flow through me, I set my flames on his flesh, and the sky above opens up. A galaxy of stars circles over our heads, the Dragon Moon approaching its apex in a glowing inferno of dragonfire and magic.

Energy pours into me from my mates, and in one burst, I tear the Shadow King's mask away.

An unearthly scream rends the air. A shadow of a dragon rises from his putrid flesh, writhing in agony.

The kings and queen of the remaining dragon world try to press their advantage, but another wave of magic erupts from the crown. They freeze in place.

And we all watch as the Shadow King's dragon is torn from his body.

"No," he gasps, his talons closing around nothing as he sinks to his knees. The rotting flesh of his face decays before our eyes, sloughing off into a pool of dark ooze at his feet, and then he's just shivering bones and malice. "No--"

Lightning strikes him from above as Storm's dragon circles in the air. Jianyu beats his great wings, and jagged columns of stone rise from the earth to close around his legs. As Rafe roars, what's left of the Shadow King bursts into flame, only to be drowned by a wall of water as Malik's dragon alights on the rock below mine.

Huge plumes of purple and black smoke erupt from his broken husk, forming the shape of a dragon. It roars, crackling with dark waves of electricity, but the Crown is overflowing with a power more pure and brilliant than the Shadow King could ever hope to conjure. The bracer, ring and necklace burn within my scales, and together, their magic combines with that of the Crown.

I pull on the bonds that connect me to my mates, and the rush of power sets me ablaze. The freedom of air, the solidity of stone, the heat of fire and the inexorable, patient power of the sea.

They all pour into me.

Erembour's dragon of shadows lunges at us, maw open.

And with a single breath, I blow it away.

Shockwaves pulse through the sky and reverberate across the land, his scream rending the air. His dragon jerks and twists. The howls split my ears, and the rotting blackness hurts my eyes. But I don't relent. I unleash a final burst of magic, and the light of my birthright and my bond with my mates encompasses him, surrounding him. The enormous form of the Shadow King's dragon withers, nothing more than rage and smoke.

As it collapses, dissipating into nothingness, the mortal body he kept animated for so long shudders.

It falls to the ground in a puddle of black fabric.

A pile of hollow, broken bones.