Page 107 of The Dragon Queen

I need to save Calista?—

You can save her—but you need to come to me first. Now.

Calista backed up as Bahamut came to her, holding her ground even though she was visibly scared.

You can save us all, Talon. Run.

My chest had caved in on itself. Even if I survived this battle, it wouldn’t be for long. It amazed me that I stood at all. It amazed me that I could listen to Constantine. And it amazed me when I ran to him like he asked.

The dead crawled all over him and pierced them with their blades, drawing blood when they broke the scales. But he stayed focused on me.You’re almost there, Talon. He was the one being stabbed, but he only focused on me.

I reached him, my hand extending toward his snout and making contact.

He closed his eyes—and then I felt it.

A rush of power unlike any other, like I was being fused with not one dragon, Constantine, the king of dragons,but fused with all dragons. I dropped to my knees as I kept my hand on his snout, feeling an avalanche of power slide out of his body into mine. I trembled and heaved, tears burning in my eyes because of the pain and the relief. It was so much for my body to carry, to feel the might and ferocity of over a hundred dragons at once. My vision changed. My body felt unlike my own. I felt like a dragon, felt the slit of my pupils, felt fire in my broken chest.

It was indescribable.

I dropped my hand and stepped back, hearing and seeing the world in a new way. I processed everything with a fraction of the energy it cost before.

Constantine focused his eyes on me.He may be the God of the Underworld, but he’s nothing to the might of all dragons. Defeat him, Talon.

All the injuries I sustained seemed to have healed. I felt no pain, felt rested like I’d slept the last year without waking up once. My muscles possessed more strength than physically possible. I was a dragon without wings, without scales, without talons—but a dragon, nonetheless.

Calista continued to flee Bahamut, choosing to run rather than engage because she knew if she got too close, she would be dead. I realized now that she had only served as bait, a distraction for Bahamut so I could get to Constantine.

“Bahamut!” My armor was still ripped in places. My bare chest was still exposed. But my bones had healed and fortified. Theywere so strong that I banged my fist against my chest and felt nothing at all.

He turned back to me, forgetting Calista when he realized something had changed. The ground was muddy, and the rain continued to pour down. Constantine was only able to bite the dead and whip them with his tail, but he was too overencumbered to fly. Calista returned to him, slicing her blade through the corpses that tried to take Constantine.

I spun my sword around my wrist, and it felt weightless.

Bahamut’s demonic smile was gone. Now he sized me up differently, trying to distinguish what had changed in the few seconds he’d been distracted. I was not the same man he had slammed into the dais, but he didn’t know who I was.

“You asked who I am, Bahamut.” I moved toward him. “I am Talon Rothschild, the King of the Southern Isles, friend of men, dragons, and elves. I can’t defeat you alone, but that’s the difference between us.I don’t have to. You will not take my soul—but I will take yours.” I spun my blade around my wrist then banged my fist into my chest. “Come on.”

Bahamut gripped his sword and took his steps, trying to circle me as the battle raged on around us, his expression serious, even as a monster. The arrogant gloat had left his persona. The eyes that showed the underworld were now focused—and afraid. He tensed as he watched me, waiting for me to make the first strike to size me up.

The rain washed the blood from my face and chest, my body whole from the dragons in my veins. My skin remained soft but felt hard like scales. My throat burned like a fire released from my lungs. I made my move, one leg digging into the slick mud,and I launched forward with a speed I didn’t anticipate. I felt like I could fly even though I had no wings, felt a command of the world like I had built it with my own hands.

He hesitated when I came at him, but he threw his sword up in time.

I struck him, again and again, my blade dancing and flying, moving so fast that it somehow felt slow.

He kept up with my attacks, but barely. He clenched his jaw and grimaced as he focused on my movements, but his position was entirely on defense. There was no opportunity to strike me when I bore down on him with no mercy. I had no moment to draw breath, no moment to pause and think. I tortured his mind as I tortured his body, driving him back toward the dais, watching him sweat while I smiled.

I slammed the hilt of my sword into his chest then punched him in the face, packing so much strength in the hit that his head nearly snapped off his neck. He was pushed back from the momentum and lost his footing, stumbling backward until his back hit the dais. “And now I will be known as Talon Rothschild, the mortal who killed a god.”

When I moved over him, he tried to stab his blade right through the exposed part of my leg, but I somehow sensed it before he even thought it. I sidestepped the attack, and then I slammed my boot down on the center of his chest, using the force of a hundred dragons, cracking the bones of his monstrous physique.

He let out a demonic roar as he swiped at me.

I stabbed my blade into his arm and pinned it to the dais before I kicked his sword from his grasp.

He quickly reached for the hilt of the sword that pinned him, but I was faster. I slammed my hand into his face. I hit him again and again, black blood oozing from his every orifice, striking him with such power and speed that the features of his face began to melt away.

His body grew weaker as he received the beating he’d given me, his eyes flickering in and out of consciousness, the blackness taking him. He would reach for the sword again, but he’d lost his orientation of the physical world. Even if I didn’t stop him, he would miss the blade.

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