Page 226 of Of Empires and Dust

He pulled two latches out of lock with the threads of Air, then sent the grate dropping into the sand with athump. With a quick check of the eggs, Calen waded into the sand.

He gripped the ledge of the tunnel and started to pull himself up when a shiver crawled up his spine. Half a heartbeat later, the light from Calen’s baldír dimmed to a dying flame.

“Warden of Varyn.” The Fade’s voice was like rusted nails drawn across iron. “It was not you we expected to find in this place.”

Calen turned slowly, the Spark burning in his veins. The creature’s hair was white as bone, draped across a pale face with thin blue lips and eyes that pulled the courage from Calen’s bones. He couldn’t see past the Fade’s face, all light seeming to bend around it.

The creature must have been following them from the moment they’d entered the city. They’d led it straight to the eggs.

“Though it was only a matter of time. Your kind always comes back to the heart of your pain. All we ever needdo is wait.” Its eyes flickered towards the satchels of eggs. “Interesting… I had thought we’d killed them all. That will have to be corrected.”

Calen slid the satchels from his shoulders, rested them in the sand, and drew his sword. There was no choice. He would have to fight. He let Valerys’s rage swallow his fear.

Black flames snaked from the Fade’s palm and took the shape of a long, two-handed greatsword. A níthral.

Calen dropped into Striking Dragon and surged forwards. Flickers of light-drinking black swirled outwards as the blades collided. Calen swung high, then twisted his neck back to avoid the creature’s counter, the heat from the black fire burning at his chin.

The Fade hissed as it swung, but Calen turned the blow left into the statue, the níthral digging into the stone. The black-fire blade dissipated in a wisp of smoke, and the Fade slammed into Calen, sending him sprawling backwards. The next strike must have been Blood Magic because before Calen could think, he was hurtling into the wall, the breath stampeding from his lungs and leaving him choking for air.

Gasping and staggering forwards, Calen pulled on threads of Earth and Air, pushing them into the Fade, picturing the creature’s bones snapping like twigs. But the Fade sliced through Calen’s threads with its own, a harsh laugh entering its throat. “I thought you’d be stronger.” The reformed black-fire blade trailed along the ground, smoke rising. “Pity.”

Valerys roared in the back of Calen’s mind as he tore through a Bloodmarked with his talons. The dragon pulled their minds together, settling Calen’s heart.

End this.Calen could feel Valerys’s intent in his blood.End it now.

Calen pulled Valerys’s mind into his, unleashed the dragon’s fury in his blood, and surged forwards. He flowed throughthe forms of svidarya, losing himself in the movements, steel colliding against black fire. As he did, he pulled on threads of Earth and Air and slammed them into the statue. An explosion of stone and dust plumed outwards, the statue shattering. The Fade tilted its head back, hissing.

The distraction was enough.

Calen brought his blade down and cleaved the creature’s arm just below the elbow, then opened the Fade’s belly with his backswing. Intestines tumbled out, dry and ragged, but not a drop of blood spilled.

Before the Fade could react, Calen drew on threads of Fire and Spirit, Valerys roaring in the back of his mind as he unleashed a pillar of fire. He dropped his sword, and the flames poured from his hand like a raging river, the Spark burning in his veins. He let out a roar that matched Valerys’s, threads of each elemental strand swirling around him, urging him to draw from them.

But even as the raging fire crashed down over the Fade, the flames parted, split by a force Calen could not see. Blood Magic.

“Warden of Varyn,” the creature hissed. “Tssk, tssk, tssk.”

Threads of Fire and Spirit swirled about the creature, and it pushed back, black fire spewing from its hand.

The two pillars of fire crashed against one another, shadow and light battling. The Fade stared at him through the flames, those black, light-drinking eyes glaring into his soul.

The black fire pushed harder, and Calen’s body shook, the Spark searing within him, the drain sapping at his bones. In the city above, Valerys ripped Uraks to pieces, his rage swelling. The dragon roared, unyielding, defiant.

His soulkin would not be taken from him.

Valerys’s fury swallowed Calen whole, their shared soul igniting. And Calen did just as he had done in the Burnt Lands: he let go. The flames that poured from his hand redoubled, pureenergy rippling through him, Valerys roaring. Threads of each elemental strand wrapped about him, pulling through his blood and his bones and his soul. They wove together, coiling and twisting, burning like a hundred suns.

Just as Tarast and Antala, just as Kollna and Tinua, they were one, completely and entirely. They were soulkin, and their fire would not be quelled.

The Fade staggered backwards, its black fire barely able to hold Calen in place. The fire that poured from Calen’s hand flickered, changing at its core. Orange-red flames yielded to those of a purple hue until the fire shone with the same light as Calen’s eyes.

The Spark burned in him like never before, strands of Air, Fire, Earth, Water, and Spirit forged into a single entity that burned with the rage of a dragon.

Calen roared, clenching his fingers into a fist by nothing more than instinct alone. The flames died, and in Calen’s hand was a sword wrought from purple light that rippled like fire. It was not simply a weapon, but a physical manifestation of his shared soul.

For a brief moment, the Fade looked at him with its mouth ajar. Then it lunged, black-fire blade forming in its fist. Calen met the swing in a burst of purple light and stared unflinchingly into the creature’s bottomless eyes. And there, in the depths of darkness, he saw something he’d least expected: fear.

Valerys roared in Calen’s mind, and Calen pushed forwards with all his strength, threads of Air and Spirit whirling around him. He caught the Fade’s black-fire blade twice more, and on the third he wrapped the fingers of his left hand around the creature’s wrist and drove his níthral through its already savaged gut.

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