Page 341 of Of Empires and Dust

Only Kollna had ever called her ‘Daughter of the Sea’ and only on the night her old master had died… the night Ilnaen fell. How did this man know her words? Words that had dragged up wounds she’d thought long healed.

A swelling, pulsing sorrow flowed through Aldryn and into Coren. The dragon’s heart ached, his wings feeling heavy, his soul bleeding at the memories of Kollna and Tinua – the only family they had ever known. So many nights had been spent wishing they had refused to leave their masters the night Ilnaen had fallen. That they should never have allowed it to be so, that they should have died that night, side by side with the ones they loved.

There are more we must protect now, my heart. That is what they would have wanted. You have waited long enough. It is time to rise so that others rise with us.

A fire burned in the dragon’s heart, an unquenchable fury that seeped into Coren, and Coren found herself feeling just a touch of sympathy for the Lorians at the gates. For centuries, Aldryn had remained hidden, moving from eyrie to eyrie, from Dracaldryr to Stormwatch, to the Burnt Lands, and so on, and so on. He had done so at Coren’s demand. She had refused to allow her soulkin to be ripped from the world like all the others.

“Our duty, above all else, is to our soulkin,”Kollna had told her.

He had waited while she had fought with his strength in her veins. She could survive moving through the shadows, she could go unnoticed and still make a difference – he could not. And so they had waited, and waited, and waited, and now the time was here. The time when Aldryn’s strength could make the difference, the time when the Dragonguard could not simply tear him from the skies.

She let her mind drift into his, feeling the powerful beats of his wings, the fire raging in his blood, the fury burning in his heart. All her doubts, all her fears and worries, melted away. Their purpose was singular: save as many lives as the gods would allow.

“There!” Ella called out as they exited a tunnel into the chamber that fronted the gates. Hundreds of rebels formed a shield wall, five rows deep, while more stood upon ledges higher up, arrows stacked in buckets, bows and javelins ready.

Farwen stood at the chamber’s centre, seven mages around her, the power of the Spark pulsing furiously in the air, threads of each elemental strand winding and twisting in a storm of power. Three bodies lay on the ground around Farwen, their eye sockets black and scorched.

Coren could see the threads smashing into the gates on the other side, see them seeping into the rock and the wood and the metal, attempting to twist and snap and crumble.

She moved to stand before Farwen, lowering her voice to a whisper so as to not break the elf’s concentration. “I’m here.”

Farwen’s eyes were closed, her jaw twitching with effort. “We won’t hold it long,” she said, voice trembling. “They’re using Blood Magic. We can’t see the threads.”

As Coren looked closer, she could see two of the mages wove threads of Spirit and Earth through their bodies and those of the others, fortifying their bones and hardening their flesh to keep the Blood Magic from tearing them apart.

“Calen is here, and he’s brought help. We?—”

An enormous explosion sounded deeper in the mountain, screams and shouts echoing.

“We shall go.” The one who spoke was the man Ella had threatened. The one who had stared into Coren’s eyes with those irises of blue-grey. Two others went with him, women, both looking sharp and dangerous.

Coren turned to Asius, Thacia, Moras, and Therin. “Will you lend your strength to the gates?”

“It would be our honour, sister,” Thacia said, her blood-red hair gleaming in the sunlight that shone down through the shafts carved into the mountain.

A sudden surge of the Spark erupted outside the gates, and the mountain itself seemed to shake, dust and debris breaking loose from the ceiling.

Therin leapt forwards and the power that flooded into him was like the light of the sun as he wove threads of Air and Spirit around himself, Ella, and Faenir.

A second explosion sounded, and the gates erupted inwards. Coren brought her hand to her face, opening herself to the Spark and erecting a ward around herself and anyone else she couldreach – the Angan, Farwen, and a number of others. Stone dust filled the chamber, shards of wood and metal exploding inwards.

The mage nearest Coren ruptured in a cloud of blood and bone as a chunk of rock crashed down atop him. Another was skewered by a length of iron.

She stumbled forwards, thin strands of light spraying through the dust that filled the air. Screams and shouts rang out around her. She kicked something and looked down to see a woman’s severed torso, spine shattered, innards spilling into the dirt.

The floor was littered with bodies.

Coren coughed as she dragged in a breath of dust. She called out, “Farwen?”

“Here.” A hand pressed against the flat of Coren’s back, and she looked up into Farwen’s dark eyes, the panic in her heart settling.

More shapes appeared in the dust, gathering about her: Ella, Therin, Faenir, the man with the wolfhead pauldrons. Others appeared, men and women with shields and spears, blood clotting in the dirt that coated their skin.

Coren stood upright, placing a hand on Farwen’s shoulder. “We need to fall back.”

A chorus of chants and howls erupted, and a glowing red light carved through the dust-occluded air, joined by another, and another, until six shapes, illuminated by crimson runes, took form, each holding blood-red níthrals.

Arrows rained down from the ledges above, skittering harmlessly off silver armour.

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