Page 360 of Of Empires and Dust

Coren shook her head, allowing her sorrow to burn into rage. The roar she unleashed carried through Aldryn, and he bit down and ripped Karakes’s jaw free, whipping his head left and right, then tearing at the dying dragon’s throat, blood spraying into the wind.

As the ground rose to meet them, Aldryn watched the light fade in Karakes’s eyes, then tossed the dragon aside, unfurling his wings as Karakes smashed into the ground.

Aldryn swept forwards, his talons trailing the grass. Coren leaned back and opened her arms, feeling the strength of the world pull against her. After a moment, Aldryn angled back around and alighted beside Karakes’s broken body.

Coren slid from her soulkin’s back, threads of Air allowing her feet to touch the grass as gently as the breeze. She passed Karakes’s mutilated face, his lower jaw ripped free, shards of bone jutting outwards, blood pumping onto the ground.

The momentary pang of guilt and sadness was swallowed by the unyielding rage within her. Coren had spent many years weeping over the dragons she had been forced to kill. Over the bonds she had been forced to break. And she had spent many dark nights wondering what might have been if these traitors had not slaughtered her brothers and sisters.

She followed the wails to where she found Lyina lying broken beside Karakes’s body. Both her legs were snapped, one twisted in a way that turned even Coren’s stomach. The woman’s cries carried on the wind, harsh and sharp. They were not cries of agony or pain, but of loss and emptiness. Coren had heard them enough times to know the difference.

She warded Lyina as she approached, then knelt beside her, staring down into those bloodshot, tear-filled eyes.

“Now you know how she felt,” Coren said, wrapping her fingers in Lyina’s hair and wrenching the woman’s head up. Lyina shrieked in pain, but Coren slapped her. “Shhh… Look me in the eyes. That’s it. I’ve waited for this moment for a very long time.” Coren glared down at Lyina. “It should have been Farwen kneeling over you. But she finally rests now.”

“I…” Lynia coughed, blood speckling her lip and catching in her throat. “I thought your soulkin had perished. I?—”

Coren wrenched Lyina’s head back again. “Shut your mouth. You shut your treacherous, fucking mouth.”

“I am happy he lives,” she choked out. “I am happy you are whole, Coren.”

“Shut your damn mouth!” Coren roared, slamming her fist into Lyina’s face. “Don’t you dare. You did this. You caused all of this. Don’t take this moment from me.”

Lyina’s head lolled, tears rolling from the corners of her eyes and mingling with the blood that coated her face. She hacked a cough again. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I’m?—”

“It’s worth nothing!” Coren roared, shaking Lyina’s head. “You killed everything we loved! You will find no forgiveness now as you face Heraya.”

A deep, visceral growl resonated in the air as Aldryn stepped across Karakes’s corpse and loomed over Coren and Lyina. The dragon’s rage was like the fires of the void. It poured into Coren, filling her bones, and she summoned her níthral.

She held the light-wrought spear to Lyina’s throat, her hand shaking, her lip trembling.

“Do not keep me from him… please.” Lyina choked on a bloody breath, convulsing. “Don’t let yourself become that monster.”

“You made me that monster,” Coren growled. She drew in shallow breaths, blood trickling over her níthral as she pressed it into Lyina’s flesh.

Lyina stared back at Coren, her eyes pleading. “You choose,” she said, her voice weak. “You… choose… who you are. Nobody else.”

Coren’s entire body began to tremble, her and Aldryn’s shared rage burning in her. The roar that left her, swept from her stomach up through her chest, and cut at her throat. She buried her níthral in the earth beside Lyina, holding it in place before releasing it.

She stared down into Lyina’s eyes and slid a knife from her belt. “You are lucky that I am not you.”

“I know.” Lyina’s eyes widened as Coren drove the knife into her heart.

Coren let the woman’s head drop to the dirt and pressed a closed fist to her own face, all that rage and fury yielding to a wave of overwhelming loss and agony that wracked her body and ripped at her heart.

Farwen was gone.

She drew heavy breaths, letting them out slowly, then rose and mounted Aldryn, looking to the sky over the plains to the north, where Helios and the elven dragons tore each other apart.

To her left, Valerys, Avandeer, and Varthear – her wing badly torn and bleeding – descended towards her.

Aldryn let out a low rumble, staring down at Karakes one last time before lifting into the air and rising to meet the others.

She didn’t speak as they came together. Aldryn simply angled his wings and soared towards the thick grey fog that had slowly begun shifting south towards the Burnt Lands.

This was not the end, but it was the beginning of it. Aldryn let out a low rumble beneath her, his powerful wings beating. No longer would Coren fight alone. No longer would she keep her soulkin in the shadows. They had waited and bided their time, and now the Lorian Empire would know their wrath.

Chapter 84

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