Page 140 of Wrath of the Dragons
I slam my hand over his mouth, commanding the fire to grow through him like vines. He jerks and screams as I force the fire tocontinue burning him alive. It floods his veins and boils his blood. The skin of his face reddens and splits, veins burst and blister as I continue shoving my power into him until he’s unrecognizable.
His final whimper presses against my palm, and with his eyes on mine, Garrick Atarah dies within the remains of his castle.
I let his lifeless body fall to the ground as I stand over him.
It’s over,I tell myself.He’s dead.
It’s so strange looking down at him now. When I was a child, I used to think he was the largest man in the world, an unshakable force, but I beat him. I survived him. I thought I’d feel relief, but I don’t. I think it’ll take me some time before I can accept Garrick is no longer alive. I spent so much of my life protecting myself from him that I don’t know what it is to live without armor.
Sorin attempts to curl his talons over my shoulder, but they’re as tall as me now. My dragons are safe. A small smile curls my lips, and I reach up to stroke the scales of his wrist. “You’re far too big for that now, my sweetling.”
Flames continue billowing along what remains of the castle, and the ground rumbles as more stones fall. Cayden once promised me that he’d help me rip it apart brick by brick, but dragonfire devoured everything Garrick loved. I hope his last sight of this world haunts his soul in the underworld, for it was a scene conjured from his nightmares. A queen returning to reclaim her throne with a dragon at her back and others in the sky.
Chapter
Seventy
Elowen
I turn away from Garrick andpress my forehead into Sorin’s when he drops his head. The scent of charred flesh stings my nose and eyes, but I focus on Sorin’s presence as the walls that once caged us crumble and the man who ordered it all lies broken at our feet.
“We should get back to the battle to finish this once and for all,” I say, and Sorin presses his head harder against mine before I kiss his snout and climb up his wing. He takes to the skies after I strap myself into the saddle, rising above the buildings along the canals with Garrick’s body in his back claw. Venatrix and Delmira continue burning the beach, and I fly over the ships to ensure they know that their king has fallen.
Basilius and Calithea fight against wyverns over the battlefield in the distance, ripping them to shreds and discarding the leathery bodies over enemy lines. Sorin cries out, jerking back but not quick enough as a wyvern springs up from the roof just under him and latches its jaws around his neck. Fear floods through me in an instant.
“Sorin!” I unhook my harness and unsheathe a knife before jolting forward. The beast jerks, and I wrap one arm around Sorin’s neck to stop myself from falling while raising my other hand to plunge the knife into the wyvern’s eye. Blood bubbles up and coats my skin as I repeat the action until the creature is in too much pain to hold on.It shrieks as it unlatches itself, and though blood coats its fangs, the wounds aren’t deep enough to kill Sorin.
I remain perched on Sorin as he lunges forward and sinks his fangs into the wyvern’s neck, just as it bit him. He shakes his head, decapitating the creature as its bones snap under Sorin’s strength, and its body crashes into the canal far below.
I scan my surroundings for other threats, but my pulse doesn’t calm down. The sky around us may be empty but Sorin’s scales are cold, and growing more so by the second.
Something is wrong.
Dragon scales are never cold; being close to them is like sitting in front of a roaring hearth.
“You’re all right, my love.” I run my hands down his neck as I drop back to the saddle. “You’re okay.”
He screeches and thrashes his head side to side like he’s trying to shake something off, but nothing is here. I scream his name as we lose altitude, and my stomach flies into my throat before he recovers. My heart pumps so fiercely that I can feel it in my fingertips. We’re still in enemy territory, and we’re flying too low. Sorin cuts to the left at the last possible second to avoid crashing into a building and keeps shaking his head as he takes us higher again.
Something is very,verywrong.
I cry out in time with Sorin and grab my chest. It feels like someone is trying to hack our bond in two. It’s pulled on, knotted, and yanked, but whoever is doing this amplifies their magic, and the pain morphs into thousands of knives stabbing at the unbreakable force. I gasp for air as Sorin falters again, too lost in my pain to be frightened. I haven’t felt this kind of sensation since my father hired a mage to try to break the bond between me and my dragons—the day my mother died after the spell rebounded. Ailliard freed me from the dungeons after that. I can’t imagine how much worse the torture would’ve become after the queen was killed.
I don’t remember my mother before my imprisonment. The only detail I can recall of her was that she stared at the wall and sat silentlyby my father while I was tortured in front of the throne. She never came to my cell in the middle of the night to sneak me some scraps of food when the king was asleep. She didn’t even try to run when the dragons began blowing flames. Sometimes I think she wanted to die.
The bond twists again and Sorin cries out. I rub at my chest to try to ease the piercing pain, but even breathing too deeply hurts. I force myself to fall forward, but I move too late. An arrow that I was too distracted to spot manages to skim my ear, but the droplets dribbling onto my shoulder aren’t what worry me, it’s the fact that Sorin didn’t see it at all. He would never let anything hurt me, ever since I was a child.
The mage that my father hired to break the bond was from Thirwen. I don’t remember his face, but I do remember that.
Oh gods.
What if it was the mage who nearly killed Cayden? I glance down at my arms despite them being covered, but the markings that swirl around my arms are proof of what I did in the wake of Nykeem’s bomb.
You will be cheating death, and there is always a price to pay,Sage’s voice enters my mind as Sorin cries out again.
No.
No.
