Page 131 of Enchanted Crown
He inhaled deeply.
I dropped it all, mentally begging Oziel to make the right decision here.
“Let it go,” Lennix’s wife Vashti begged from where she checked on Nana, tears streaming down her face. “Please. One funeral is enough for today.”
“But it won’t be one,” he snapped as he spun to face her. “Morana will be on a pyre soon too!” He pointed in the direction of his father’s pyre. His father’s pyre which should already be floating away by now had he been able to contain his grief and anger.
“They made their decisions, now we have to make ours,” his mother pleaded.
I knew the moment he clenched his jaw and looked back at Esta that this would never be over for him. Morana’s death would send him spiraling into loathing, blame easier to deal with than a true look at his family member’s actions, than having to come to terms with the version of your loved one you had versus the one you hoped them to be.
As Oziel lunged for me, I found I wasn’t all that surprised. It didn’t have to end this way, but if it had to, so be it. I would not let him near Esta.
Esta,I begged, feeling her anguish. And I knew she felt my determination and intent in return.Go.You don’t need to see this.
The pyre needs lit.
I’ll get Jagen to do it.
She shifted as my fist landed on Oziel’s jaw.
“No!” Vashti wailed.
I’d thrown my entire weight into it, so he went to the ground with the force of my hit. “Stay down and this can still end with you breathing,” I warned him, looking up to make sure Esta was flying away.
He launched himself at me in my pause, tackling me to the ground. I could have stopped him in his tracks, at the very leastslowed him down, but I wanted it clear to everyone present, human and shifter alike, that we had tried to avoid this. Had given him every opportunity otherwise.
I heard a growl and thought for one panicked moment Esta had returned, before I saw that the dragon was much larger. Zaire.
He’d shifted and now wasted no time using his talons to throw Oziel off me.
Again, it all could have been over. Oziel was bleeding out of one side of his nose from landing face down in the ground, but it could’ve ended there.
He let out a yell which sounded like it split his very soul in two and took off for me again.
He never touched me. Zaire moved in, crunched Oziel to the ground, and shoved his talons through Oziel’s back delivering a rather swift and brutal death.
One minute Oziel was fighting us, the next he was simply no more. A threat removed.
Zaire let out a roar which hit the air with deadly precision. A warning should anyone else make a move.
“Jagen,” I called. “Light the pyre and let’s end this.”
Zaire flew above Lennix’s pyre and dropped his son’s body onto it also, one of Oziel’s legs dangling off the side.
No one moved to fix it. No one breathed a word. The brutality of this funeral too much for all of us to yet process.
Jagen stepped forward and said loudly, “I mourn that it had to end this way.” He shifted and took to the skies, lighting the pyre in a powerful exhale, finally sending it on its way.
With one extra body on board.
It’s over,I told Esta.Oziel is dead.I’m sorry it had to come to this.
I could feel her rage and remorse.I’m going to patrol for a bit, then head to my lair.
Stay safe, sweetheart.
Vashti was wailing on the ground, the only sound to be heardamong the group of us. The day had been hard enough for her before she’d had to also bear witness to her son’s self-inflicted demise.
