Page 97 of Of Blood and Banes
Marge flashes me a proud grin. The three of us head in that direction, allowing me to lead the way. We pass by more carcasses, shattered human and dragon skulls, along with large stains in the dirt resembling the wavy pattern of old, puddled blood.
My skin explodes in goosebumps as we draw near, and somehow the screaming pitch lowers to something more manageable. As if it knows we’re coming.
I pause and hold up a hand to Marge and Sethan, signaling them to freeze.
The mist nearly sighs and sweeps out into opposite directions from a set of withered and shattered bones lying in a pool of dust. Violent gashes rake across the pieces still left whole. The only thing still discernible is a skull. One of the eye sockets is a cavernous expanse, busted into the skull from whatever unspeakable acts were committed against the creature.
I swallow back my queasiness, my imagination running wild at who and what could have done such a thing. Even without the evidence of flesh and blood, the bones tell a gruesome story.
A hand rests on my shoulder, and I turn to meet Marge’s gaze.
“Pull it. Channel it, and return it back to the earth,” she whispers, though her face is still contorted in discomfort.
The screaming dies down to silence, as if the trapped souls hear Marge’s words, giving me more space to focus. Only my strained breath echoes in my ears as I draw near and drop into a crouch in front of the skull.
Removing my gloves, I reach out, my fingers trembling as I rest my hand against the ancient bone. “I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper to ears no longer listening.
Closing my eyes, beyond the cold bone beneath my fingertips, I feel the familiar thunderous hum rise around me, pulling me into several directions at once. But I cut through it, solely focused on the creature left here in eternal agony.
I have the power to release it—to free it from these monstrous bindings, trapping it in its last living moments.
As if it were my own memory, the dragon’s last seconds of life flash before my eyes, repeating again and again in a dizzying whirl until it slows enough for me to decipher it.
Men, women, and dragons clash into a chaotic sea of battle around me with dragonfire raging in hotspots throughout the valley. Dragonblades glimmer and glow with bursts of blues as they strike, while other dragons and soldiers fall to the ground with a deathly stillness. A man, dressed in silver with swirling circles on his breastplate, races toward me, a club poised and ready to strike. My eyes narrow, and I rear back my head, calling upon the fire within my chest as the man runs into my range. A shot of pain slices through my back, and when I turn to see the cause, I realize it was only a distraction. Another man sinks his dragonblade through my wing, straight into my spine.
I can’t fly.
I can’t even run.
As I snatch the man’s head who impaled me and throw him back into the fray, a new blow shatters my jaw. I turn. Another shot explodes in my snout, caving in the ridge of my nose with a sickening crunch, and I gasp out a strangled breath. I can’t breathe. Can’t move.
The man with the club strikes again, bashing me in the eye. Half of my vision goes black, and I fall to the ground. But he doesn’t stop. Walloping me, again and again, as if it were nothing but a game to him. My flesh squelches under the strikes. Bones shattering. Muscles screaming in agony.
Help, help me please.
But not one human or dragon can hear me. They’re all suffering the same fate.
Before the blackness overtakes my senses and the scene and agony repeats, I watch as the man beats his club into my skull. Again. And again.
Tears streak down my cheeks as the images haunt me, replaying over and over in my mind in a dizzying stream of memories, even as I open my eyes and stare at the fragmented remains of the creature. A sickening heaviness settles in my stomach. Not only did it suffer it once but thousands of times over being stuck within this limbo, for however long it had lain here.
“I will help you,”I whisper into the screaming void, closing my eyes as another tear trails down my cheek, and I press my other hand to the skull.I’m here. You are not alone…
Summoning every bit of my strength, even as my arms tremble, I reach for the creature’s soul, pulling it into my palms as if I can cradle it. Daeja’s presence hums around me, anchoring me to the earth so that I won’t get lost in the chaos and tempting madness. I suck in a breath, pulling more and more of the creature’s lost soul into my arms until I have every piece.
Without opening my eyes, without letting my focus slip, I break my contact from the dragon’s skull and slam my hands down to the cold dirt before the soul can escape my grip. As soon as my hands make contact with the earth, I force it back into the ground, as if I had to physically shove something as tangible as the skull through the layers of dirt.
“Rest…find peace.”My arms shake violently, tremors snaking up through my chest. Hanging my head, I curl over the ground and clap one hand over the other on the earth, putting all my weight into my palms to ensure its successful transition. To release it back to what magic it came from.
The trembling in my body transforms into something else. Into a quaking beneath my feet, the very existence of the earth seeming to rattle. The dragon’s screams fade slowly to a peaceful hum, and even though I have my eyes closed and see nothing but black behind my eyelids, a burst of white flares in my vision before fading to a comforting black.
I wait a few moments in the darkness, my hands still braced against the ground as I fight to regain my panting breath, my heart slamming into my chest and threatening to burst.
But it’s gone. All that remains is peace in the absence of its tortured presence. I slowly open my eyes, staring at my hands and dragging my attention to Sethan and Marge staring at me incredulously.
“You…you did it,” Marge breathes.
Sethan watches me, a hint of a smile on his lips as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
