Dragon Empress

Chapter 23

c***k!

A deafening roar of thunder rattled Khyvette’s bones. In the west, a dozen pillars of black lightning forked between land and sky, flashing obsidian for a heartbeat before flickering out.

thought Khyvette.

asked Fletcher.

As she watched, sparkling tendrils of the Rift emerged from nothingness, oozing across the horizon.

Khyvette stamped down on a slurry of emotions to prevent them from reaching Fletcher. She knew who Keriya was facing in the Broken Vale. It would be a miracle if she returned in one piece.

It would be a miracle if she returned at all.

The secrets Khyvette was forced to keep burned her soul. Allentria needed a plan. The World Alliance had to be prepared to fight this war without Keriya Soulstar.

Fletcher warned. She raised her protective inner membranes and met with a faint, reflected purple glow.

He tensed, and she gleaned the outline of his intentions through their link. Banking to assist his plan, she angled north and gave him a clear line of sight to the necrocrelai. He loosed an arrow that felled one of the giant demons in a bright explosion.

Khyvette took out another three, reflecting threads from her source with no small amount of pain. Entropy forced her to expend double the usual amount of energy as she spat light at her enemies.

At first she believed the lingering pain in her soul was a result of wielding, and she paid it no mind. But it grew and mutated, and she realized too late what was happening.

She glanced down. The battlefield was pandemonium. The air was saturated with phoenixes and shadowtroops. And snaking between the chaos, thirsting toward Khyvette—

“The Rift,” she roared, fleeing east. She frantically beat her wings, but she didn’t seem to be moving. The magnetic, relentless, irresistible pull of the imprisoning enchantment had latched onto her soul. It was reeling her in.

“Everyone on comms, Khyvette needs an extraction!” From worlds away, she heard Fletcher’s desperate cries for help—but like the Shadow War itself, this was a lost cause.

In an effort to revert to a logical state, Khyvette cloaked her mind. Fletcher’s presence in her brain, a glowing pocket of comfort, winked out. The loss was palpable, but the mindcloak blunted the edge of her emotions. She clawed through every scrap of draconic wisdom still available to her. There had to be a way to escape.

Incorporeal fire lashed the scales of her hind legs—the icy burn of her prison. She couldn’t go back to that realm of t*****e. She wouldn’t survive.

What if I’m imprisoned? What if Fletcher gets pulled in with me?

A new layer of panic spiraled through her. Would Fletcher be able to return to Selaras if he found a place where the Rift was wide enough to step through? Unlikely. The imprisoning enchantment was meant for creatures who wielded valemagic—and through their bond, Fletcher had absorbed a piece of her power.

Like a necromagical thunderbolt, the answer hit her.

“Fletcher,” she screamed, her voice cracking with strain, “do you have a knife?”

“I have my switchblade,” he called back. Khyvette tilted her head to him. He’d been shooting arrows, staving off the necrocrelai while she waged her internal battle.

“I need you to stab me. Dig the blade between my scales, hard enough to draw blood.”

Fletcher’s face turned ashen. His glowing eyes locked on hers. Though her mindcloak remained in place, they needed no telepathy to communicate in that moment. He didn’t question her request—he trusted her.

She did not deserve the trust of a creature so innocent.

Biting his lip, Fletcher drew his switchblade from his pocket. Flicking it open, he worked its point between the scalloped edges of her scales. She hissed as the metal bit into her.

“Now you draw blood,” she instructed him. She tried to focus on her bondmate, but behind him, she saw the maw of the Rift widening with hunger. That sight drove all else from her mind.

Fletcher obediently sliced his palm. Without her instructing him to do so—perhaps putting two and two together on his own—he laid his bleeding hand against the wound on her back.

The moment his blood touched hers, the Etherworld’s pull lessened. With the last of her strength, Khyvette gave a mighty flap and broke away from the Rift’s dark magnetism.

“Yes,” cried Fletcher, relief flooding his voice. “But how—?”

“The blood of a bondmate can transcend the laws of magic,” she panted.

Valemagic ran through both their veins now. It had connected them, and though she could not wield it, their bond itself had intrinsic power. Bonding to Fletcher had freed her from the hive-mind; it stood to reason it could free her from other things, too.

She dropped her mindcloak and sent waves of gratitude to her human.

thought Fletcher, dabbing at her wound with a handkerchief, mopping up her purplish blood.

she replied,

She sensed Fletcher scrunching his nose.

she conceded, swooping low over their army.

She felt Fletcher mulling it over, weighing the benefits.

“Commander-General Caelburn, Khyvette has an idea,” he said aloud. Without a communication ring of her own, Khyvette couldn’t hear the response, but as she listened to Fletcher detailing her plan, she sensed an echo of excitement building in his chest.

he thought.

Khyvette backwinged and stretched out her hind legs, landing behind the World Alliance lines, just south of the dwarves’ heavy artillery units.

she replied, hiding a smile as she scanned the formation and picked out three small figures approaching. G’shídrian, the phoenix lord, soared toward her. Roxanne ran behind him. Effrax was with her, practically glued to her side.

“So, it’s happening?” Roxanne said in a breathless voice when she reached them. “We’re freeing Valaan?”

G’shídrian shrilled an exultant cry, sparks trailing from his brilliant plumage as he circled her and Effrax.

“We’re going to free all the Allentrian guardians,” Khyvette announced.

Except one.

Shivnath was a lost cause—but the gods of fire, water, and airmagic might yet be saved. And that, she knew, might make all the difference in the war.

“Lord G’shídrian, I believe you and Roxanne identified a spot in the Fironem where the Rift had widened, where you sensed Valaan’s presence seeping through?”

We have, thought G’shídrian. As he and Khyvette were both mages, they could communicate telepathically, despite the fact that they used different magical frequencies to speak.

“We scouted that location with Keriya,” said Roxanne, “but the Rift wasn’t visible.”

“I’m willing to bet that’s changed.” Khyvette glanced at the western skies, where dark, sparkling tendrils undulated. “Think of these rips like fault lines. The shadowtroops created a massive seismic quake here. If there were already fractures in the fabric of reality where you scouted, those will have widened substantially.”

G’shídrian hooted in agreement. Roxanne cracked her knuckles and shook out her wrists. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

“We will have to do some careful planning before we proceed,” said Khyvette. “Once you cross over—”

“I assume this is the meeting for the Etherworld,” a voice interrupted, rising above the clamor. Khyvette looked around to see Viran jogging up to her, holding a stitch on the left side of his stomach.

“It is,” she said, “but do you think it’s wise for you to come?”

“What task is more important than this?”

“There’s a platoon of Jidaelni snipers out there,” said Fletcher.

“And I do not have commanding power over them,” Viran replied in a cool voice. “On this battlefield, I’m just a soldier. If I join you in the Etherworld, I can make a difference. When Keriya returns, she’ll be ready to summon Necrovar and kill him. My primary objective is to ensure Allentria is as strong as possible before that confrontation.”

Khyvette admired his unwavering loyalty to Keriya. It was rare to see a creature so utterly devoted—present company excluded, of course. She would do anything for Fletcher, as he would for her. But, as they’d proven, bonds were transcendental in their power.

“Well, if he’s doing it for Keriya,” said Roxanne, crossing her arms and wiggling her eyebrows at Viran, “we’d better not get in his way.”

Viran’s cheeks darkened. “I can help you—”

“Good gods, man, learn to take a joke,” drawled Effrax, a lopsided smile tugging at his lips. “We won’t say no to the extra help. If you want to enter a different dimension where Necrovar himself just so happens to be taking a vacation, that’s your business.”

“We should return to Noryk and gather provisions,” said Khyvette. “Time is of the essence. The shadowtroops have now failed to summon Necrovar twice. We don’t know how long our luck will hold.”

“I’ll return and open the main teleportal,” Fletcher offered, raising his b****y hand and switchblade.

he thought to Khyvette, touching the tip of the blade to the crimson wound on his right palm.

He vanished in a flash, the enchanted weapon returning him to the portal’s home base in the Imperial City.

Khyvette, who’d been flying high on the energy of her plan, felt her stomach drop. She was sending Fletcher’s friends on a deadly mission, and she couldn’t tell them half the truths about the Etherworld. Its secrets were entwined in valemagic, and valemagic fettered her soul.

And the Dragon Empress held the chains.

You shouldn’t be thanking me, she thought to herself as the pearly shimmer of the portal emerged behind her, revealing Fletcher’s hopeful face. With my silence, I betray you.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN“That which seems impossible is only yet to be achieved.”

~ Eltanin Izorus, Fourth Age

Roxanne stood before the teleportal dais, laden with bags. G’shídrian perched on her shoulder, offering warmth and comfort in the winter dawn.

“You have your provisions?” asked Fletcher, peering at her over the tops of his glasses.

She turned, showing off her stuffed knapsack. “Check.”

“Filtered water?”

“Check.”

“Evasometer?”

“Check.” Roxanne held up the prototype Gavoch had invented last autumn: a compass that pointed toward high concentrations of magical energy.

“And you know what you’re doing when you reach the Etherworld?”

“We’ll wing it,” Effrax said before she could respond, waving a carefree hand. “That’s always worked for us, hasn’t it?”

“What this lunatic means,” growled Roxanne, “is that G’shídrian will track Valaan. Once we find Valaan, he can help us track the other gods. When that’s done, we lead them home.”

Their plan was on the flimsy side, but she didn’t want to voice her negativity. She trusted G’shídrian would steer them true, without question.

It was the coming home part that made her gut twist with nerves.

“To be fair,” said Effrax, perhaps guessing the nature of her thoughts, “we’ve come up with way worse plans in the past, and those all worked out fine.”