Dragon Empress

Chapter 37

“You shouldn’t be here,” Fletcher hissed in the draconic tongue so no one else would understand.

“I can fight—”

“And what will happen when people notice you aren’t wielding?” Khyvette asked. “The shadowtroops’ fear of your power may be the only thing keeping them from razing the continent.”

Fletcher winced. He knew Khyvette hadn’t meant to offend, but Keriya’s magic—or lack thereof—was an old and touchy subject. Implying that her only value stemmed from her power was sure to rub her the wrong way.

“I can still help,” Keriya argued. “Give me orders. I’m a good soldier.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Keriya, I say this with all the love in my heart, but you are a terrible soldier.” He held her glowering gaze, willing her to relent. She had a history of straying from orders to seek out dangerous conflicts alone—a fact she knew as well as he did.

“Forward march!” called Stormleaf.

“Stay,” Fletcher implored her one last time, while he thought to Khyvette,

Khyvette flattened her wings to her sides as she snaked through the teleportal. Danisan put a protective arm around Fletcher’s shoulders, and they ducked beneath the ceiling of the enchantment.

They arrived at the southern outskirts of Oravel. Wind wrapped around them, and Khyvette spread her wings to catch it. Deep snow drifts hindered her as she launched. She wobbled briefly in the air before speeding north.

Oravel overlooked a wide, curved bay. Its buildings nestled into cliffs and straddled rocky bluffs. Elaborate stone bridges stretched from the mainland to massive karst formations in the sea, where perched more towers.

Legions of shadowtroops clumped around a fishing port at the base of the cliffs, but the city had rallied its defenses. Dwarf-made cannons thundered combustible projectiles onto the invaders. One stray cannonball struck a bridge and erupted on impact, sending a cloud of flame billowing outward.

thought Khyvette.

But wielding was more and more becoming a risky business. Though the negative effects of entropy had abated, first with the freeing of the Allentrian guardians, then with Keriya’s return to reality, Khyvette still struggled to weave spells. So did the rest of her kin—a side effect of their valemagic, no doubt.

she asked.

Fletcher protested feebly.

Fletcher couldn’t argue, not against the low, plaintive edge in her mindvoice. He leaned low against her neck and sent her a wave of steady, warm confidence. Closing his eyes, he imagined he could feel the threads of enigmatic, arcane magic connecting them. As one, the two of them embraced their sources. Painful energy crackled in his chest, barely contained by his ribs.

“Wield true and fly well,” he whispered in the draconic tongue.

Khyvette spat a thin beam of light at the enemy, carving a line through the far-off figures. Fletcher watched as pitch-black forms exploded into clouds of obsidian dust.

With the element of surprise lost, Khyvette arrowed into a dive. Fletcher pulled his bow and an arrow from his quiver. He nocked it and drew the bowstring back to his left cheek, sighting on a necrocrelai who wielded shadowy lashes against the humans on shore.

He loosed, and his arrow met its mark. It combusted on impact, and the necrocrelai burst apart. Khyvette shot through the remnants of the fiery blast, and then they were in the thick of the fight. She relied on her physical weapons, Fletcher noted, rather than her magic. She tore with tooth and talon, dodging retaliatory attacks with the sort of grace only a dragon could exhibit.

“I will be more help on the ground,” Danisan whispered in Fletcher’s ear.

He glanced worriedly over his shoulder. “Can you wield well enough?”

“Yes. My source stabilized after Keriya’s return. I can manage this.”

Fletcher nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”

They’d fallen into the habit of saying that during peaceful times. It now sounded like hubris rather than tenderness. Still, Danisan’s eyes crinkled with affection. Then he turned to shadow, drifting away to help the city soldiers.

Fletcher thought. He served as Khyvette’s second pair of eyes and ears in battle. He had only failed once in all his time as her defender—that had been in the Port Cinder fight against Ashétyn. Because of his weakness, the shadowtroops had hurt Khyvette and stolen her blood.

I won’t let her get hurt again.

Khyvette banked, dodging the approaching demon. Lightning fast, Fletcher fired another arrow. It caught the necrocrelai in the chest, and a surge of heat blasted toward them as both arrow and demon exploded.

Fletcher thought.

she thought, her glowing eyes scanning the coast.

Khyvette raised her wings, tucking Fletcher into a cocoon as she rolled in the air to avoid a shadowy bolt of magic. It was a maneuver they’d practiced so often that the two of them fell into it seamlessly.

she continued.

Fletcher thought, his mindvoice bitter.

Fletcher didn’t respond—he’d spotted an incoming demon. He drew another arrow and loosed it, destroying his target in a great burst of flame.

Why did the shadowtroops choose this place? he wondered. Oravel is tiny. They wouldn’t bother to disperse darksalm here. There’s not enough people to make it worthwhile.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a massive explosion, unlike anything Fletcher had experienced in years, shook the world.

Khyvette jerked in midair, whipping around to face the coast. Adjusting his glasses, Fletcher saw that a black fire had erupted near the port, its flames roaring outwards to consume its surroundings. An avalanche of snow, rock, and buildings collapsed from the overlooking cliffs, dislodged by the violent upheaval.

“Danisan!” he screamed, heart hammering in his throat.

“Here,” came a soft voice through his ring. “Safe.”

Fletcher let a shaky breath through his teeth and sent a foolish prayer of thanks to Shivnath. He couldn’t help it—it was habit.

“Whatever you do, stay away from those flames,” Fletcher told the elf.

“I will,” Danisan promised.

Fletcher nodded to himself, mesmerized by the fire. It didn’t seem to be spreading, perhaps because of the snow.

“All officers on comms, this is General Stormleaf. I’m requesting immediate backup at Oravel. We have our first confirmed darksalm hit!”

Fletcher told Khyvette, still squinting at the inferno.

In response, she beat her wings and propelled herself toward the lightless fire, slashing at a stray necrocrelai as she flew.

“Not you, Earengale,” Stormleaf added. “You stay back. We cannot risk exposing you or Khyvette!”

Fletcher didn’t respond. Now that his initial punch of horror had worn off, he was paying closer attention to the raging obsidian flames. There was something . . . unnatural about them. And not just because of the darksalm, which was an abomination against nature.

he thought, laying a palm against Khyvette’s neck.

she replied, perhaps picking up on his internal musings.

Fletcher tilted his head in consternation as Khyvette dodged another necrocrelai and banked along the coast, coming up on the port. He suspected he was the only one in this battle who’d ever actually seen darksalm fire.

And it hadn’t looked like this.

Memories rippled back to him—memories long submerged, eclipsed by newer, fresher traumas. The acrid smell of the inferno, like ash and death. The sour taste of the wind, like curdled hatred. The terrifying sight of the fire, devouring all in its path . . .

It had not been purely pitch-black. There had been real flames amidst those tainted with necromagic. The fire in the Galantrian Village had been a vehicle for the darksalm, a method of dispersion.

Fletcher thought to Khyvette.

Drawing icy air into his lungs to help himself focus, Fletcher delved into his consciousness and reconnected to his source. Energy pulsed between them like a heartbeat, joining their souls with coursing currents of power.

“You can do this,” he told her, willing the universe to make it so.

Khyvette spat a thin beam of light into the center of the flames. Tongues of darkness winked out around the point of impact, but otherwise her spell had no effect.

Fletcher scrunched his nose as he squinted through the snowstorm.

Khyvette returned grimly.

He finished the thought for her. The unease stirring in his chest intensified.

“General Stormleaf,” Fletcher began, “the darksalm fire isn’t—”

CRACK!

Fletcher screamed as black lightning flashed—not from the sky, but from the sea. It happened too fast, erupted too quickly for his human eye to register, and he couldn’t warn her in time. Her draconic reflexes kicked in and she tried to dodge, but too late. The necromagic grazed her underbelly, and Fletcher hissed as an echo of her pain seared his stomach.

Khyvette rolled sideways in the air. Fletcher clung to one of her pearly bone spikes. The horizon rotated, land and sea and sky becoming a nauseating blur.

CRACK!

It would never have happened, Fletcher thought, if they’d been well-rested and on top of their game, if entropy hadn’t been such a disorienting factor. Another necromagical bolt struck before Khyvette could right herself, hitting her full in the chest.

Instead of pain, Fletcher sensed only a faint sense of numb shock through the bond. Her sides heaved. Her wings stilled.

Then she began to fall.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR“A river may bend, but never does it break.”

~ Galantrian Folk Saying

“All officers on comms, this is General Stormleaf. I’m requesting immediate backup at Oravel. We have our first confirmed darksalm hit!”

Seba’s heart surged into a panicked gallop at the announcement. From her vantage point on the Noryk side of the portal, she couldn’t see the explosion—but she heard it.

A vision so vivid it might as well have been a foresight hit her. The Galantrian Village swam before her eyes, ravaged by the darksalm bomb. Her first battle of the Shadow War. The night her life had changed.

“What’s happening? What was that?”

Seba drew a breath that did nothing to nourish her lungs, and looked to her right. Keriya crouched at the edge of the portal, staring at Oravel with haunted eyes. She was off comms, so she hadn’t heard Stormleaf’s cry.

“Darksalm,” Seba replied.

Keriya’s pallid face lost what little color it had.

Seba began pacing. Back and forth she strode along the lip of the dais, never taking her eyes off the city. Dread charred her innards, as sure as fire charred the coast.

“I hate this,” Keriya snapped, standing abruptly. “I have to help.”