Page 237 of Of Empires and Dust
“Didn’t see it coming,” Lyin choked, his helmet receding into his armour. He puffed out his cheeks. “Fucking hurts.”
“Stop talking.” Arden kicked open the door and charged down the hall, his steps echoing, people stopping and staring.
“Never.” Lyrin coughed.
“Lyrin, stop fucking talking.” Arden twisted as he stepped between two priests. “Get out of the way!”
Lyrin grunted. “I’m just happy I got to see a dragon.” He coughed, blood sprinkling his lips. “Fucking gods. Why does nobody tell you how much dying hurts?”
“You’re not dying. Now shut your mouth.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m dying.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you.”
Lyrin coughed a bloody laugh, his lips curling into a weak smile. “Don’t look so sad, big guy. At least you’ll not have to put up with any more jokes.” His breathing grew heavy and laboured, his face twisting in pain. “It was an honour.”
“Just hold on.” Arden charged through the temple’s corridors and burst into the Tranquil Garden. He could see the glowing waters of Heraya’s Well ahead. “We’re here, we’re…”
Arden looked down, and there, in that moment, Lyrin was gone, his eyes empty, his head lolling.
A wave of loss pulsed from Arden’s Sigil and swept through him. Lyrin’s Sentinel armour turned to liquid and flowed back over his body, returning to the Sigil in his chest.
Arden stood in the garden with his friend’s body in his arms, the black blade protruding from a bloody tunic.
Watchers, and priests, and porters crowded around him, flooding into the garden.
Heraya’s Well was so close… They had almost made it.
“Why didn’t you shut your mouth?” Arden whispered.
“Brother Arden,” Gildrick called, grasping Arden’s arm, panic in his voice. “You must hurry, he doesn’t…”
Arden shook his head, and Gildrick’s voice faded. He clenched his jaw so tight he thought his teeth might snap, and then he pulled Lyrin’s body closer.
Chapter 53
Stone by Stone
18thDay of the Blood Moon
Cuinviel, formerly Catagan – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
“I am you,and you are me.” Salara closed her eyes as she pressed her forehead to Vyrmír’s scales, pulling their minds together and looking out over the world with his eyes. The landscape sharpened, and every scent grew more pungent and crisper. She could feel Vyrmír’s mighty heart beating – their heart – their blood hot as molten steel.
“Aer vailír, myia’nära.”
Be free, my light.
The dragon didn’t need another word. He dropped past the treeline and swept over the ground with the speed of a shooting star. He banked right as he came to a herd of deer being stalked by a pride of black lions. The same lions from which the Lorians had taken their sigil.
Vyrmír twisted sharply and swooped onto the largest of the animals, with a mane thick as a dark cloud and a body that rippled with muscle. It was a fierce thing, a powerful thing. But to Vyrmír it may as well have been a sheep. He snatched the lion in his talons and ripped the creature in half, carving clean through the flesh and bone alike.
When the Lorian Kingdom had first been born, the old Lorians had taken the black lion as their sigil for its ferocity and beauty both. The black lions were twice the size of those found in the South, powerful predators with territories that ranged for hundreds of miles. Salara had spent many hours on dragonback admiring them in her youth, which was why she wished she did not hate the sight of them so. Another – if smaller – thing the Lorians had taken from her.
Vyrmír tossed one half of the lion carcass into the air, then snatched it in his jaws and choked it down, blood sprinkling the wind. He kept the upper half of the body in his left talon as they flew.
Salara saw the city through Vyrmír’s eyes from miles away: Catagan, or Cuinviel as it had once been known and now was again. Much had already been rebuilt by the Craftsmages, though not in the image of what the Lorians had turned it into. The sight almost reminded her of before the Cuendyar.
