Page 359 of Of Empires and Dust
Fire and fury.
Tivar and Avandeer swerved in the air and drew level with them.
“Laël val du, akar!” Tivar roared.
I’m with you, brother!
The two dragons descended on Seleraine together. Avandeer fell upon her from the top, talons slicing into the blue dragon’s back. She snapped at Voranur, who sat at the nape of Seleraine’s neck, but the man sent arcs of lightning streaking backwards.
Valerys took advantage of Voranur’s distraction to fold his wings and crash into Seleraine’s exposed belly, biting down into the dragon’s throat, blood flowing into his open mouth. Varthear surged forwards to make the killing blow, only for the hulking form of Karakes to crash into her mid-flight.
The enormous red dragon tore strips through one of Varthear’s wings, hooking her leg with a talon and swinging her through the air. Varthear snapped back and gave a vicious swingof her head, a black horn piercing Karakes’s side. The dragon let out a shriek that sent a shiver through Calen’s spine as he went hurtling through the air on Valerys’s back.
Valerys, Seleraine, and Avandeer spun and flipped, talons slicing, jaws snapping, and blood flowing. In the madness, Calen lost sight of Varthear and Karakes, his head spinning. The Spark pulsed in the air, flashes of lightning igniting the sky.
The world spun, wings flapping. He saw smoke.
Valerys shrieked as Voranur pushed threads of Earth into his bones and scales. The dragon’s pain turned to fury, and Valerys unleashed a torrent of fire over Voranur, causing Seleraine to thrash and roar. The Draleid had created a ward just in time to part the flames, but as he did, Calen pushed threads of Fire and Spirit into him, roaring. Images of Valerys’s bones twisting and snapping flitted through Calen’s mind, and rage like no other took him over.
He poured every ounce of his strength, his hatred, his fury, and his pain into the threads. Voranur pushed back, the air swirling about them, the world spinning as the dragons tore at each other across the sky, but Tivar joined her strength to Calen’s, her threads winding around his.
Calen pulled from his memories, feeding on the searing images of the death and destruction Voranur had wrought at Aravell, of how his lightning had torn through Onymia’s chest, sending the small grey dragon tumbling to the earth. Of how, one by one, he had witnessed each of the Rakina dragons fall, bellies torn open, scales cracked, bodies ravaged.
Valerys’s rage swirled through him, the bond burning with white-hot fire. And as they spun and Voranur pushed back with every shred of power he had, Calen drew threads of Air through himself. A cracked blue scale drifted in the sky beside him, blood streaming in its wake. He wrapped the threads around the scale and launched it like an arrow.
The scale sliced through the flesh of Voranur’s neck, and for a moment, the elf’s eyes bulged and his mouth gaped open, blood pouring over his lips. Voranur’s head separated from his body, and Seleraine let out a wail that froze even Calen’s heart.
It was the cry of a soul being broken, the cry of a love shattered and a lifetime ended. But Valerys didn’t share in Calen’s sorrow. The dragon was all rage and fury. He rent Seleraine’s chest, talons slicing through the scales of the blue dragon’s underbelly. He kicked again and again, blood spraying into the wind, Seleraine’s innards spilling. As she thrashed and roared, he crunched his jaws around her wing and ripped it free, that fury burning like the sun within him.
Memories flooded their shared mind from the Battle of Aravell: Seleraine’s talons raking Valerys’s side, her jaws coming inches from ripping Calen in half, her fire pouring over the city.
This dragon would have killed his soulkin in a heartbeat, would have torn him apart, broken the bond, just like she had done to so many others across the centuries. There was no mercy in Valerys’s heart for Seleraine and Voranur. Not a shred, not a drop – none. He crunched the bones in her severed wing and released it into the air.
As the dragon fell, Voranur’s headless body slowly spinning alongside it, a roar sounded above them.
Karakes had separated from Varthear and was hurtling towards Calen and Valerys. Still fuelled with rage, Valerys cracked his wings and rose to meet him.
At the same time, Avandeer turned in the air and unleashed a pillar of dragonfire.
But Karakes never reached either of them.
Aldryn didn’t let out a roar. He barely gave a sound. The massive dragon burst from the dark clouds above, dropping with a speed the likes of which Calen had not thought possible for a creature so large. At the last moment, he unfurled his goldenwings and hammered into Karakes’s side, ripping him from the air.
Coren and Aldrynmoved as one, their talons burying deep into Karakes’s side, their fury an all-consuming thing. They bit down into Karakes’s jaw, feeling scales snap and bones break, the sweet taste of blood on their tongue.
This was the dragon who had torn Syndril from the world, the dragon who had broken Farwen, the dragon who did not deserve to simply die but to feel the agony and pain Syndril felt. They had waited centuries for this moment.
When Aldryn and Karakes had first met in the sky over the old city of Mythavelion, Aldryn had been half the size of the older dragon. He had been but an adolescent, his fire little more than the flickering flame of a candle. But now he was larger by far, and the years had forged him into a warrior, into a dragon that had war in his veins. More than once, he had strayed from his isolation at the sight of a lone Dragonguard, and he had littered Epheria’s coast with their bones. Even still, his hunger for vengeance had not been sated, nor would it be until every last one of the Dragonguard were broken and shattered.
As Karakes thrashed and kicked, Aldryn held him in place, biting down harder, gouging flesh and scales from his chest. From Karakes’s back, Lyina lashed out with threads of each elemental strand. Fire plumed through the sky, arcs of lightning streaking. The woman drove threads of Earth into Aldryn’s bones and tried to pull the breath from Coren’s lungs with threads of Air. But her panic left her vulnerable, and Coren returned her onslaught tenfold.
Tears streamed down Coren’s face, flowing freely and vanishing into the wind. Farwen was gone. The only family she had left. She and Aldryn were alone now. And these traitors had taken everything from her.
Memories from a time long ago drifted through her mind of Farwen’s master, Dylain, in the northern hatchery tower, broken, his Soulkin, Soria, ripped from the sky.
“Keep her safe, Coren. Kollna has always spoken highly of you.”
“I tried,” Coren whispered. “We kept each other safe. For as long as we could.”
