Dragon Oracle Urban Fantasy Boxed Set (Dragon Oracle Complete Series: Books 1 - 9)

by Jada Fisher

  I closed my eyes for a moment, picturing the energy inside of me spreading out under her feet. I let it build up, burning hot and bright in my mind, imagining it pushing up and protecting her from a hard fall higher and higher until she was exactly where she was supposed to land.

  And then, with a quick prayer to anyone who was watching, I let all that go.

  I opened my eyes as I did and sure enough, I saw a bubble of my magic rocket ahead, pushing Sokhanya up, up, up right as Faeldrus descended.

  She was going too fast; he was moving too quickly. There was no way it could work! It couldn’t—

  But then she jumped, sailing through the air and colliding with his head. She grabbed one of his horns with her free hand, and even dangling there, her feet didn’t even reach his jaw. He was just so big. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like it was playing out in slow motion.

  Was this her ability? Defying probability? Being able to exploit weakness? Incredible luck? I suppose I didn’t have a way of knowing. But if we won, maybe we could experiment and see just how her magic would grow.

  I watched, jaw hanging open, as she let go of the horn and fell. An unintelligible scream left my mouth, but a second later, she was stabbing the pen into Faeldrus’s eye, dragging it down with her weight until it lodged into the bottom of his orbital lobe.

  The roar he let out was truly monstrous and he pulled up while shrieking, his whole body shaking and seizing. Sokhanya went flying, but I couldn’t even call up a shield before Bronn caught her in the softer fold of his wing and let her slide to the ground.

  She landed in a crouch as blood rained from above. Instead of being red, as one would expect, it was a thick and viscous sort of shining blue.

  Weird.

  Faeldrus was still screaming and thrashing in the air. Sokhanya ran to me, grinning like a madman, but my eyes were just on Bronn.

  Did… Did he look bigger?

  “What is this!? This isn’t possible!” Faeldrus writhed more, his giant claws holding his face. His cries were truly awful, but I didn’t let them touch me. “I can’t be hurt!”

  “Like you said,” I cried, summoning another shield and coating Bronn in it. Yeah, he definitely was bigger. More powerful. I could feel it against my teeth and fingertips. “I’m full of surprises.”

  Taking a deep breath, I reached down into the new magic in me. The bright and shining but intimidating well of power that connected me to our entire history. It burned through me like wildfire, but it also felt like it was exactly where it belonged. Opening myself to it as much as I could, I asked it to guide me—to help me protect my people and let us flourish.

  And just like that, Maedryell’s giant scythe appeared in front of me, smoking slightly with that gray mist of hers. I reached out for it, never breaking eye-contact with Faeldrus’s bleeding face. As my fingers wrapped around it, I realized that it wasn’t Maedryell’s scythe at all.

  It was mine.

  “You… You… What is happening?! The curse can’t be broken. It’s impossible.”

  “You’re right,” I said, letting the peace and power of it flow over me. Those bonds that had snatched up my destiny, tied me enterally to our people, flared up at the idea that the beast in front of us was threatening our future. They caressed me, encouraging me to end the threat so I could guide all our lost souls. “It can’t be broken.”

  That same magic lifted me up and it felt as natural as breathing, even if the air around me was filling with gentle tendrils of gray smoke. The higher I rose, the more I felt the new magic rush through me, filling every cell until I was so much more than the sum of my parts.

  “Only taken away.”

  “You— You— Impossible!”

  “Clearly not.”

  “But there must be a broken seer and her dragon. This doesn’t—”

  A snarl sounded from Bronn and he rushed from where he had wheeled around, swooping under me so that I settled naturally on his neck. Oh yeah, he was definitely almost twice his previous size, my thighs barely able to stretch enough to give me purchase.

  “Oh, I have my dragon, alright,” I said, feeling the heartbreak of every ancestor I’d ever had who had suffered pain at his hands. Feeling the loss, the terror, and the rage. All of it coursed through me, demanding justice. Demanding recompense.

  And who was I to deny them?

  “It just isn’t you.”

  Faeldrus let out a screech unbefitting a dragon of his station and rushed down, his blood still dribbling from his wound. But I was ready for him. My muscles moved with the ease of practice they shouldn’t even have, swinging my scythe around and cutting into the soft, leathery flesh of his wing.

  Bronn didn’t remain idle, reaching up, his jaws snapping at the other wing too. He managed a good bite before a cloud of acidic green burst from Faeldrus’s skin.

  I remembered the cloying smoke of his entrance and how it had melted the earth, how it had burned my lungs while I tried to drag Mallory to safety. Quickly, I called a shield up not just around us, but over everyone below me.

  Which turned out to be the best thing I could have done, because as my protective magic rolled over them, I could feel them all connect to me, willing their power into me. It was a dizzying rush, especially with everything else happening inside of me, but it was welcome and fueled me that much further.

  Because we were one. All of us, them and me, the dead and the living, working together to bring down the evil that had been haunting us for more centuries than we could count.

  Faeldrus shrieked again, backing out of the acidic cloud. He was bleeding once more, but this time from his two wounds on either wing. I could tell he was struggling to turn and rise with the same speed as before. And, I couldn’t be exactly sure, but it looked like he was getting…

  Smaller.

  Another roar from him, fire arching out of his mouth, but there was something off about it. The flames were blue instead of red and moved in jerking, leaping strikes. I brought up a shield, trying to cover both Bronn and I, but was taken off guard before I could completely cover us.

  The flames hit and they hit hard, not like fire at all. Instead, it was like a solid wall of electricity, biting into us while slamming us backward.

  It physically lifted me off Bronn, and I found myself falling. I tried to right myself, but I hit the ground with full force.

  …then passed right through to the opposite side, where the burned out and ruined city was.

  “Huh?” I looked at my hand and feet to see that they were smoking, but not from myself. It was that same white-green color that revolved around Faeldrus’s magic. The color of infection. But other than the smoke, I was standing there, on unbroken ground, completely fine.

  “This is bizarre.” I scrunched my fingers, and the smoke disappeared in a couple softening waves. Taking a deep breath, I jumped up in the air and pictured myself moving right back to where I was supposed to be.

  And just like I hoped, it worked. I popped through the other side just in time to see Bronn dragging Faeldrus upwards, the rotted dragon’s tail firmly clamped in the prince’s mouth.

  Yup, Faeldrus was definitely smaller. And Bronn was bigger. And it was very clear where the battle was headed.

  Holy crap, were we winning?!

  It was such a foreign feeling after so much loss, all stacked on top of each other, and that was when the scythe suddenly popped back into my hands. I wasn’t sure where it had gone or how I’d called it, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain.

  No, not going to complain at all. Instead, I pushed off the ground and floated up again, feeling so connected to everything. I could feel the heartbeats of my companions. I could feel the vast, stretching history of our kind rooting me on. I kept rising until I was even with Faeldrus’s face.

  And what a sight that was. I’d never seen the dragon look truly panicked or in pain, but that was certainly how he seemed at the moment, eyes wide and red-rimmed, drool falling from his open, panting
mouth. Did he have less teeth? It seemed like he had less teeth. In fact, everything about him seemed lesser.

  “This is only temporary,” he snarled at me, trying to rip himself from Bronn’s grip but only succeeding in further injuring his wing. “You think you can stop me, but I am endless. I am undefeatable.”

  “See, the way I see it, you got by on being tricky enough to not get caught. And then after you were caught, you got by on my ancestors not having a way to kill you outright. You knew that Maedryell could defeat you from the beginning, and that’s why you targeted her, stole her destiny and wrapped it up in yours.

  “But she’s free now, and I’m the one who’s here, and all of your freeriding is going to end.”

  That mental voice of his turned reedy, the oily nature of it drying up in his panic. I didn’t let him finish, instead bringing my scythe up and bringing it point-down into his head.

  A violent end, or at least it would have been if anything about our situation was normal. But instead of the blade cutting through his skull, it seemed to just slice through air. Suddenly, Faeldrus was gone and there was a human falling to the ground below us.

  Wait… What?

  I blinked, watching in shock as the body fell, slamming into the ground with a sound somewhere between a thump and a squelch. Bronn and I looked to each other, both confused, before we both slowly lowered ourselves to the ground.

  “You…” the body groaned, voice low and raspy. It was a man, dressed in robes that looked quite strange. There was a trickle of blood from both his nose and his mouth, as well as more spreading out below him, but it was all crimson red. Strange, since I absolutely recognized the crumpled form as none other than Faeldrus from my vision.

  Before he was a dragon.

  “Me,” I answered, crouching and looking him over. Huh. He really was a mess. I could hear my friends approaching as well, until we were surrounding him.

  Bizarre… Our greatest, most terrifying enemy—the one that had haunted my dreams for years—really was just an average man underneath it all.

  Huh.

  “T-this isn’t over,” he hissed, a bubbling sound issuing from his throat. Was he drowning? That almost seemed too quick a way for him to go. How many people had he tortured and hurt? Some part of me, a dark and angry part, wanted him to hurt like they had.

  “Actually, it is,” I said with a surprising amount of calm in my voice. “You’ve been running from death for so long, but that’s over now.”

  Suddenly, he reared forward, tackling me and sending me backward. It was just about the last thing I expected considering how utterly battered he’d looked, but I wasn’t worried. As soon as my back hit the ground, both Mal and Krisjian were on him, one kicking him to the side while the other dove behind him so that the bleeding man tripped over them.

  Magic crackled between the seer’s hands, blue and bright, but he didn’t have a chance to do anything before Mal jumped onto his back, driving elbows into his head while Krisjian kicked him right in the crotch as hard as he could.

  Whew. Trust a street rat to fight with no holds barred.

  I knew I could end it—Bronn probably did too—but I recognized that the same burning need for justice that burned within me was also in my friends. So, I just stood back, letting them do what they would.

  The man stumbled back, cursing, and he sent out a small wave of magic that pushed away both of his attackers. That only worked for a moment, however, because then Mickey put her hands on the ground and let out a terrifying scream.

  Crystal burst up in response, the same kind that had encased her and the guards all that time ago. It raced forward, attacking Faeldrus and coating his legs up to his knees. He kicked out of it, of course, but then Sokhanya leapt onto his back just like Mal had. Her tactics were a bit different, however. Instead of elbowing him in his bleeding head, she bent down and bit his ear.

  Oh… That was…something.

  He screamed, he cursed, but then Princeton was coming forward and punching him across the face. Then the older woman was hitting him with a large branch she got from who knew where.

  He tried to fight them, but there was nothing he could do. In just a minute or so, he was surrounded. Each oracle was getting their hits in, some shouting about the people he had hurt, some crying, and some completely silent.

  It ended with Mickey and Krisjian holding his arms down.

  “I think it’s time we end this,” I finally said, walking forward. The others parted for me as I approached him, straddling his chest and sitting down. And intimidating position, sure, but I wanted to get at his heart.

  “You can kill me, but I’ll just find the way back. That’s always been my ability, don’t you see? I’m relentless.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. But if I’ve learned anything, the best way to stop something from hurting others is to just lock it away forever.”

  “They tried that before,” he hissed, his bloody teeth bared at me. Funny how once that would have been plenty terrifying for me, but now it was mostly just…pathetic. “I’ll find a way out.”

  “You misunderstand my meaning,” I answered, wiping his spittle off my face. “They locked you away as a whole, let you continue to be who you are. I don’t intend to make the same mistake.”

  “I—”

  I pressed my hand to his chest, feeling it flutter under my palm. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply and just allowed myself to feel.

  It wasn’t exactly easy, rooting around in him, pressing through his defenses and his still-fizzling magic. I’d never done something like that before, but the new magic inside me made me feel like I could do anything. Or at least anything when it came to protecting my people.

  I couldn’t say how long it took, or quite how nauseous I got digging through his mind and his soul, but eventually, I was able to gather up the core of both him and his magic. Everything that made him him, everything that set him apart and drove him to do what he did.

  And then I yanked it out.

  The sound he let out was truly horrifying, but I didn’t let it shake me. Instead, I concentrated, giving the magic a physical form in my head.

  “Davie?”

  “Shh!”

  I couldn’t be distracted. I straightened, pulling my hand higher above his chest. Sure enough, a small, blindingly-blue orb crackled through the air, floating up like a shining beacon.

  Green-and-white mist oozed from it, however, making it seem about as sick as I felt.

  “No…” Faeldrus gasped breathlessly below me. “You can’t do this. It’s not… It is forbidden. That’s… That’s my soul.”

  “I don’t care,” I said flatly, not opening my eyes.

  “You can’t destroy it. It’s impossible. You can scatter it to any edge of the universe, but I’ll come back together. I always do.”

  “I’m not going to destroy it.”

  “Then what—”

  One last deep breath and I gripped the ball with my bare hand, ignoring how it shocked and bit at me. With all the strength I had, I brought it to my own chest and pushed it inside of me.

  Ow. Ow. It burned. It tore at me. I felt it try to grab my magic and try to order it as it pleased, but I didn’t let it. Instead those same bonds that newly fettered me rose and wrapped around the orb, winding around it over and over until it was completely covered and yanked down someplace deep within me. Someplace even I couldn’t reach.

  And there he would stay…until I was able to absorb all of it into myself, digesting him just like he’d digested my arm.

  “I…I…” Faeldrus’s face quickly grew pale, his thick hair thinning and graying, wrinkles appearing along his skin. It was like thousands of years hit him all at once, and I watched as his body truly rotted right in front of us.

  It was gruesome, it was macabre, but I made myself watch the consequence of my actions: teeth browning, rotting, falling away; his lips drying, then cracking; his nails growing long and yellow. Then, barely a few moments
later, he was just a husk. A moment after that, a skeleton. And then, finally, dust.

  Faded to nothing, Faeldrus was well and truly gone.

  11

  Lackluster Clean-up

  No one said anything for a long while. We all just stood there, looking at the spot where Faeldrus had died. His end wasn’t so different from Maedryell’s, in the sense that both ended up as dust, and yet they couldn’t have been more different. I didn’t think any of us were quite prepared for what we’d witnessed. I certainly hadn’t known that I would tear out his soul and lock it so deep within me that he would never be able to reconstitute himself.

  It was Bronn who moved first. One moment, we were just standing there, silent in our victory, and the next, steam was filling the area. Another beat later, Bronn was striding up to me and sweeping me into a hug.

  It was tight, too tight, and yet I welcomed it just the same. It felt good to be pressed against him. Grounding. And I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the magic within me popped and fizzed happily at being so close to its counterpart. For being at peace with its counterpart.

  A broken seer and her dragon. That was us, alright.

  “Did… Did we win?” Krisjian asked, still looking at his hands which were coated in dust from where he’d been helping to pin Faeldrus down.

  I almost didn’t want to say it. I’d been at war for so long that it was impossible to believe that it was all over. But the more seconds that passed, the more I realized that, yeah…somehow, despite everything stacked against us, we’d done it.

  “Yeah, Krisjian. We won.”

  Another stretch of uncertainty, as if we were all waiting for someone or something to come bursting in and prove me wrong. But nothing did.

  Princeton was the first to break the quiet, laughing softly. The hippy lady next to him joined in, then Mal did too until at least half the circle was laughing with increasing volume. I didn’t join in, but I did allow myself the faintest of smiles.