In the distance, Apis shot off sparks, its death the collapse of a star, of all the stars. A nightmare made real. The death of a dream, its destruction ugly and sorrowful for the beauty it once held.
Now it was Nat’s turn to stare at Nineveh. She exchanged a glance at Wes, who shared her frustration. She wanted to shake the Queen out of this strange paralysis that had taken hold of her. “You can stop it, but you won’t. But why? If not for me, why not for them? For your people? For your world?”
Nineveh drew up her white hood over her fair hair. For a moment her features changed, and they could see that the Queen was very, very old. She was ancient and cronelike, and the weight of the years had taken their toll. “This world is over. There is nothing that can be done.”
“That’s not true!” Nat cried, thinking of Faix and his dedication to teaching her how to use her power, of the task he had set before her. Light the fire. Cast the spell. Restore the world.
The Queen shrugged. “This world is dying; it is poisoned beyond repair. Nothing can stop its annihilation. We tried once before, sending the stolen child to the Gray Tower. But she failed. We failed. Then Faix had a dream that the protector of Vallonis had returned to us, but I did not share his belief. Did not encourage his hope.” Her voice was metallic with contempt. “We became estranged because of you.”
Nat was hurt and bewildered. “But why?”
“You know why.”
I have seen the paths in the mirror. You will bring death to us all. Faix was the first and he will not be the last to die because of you. He died alone and away from all that he loved, because of you.
“But Faix was bringing me to see you,” said Nat. “I stood at the gates of Apis.”
“As a last, quixotic idea. You see, he hoped to change my mind. But as you discovered, you were not worthy to enter Apis, were you?” said the Queen, the frost in her voice as cold as a bitter winter chill.
Nat remembered standing at the ledge, staring at Apis, fashioning an image that would be made real; she had made something out of nothing, shaped a bridge that would lead her to the other side. She had done it. She knew she had. And yet she had fallen anyway. She stared at the Queen and suddenly she knew why she had failed.
“I didn’t fail. I made that bridge. You kept me out,” said Nat. “It was you.”
Nat saw it all now. The Queen did not believe in Faix. The Queen did not believe Vallonis had a protector. The Queen did not lift a finger to defend the city or close the portal. The Queen had stood and watched while Vallonis was destroyed and Apis fell from the sky.
Nineveh was no friend.
She was as much an enemy as the RSA battalions that charged into the peaceful valley. Nothing can stop its annihilation, Nineveh had said, and so instead of hampering it, she had hastened it.
Wes had cautioned Nat to wait and warned her that he didn’t trust Nineveh. He had wanted to find another way out, but Nat had been so blind. She had begged him to trust her.
She felt faint, unsteady, even as Nineveh continued to regard her with that calm, icy gaze. Wes slung an arm around her shoulder, and only then did Nat realize that she was trembling.
Because it all snapped into place, and she knew Wes knew, too. He must have figured it out, when Nineveh wouldn’t close the portal from the other side. And he had brought her here anyway, because Nat had asked him to.
“You did this,” Nat gasped, feeling her knees weaken at the thought and glad that she had Wes to lean on. “You knew Wes would break the seal on the portal if you threatened to keep me out. You knew what would happen. You used your power to find him and you used him to break it. You used him. You used us.” With horror, she realized Nineveh had used Wes’s love for her to bring about this chaos. Used it like a weapon.
No, Nineveh hadn’t come to New Kandy to save them. She had come to New Kandy because the army was there.
They had only been pawns in a game, played like cards thrown on the felt and discarded on the flop.
“You wanted Vallonis destroyed all along, you wanted this to happen. You made it happen!” cried Nat. “But why?”
“What is done cannot be undone. As I’ve said before, this world was never meant to be,” she repeated forcefully, anger breaking through her cool marble façade. “The promise of Atlantis is over. The dream of Avalon dies here. It dies with me. There is no magic that can stop what has begun now. This is the end. There is no hope for Vallonis, for anyone left in the world, gray or blue.”
“There won’t be anyone left thanks to you,” muttered Wes.
Nineveh ignored him and raised her arms. “I was here in the beginning when we cast the spell the first time. And the second. And the third will be the last. There will be none other.” There was a huge flash of brilliant white, and then the Queen disappeared—or more like disintegrated in front of their eyes.
“Good riddance,” said Wes.
Nat stared at the empty space where the Queen had stood. Her anger and guilt made her stomach turn, but Wes’s solid weight next to her was a comfort, a bulwark against the pain in her soul.
“It was her, Nat, she did this,” he said. “Not us.”
Yes, but . . .
Our love doomed this world.
No matter what, we played a part in its destruction.
And the thought was a sliver, the beginning of the wedge that would grow between them, one so small she couldn’t even see it right at the moment.
But it was there.
More soldiers poured through the portal, more drones, an army of invaders. Their iron-toed boots pounded the forest floor; their machines and rocket fire made the air vibrate. There was no stopping their conquest. They would murder the people and ravish the land, claiming as their own whatever resources they had not destroyed.
She’d lost her drakon, the portal was open, Apis was burning. The Queen had abandoned them. But Wes was right, of course. And it wasn’t over. Not while they were still standing. Nat was the protector of Vallonis. Or was she just kidding herself? Was there anything left to protect?
A terrible noise—a great crack as if the earth itself were breaking open—interrupted her thoughts. Nat’s eyes widened, her mouth agape in fear. Wes held her. Apis was no longer just burning; it was faltering, crashing to the earth. With a sound that dwarfed a thousand thunderclaps, the great capital of Vallonis fell from the heavens, struck the ground, and shattered. A tremor buckled the earth beneath them. The cliffs behind them trembled, trees quivered. The very earth shuddered. The city was destroyed. Apis was gone.
In the hazy distance, men and women poured out from the city’s ruins. Like ants fleeing the hive, they hurried in long lines, searching for a means of escape from the burning metropolis. Apis was at their backs, and to the side were mountains, cliffs too steep to traverse. They had only one way to go, and the soldiers were blocking it, shooting down anyone who came their way.
The winged cavalry charged, and as the white-haired general dashed into battle, the drones surrounded him, circling him, showering him with rocket fire. He raised his sword and sent a wave of thunder and lightning their way. There was a scream and a crash as everything fell to the ground.
Yet when the haze dissipated, there was no one left standing, foes and friends alike. There was only a pile of bodies, soldiers and sylphs, the general on top, his eyes lifeless, skin the color of gray concrete.
“Father!” Liannan cried, swooping down from the sky, landing and leaving her winged horse and rushing to his side, Shakes right behind her. The sound of her grief was terrible to hear.
The tanks rumbled their way, and the soldiers began shooting at their friends. Soon, all of Vallonis would fall to their hands.
“Get everyone together,” Nat told Wes. “Tell them to flee, to run as far away from the army as possible. And as far away from me.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked fear
fully, worried for her as always.
“I’m going to burn,” Nat said softly. She had to call up the drakonfire somehow. She had to use her power to stop this, it was the only way. “But without my drakon I don’t know if I can control it.” She couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of the wildfire raging across the plains of the Blue.
“Hold on,” said Wes. “Before you set yourself on fire, I have an idea.” He turned to Shakes. “Get everyone away!” he ordered. “Get as far from us as you can!”
Shakes nodded and, with the help of their remaining crew, began to steer the dazed and the dying to the other side of the field.
Nat looked deep into Wes’s kind brown eyes. She had found love there, compassion, and partnership. Whatever she had to do, she would do it with him at her side.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Always,” she promised. She took his hand in hers. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” he said staunchly. “I can resist magic, remember? I’m a living antidote. How’s that for talent?” He tightened his grip. “Go on. Do what you have to do. I will burn with you.”
Nat closed her eyes, seeking the flame within her soul. Drakonfire. The white flame. She searched for the feeling she had when she was bonded to Mainas. She tried to recall that sensation, the heat of the drakonflame, what it felt like to be united with her mount. It hadn’t been that long since their separation, but she struggled to recall that emotion, that heat.
She was the drakon, its fire and its fury.
She tried to block out the sounds of the battle, the cries of the sylphs trampled beneath the soldiers, the exploding rockets. Each moment she delayed, another life passed from this world, another bit of beauty died at the barrel of a gun, crushed underneath the wheels of a tank.
She reached deep into herself, deep into her heart.
Where is it? Where is my strength, where is my fury? I am the drakon’s wild heart. I am the drakon’s unfettered soul. Where is the fire that is within me?
Why, I gave it to Wes, she remembered now. She had put her soul into his. She had sent the white spark into his body to restart his heart.
He carried the flame within him, so all she had to do was reach for it and take it back.
She felt his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. Come back to me, she whispered to the drakonfire.
Just like that, when she opened her eyes she saw there was a white flame dancing between their clasped hands. Wes smiled.
Nat waved her hand and the flame grew, trailing her fingers like a white, shimmering streamer. She waved it in a circle and the flames danced around them, the two of them in the center of a glistening circle of fire. She waved her hand in another circle, then another. Her fingers drew flames in the air, she was painting with fire. Again and again the flames circled them growing ever more dense.
Wes stood in the center with her, watching, waiting.
She could no longer see the individual streams; there was nothing but a tornado of fire swirling around them.
It felt good, like the heart of the drakon. The flame comforted her like an old friend; she rediscovered that part of her soul that she so desperately missed.
She was the drakon.
Its heart of dread.
And now she was an immense, churning, howling ball of flame.
12
WES STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE FIRE, holding back the heat from the flame. It danced around them, wild and furious, but when he held out his hands it flickered and stilled. You will not burn us. You will not devour her, he said to the flame. I know you. You have burned inside me. I am part of you now.
“Let’s do this,” he said to Nat, cocking his head toward the battlefield. “Together.”
Nat nodded and reached her arms out to the sky so that the white flames shot up in the air. Wes sculpted the drakonfire into mighty columns, and Nat sent them hurtling across the battlefield, forcing the soldiers away from the people who were still coming out of the city. She sent the soldiers running back to the portal, back to New Kandy and the gray world where they belonged. Her fire shot up through the clouds, incinerating a column of drones.
Walking in the protective circle of drakonfire, the two of them made their way across the battlefield to rescue the refugees of Apis. The citizens of the once-fair city were fighting back, turning guns into smoke, showering the soldiers with hail made of boulders, setting fire to their vehicles, their tanks, and their drones. Their general had been felled, but there was someone else leading them now.
It was Liannan, holding up a bow and arrow and letting the arrows take flight, Shakes astride behind her, brandishing a stolen automatic rifle. The rest of the crew followed, shooting back at those who aimed at the beautiful golden-haired sylph.
Liannan’s silver arrows cut through a line of soldiers. Her people fought well, using magic against bullets, weaving illusions, making the soldiers fire at places where no one stood, making them attack one another or their drones. They filled the sky with illusory smoke, with clouds shaped like a drakon, with swirls of brightly colored mist, confusing tanks and their automatic sighting systems.
But even magic had limits. They could distract the soldiers, fool them sometimes, but when it came to ground combat, they were badly outgunned and outnumbered. Soldiers hacked at the smallmen and showered the sylphs with gunfire.
Vallonis was losing.
Wes focused on holding and controlling Nat’s drakonfire. Like lava flows, the fire cut through the battalions, separating them from the sylphs and the city they were abandoning. He marveled at how well they worked together. It was as if they had one power, one strength, that they both wielded.
But it wasn’t enough. It would not be enough to forge victory from defeat.
The sylphs were easily mowed down by automatic weaponry. Their feared heartrenders could not stop the tanks from rolling over everything in their path. Whole families fell dead on the grassy plain, and more would join them if the assault continued much longer.
Wes caught Nat’s eye.
“I need to burn,” she said, her voice hollow. “Go. Shield them from the fire. Protect them from me.”
Wes did not argue. He knew what had to be done. She didn’t have to ask because he already knew. He was holding her back, he knew, limiting her power.
There was no other way out of this battle than to let her burn.
13
SHE WATCHED AS HE RAN TO THE remaining sylphs and their loyal crew. “Retreat! Retreat!” Wes yelled, throwing up a shield around them as they ran away.
Nat stood stock-still as the flames grew taller and wilder around her. The white fire was stronger now—hotter, but she felt no warmth. Instead, a current of electricity ran through her body; she was alive, awake, energetic. Without Wes to hold it back, the ball of flame was now a hurricane of fire, a tower that stretched up and out over the bloody fields and into the drone-filled sky. It leapt up into the clouds, turning them to mist. It billowed still higher, shedding a light as pure as starlight, illuminating the field of battle. A wondrous, fearsome sight. The light shone upon the faces of the soldiers, making their pale faces turn a shade whiter. They looked like ghosts, their mouths gaping, eyes staring in wonder.
Protect them from me, she had told Wes as the hurricane became an even greater storm, a tempest beyond imagining. She watched as the survivors hurried to Wes’s side, as he stood in the middle of the crowd, eyes closed, focusing on his magic. The shield he crafted was invisible, a glass dome like the one that shielded the El Dorado. It sparkled when the flames touched it. He would keep them safe. His power was everything that hers was not. It was safety, protection. It was silent and invisible, quiet like the man who wielded it. His magic could do no harm. For the span of a heartbeat, she wished that was her talent as well, but Nat had a different lot in life.
When the last survivo
r was safe beneath the shield, she let out the rest of her flame. She opened up her every pore, unleashing all the power within her. She half expected the soldiers to run, to flee back through the portal, but the men would not stand down. They faced her flame with rocket fire, an endless barrage of bullets. Gunshots tore through the great inferno, but none reached Nat. The flames consumed all of it. The heat melted their ammunition, crumpled their tanks. It scorched the earth itself, turning trees into glowing toothpicks, burning down the trunks, incinerating the roots, leaving only holes in the earth. Her fire twisted through the armies of the RSA, leaving heaps of molten metal, clouds of smoke.
Only Wes stood against the flame. His power kept the people of Apis safe as the fire rippled across the battlefield. The transparent shield glowed yellow and orange reflecting the flames. Nat caught glimpses of the people huddled together inside. As the next wave hit the dome, it sparkled again, turning gold. But the next blast tore the shield and a cascade of flame poured into the dome. Screams echoed against the roar, her tempest.
No! she cried, dampening the fire until the hurricane of flame subsided as Wes worked to close the hole.
That was when the bullet struck her, as the soldiers took advantage of her moment of weakness. The bullet tore through the flesh of her upper arm. The flames rose once more around her, as a second bullet whizzed past her ear, and something exploded nearby. The sound was deafening.
I need to finish this. Nat drew the flames around her, letting their heat build, stoking the great fire, the ever-expanding storm. While her fire built up again, the army changed tactics. They gave up fighting Nat and trained all of their guns of the people of Vallonis. Every bit of their firepower was aimed at Wes’s shield. The shield had turned from gold to brown to black, and the dome was flexing, like a bubble about to pop.
The people within crowded together, their eyes on the flames and collapsing dome. Wes strained as he held the shield. Peering through the flames, Nat caught his gaze. The grim set of his mouth told her she had to do it, to give it every last bit that she had. He would hold the line. He would not let the shield collapse; nothing would come through. His strength matched her own.
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