by T. F. Walsh
“No way.” The moment her hands touched the enclosure, an electric charge zapped her. Biting her tongue, she recoiled with nowhere to flee. Fuck no!
Several feet away, trolls were pummeling Saber. Blood smeared his cheek, and he scrambled backward for escape. One caught his ankle and dragged him away from her.
Her insides turned cold. A silent realization clawed through her mind. The quiet. Hardly anyone around the church.
She yelled, “Saber, it’s a trap.”
Terror crashed onto her shoulders, weakening her knees. She scanned the room for Noah and found the place empty. Sweat clung to her skin.
Saber stumbled to his feet, one eye was swollen shut, and there lines of blood trickled down his chin from the busted lips.
He sprinted toward her, but a troll seized his arm and swung him in the opposite direction.
Movement to her right caught her attention, and then she spotted her enemy.
Noah floated downward from the rafters of the church like a god figure.
He’d changed. The black char that had earlier claimed his hands now reached halfway up his neck. He’d siphoned so much magic that the side effect had changed him. Magic was a balancing act. Use too much, and it tainted the user’s soul and deformed the user into the demonic creature from the underworld.
Dread claimed her, blackening her thoughts, locking up her limbs.
Whichever way she turned, death and destruction waited.
She backed up in her prison. Several paces away, Saber was on his feet and had his arms outstretched by two trolls. Noah landed in front of her. His eyes were empty pools, staring her way.
“After tasting the magic of dazmeu, I wasn’t going anywhere, my little dragonfly.”
She squared her shoulders. Show no fear.
“You’ll die today.” Saber’s voice grew heavy and dark, and he spat blood on the floor.
“Take him outside and get rid of him. He’s no use.” Noah’s attention swung back toward Fallen. “It’s her I want.”
“Don’t hurt him.” The blaze in her chest was an erupting volcano. “Let him go, and I’ll cooperate.”
This scum was why the Creators intended to destroy their world, so why should she feel guilty about wanting to kill him? Saber couldn’t go far, not with their bond, plus he had the crystal. She had to be brave.
The sound that came from Noah’s mouth wasn’t a laugh, but a gushing screech. He’d lost so much of himself to the magic that even the simplest task of laughter was foreign to him.
“I’ll take what I want, and your boyfriend dies.”
A troll slammed a fist into Saber’s gut. His expelled groan ripped at Fallen. The dumb-heads dragged Saber by the arms, his body limp. Half way across the room, they came to a halt.
Saber’s feet pressed up against the bond keeping her and him linked. The same energy that shoved up against her back, pressed her into the bars. Electricity from the cage sizzled through her. She shuddered as her vision danced, her mind wavered.
Then she staggered backward. The trolls had released Saber.
Noah’s widening gaze swept between them. “Interesting. You two are bound?”
Had she heard right? He hadn’t put the hex on them, which meant they were wasting time chasing him. She should have believed Noah on their last visit, but fuck, she’d be insane to trust him. Yet, the confusion on his face was real.
What if the bond was from the Creators? Was that their clue? She’d been so stupid to not follow her intuition.
“Fine. She can watch.” Noah’s voice jabbed at her thoughts.
The trolls kicked and punched Saber.
Fallen screamed.
Noah’s toothy grin widened, and his pupils were inky pits of damnation.
“I’ll be your servant,” she muttered. “Whatever you want.”
“You’re already mine.” His hoarse voice sounded inhuman.
She wasn’t dealing with a power-starved half-drae anymore, but a demonic force. Despite the trepidation taking a stranglehold of her life, she had to offer the beast what it craved. Clearing her throat, she said, “I’ve killed no one. I’m pure. Imagine the strength my soul could offer you.” Feeding on souls gave demonic creatures the force to live in Tapestry or Earth freely. Nothing pulled them back into the underworld.
For those still seconds, she held herself tight. Her head demanded she unleash fire, do whatever it took to break the walls and save Saber. What if she couldn’t penetrate the barrier?
The urge to turn toward Saber was excruciating, but she never broke Noah’s stare.
He didn’t say a word. The grunts from Saber’s beating echoed in her head.
Noah’s lips pulled upward. A snarl erupted from his throat as his eyes rolled backward, only whites showing. Then he snapped back in an instant, posture stiff.
He belched into Fallen’s face, the putrid stink deathly. A wisp of black smoke encased him. “Not interested.” Noah spun on his heels and marched to Saber. “Step aside.” He shoved a troll out of his way.
Saber lay on his back, his body twisted the wrong way, his breaths heavy and rasping.
Noah towered over him. “When I’m finished with you, I’ll give that old drae you were trying to rescue to my feasters. He already harmed one of my guards when they carried him downstairs, so his time has come. Just like yours.”
“Please don’t do this. Please.” Her pleading was the last thing she should have done, yet the words came involuntarily, just like the fire erupting past her mouth and into the enclosure.
Noah lifted a hand above Saber’s body and mumbled something incomprehensible. A thread of silvery energy swirled upward from Saber’s mouth, coiling toward Noah’s palm.
Her body rattled as desperate thoughts engulfed her. Escape, but how? If Saber died the same way her mother had, she’d demand the Creators destroyed the world.
Saber’s chest arched upward. His gaze met hers, and he mouthed her name.
This couldn’t be happening again. Not like this. Not like fucking this.
She should have done more to save her mom, should have burned Noah to a crisp. But terror overcame her. And now, that mortifying horror claimed her body and mind again, rendering her useless.
She was no longer a child. The world relied on her and Saber surviving.
Digging deep, she drew on every cell in her body to build the inferno to the maximum. Scorching lava swallowed her, and something in her chest roared. Then a line of fire burst past her throat. She focused on one point in the cage bars.
Nothing else mattered. Just saving Saber. She loved him, and he loved her in return. Gasping for air, she noted the tiny burn mark on the metal bar.
With Saber staring at her, his face pale.
A blaze exploded from her mouth, powerful and violent. Something else twisted inside her body. She twitched and stretched, her limbs lengthening.
The room surrounding her seemed to grow smaller… or was she enlarging? The top of her head hit the ceiling bars of the cage, and her flames had turned golden, three times the width. That didn’t matter. Not now.
An electric crackle flared, and lines of energy zapped around her cage, the metal bars warping, snapping. The roof of the prison fell behind her with a clang, and the walls fell outward, freeing her. Then the magic snapped free.
Her fire silenced for a moment, and she lowered her gaze to her dragon body. Opalescent scales covered her, and her hands were claws. Around her lay her clothing, shredded from her full transformation.
Fuck yes! She’d shifted into a complete dragon, just as her mom had promised she would.
Lifting her chin, she homed in on Noah, who retreated.
Fallen released a deafening roar.
Her fire was ready, explosive, and came gushing out, targeting Noah. Glorious and wondrous.
Movement caught her attention. Saber was on his feet, and he threw himself into the fire’s path.
20
Saber’s fist tightened around the apium crysta
l as he staggered like a drunk toward Noah. His mind was a futile tussle of conflicting emotions. Rage at Noah’s atrocity to kill anyone standing in his way, yet no one had stopped him. Curling around that thought was the stabbing reminder that Balc remained imprisoned. Desperation urged Saber to move, push past the pain, well aware that if he failed, Fallen would be tortured by Noah.
His insides twisted at the memory of the first troll he’d killed. The self-hate, the darkness that told him to take his own life. Pain still lingered, deep in the recesses of his mind, reminding him he was a murderer and unworthy.
He couldn’t allow Fallen to live with the hatred of killing someone. She didn’t deserve the self-loathing that haunted his dreams, so he wouldn’t allow her to kill Noah.
Saber lunged, intercepting Noah and the fiery explosion hurtling from Fallen’s mouth. Time stood still. His mind swirled with pride at seeing Fallen in her true dragon form as if he’d had a hand in helping her blossom.
Then, fire blasted into his side, sending him reeling in a wild flailing of arms. The blaze swallowed his clothes, chewing on his skin, scorching his hair, devouring him. His shrieks were uncontrollable. With knees buckled, he fell and rolled across the ground.
The apium crystal in Saber’s hand buzzed. His sight blurred behind tears and the torture wrapping around his body.
Movement to his left. Hands patted his body until the flames died. All that remained was the stench of burning flesh, the searing pain, and his mind conceding to torment. He curled in a fetal position, something primal ripped through his mind—the pure survival to protect himself.
“Shit! Shit!” Fallen’s voice was a bird’s song in his ears, calming his smoldering flesh. She was no longer in her dragon form. “Why… why’d you jump in the way?”
Saber’s response was a rasping incomprehensible groan with the words that he wouldn’t let her live with having killed someone stuck in his mind. With a grimace, he lifted a charred arm and unfurled his fist. The crystal, still in his palm, glowed as if it were sunlight.
He glanced across the room and found Noah cracking a sly grin, juggling two balls of orange energy. With a snarl, he hurled one straight at them.
Saber flinched sideways, yet the pain from Fallen’s fire slowed his reaction.
A fiery inferno spewed from Fallen’s mouth, colliding into Noah’s energy orb. Her drae-like body trembled with ferocity as she once again grew in size. Skin split and popped, opalescent scales pushing out from within. She grew in size. Wings spread so wide from her back that they filled half the cathedral, and she once again became a magnificent dragon. She unleashed her power on Noah, who cowered inside a transparent dome.
Saber rolled to his side, still holding onto the crystal. His hips and legs tingled from where Fallen’s fire had hit him, and the hardening was ready to finish him. He was an Ash, created from clay, and Fallen’s fire was his undoing. If he didn’t heal, he’d transform into a solid statue for life. No going back.
The crystal was a red-hot coal in his hand, and he staggered to his feet. He remained upright even as the floor swayed beneath him.
In his mind, Saber screamed while giving in to the excruciating agony as it swept through his body.
Fallen’s fire ended, and the gust of her beating wings turned the room into a storm. Debris flew through the air, soot and pieces of Fallen’s clothing. She belched a deafening roar.
He pushed a stiffening leg forward, then another. Just keep moving. Go. The endless sea of chaos crashed within him, his false life, his mission in life to murder, yet his heart screamed for Fallen.
One step after the other. The hardness inched around his ribs.
Fallen’s growls detonated. A blast of fire slammed into the church entrance, burning a gaping hole. The blaze spread to the rundown building. Then her attack lifted to the ceiling.
Debris, including chunks of wood, fell around him.
Keep going.
Noah snapped out of his bubble and turned toward the exit.
Saber’s heart iced, despite the heat claiming him. He pushed past the stiffness and pain. Noah had killed so many. He’d taken Fallen’s mother. If his own world ended, Saber had to know Noah experienced death first. Saber charged in a clunky half run, half side-shuffle, and threw himself onto the bastard’s back. Both men tumbled to the ground, Saber on top. He needed to touch crystals to activate.
Noah threw an elbow back.
Saber took the hit in his ribs and bit past the stabbing pain. He wound an arm around Noah’s neck and jammed his crystal against the one dangling from Noah’s necklace. An electric current zapped through him, throwing him aside. He landed heavy on his back, his head smacking the hard floor, his body numb from the hardening. Stars danced behind his eyelids.
Unlike last time, he wasn’t ready to die. He had reason to live, for now, someone to love.
His throat gurgled as he struggled to breathe.
Overhead, the wind whipped into his body so violently, he could barely keep his eyes open.
Fallen lowered toward him in her dragon form. Magnificent, huge wings extending outward. Shiny scales with a silvery hue, and he saw the fire flowing in her gaze. For those few seconds, he could have sworn the angel of death came for him.
Her talons banded around his arms and raised him off the ground in a swift motion. He twisted his head over his shoulder to see Noah just outside the building, stumbling farther away. A blue and orange energy vortex encased him, spinning faster. His terrifying screeches raised the hairs on Saber’s arms.
The crystals had worked and drained Noah. Saber’s effort had been worth it.
Fallen drew Saber through the hole in the roof where fire ravaged the red slats. Then a thought hit him like a bulldozer.
“Rescue… prisoners… stepfather.” His words were voiceless as he gasped for each inhale.
Sunlight, gold and pale, trickled across the horizon of mountains surrounding them, but it had no right being brilliant, not today. Not fucking on the day of his death. It needed to piss down hail.
Fallen swooped lower once they cleared the roof. A savage air current thrashed into him. He watched helplessly as flakes of burned flesh floated away from his body. The black ashes swirled in the air before falling.
She set him down on the dried up garden bed alongside the church. Released from her grip, his body slumped. Panic curled around his mind like a thorn bush.
Within seconds, Fallen scratched a shallow grave in the dirt. That familiar deadening sensation engulfed him. It was too late. The end was there, ready to take him.
Fallen nudged her snout into his side and rolled him until he fell into the shallow grave, landing on his side. Fresh soil coated him. If he retained the ability to speak, he’d tell her not to waste her time. But with his face half buried and one eye uncovered, he just stared out from his grave. The burning church where his stepfather and other prisoners remained, locked in the basement. Across the plaza, Noah was on his knees, screaming as the energy inhaled his magic.
A tremendous snarl exploded behind him, and the ground shuddered as Fallen took flight toward the church. With her wings tucked, she swept into the church, swallowed by flames.
Saber’s vision darkened, the world silenced. While a part of him embraced the end, something still flickered inside him to keep fighting. For Fallen’s sake. No one had ever made him love life or crave a future.
And with his last breath, he thanked the Creators. Sent them gratitude for giving him a chance to experience real love. After all, he had been created as an Ash.
21
Fallen soared through the flames engulfing church. Her wings angled around the pillars while her fire tunnelled a massive hole in the floorboards. Noah had said the prisoners were below, and she wasn’t going anywhere without them.
Flames enveloped the walls around her, cracking and crumbling. Head first, she dove into the flooring, plowing through. Half the ceiling rained down around her. A sickly orange glow from the fires overhead strea
ked the basement, ripe with mold and crackling with magic. Cages lined the far wall, filled with unconscious prisoners. Her heart quivered at the sight.
Scrambling toward them, she seized several cages with her claws and one in her mouth. Back under the gaping hole, she beat her wings hard, catching air under them until it propelled her and the prisoners upward. She took the victims outside and farther into the plaza. Then returned for more. No thoughts, only the repetitive motions. In and out before the place collapsed. In her dragon form, the smoke didn’t affect her lungs or sight, but her breathing was ragged from exhaustion, yet she kept going.
With all the cages outside, she went in search of the troll who’d passed out earlier. Even they deserved a second chance.
A gigantic groan erupted overhead. Fallen’s head jerked up as the roof of the church crashed down around her.
She jumped into flight mode, ferociously thrashing her wings, her claws digging into the troll’s shoulders. As she burst outside, a tremendous boom detonated behind her. Yellow flames and dust puffed outward, surrounding the building, engulfing her wings.
Her chest pumped, adrenaline racing.
She swooped across the plaza, away from the destruction.
Setting the troll down, she spun around, her attention on Saber, who remained untouched on the ground.
A column of fiery sparks and flames shot upward from the church in a gush of flames. Black smoke rose overhead, smearing the blue skies with its dirty handprint.
Her wings lifted her off the ground, and her gaze swept the side of the building for Noah. Except, he wasn’t there. Her insides froze at the thought of him getting away. She’d last seen him in the same area where Saber remained buried. Fallen drifted closer to the church when something on the ground caught her attention, and she landed.
Purple vapors swirled upward, dissipating in seconds. Fallen found two apium crystals, smashed to fragments under her padded foot. The stolen abilities wafting in the air would disintegrate into molecules so tiny that no one could harness them. A tinge of hope spread within her.
