32

Talon

Every member of the Dragon armies, and those gathered who belong now to the phoenix, watches as Caspian claims the ramparts of the Crest. He roars from the ruins of his high tower, and the roar reverberates through the morning air.

At least half Bloodscale’s army sinks to their knees, dropping weapons. War drakes roar back to Caspian, high shrieking cries. The Dragons behind me stand tall. That is our empyreal. We have these traitors trapped between us.

“Walk to my side,” I yell. “Come stand with your first scion, Talon Goldhoard! This is the charge of House Dragon! Follow the Dragon regent; be the claws and teeth of a new Phoenix Reborn!”

It’s as easy as that for those on their knees. They get up and start for me. A handful of soldiers riding war drakes wheel their mounts around—difficult when the drakes are so keyed to Caspian’s hulking figure. Some Dragon soldiers grab their comrades, pulling them along. Others hold each other back, unsure.

General Bloodscale dismounts, boots hitting the bent grass hard. He strides toward me, but not to kneel; he reaches for his great sword and looses it, swinging it into a ready position. “You challenged me by scale and claw, boy,” he growls.

“Fine,” I say, and as I walk to meet him, I unhook my claw from the back of my belt and slide my left hand into the fingers, strapping it securely around my wrist. Then I unsheathe my falchion and don’t pause to bow or give Bloodscale the first move.

I attack.

We’re of a height, but Bloodscale is wider in the shoulder and has twenty years of experience over me—not to mention his longer sword. I have to be faster, unhesitating, and use every leverage of my slighter strength. And my boon.

I open to Chaos as widely as I can without triggering a vision, just as Bloodscale blocks my first strike.

This is how I trained my boon since it first appeared when I was nine years old. I see Bloodscale’s dark green trace, the shimmering edges of it blurring toward his war drake, and I see it shimmering ahead of him, too: the next steps of his feet, the next swing of his sword, the next turn of his body. It’s predictive, it lets me be faster, lets me analyze him instantly.

And it’s even more powerful than before.

Bloodscale hits hard, but I block with blade and claw, scraping the claw along his sword to make a horrid shriek of metal. He bares his teeth, swings, but I’m there. I’m wherever he strikes.

He knows this is my boon. He knows he has to trick it.

His next strike is heavy enough I struggle under its weight, though I knew where to be. I fling him back and slice in, turning almost under his arm. He grabs for me with his free hand, but I claw at him, twisting my falchion up under his ribs. Bloodscale shifts so the blade slices his thick scale mail belt, using his bulk against me. My falchion’s small size lets me maneuver close like this, where his great sword is too long and awkward, but Blood-scale kicks me far again. I roll, suddenly aware I have no armor against him: one blow from that sword will not only cut me, but break bones.

I see his patterns. I lower and duck in, then dance back, moving around behind him. Bloodscale twists. My claw catches his arm, tearing cloth, but it meets gauntlet, and I have to let go to turn fast on my heel and meet his sword with mine. Bloodscale turns, too, giving me a slighter target: it’s sword on sword for a moment. I pant carefully, watching.

Bloodscale is breathing hard, too. His face is red with exertion and fury. Neither of us is bloodied yet.

When he pauses like this, his trace pulls back. He’s remembering how the boon works, trying not to think ahead himself.

I smile grimly.

Just then I feel a strange wave in the air. It’s like my boon expanding and contracting all at once. Then yelling and shocked cries reach us from the far end of the field, the north near the fortress. I don’t take my eyes off Bloodscale, waiting for him to look away first.

Neither of us move until we hear the wail.

It is bloodcurdling and awful. My whole body shivers, and I see Bloodscale blanch. I turn toward the sound and stare at what I see.

A true monster, not an empyreal but seemingly patched together from them. Rotting fur falling off its leonine body to reveal dark scales, a long neck covered in feathers and more fur, with stubby wings of tattered skin and scales flapping as it runs across the field on four huge feline legs, gouging the earth with talons. It screams again, and as it approaches, it seems to get larger.

It’s no illusion of closing distance: the thing grows like Darvey the barghest can. A tail curls up over its haunches with a barb on the end that glistens with dark liquid.

And its face. “Holy Chaos,” I whisper. This thing wears a stretched and hollowed version of Aunt Aurora’s face. Her vivid eyes are wholly blue, faceted with bloody bruised purple like Chaos itself turned to rot.

The sheer wrongness of her transformation crawls along my skin. I have to swallow bile. I’m not the only one. I hear retching amidst the gasps and cries of horror.

I can’t look away.

She charges through the army, Dragons running in all directions to get away from her.

I tear my gaze away to glance behind me to the Dragons and Flames, who are just as horrified, but holding our ground. “Archers,” I yell, then spin back around to the thing Aurora has become just as soldiers yell in new shock, and with a gust of wind Caspian lands on Aurora’s huge, disgusting back.

The Dragon regent beats his wings and grabs up Aurora, turning over to fling her fifty paces across the field. He roars, racing after, and Aurora screams that awful wailing cry again. Her mouth is filled with needle teeth. Caspian doesn’t hesitate to attack again, ignoring the barbed tail and her wicked talons. They skim off his empyreal scales and he snaps at her neck.

The brush of boot on grass is my only warning: I turn, lifting my falchion just in time to block Bloodscale’s strike. But my shoulder wrenches painfully in the tight space. Something tears. I clench my jaw and slash at Bloodscale’s face with my claw.

He jerks back.

“Stop this—you see what she’s become!” I cry at him. Pain radiates down my arm. I can still lift my falchion, though.

Bloodscale scowls. “This is a challenge. Interruptions don’t matter.”

“It’s over,” I yell, catching the eye of soldiers behind Bloodscale.

Archers have run to the front, most heading for the battling empyreals.

“Can’t let you off so easily,” Bloodscale yells back, and attacks again.

I meet him, grunting with the effort. His strength pushes me back, and I lean in, with all my weight. I glare. “Stop,” I say through clenched teeth.

“No,” he answers.

I heave everything I can, claw caught around my own falchion blade to give me extra leverage to hold it against his great sword.

Then, I drop.

It hurts, but I fall and roll, jerking at his sword. Bloodscale cries in surprise as he falls with me. He lands hard, groaning. I roll again, free of him, and as Bloodscale tries to stand I lash in and stab him up under his scale mail belt; my falchion guts him.

I jerk it back, nauseated again, for what I’ve done.

Standing shakily, I stare down at the general grasping at his bleeding stomach. He glares through the pain, but I simply nod, then turn and take in the scene:

Caspian is twined around the thing Aurora made herself, clawing at her belly, but she has scales, too. She snaps needle teeth at him, but he stabs up at her face with the horns cresting along his nose and brow. Her barbed tail flails, and soldiers dash back. War drakes hiss and scream around them like a ring.

I run closer.

Archers stand ready, but there’s no way to hit her without hitting Caspian. It doesn’t matter; his scales are too strong.

“Fire at her face and eyes,” I command. “Where there aren’t scales. You can’t hurt the Dragon regent.”

They set a volley of arrows loose. The arc is perfect, but most of the arrows ping off the creature, and several off Caspian.

The dragon manages to scour the monster’s face with his horns, leaving sickly red-purple gouges behind. She shrieks and flails; her tail cuts down and Caspian digs in with all his claws. They roll against the ground, making the field tremble. Dust rises as both massive creatures flail. I stand my ground, but it’s difficult. The war drakes dance and scream. One dashes forward to attack the Aurora-thing, but her tail whips out, knocking it back and slicing scales with its weeping tip.

Aurora screams, and Caspian bites at her, but she catches her front talons against his wing, tearing the stretched skin. Caspian hisses and throws her again. He leaps, still half-flying, and the attack is back on.

Talon.

My name sounds amidst the cacophony. I blink. I can’t tell if I heard it or sensed it, but I suck in a gasp. Darling.

As the Dragon regent and the twisted monster brawl, I turn and look through the waves of soldiers surrounding them. Here and there a few fight, but most are caught up in the spectacle of the empyreal battle.

I focus on my boon and use it to trace Darling.

She’s here, pushing toward me. On the field. The sun shines down on her, on smears of blood at her hairline, on the round smoked lenses of her goggles.

I run in her direction. “Darling!”

“Talon!”

I shift my path, and soldiers get out of my way, parting like water.

There she is. Gasping as she staggers to a halt, having clearly raced here. After Aurora. She flickers in my boonsight, purple flames jagged and wisping out. She’s only Darling, looking smaller than she’s seemed in months. A long knife hangs loose in one hand.

I reach her, and she grabs at me. My injured shoulder aches, but I wrap my left arm around her, careful with the claw. “What happened, what did she do?” I demand. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I need you, Talon,” she says, fingers digging into me. She drops her knife and the tip sticks into the grass.

A thrill at her words has me nodding. Anything. Anything she needs.

“I need you,” Darling says, “to use your boon and find the phoenix.”

My lips fall open in shock. “You—”

“She did something. Talon, listen. The phoenix is here, caught, pushed down, but I can’t drag it up, I need—”

“Me to find it,” I say it as a vow. I drop my falchion, and pull her closer with the arm around her waist. “I will.”

“I know.” Darling rips off her goggles. In the broad daylight she stares at me wide-eyed, dark brown eyes haunted by flecks of purple and sudden springing tears. “Do it now!”

In the middle of the battlefield, I tear open my boon and kiss her.