CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ELARA

IN THE TIME IT TOOK SIGNEY TO AWAKEN FROM HER FIRST ATTEMPT AT breaking a dragon bond, Elara worried. It was what she did best, but, as hours turned into days that turned into a week, the fact that a single bond had drained Signey to this point made Elara wonder if it was even worth it. Iya could attack at any time; they couldn’t afford for Signey to be out of commission.

She and Torrey took turns waiting by Signey’s bedside while outlining the Night Saints’ next mission. Her plan had worked: The tracking spell from the dragon relic made from Azeal’s scales—a boot knife with the scales embedded in the handle—had pointed to Rosetree Manor on a map. Elara had worried that it was a trap, and Iya had to know that whatever he hid there wasn’t completely hidden, but Mr. Lewis had been willing to take that risk.

Watson, the town in which the house was located, was on the edge of Iya’s occupied territory, and previous attempts to fly into the Emerald Highlands had been chaotic at best. But at least they wouldn’t go home empty-handed. Elara had suggested that they could harvest more of the building to distribute to their allies, protecting them from dragon magic, and that alone was reason enough to move forward.

Now, she set down the book she had been reading at Signey’s bedside and tried not to despair. Even with Cherry’s discovery regarding Signey’s blood, even with the Night Saints, even with at least a short-term plan of action, it still felt as if they were twisting around in the dark. Before the Battle for Port Sol, they had managed to piece together the enemy’s plan—and though they’d gotten a lot wrong, they had gotten enough right to fight to a stalemate. This time, they were no closer to understanding Iya’s plan than they’d been before, while he annexed land and destroyed armies with Faron at his side.

She ran a hand over her face, feeling frustrated. So, she did what she always did when she felt this way: She prayed to the gods.

Of the three who could have answered her, Elara had not expected Obie. The god appeared in a cloud of white light that resolved itself into his trademark suit, the gold embroidery sparkling long after that light had faded. His hood was down, a rare sight that revealed his bearded jaw and white, pupilless eyes, and he was smaller than usual, likely because the infirmary did not allow for twelve-foot gods to stand comfortably within it.

Sorry, she whispered toward his feet, her head bowed. You must be tired of me constantly asking for guidance.

Obie said nothing, but Elara hadn’t expected him to. He was the quietest of the gods, after all.

I’m doing as you ask, but I still don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Everything is so— She gestured vaguely, unable to find a word that could encompass the mess she had waded into. The people she thought were good only cared about power. The people she knew were bad only cared about power. Her attempt to save her sister had failed. Her attempt to break the bonds had hospitalized her girlfriend. She stood in a dark room, and every lit path led only to more pain. It was exhausting. I want to be the Empyrean I promised you I could be. But sometimes I don’t know what that means anymore.

The silence continued. Elara chanced a look upward to find Obie facing the bed. Signey’s chest rose and fell beneath her white sheet, her curls blanketing her head like a soft cloud. Elara smiled helplessly.

The first Empyrean sought to protect the world, a wish twisted into a desire to unite the world beneath his rule, Obie said in his deep voice. It had been such a long time since Elara had heard it that the words seemed to echo through her mind. The second Empyrean sought to protect her loved ones at any cost, a dream turned into a nightmare by Iya’s influence. You have seen the best and worst of humanity—the best and worst of the gods—and you seek only to protect with no qualifiers. Obie reached up to scratch the side of his chin, a gesture so painfully human that it somehow made him seem even more divine. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only the endless effort to leave this world a better place than it was the day before. An effort I have watched you make since birth.

Elara realized she was crying and turned back to the bed in a vain hope that the god wouldn’t see it. You were watching over me?

Obie shrugged as if to say, We watch over everyone. Elara’s shoulders relaxed, relief flooding her. If the gods hadn’t been paying attention to her only since she’d become the Empyrean, that meant they had seen all her actions, good and bad, and still lent her their power. It meant that their disapproval, their reticence, their annoyance, wasn’t because of her but because of those who came before her. It meant that she was not the failure she had feared she was, because there was nothing to fail at. She only had to try.

And the gods knew that all she did was try.

Thank you, she whispered, wiping away the tears.

Obie disappeared, but not before Elara saw his lips quirk upward in the ghost of a smile.

“Was I that sick that you’re praying at my bedside?” a hoarse voice asked. Signey pushed herself into a sitting position, her lashes fluttering as if the very effort had exhausted her. Elara lurched forward to grab the glass of tepid water on the nearby table and hold it up for Signey to drink from. Signey finished the glass of water before she spoke again. “How long?”

“A week. How are you feeling? I should call someone—”

“I’m okay.” Signey dropped back onto her pillows, yawning. “Did it work?”

“It worked, but—”

“Then I’m okay. When’s the next mission?”

Elara raised her eyebrows. “It’s adorable that you think you’re coming on the next mission.”

Ignoring Signey’s protests, Elara went to call a healer and send a servant to fetch Signey’s father. When she returned to the room, Signey had dozed off again, but there was color in her cheeks and her eyes half opened as Elara approached the bed.

“Just be careful?” Signey whispered, apparently accepting that she was too exhausted to argue any further. Still, she surged upward to give Elara a kiss, deep and lingering, her fingers curled around Elara’s neck. “I hate not being there to watch your back.”

“My back will be fine,” Elara assured them both. She kissed the corner of Signey’s mouth and pulled away. “Concentrate on feeling better. You still need to break Stormborn’s bond before Iya does.”

Azeal carried Elara and Torrey into the Emerald Highlands, and this time they were both strapped into the saddle to keep from falling. Without being asked—not that either of them could ask—Azeal flew gently, gliding on the wind currents with minimal flaps of his wings as they followed the pull of the knife relic in Elara’s pocket. Elara didn’t feel as if she and Torrey were in danger of falling, not as long as they didn’t meet with any other dragons on the way.

Ahead of them, Stormborn scouted for threats. Giles and Arran were still bonded to their dragon, just in case something went awry. It was a gamble, that Lightbringer wouldn’t be present to induce the Fury in Stormborn or snap the bond entirely, taking out all three of them. But the deeper they went into the Emerald Highlands, the more Elara began to relax. If they could get in and out without being noticed, maybe she could finally sleep well tonight.

No sooner had she thought that than a furious roar cut through the morning sky.

Stormborn soared toward the sound, and Azeal stayed above the clouds where they could remain unnoticed. With Jesper’s and Torrey’s bonds broken, Lightbringer’s forces shouldn’t have been able to track Azeal—or so Elara hoped. If one of Iya’s dragons breached their cloud cover, they would see him easily, a massive red smudge against the condensation, but Stormborn was every bit the soldier that his Riders were. He knew his way around military stratagem.

Rosetree Manor appeared below. Azeal made a rumbling sound.

“Hang on,” Torrey warned. Elara barely had time to tighten her hold around Torrey’s waist before Azeal was diving. Her stomach leaped into her throat, and the wind became knives on her face. Somewhere behind them, she heard scaled bodies colliding and fires erupting, but all she could see was the ocean of grass rising up to meet them.…

Azeal hit the ground at a run, stopping just short of the duck pond. The two of them climbed off, freeing Azeal to stand guard in the backyard while they made their way toward the manor.

The last time Elara had been at Rosetree Manor, she’d been a prisoner. There had been little time to admire the house, and now there was nothing left to admire. She and Signey had set Rosetree ablaze on their way out, but the Night Saints had leveled the building. Stone and wood littered the grass. Blackened soil and cracked tiles filled the center. Weeds already grew between those cracks, making it look as if the manor were being swallowed. Torrey began collecting parts while Elara walked where there had once been halls, feeling the ghost of her incarceration. Back then, she’d been so sure that Commander Warwick was painting her as the instigator of a war the queen had sent her to stop. Now she scanned the ruins for something, anything, that could get that job done once and for all.

“Elara!” Torrey waved her over to a jagged wall. Huge chunks of it were on the ground, creating a half-moon in front of the barely standing structure. “A little help?”

Elara stared at her blankly before she realized that Torrey needed help climbing over the rocks. She called on the gods, breathing around Irie entering her body, and then lifted Torrey off her feet and over the barrier. Instead of saying goodbye to the goddess, she silently begged Irie to stay with her a little longer. Azeal had yet to alert them of any incoming threats, but, if he did, Elara wanted to be able to fight.

Seconds later, there was a triumphant cry. Instead of lifting Torrey again, Elara drew on Irie’s power to move the hunks of stone until she could see Torrey bent over four ovals that went up to her waist. They were partially buried in the soil, and they radiated a warmth that made Elara’s body temperature rise even higher.

“Dragon eggs,” Torrey breathed. “It’s the stolen dragon eggs.”

The only dragon egg Elara had ever seen had been the one that had once been in the center of Deadegg, scaled and blackened and as tall as a house. These were smaller, pearl white streaked with a rusty red, and lined with scales that looked soft, almost like the down one would find on a baby bird. She could feel Irie’s power twisting inside her, disgusted to be so close to these creatures, and Elara did her best to radiate soothing toward the goddess. This was an even bigger find than she had imagined when she’d planned this mission.

“The egg grows as the dragon grows,” Torrey explained. “The size before they hatch is a good indication of what kind of dragon will be born, before they get their first color.” She frowned at the closest egg, scratching at one of the red-brown streaks. It flaked away beneath her nails. “Is this…?”

“Let’s see.” Elara withdrew the knife from her pocket. Before she could even point it at the egg, it lit up and flew from her hand. The handle stuck to one of the rust-colored smears. Then, it began to twist around, pointing its blade to the top, the bottom, the soil around them, the eggs left and right. There was so much blood in this corner that the relic didn’t know where to focus.

Torrey stepped back, her nose wrinkling. “This is disgusting. Why is he using Jesper’s blood to fertilize the eggs?”

“It’s got to be some sort of blood magic, not fertilizer. They’ll grow on their own. He must want them to grow a specific way.” Elara stared at the stains, her eyes narrowed, until, suddenly, she realized the truth. “Wait. He’s using Jesper’s blood to train them. He’s a Soto. He wants to make sure these dragons are born knowing him, recognizing him. He wants them to come into this world under his control.”

Torrey’s face blanched. “That’s why I couldn’t feel him. Iya’s in Jesper’s body now. Using Jesper’s blood—their blood—to train the dragon eggs.”

“We don’t know that—”

“I couldn’t feel him. Azeal couldn’t feel him. We couldn’t even find him during the battle—and that was long before the bond was broken. Where else could he be if not—if—” Torrey put her back to one of the ruined walls, a broken sob escaping her throat. “It makes sense. You know it does. He took Jesper.”

Elara didn’t want to say such a horrible thing aloud without proof, but she couldn’t deny that it made a sick sort of sense. In Jesper’s body, Iya would be free of Reeve—which might make Faron more sympathetic to him. In Jesper’s body, Iya could spy on them or, worse, use Jesper as a shield to keep Signey from using blood magic against him. And it wouldn’t matter that they had found his stash of stolen dragon eggs. The eggs had already been smeared with Jesper’s blood. Destroyed, they couldn’t be used against him; hatched, they were already in his pocket.

They were too late.

Elara pried the knife from the egg until it calmed beneath her hand. She wanted to stab it into the ground, as if that would relieve some of her frustration. Of course they were too late. Even if they hadn’t waited for Signey’s recovery, there was no telling how long the eggs had been here, leeching the magic from Jesper’s blood. Distantly, she could hear the roars of the dragon fight coming closer, too close. She pushed away her hopelessness. Now was not the time. They needed another plan.

“We can’t let him keep these eggs,” Torrey said hesitantly. “But we also can’t let them hatch, right? If—if dragons aren’t meant to be in this world…”

“We’re not breaking them,” Elara said as she turned to face her. They weren’t sure of much, but Elara could be sure of this. The tension leaked out of Torrey’s body, but Elara didn’t take it personally that she had assumed Elara’s first plan would be to destroy the eggs. Shattering them, murdering the dragon hatchlings, would be the smart thing to do. It was what Iya likely thought she would do if she found them. But these dragons would hatch into innocents, under his control or not. It was not her job to decide whether they should live or die before then. “I’ll just send them back to the divine realm.”

Torrey moved out of her way as Irie flooded Elara with the magic to open a doorway between the mortal and the divine realms. She’d done this only once before, when she had threatened to send Iya and Lightbringer through until she could figure out how to save Reeve. It had broken her heart then, but she knew Reeve and she’d known that he would have made that sacrifice to protect the world from the god inside his body. Faron had stopped her from making that choice—though she’d done it by running off with Iya and Lightbringer before Elara could in turn stop her. But tearing a rift between worlds was easier than Elara could have imagined, and she already looked forward to locking Iya away within one.

For Reeve. For Faron. For herself.

The eggs sank into the glowing hole in the ground until they’d disappeared. Elara closed the path and then, gasping, ejected Irie from her body. She was breathing so hard that Torrey came to her side immediately, helping her stay on her feet. She’d almost forgotten that easy didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.

“Let’s start packing up before our good luck runs out,” said Torrey.

Elara was too tired for anything more than a nod. But though her body was weak, she felt like smiling until her cheeks hurt. Take that, you bastard, she thought as they picked their way through the rubble, because you’re next.