ELARA LOOKED AT EACH OF THE NIGHT SAINTS AND FORCED HERSELF to confront the fact that this would be the last time she would ever see some of them alive. The final battle clawed toward them, blocking out the sun and sucking the air out of every room, and soon they would fly on Hearthstone Academy to stop Iya once and for all. Joya del Mar would march from the west, across the continent. Étolia would march from the north, down the Emerald Highlands. Langlish dragons would fly for Hearthstone with their Riders, keeping Iya’s forces busy in the air. The first attack had been on a smaller scale. This time, they would hit Iya with everything they had and hope it would be enough.
With Aveline’s blessing, Torrey had come to retrieve Elara on Azeal so she could be there when Signey broke the final dragon bonds. It felt momentous. And terrifying.
One by one, Elara said their names within her mind. Damon Smithers. Rupert Lewis. Giles Crawford. Arran Hyland. Their sage dragons, Nizsa and Stormborn. These were all the dragons and Riders who hadn’t left with Iya, weren’t in the hospital, or hadn’t died long before. Three dragons and six Riders on their side, two Riders incapacitated, and the remaining eight dragons and eleven Riders—because Elara doubted that Faron would fight her even now—on Iya’s side.
The odds were so bad, they were almost comical.
But they also had the drakes: Liberty, Justice, Mercy, Nobility, and Valor. Elara had flown Valor across the Crown Sea just to make sure that she could, the other four following close behind her to make sure they could catch her if her magic failed and she was sent plunging into the ocean. All the drakes now waited in Beacon, where the queen and the pilots would meet up with the Langlish armies. Elara had left before she could take stock of how many soldiers each empire would send, but she hoped it would be enough.
No. It would be enough. She needed to believe that added power would match Lightbringer’s ancient magic and endless malevolence. She needed to believe it to get through this day.
“The last time I did this, I passed out for a week, so bear with me,” said Signey. “But I think that was a matter of scale. This should be easier with sages. Right?”
They had all arrived in the north of Langley, in the city of Tarragon on the banks of the Tenebris River. Mountains cut through the northern part of the sparsely populated metropolis, and the midafternoon sun made them glow like jewels. High cloud cover gave the impression that a monstrous fog was slowly eating away at the peaks. Giant brown rocks, slick with moss, littered the edge of the Tenebris, a wide ribbon of blue that raced south toward Serpentia Bay.
It was beautiful. A respite in the middle of an unfurling nightmare. More importantly, it was vast enough for three dragons—two sages and a carmine—to meet comfortably.
Signey’s back was to her, but Elara could picture the concentration on her face. The way she would whisper okay, okay, okay to herself before she got started, which was the only pep talk she would accept before she had to perform. Elara tried not to look as worried as she felt, but she couldn’t get the image of Signey’s unconscious body in the infirmary out of her head. A few feet away, Torrey looked similarly apprehensive. If it weren’t for the war—weren’t for the fact that Iya could easily turn bonded dragons and Riders against them in today’s fight—none of them would let Signey do this so soon.
Of course, no one ever let Signey do anything. She would have found a way to be here even if they’d left her behind. Elara’s stubborn, noble warrior.
Elara hoped this worked. She also hoped it didn’t.
Her next breath came out shaky.
Wind whipped across the plain. At first, Elara thought it was an effect of the magic, but then she noticed Stormborn shifting uneasily, his tail swinging slowly through the air and creating a breeze. Even Azeal seemed agitated, though she couldn’t properly read his expression. Stormborn settled after a touch from Giles, and the world was still again.
Then Arran made a sound like a dog being stepped on. “I can’t hear him.”
“I’m sorry,” Signey said bleakly, moving on to Professor Smithers and Mr. Lewis. There was a pause as they whispered something to her that Elara couldn’t hear over Stormborn’s restless sigh. But whatever it was made Signey say, “I know.”
The breaking of the final bond seemed to happen between one breath and another. Signey swayed on her feet, and Elara hurried forward to catch her, but Signey steadied herself just as Elara reached her side. Her face was drawn, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. She watched as Nizsa lowered her triangular head, pressing her snout against Mr. Lewis’s side, and he and his husband ran their fingers over her scales in a loving goodbye. Signey watched them as if she’d been stabbed and she wanted this to be the last thing she saw before she bled out.
Elara touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Signey replied without looking at her. “But I did it.”
“You’re still conscious, so that’s a step up.” It was meant to be a joke, but it fell flat between them. Her girlfriend didn’t even seem to notice that she’d spoken, and the smile that Elara had dredged up died on her lips. “What does it feel like?”
Signey swallowed again. “Like severing a limb.”
Her tone said, It hurt. Her tone said, It will haunt me. Her tone said, I need you, but she didn’t say anything else to clarify exactly what she needed. Elara stepped closer, and Signey leaned against her. She didn’t turn for a hug. She didn’t reach for Elara’s hand. She just stared at the results of her work, the Riders mourning the loss of something they had once thought impossible to lose. Elara had felt the same kind of grief when she’d realized that her bond to Zephyra had cut her off from her ability to summon astrals; she remembered the hollowness, the crisis of identity, the fear of navigating a world without such an integral part of herself.
With that in mind, she raised her voice. “I may have joined you late, but, in that time, we have dealt our enemy a significant blow. I hope you can trust me when I say… I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what this battle will bring. I’m afraid we’ll lose. I’m afraid that Iya will take even more from us before we manage to put him down. But none of that scares me as much as the idea that this is the last time you’ll have your dragons.”
They had known, of course, because Elara couldn’t have kept such a thing from them. A choice made without all the facts was no choice at all. But the loss of these final bonds had made a concept feel all too real, and there was hollow sadness in every gaze.
“I’d do anything to keep them here, but we can’t keep them here and have them remain them. As Azeal said, for years, they have loved and protected you in life and in death. For years, you have loved and honored them as best you could. No matter what happens next, that will never change. If they must return to the divine realm, let them return victorious. Let them return loved. Let them return with the memory of a partnership that grew beyond the need for a celestial bond: a partnership forged by choice and welded with love.
“And let us say goodbye to them knowing that the greatest threat to our world was destroyed by our combined power,” Elara finished. “I wish I could take this sacrifice away from you, but I can at least give you the gift of a proper goodbye. And I’ll be right there in the air alongside you—right there to watch us triumph. Are you with me?”
Cheers rang out, mainly from the two boys. However, there was a glint of pride in Professor Smithers’s eyes. He gave Elara a single nod of acknowledgment before helping his husband climb into the saddle and then strapping himself in. On the other side of the field, Arran and Giles climbed onto the back of Stormborn and took off toward one of the distant mountain ranges, likely for the privacy to mourn their bond in peace. Then Nizsa carried Professor Smithers and Mr. Lewis south, toward Beacon, leaving Elara alone with her former den.
Well, she thought with a pang of loss, most of her former den.
“That was a nice speech,” said Signey with a small curl of her lips. It was the closest she would come to smiling right now. “You would have made a fine officer, if you’d actually enlisted.”
Elara wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want death to be my whole life. I just wanted to do something good, and I am.” She paused. “Right?”
“You’re doing your best,” Torrey said, joining them on the riverbank. “That’s all any of us can do.”
The Tenebris rippled and foamed, and the air was thick with the promise of rain. That rain would feed the soil and plants, but there were parts of the lands that would never again bear life. Lightbringer and his army had leveled farmland here and in Joya del Mar. San Irie still hadn’t recovered from the damage Langlish dragons had done to their fields, but Elara knew now that wasn’t the fault of the dragons. A dragon was only as good or bad as their Rider, and she had met the best and the worst of them.
“I’m scared,” Signey admitted, glancing at Elara from the corner of her eye. She sounded as if she were confessing to a crime, and Elara’s stomach twisted with guilt. “If Iya is in Jesper now… If I have to face my brother today…”
“I won’t let you do that,” said Elara. “Either of you. I’d rather fight Jesper myself than force one of you to do it.”
“Jesper’s been my best friend for… I don’t know. It feels like a lifetime,” Torrey whispered, her head bowed. “He made me laugh when I was crying over my first breakup. He hid in closets and air vents with me when I wanted to spy on my parents. He read books with me and to me. It just feels like I failed him.”
“And Zephyra,” Signey added with a sigh. “We didn’t save them in time.”
“Jesper and Zephyra loved you. Even if they’ve lost themselves, they love you still. I believe that.” Elara hugged first Torrey and then Signey. “Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to say goodbye. But don’t take on the burden of blame when there’s one clear villain in all this.”
Signey looked as if she wanted to argue, but something in Elara’s expression stopped her. She and Torrey exchanged inscrutable looks, but it was better than the bleak hopelessness that seemed to cover them like a shroud.
“All right,” said Signey slowly. “We have a plan. Torrey will ride Azeal. You’re going to pilot Valor. I’m going to rip their dragon bonds away when they least expect it. We’ll have all the armies marching on Iya’s stolen land while I get Faron Vincent and Reeve Warwick out of the blast zone.” The last one was news to Elara, and it was clear from the brief flash of a smile that Signey knew it. She would have kissed her, but she didn’t think Signey would appreciate sharing such a moment with Torrey. Elara returned the smile, and Signey’s smile widened before her voice lowered into a dark promise. “Then I’ll face down my ancestor—whether he’s in Jesper’s body or not—and make him regret that he ever crawled out of that pit.”
“I’ll face down your ancestor, whether he’s in Jesper’s body or not, and make him regret that he ever crawled out of that pit.”
“Without dying,” Torrey added. “If either of you die, I’ll figure out how to summon your spirits so I can kill you.”
With artificial solemnity, all three of them promised to survive the upcoming battle. Torrey even affected a falsetto to promise on Azeal’s behalf. If their ensuing laughter had an edge of desperate hysteria, there was no one else around to point that out. It felt good, to be children, laughing at a joke that wasn’t funny. If she didn’t think about the dragon behind them and that she was in Langley, it almost felt like old times in Deadegg with Wayne, Aisha, Cherry, and Reeve.
Elara could almost feel those friends with her now, as if she were capable of summoning their astrals. Perhaps Mala was watching, and, as keeper of the astrals, she was allowing Elara’s friends a momentary glimpse at her. I miss you, she sent to them, hoping somehow, some way, they would hear her. And I won’t rest until he pays for what he did to you.
The periwinkle sky stretched out above Elara, disappearing beyond the mountains, reaching out to where her sister and Reeve were. To where Elara soon would be.
This time, they would end this.