LIGHTBRINGER’S SEVERED BOND WITH GAEL MIGHT HAVE WEAKENED him, but it had made him as feral as he had been the moment he crawled into this realm. This was no strategic god clinging to the roof of the Hearthstone. This was an animal defending his territory. And that made him dangerously unpredictable.
Or maybe he was just made more dangerous by Elara’s incompetence.
As soon as they had reached the Hestan Archipelago, Signey, Reeve, and Gael had been dropped off on the beach to use their combined efforts to find Torrey and Azeal from the ground. Elara and Faron returned to the air with a deceptively simple plan of their own. Elara could pilot Valor alone by channeling the power of the gods, but she couldn’t do that and attack and watch Lightbringer’s position. Faron had agreed to be her eyes, telling her where the dragon would move or attack next, so Elara could focus on flying and fighting. Faron knew Lightbringer the best, and she was sure she could predict him.
Valor flew around Lightbringer, all flames and ferocity, but Elara was still struggling. She had been summoning for so long, and she’d already been in one battle before this. Meanwhile, Lightbringer had stayed out of the fighting until now, and he moved his claws and teeth and tail with far more energy than Elara had in her. Valor’s attacks seemed like minor annoyances, and Elara didn’t know if that was because he was strong or if she was just that weakened.
Faron sat on the arm of Elara’s chair, watching the screen intently. Several of Elara’s attacks had gone wide as she had been forced to jolt out of the way of one of Lightbringer’s limbs, but then the drake had dipped as Elara’s energy flagged and her last blast had nearly hit themselves. Elara’s cheeks burned. Faron had made fighting from a drake look so easy during the war, and now she was watching Elara fail.
I need to get out there, Aveline called from the panel as yet another one of Valor’s blasts was dodged by the surprisingly nimble dragon. I hurt him last time. I can hurt him again.
“You can’t go alone,” said Faron. Elara was too focused to speak, but she hoped that the queen could feel the heat of her disapproval from wherever Nobility was. The astral call went silent without further response, and Elara and Faron exchanged glances. “She went alone.”
A ball of golden light appeared on Elara’s screen. Queen Aveline Renard Castell was surrounded by her royal astrals, and together, they soared in Lightbringer’s direction. Her searing attacks carved bloody lines over the dragon’s flank, distracting him from Valor. Elara’s heart leaped into her throat as she watched Aveline fly past bladed wings and pillars of fire. She was nimble enough now, but Lightbringer was gigantic. Eventually, he would trap her. Eventually, he would kill her.
“The drake is dipping again,” said Faron, dragging Elara back to her own problems. “Don’t you know how to fly this thing?”
“I—I’m just learning how to fly it and attack with it.”
“What?”
“We didn’t have a lot of time,” Elara said defensively. “And I’m doing okay!”
“If this is your definition of okay, I have no idea why your grades were so much better than mine,” Faron deadpanned.
“It’s because I actually study,” Elara shot back, begging her body to hold on just a little bit longer. “And that’s irrelevant to—”
The drake dropped again, leveling out near Lightbringer’s stomach.
“For Irie’s sake.” Faron got up, running her fingers over the silver metal bangles on her wrist. “You fly. I’ll fight. As soon as you get a clear shot at the soft spot under his chin, take it. Dragons are weakest there.”
Elara felt stupid. Faron could summon astrals again, her magic made stronger by the scalestone bracelets she’d converted her shackles into. And one did not have to be a drake pilot to use scalestone to amplify and direct summoning magic. One only had to be Iryan. Yet it had never occurred to her to have her sister attack for her, to work with her like this.
Maybe they’d both become too accustomed to working alone.
Faron disappeared. A few minutes later, a light in the shape of a chair lit up on the panel, a sign that Faron was sitting in the pilot seat of the front cockpit. Valor’s mouth opened, and fire burst forth, burying Lightbringer’s stomach in red and gold flames. The dragon roared furiously and turned so that his spiked back was facing them.
Elara threw all her power into directing the drake around and up, up, up.
Valor’s conjured flame had blackened the white skin of Lightbringer’s stomach, giving him what looked like a flaky bruise. He tried to lower his head, but there Aveline was again, golden blades stabbing into his skull and drawing blood. His wings spread so he could take to the air, but the queen was there, too, like a sun, like a star, like a comet.
She shone so brightly that she didn’t see his spiked tail until it struck her in the side.
“AVELINE!” Elara screamed, shooting Valor forward as though she could somehow catch the queen. But Aveline did not fall. The spikes had pierced her through the center, sending a spray of blood over Lightbringer’s battered body. The light that had surrounded the queen went out. She slumped forward on the spike, her diadem loosening.
Elara watched in horror as it tumbled to the ground. As Aveline’s body followed shortly after.
She couldn’t drag her eyes away. She couldn’t even move.
The woman who had been her first love, who had become like family to her, who had believed in her even when Elara had had trouble believing in herself.
The queen who had once been a dancer, who had loved a woman she didn’t think she could have, who had taken care of her people as if they were her world.
The girl who had grown up on a farm with parents who hadn’t really been her parents and yet had stepped up to face her destiny with more grace than Elara could have ever imagined.
And now, she was dead.
“NO!” Faron screamed.
Through her tears, Elara saw the sky light up. Faron had thrown a blast of lightning that struck Lightbringer in the neck, climbing upward toward his chin. Elara felt as if she would never smile again, but Faron was a wrathful god, ready to see her queen’s killer in his own grave. Elara drew strength from that rage, allowed herself to feel it. San Irie had lost so much. She had lost so much.
Lightbringer would lose everything. They would make sure of it.