NO!” I roared with my mind and voice and power.
But I felt the enigmatic yet undeniable tie between Sarah and me sever as swiftly as a sharpened ax slicing through a neck.
Just as I reached the mouth of the tunnel.
I looked out, chest heaving, flameheart roaring with a strength that should not have been possible, as if Sarah had dumped an entire sun inside of me.
An entire soul.
How could a heart be so alive and so dead at the same time?
When it was consumed with rage.
My burning eyes riveted at once at the flight of arrel in the sky. I didn’t know which one had taken Sarah—and therefore, which one now held her lifeless body.
I didn’t care.
“Ben?” Yvera said, panting voice uncertain as she slowly approached me.
She might as well not have existed. I couldn’t hear her through the blood pounding in my ears. I couldn’t even see her through the red in my vision. I simply backed up to get a running start.
“Ben!” Yvera shouted in disbelief, reaching for me.
Too late this time. Her fingers only just grazed my back as I charged forward and dove off the cliff.
She had cause to worry. Not that I cared or even consciously heard her. What I was doing should not have been possible in the middle of the night, even with two bright moons, let alone after having spent all my fire.
But I didn’t need a sun now. Not with a supernova inside me, taking the place of my heart.
I changed. I expanded. I exploded. Muscles, sinew, bone, teeth, wings, tail—all came into being with the force of a Brightflare mine detonation. I changed so fast and became so massive that my tail shook the mountain behind me when it struck, causing a landslide. And I wasn’t even bruised.
Then, popping my jaw with satisfaction, I roared.
That roar alone caused more rockslides—everywhere this time, across the Korpeth range. Precariously balanced boulders that had somehow withstood the test of time and been the inspiration for countless Strongshield ink paintings and poems collapsed. Desert trees that had fallen into and been held up by their neighbors for perhaps years made their final descent with thundering cracks. Ground animals screamed, night birds fled the skies, a pack of argen howled.
That roar echoed for elden. It would have shocked anyone with ears from Goldek Gate to Kellig Hold and perhaps beyond.
That roar shook the world.
Which was just what I had intended. I wanted everyone, everywhere, even those who had no part in creating my suffering, to feel something of it—and tremble before me.
The arrel—a stone creation all the Devourer’s own, made in solemn mockery of Royal half-forms—scattered. Which was just as well, because I craved the challenge.
The only singular, miniscule voice that remained of my humanity screamed at me that Sarah’s body was somewhere among them, that I should take at least enough care to retrieve it.
But what good is it now? my agonized fury raged. Her body was going to be burned in any case, for surely that was what even her family would have done, had I delivered it to them. Better to do it now, and cleanly, and erase as quickly as possible any remnant of the empty shell, before I ever had to see it.…
I never said I was in any state of reason. In fact, I was entirely mad.
In every sense of the word.
Fire spewed in great sweeps from my jaws. That alone wasn’t enough to kill those paradoxical beings of flying stone…but it made them brittle.
Heedless of the temperature with my scales protecting me, I knocked the super-heated arrel out of the sky with limbs and tail. Either that alone was enough to make them crack apart, or the blow, combined with the heat, used up the magic that gave them existence and they fell from the sky like the rocks they were and shattered on impact, creating more delicious destruction.
In desperation, some arrel aimed for my wings, but even as large as I was, I was too agile for them. I dove, corkscrewed, rose, and twisted in the air in a deadly, flame-filled dance they couldn’t match. I was a behemoth of destruction, too large and powerful to defy, let alone survive.
Never did I see Sarah’s body. But never did I look. Never did I want to.
It wasn’t Sarah anymore.
Neither was I Ben. Or Koriben, or an Heir, or a Sunfilled, or even my father’s son.
All identity was replaced with loss, and all thought with rage.
And then…all too soon, there were no more arrel.
That…that wasn’t enough. No, not nearly enough. That had only whetted my appetite. My hunger roared, and so did I out loud.
I lashed my tail against a pillar of sandstone, sending it crumbling. I landed on top of the highest peak and bellowed into the night as I smashed my foot into the ground, sending gaping cracks through the stone.
Then, with my mind and power, I added words to my roar.
IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO? IS THAT ALL YOU SEND AGAINST ME? I DEFY YOU, DEVOURER. SEND YOUR LEGIONS. SEND YOUR LISH. I WILL DESTROY THEM ALL. I WILL AVENGE HER DEATH ON YOU A HUNDREDFOLD. I WILL BURN, AND I WILL BREAK. I WILL CRUSH, AND I WILL TEAR—
A voice unexpectedly cut into my mind, piercing like a sapphire spear through the red. A voice I…knew. Using a name I recognized as…mine.
Saying…the last words I had expected to hear.
Ben, you torched idiot—she’s alive!