Purity and wisdom, light and inspiration, protection and destruction both.
The chant rose in pitch. Power rose with it. Toinette knew that she was almost done. One more line, then one more task, and—then?
The thing before her had to perish.
All else was fog and phantoms.
Spirit of flame, hear us and aid!
She screamed the last phrase. Clarity, a light unlike the green-purple radiance around them, burst into her brain, driving the other force back for a few precious breaths. Toinette felt her body again: wet cheeks and cracked lips, blistered feet and bruised arms.
The un-ark’s power was entering there. She could feel the flesh falling away, and the icy void that replaced it.
You want change?she thought at it.Fine.
As Erik had plummeted from theHawk’s deck in the storm, Toinette turned and dove off the platform, arrowing her body into the void. As she fell, she opened herself, embracing the power of the flame and the power of her blood together, and letting them fill her from the inside out.
She fell.
Then she flew, and her wings had no need of wind.
Forty
Rising, Toinette shone in the darkness. The golden sparks in her eyes glimmered throughout her body, shining among her ebony scales. Her wings beat slowly, but she hovered midair with no visible struggle, her neck curving long and graceful to let her look down at the un-ark.
Erik would have held still just to watch her if he could have.
He himself had started changing while on the platform. Luckily, he’d been halfway through when Toinette had hurled herself into the abyss; he’d had no chance to panic, only to gaze awestruck as she ascended.
The light yet flashed around them, trying to compel, but it found no purchase. If it had ever been used on other than mortal flesh and blood, that time was aeons past. It was already fading as Erik left the platform, flying through a void at once more stable and less resistant than air. He caught a glimpse of his body as he bent his neck forward and saw that he was glowing too, but far more faintly than Toinette.
Between one blink of an eye and the next, giant hands made of shadow and lined with purple-green light lashed up from the depths.
The too-long fingers clutched at Erik. He recoiled, just out of reach of nails like sharpened tree trunks; from across the room, he heard Toinette’s roar and whipped his head around to see her. She’d escaped the worst of the attack, but the second hand had caught her across a hind leg. It dissipated back into the wall, but the damage was done. Blood dripped, hissing and smoking on the platform and glowing molten red.
The spirit of fire was with them. If it was to do any good, there wasn’t much time left.
Erik turned his gaze away from the hands and breathed deeply, summoning forth the flame. He saw Toinette stretch out wings and neck, her chest swelling, the glow steady in her eyes even as the hands began to re-form behind her.
Fire poured out from each of their mouths, striking the un-ark dead center on two of its sides.
A hand of shadow wrapped itself around Erik. Its fingers bound his wings to his sides, and wherever it touched him, he felt not just cold but blighted, as though the mere contact took away a bit of his vitality. He tried to escape, tried to rake at the hand with his claws, but to no avail. It clung. It began to squeeze.
Bands of shadow clasped Toinette too. Her body thrashed frantically, vainly trying to escape—but her flaming breath was steady and strong.
Good it is,Erik remembered his mother’s father saying,to end a stout life with a stout death.
Wing-bound, he would fall. But he would fall in fire. Erik ceased his struggle and thought only of the foe before him, the blot that must be purged so that men could live more safely in the world. He bent all of his strength toward that destruction.
Lungs aching, vision blurring, he saw the bleached wood kindle and flare.
The hand’s grip slackened.
Erik took the reprieve and hauled more air into his lungs, keeping the fire blazing forth from his open jaws.
The flames around the un-ark took on a greenish hue.No, Erik thought, with no energy left to shout it even in his mind. There was only flat denial left, and pointing the power he channeled at the discolored flame. The force riding his body doubled, racking his bones and muscles with pain. Flesh, dragon or mortal, was an imperfect vessel.
Yet the fire flared a deep red-gold, banishing the taint of green, and that sight was worth every heartbeat of pain.
