But he released Rhaif’s neck the moment before he snapped it between his fingers. He watched Rhaif’s facade break, his head lolling on the floor slowly, side to side, almost in slow motion. His eye trickled with blood.
“Kill me—take your revenge—” he heard Rhaif say.“Do it!”
Draven slowly stood off him as saliva emitted from Rhaif’s mouth, as though he were in agony of the thoughts that had just flooded him. Rhaif’s face was askew, and he struggled to roll himself up onto his elbow.
“KILL ME!” he begged through the sobs.
Draven stared at the faltering king on the ground, at the tears that couldn’t evacuate Rhaif’s now absent eyes, instead forcing the angst of his failure to converge itself into the pile of wailing saliva dribbling from his mouth and onto the floor.
“TAKE MY LIFE!”
Draven forced his breaths to even, and for a moment he considered obliging, taking the life that had condemned his love, the one who had blamed Aydra for his mother not loving him…
But the shame in her face the night she’d told him about it all entered his mind.
And his jaw tightened at the weeping man before him.
“That’s not what she wanted,” Draven forced himself to say.
The phoenix purred beside him, her head sniffing Rhaif’s struggling body. She tilted her head to Draven. Draven took the horn from its beak, and the bird shook out a piercing cry that made his ears throb. Cold black flames swarmed the Throne Room.
Draven pressed the horn to his lips again.
The Rhamocour’s roaring bellow filled the air.
And fire once more engulfed Arbina’s tree.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
DRAVEN’S CORE WAS empty.
He ached for the Edge, for this day to be done, to see Aydra’s face again.
His feet led him up the steps to the high tower.
Back to the place he knew would take him from this land.
He slowed as he reached the top step, the large archway on the opposite side of the room staring back at him. The window to the Edge.
He took his boots off his feet and allowed his toes to feel the cold stone beneath him. Wind wrapped through the tower, and he stepped to the archway.
Screams. Fire. His dragon kin.
Their wings flapped mercilessly in the air as they splayed the kingdom with their flames.
The tower suddenly shook, and the roar of the Rhamocour bellowed through the land as it wrapped itself around the tower.
He wished he could tell her goodbye.
“Are you sure about this?” came the voice of Samar at his back.
Draven didn’t turn. His fist tightened around the horn, and a great exhale left him.
“I am,” he told her. His head tilted down slightly, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Send them home once I am gone.”
He could see Samar’s head bow slightly. “I will. And the horn?”
Draven swallowed hard as he stared at it in his hand. “I do not wish for any of my future brothers to have to bear the hurt of losing such an equal. I will take the horn to my death. Perhaps without it in the world, future Venari will not as easily fall as I did.”
