The dragon leans away. The wind whips up. And the hair on the back of my neck is instantly on edge, as there’s a massive swell of power.
The Elder Dragon opens his mouth, revealing three rows of blade-like teeth larger than my entire body. I realize a breath too late that he’s going to attack. But as he lunges for me, he disappears into nothing more than a whisper of Etherlight.
I exhale, hand still wrapped around the sword plunged through my gut.
I am back in the Grand Chapel of Mercy. The screams return to my ears—a chorus of agony sung by every citizen of Vinguard. Lines of gold are still etched upon the floor. It feels as if the entirety of the Font has been dredged up to where we all now stand.
But none of that matters now. I know the truth hidden from every citizen.
The Elder Dragon is Valor.
Valor is the Elder Dragon.
He made the Font and then changed himself into the Elder Dragon with this place.
Vinguard wasn’t humanity’s last stand. It wasn’t Valor’s fortress. It was never even a city at all.
It was an artificer sigil designed to funnel power into one man. But that power… Something in it was too much. Or twisted. And Valor became the Elder Dragon.
I don’t know how the power in the Font was able to show me all of this. Perhaps it was a piece of its artificer still trapped within it, like a maker’s mark on an invention. Or could it be that the magic itself was crying out for balance?
And now, if I don’t stop this, history will repeat itself. Only worse.
What can you do?The small, doubtful voice of the girl I once was bubbles up to the surface.You’re not Valor Reborn.
I’m not.In the end, I was nothing but a tool in a plan I don’t even fully understand. I thought myself so smart, so capable. But I never had more than half the information while fate mocked me, holding the rest.
I stare at the blade protruding from my stomach. The only reason I’m still alive must be the Etherlight flowing through me. Yet there’s even more I don’t understand. I press my eyes closed,willing it to change, to be different, to wake up back at the start of the Tribunal and find a way to fix all this.
But when I open my eyes again, the sword is still there. As is the tether of Etherlight that connects me to Vicar Darius. My fingers slip again on the hilt as I reach for it, my eyes now solely focused on the man who’s made my life a living hell for years.
“No.” I force the word through gritted teeth. Past the crushing agony and endless doubt that’s tried to pull me down for the past six years.
He took everything from me. My freedom. My future. My hopes and dreams. My friends and my family. I will not let him have this power.
Maybe you’re not Valor. Lucan’s words return to me softly, as though he’s murmuring them right in my ear. I can almost feel his warmth at my back. But that doesn’t mean you can’t save this world. If anyone can find a way, it’d be you.
Vinguard deserves a hero. But all they have is a scared eighteen-year-old girl.
So I’d damn well better be enough.
I grab the hilt of the blade with purpose, my fingers finally closing around it. Gritting my teeth, I yank on the blade and begin to pull it from my stomach. Skin pulls and grabs and slices with every inch. I grit my teeth past the pain, focusing on the vicar and what I have to do. When it’s on the cusp of being too much, my rage holds me together.
Somehow, not even this kills me. It tries—oh, how it tries—but it cannot. Not with this much Etherlight surging through me.
The blade I rip out is not the same as when it entered my body. Gone is the steel, and in its place is a sword seemingly crafted of crimson Ether—as if my blood has condensed into a glowing weapon. Pressing my palm into my stomach, I find my skin has mended. The wound is no longer there, a merely blood-soaked slit in my clothing.
“Isola!” Lucan cries from behind me as I cross to the dais upon which the altar and the vicar rest, my legs shaking. The sound of his voice empowers me like a surge of Ether.
My focus remains on the vicar alone. I ascend the stone steps to the altar where he lies. His eyes flutter open as I loom over him, raising the sword aloft, holding it nearly vertical, pommel to the ceiling, point down toward him. Etherlight no longer connects us. It swells around me alone, and all I see is red.
“What are—” His wide, frantic eyes search me. In his horror, he whispers, “It was supposed to be mine.”
“Nothing of mine was ever yours.” I bring down the blade, stabbing the point through his throat—all the way to the stone below—and killing him instantly.
66
The moment the vicar dies, the ground groans and shudders. It’s as though the earth is revolting. Etherlight sparks and bursts, cracking stone and pocking the sculptures of the Grand Chapel. The screams continue from beyond and from within—the Mercy Knights still howl behind me, holding their faces as gold drips away. Most of them have collapsed to the floor. Some have gone silent.
