This is what he’d always planned. This is why he pushed me so hard as a boy. He wanted me to manifest a dragon…so that he could murder me and take it for himself.
“You’ve finally fulfilled your purpose,” he tells me with a biting edge.
From my peripheral, I see soldiers pinning down my dragon’s feet. See one of them positioning a sword right in front of its pulsing heart, ready to pierce it through.
And then my father lifts his dagger and arcs it up, aiming it straight at my heart.
Terror freezes me.
Clamorous anguish rips through my soul as I realize I’m about to die. There’s nothing I can do but watch the killing strike come for me.
I couldn’t protect her. Couldn’t save my mother. And now I’m going to be killed at the hand of my father.
And I’m helpless to fucking stop it.
My father’s blade comes for my heart at the same time that the soldier starts to plunge his blade into my dragon’s heart too.
My dragonscreams.
It’s a horrifying sound that fractures the air as the soldier’s blade pierces into its organ. I feel our shared agony, and then I feel our connection sever.
Feel my dragondie.
My father’s blade swings down.
A split second before my heart is pierced too, there’s a flash of gold.
With the help of her ribbons, Auren suddenly flings herself in front of me.
And I watch in horror as the blade meant for me stabs intoherchest instead.
She cries out, body slamming into me as the weapon sinks fully in, her ribbons collapsing. I lurch up and catch her clumsily through the net, holding her jerking body as shock courses through me.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t fucking breathe.
I can’t fucking—
“You useless nuisance,” my father grinds out with aggravation. He grabs Auren and tears her away from me, tossing her aside like she’s nothing, when she is fuckingeverything.
When he flings her viciously away, it makes the edge of my net lift. Just an inch.
But it’senough.
I exploit that single second of weakness, and my power blasts out like an eruption.
My rot seeps past the net’s edge, and as soon as I have a foothold, the soil dissolves. Latching onto that gap with a frantic grip, I shove my hand under the weakened space.
Instantly, I feel my power strengthen, surging up from the breach.
The net can’t pin me down anymore. My pulse blares in my ears as I tear it off before tossing it away. Its absence is like surging out from the ground after being buried alive.
My father doesn’t even have time to blink.
I lunge and have him by the throat in an instant. Rot pours into his body, trapping him in rancid rage. My fury dominates every other thought as my hatred floods into him with vicious intent.
I rot his hands from his wrists, making the skin wither, the muscles melt, both limbs falling off to the ground. He screams in pain and tries to grapple at my hold, but his feet can’t touch the ground, and he can no longer call up his power at the snap of his fingers.
