Hopefully they would make it in time. From what Daisy had shared, the two had gotten separated from the dragonlettes and the cubs early on when they’d remained behind to fend off the horde of sleepers Nathan had sent after Dewdrop.
No one even knew if the two were alive or not.
Something told her they had survived, however. Neither man was easily killed.
Knowing the sleepers were after him, Dewdrop had sacrificed himself so the rest could get away, giving the cube to Daisy for safe keeping. Although Tate believed Dewdrop when he said that was what happened, she also knew he’d had more complicated motives.
He’d seen an opportunity to find where the others were being held captive and had taken it. No matter that he’d be a prisoner as well.
It was the sort of half-brained scheme she would expect from a boy who hung around her.
Not content to let him go alone, Daisy and the rest had stashed the twins in a safe place with Mia and followed behind Dewdrop.
Tate would dearly like to know how they managed to get the twins to listen. Such a tactic might come in handy in the future.
With a sigh, Tate pulled herself from her contemplation of the sky, taking the hand Ryu offered and following him to the cliffside stairs.
The black pillar of light had fallen without Nathan’s will to sustain it and the eerie sky had returned to normal.
The atmosphere was solemn as their small party descended. Ryu and Thaddeus carried Thora between them. Tate had offered to take Thaddeus’s place, but he’d denied her saying it was his duty as Thora’s emperor to carry him to his final resting place.
The dragon-ridden were the only ones afforded such an honor.
The descent took almost no time until they were standing before the Rift again, the ocean breeze stirring their hair in a sense of normality that felt jarring after everything that had happened.
Ryu and Thaddeus, carrying Thora, stepped through the Rift first. Tate followed, feeling that odd sensation of being in two places at once settle around her.
The two men set Thora down in the center of the alter and stepped back.
The dragon tilted his head back, his eyes sliding shut. “It’s been so long since I felt the touch of home.”
Tate knelt at his side, reaching down to take his hand once again. Her expression stiffened as a different feeling than she’d had in the tunnels intruded on her conscious.
It was the same as her last visit to the Rift. The press of Ilith’s home just beyond the veil.
Possibilities occurred to her. Excitement threatened to rise which she quickly suppressed, not wanting to get ahead of herself.
“If I were to excise you, would Thora survive?”
The emperor went still on the other side of Thora. “Is that possible?”
Tate ignored him and Ryu, focusing only on Thora and his dragon.
“I would die.” There was no grief or fear in the dragon’s voice; simply a statement of fact.
“Maybe not.”
Tate wished she had the cube on hand right now so she could review its contents again, even though she remembered everything from the many times she’d listened to it. Jax said he’d found a way to excise Ilith. The only thing that had stopped him was the fact she’d perish if her link was severed with Tate.
Tate stilled. That was why he’d opened the Rift. It was an attempt to establish a path for Ilith to travel home. Only he’d failed and the Rift had never been capable of traveling in both directions.
At least until Nathan had done what he’d done and then Tate stumbled into the middle of things, accidentally opening a two-way bridge. A side effect of Tate’s status as the Apportens Mortis.
The dragon studied her with wise eyes. “You would do that for me?”
“There are no guarantees I will succeed. But you will definitely die like this.”
The dragon considered.
