Fire cut through the darkness again as Fasj screeched, this time accompanied by the pain of spears and pikes digging beneath her violet scales. Azriel breathed through the agony, reaching through the haze of panic that set in for every dyingcreature to take her pain as she writhed on the battlements above.
Then Azriel felt Razer follow suit. The dragon stretched his mental claws through to Fasj, taking on the horror. Brutis was next, wrapping his mind around the other dragon’s to shield her from her own body. Then Anthoria, still wrestling with Whelan’s own injuries, cast her consciousness out to envelope Fasj with the soothing peace of slumber that her own bondheart felt.
More and more added on. Dhanin. Venja. Nix. Every dragon and every bondheart on the field wrapped Fasj up in as much of a blanket of safety as they could, easing her pain and bringing her a moment of peace in the midst of such horrors. All that he knew of, except for one pair: Almandine and Ariadne. Where the small, opalescent dragon had gone, he didn’t know, but it’d been far too long.
Azriel sucked in a fiery breath, still running to reach the closing gates, as a figure with silver hair stepped forward, spear ready. Of course Loren was there, ready to make the final blow and be the one who everyone saw as the hero.
Another painful inhale, then Fasj was gone.
The gates ahead of them closed, locking them firmly outside the Hub. But Azriel did not slow his pace. He wouldn’t allow the dragon’s death to be in vain—not when she’d given them a chance to get so close without retaliation from above.
Now that the attention from Fasj eased, however, time slipped away from them. They needed to break through the door before archers and arbalists were ready to aim their weapons at the army now clambering within range. On either side of him, huge ladders were sent forward from the ranks farthest back, propping onto the wall to allow for soldiers to breach the wall from above.
As Azriel suspected, the first couple were shoved back down. The next handful each held several of his men before they weretipped back into the thick of the army. More, however, were reaching the top of the Hub’s wall where dhemons and fae were slipping through the embrasures to begin their siege from above.
“I need this gate burned down,” Azriel called to Razer.
At first, the dragon only sent back his hesitation. Azriel could feel him turning his attention to the wall and taking note of how many of their people stood too close.
“Please,Razer!” Azriel sucked in a sharp breath as the Caersan beside him took a bolt to the side. The vampire’s blood sprayed everywhere, and he fell, dropping his effects. At first, Azriel grimaced at them, then he picked up the fallen soldier’s shield and raised it above his head just in time for an arrow to glance off it. “I have sat back and watched you refuse time and again to burn these fuckers to the ground,but I need younow!”
The thwack and whistle of a ballista flying through the air made Azriel’s breath catch. He turned to see where the massive artillery flew, but the dragon at which it was aimed dove out of the way well before it reached them.
Without acknowledging him in any way, Razer flew forward.
“Back!” Azriel cried to his soldiers who were too close to the gates. “Get back so we can burn it!”
Those who heard, obeyed. Those who didn’t…burned.
Razer’s blast of fire hit the stone beside the gates as he flew by, daring not to remain in one place for too long for fear of the ballistae reaching him. He circled to the back of the army, rolling as the weapons discharged in his direction, before rushing back in.
More dragonfire engulfed the battlements as Razer made his second pass, missing the gates again in his urgency to retreat. Another round of ballistae soared through the air, this time with one ripping a hole in the midnight blue dragon’s wing. He roared at the same moment the pain hit Azriel’s arm as though it were he who was struck.
“Almost there,” Azriel urged.
For the first time since their vinculum had snapped into place, Razer didn’t say anything snarky. He didn’t throw a quip back at Azriel or threaten him in any way. Instead, the dragon addressed the others who were inching closer to take his place as he dodged and wove between the flying pikes. “Stay back—let me do it.”
It wasn’t that Razer wanted the glory. He wanted nothing to do with burning down the damned gates. No, like Azriel, Razer didn’t want to risk anyone else getting too close and getting injured because of it. Neither of them liked the idea of putting their friends in harm’s way. Not if they could help it, anyway.
But it was precisely that mindset that kept Azriel from taking note of the consciousness that he hadn’t felt in quite some time as it flew closer and closer to the battle. As he held his shield up to prevent the rain of arrows from putting an end to him too soon, he missed it when that one dragon darted to the front of the army, just behind his bondheart.
Razer beat his wings, forcing himself to a halt right in front of the gates as he bellowed dragonfire at them. It was a sight to behold—the massive dragon poised before the Hub as he broke through the wall.
And as the ballista shot right at his exposed chest.
Azriel couldn’t breathe. He grappled for his vinculum to Razer at the same moment the dragon did the same. Panic shot through them both as they watched the huge ballista fly from two different angles. As he yanked at the invisible thread connecting them, desperate to sever the vinculum before it was too late, he dropped the shield and took a bolt to the shoulder.
All around him, appearing to move at half-speed, dhemons and fae and mages and vampires rushed forward, overtaking the broken gates. Overtaking the gates that he would never get the chance to see beyond.
The ballista struck, and dragon blood mixed with the snow as it showered the army below. The air punched from Azriel’s chest, the pain of death nearly sending him to his knees.
Until he realized that it was nothisdeath that burned through his lungs, nor Razer’s.
A great, deep red dragon with black horns that spiraled like a dhemon’s let out a choked roar as the huge shaft lodged in his chest, throwing him backwards into the blue. Azriel shouted, his cry drowned in the din of war, while the two dragons tumbled to the ground. They landed in a heap as a second pike whistled by, missing them both by seconds.
“Protect him.” The words were not spoken in a voice Azriel had heard in the recent months. They were the final words of his father. The final command given from the Crowe to his bondheart.
The bondheart whose vinculum vanished a heartbeat later.
