Aeson’s Wing comes streaming into the room, spreading around the rim of the outer barrier. I watch them shouting orders at each other, the two sets of magical domes between us blocking the sound, but I don’t need to hear them to know my time is running out. Herm holds up his hand again, and I turn to see my other lizard dagger start to tremble like it’s fighting the force of the Stormer that’s trying to steal it.
Shit.
The Matron’s shrieks and wails become louder as she sees the scramble of activity around us. She starts begging for help as tears and blood spill freely down her face and off her hands. My remaining lizard dagger loses its fight against Herm and goes flying out of the Conduit’s other palm and out of the inner barrier. I hurry to unsheathe a bone blade while keeping the Matron from crumbling to the floor.
Done with drawing things out, I line up my new dagger so it can enter between the Matron’s ribs and pierce right into her heart. In one swift and practiced move, I sink half the blade into her chest before she grabs my hand with surprising strength and fights me from delivering the final blow. Warm blood spills from the puncture and coats both of our hands, and she slowly starts to lose her grip.
“Wait,” she begs, tightening her grasp on my hand when I win another inch. “Don’t you want answers?” she rasps, her eyes desperate as they flick between mine.
“No,” I growl. “Your death is the answer.”
I gain another inch.
A thunderous boom sounds off around me, and my gaze whips in the direction of the sound to find Aeson. His face is filled with rage and he pounds on the outer barrier, intent on getting my attention. He shouts something angrily, pointing at me and then the ground. I can’t hear him, but I’m pretty sure he just ordered me to drop my weapon and step away from the sorcai.
I glare an unmistakablenot a chancehis way and then focus back on the Matron. Aeson punches the barrier again with a resounding bang that sends a chill skittering up my spine.
“If you kill me, you’ll weaken the Fae Gate,” the Matron gasps, her mouth filling with blood as I shove the dagger even deeper, drawing closer and closer to her heart as her strength wanes and mine prevails.
“I wouldn’t believe a word out of your mouth even if every Thrasher in existence vouched for you,” I snarl at her, and she whimpers.
Despite my declaration, I consider her words for a millisecond. She is here at the Fae Gate for reasons I don’t know, but Aeson himself said that it wasn’t the Matron specifically that had something to do with the gate, so fuck her mind games and stalling tactics.
Suddenly, a pulse of power tears through the room with a thunderous clap of sound. I’m thrown away from the Matron, and she crumples to the ground. I sit up, a steady ringing now in my head, and I work to shake off the momentary shock of whatever just happened.
Aeson is suddenly in front of me, tinged in red from the only magical barrier that still separates us. He and his Wing must have just ripped through the other one. The Matron coughs, choking on her own blood as she tries to crawl toward her hopeful saviors.
“No you don’t,” I croak, grabbing her leg and pulling her toward me.
“What the fuck are you doing, Ever?” Aeson shouts at me, and I’m surprised I can hear him now.
I look down and find my bone blade still lodged in the Matron’s chest. Blood pools underneath her, and she’s pressing a bloody hand to the barrier next to me like she’s still trying to drop it so Aeson and the other drakes can get in.
She doesn’t understand that the minute I touched her protections, I seized control of them. I have no idea how it works, but the Relacour magic in our veins allows the Syphons to withstand Relacour casts, null their control, and claim their protections at will.
I reach for the handle of the dagger that’s sitting in the sorcai’s chest.
“Ever, stop!” Aeson commands, pressing a hand against the barrier like he can will me to obey. “You need to listen to me, you can’t kill her!” he shouts, and I hear the fury and betrayal in every word.
I close my eyes for a moment to help stave off the rush of emotion I unexpectedly feel from the hurt in Aeson’s voice. He calls my name again, and I press my hand against the barrier where he pounds his fist.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this, but there has to be another way,” he growls at me, and I bow my head because there isn’t.
I know he’s furious, that he doesn’t understand, but there’s nothing I can do. The Relacours started this, and now it’s time for the Syphons to finish it. If there were a way to belong to both Aeson and my people, I would take it. If I could fix what was done to us without hurting him, I would. But it’s not possible. I won’t choose him over the Syphons. I won’t choose him over me.
“Claws, listen to me, I need you to trust me,” Aeson tries again, calmer this time, like he’s hoping he can talk me down from the ledge since he can’t order me off of it.
Resolved, I drop my hand from his and wrap it around the dagger in the Matron’s chest. Aeson starts frantically pounding on the barrier again, shouting and barking orders as I unsheathe my final bone blade from behind my back with my other hand and press it against the Matron’s throat.
She’s on the brink of death, blood pouring freely from her chest, mouth, and hands, but she still manages to look up at me with pure malevolence. “You think this will save you, but it won’t,” she rasps, choking on vitriol as it spill out in time with her lifeforce. “The fae will come for you, and I don’t mean the ones on the other side of the gate. I’m talking about the ones that are already here.”
Ice spills into my veins at her words, but I’m already drawing my blade across her throat while I shove my dagger into her heart. Aeson roars and it echoes all around me as death finally claims the Matron, her coven, her bloodline, and her magic…forever.
Sixty-two years of suffering, planning, hunting, and clawing our way back from the brink of annihilation, and it’s done. The Syphons are finally free.
Tears spill down my cheeks. Relief and sorrow churn in my chest as I sit back on my knees, wiping the blood from my blades on the matron’s cloak. Aeson’s face is a mixture of rage and betrayal. I’m whole again, a Syphon in every sense now that the curse is broken, and yet the way he’s looking at me threatens to shatter me all over again.
I open my mouth to explain, to help him understand, but my blood all at once flash boils in my veins, and my bones become molten. My dragon pushes against the bars of its cage…but they suddenly fracture and crumble. Power surges through me, filling every cell in my body and purging every drop of foreign magic from my blood. The inferno in me builds, and blinding pain is quick to follow. My body bows, a silent scream pouring from my mouth, and then the well of power that’s rising and expanding inside of me…explodes.
