As she barraged my friends, and as she tried to steal what was left of Farris, the shadows snapped through the air.
They roared over her. Through her.
She staggered backward, her arms lifting.
It was too late.
The Cor blazed into shards of every color, and the shadows surged around her, plucking away at what she'd stolen. Faint faces flickered in the air as they peeled out from inside her, finally wrenching free.
As they left her, she withered, twisting back into a caricature of what she used to be.
Her skin tore. The red blazing across her body cracked. Her perfect face melted to bone and ash.
She shrieked, clutching at the wisps of darkness and light she couldn’t catch. “No. No! You're mine.”
With a grunt, the queen dragon opened her jaws wide and breathed fire. It wrapped around Prager in an almost loving embrace.
The Cor heated in my hand, and I charged forward.
Her body had turned to fire and bone, cracking and curling in on itself. Bits of ash floated from her skin. She lifted terrified eyes my way, but I didn't think she feared the flames.
She was afraid of love.
Her horrified shriek pierced the cavern.
For one instant, we stared at each other. In her eyes, I saw not the monster she'd become, but the woman who'd been broken by forced love.
“This is mercy,” I whispered.
I shoved the Cor into her chest.
Light exploded from it, brighter than the moon and the stars and the sun combined. It didn’t burn, it cleansed, filling the cracks in the earth and sky and bones and memory.
Raw magic poured from her in a howl that nearly shattered me. She clutched my arms, but her fingers dissolved into light. Her scream twisted into the air and the wind consumed it.
A bang, and she exploded into ashes that sifted down the floor.
The Cor dropped to the ground, and I grabbed it, holding it tight in my hand.
Silence echoed in the cavern. The shadows that had once sustained Prager vanished along with her.
Prager was dead.
I stumbled, vaguely hearing Lore cry my name.
He caught me before I could slam into the rocks covering the cavern floor.
“I’ve got you,” he said by my ear, gathering me close. “I’ve got you.”
I tried to open my eyes, tried to speak, to tell him how much he meant to me. But everything was heavy, even the light.
Laphira’s voice floated over me. She pressed her hands to my belly and chest, and warmth flowed into me.
I blinked, barely.
Farris.
He lay beside me. Whole. No longer fading. But…
