Power strikes through me.
Dark light bursts outward beneath my palm. Heat blasts through my arm and torso, as scorching as dragon’s breath billowing over me.
I clamp down on my cry of pain.
Sweat breaks out across my body while I fight the storm of power as hard as I can.
Again, I sense the beast’s rage in its last moments, the distortion of its brilliant light into icy darkness. An act so cruel that I feel it in my own heart. I’m assailed by sensations and images: burning stone; bronze scales; a black hammer like the one I hold. I can feel how young the dragon was, and yet its fire is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, far hotter than any forge-fire.
My instinct is to let go of the imprinted medallion and for a terrible moment, I think I might need to, but then…
As I hoped, the pain lessens.
The medallion already fused with my skin is finally protecting me from the worst of the dragon’s energy.
It’s enough that I can give the imprinted metal a single, snarled command. “Form a nail.”
The metal obeys me, its edges pulling in and thickening, transforming into a tip at one end and a flat surface at the other until a large, black nail rests in my palm, the dragon scales still visible on its surface.
I press the nail’s tip to the Vandawolf’s chest, right over his heart, as I grip my hammer firmly in my other hand.
Gallium flinched at the dragon’s scream when the medallion awakened, but now he edges forward. “Asha, what are you doing?”
I inhale a shaky breath.
Anger is my defense now.
Not love.
“The Vandawolf is suffering,” I say. “I’ve kept him alive in the cruelest possible way. Now I have to end it.”
I could try to turn the Vandawolf’s body to ash or smoke, but unlike the humans, and even the monsters in the wasteland, he has Blacksmith metal fused to the outside and inside of his body. He has another soul—the wolf—within him. Blacksmith magic was used on him in the rarest of ways.
All of that combines to make him entirely unique. Set apart even from Thaden.
I have no idea how his body would react to my raw power and I won’t risk causing him more suffering than necessary.
So instead, I will rely on a blade of my making.
“I will hammer this nail through his chest and stop his beating heart as quickly as I can.”
Gallium’s shoulders are tense. “You don’t have to do this, Asha. He won’t last long. You can simply… let him go.”
“Your empathy can’t help me, brother!”
My shout echoes in the silence.
I love my brother for his compassion, but it can’t ease my burden right now. “Every breath the Vandawolf takes is hurting him. Every beat of his heart is pumping cold malice through his body.”
I twist to meet my brother’s eyes and then I focus on my sister, whose features remain shrouded in light.
“Do you not remember Malak’s anvil?” I ask. “Do you remember how it made you feel?” My voice rises. “Have you forgotten how the Vandawolf made sure you never had to touch it again?”
I glance back at the maze of metal twisting across the Vandawolf’s chest. “Thatis what I’ve done to him.”
Desperately trying to breathe now, I pull in air, only to let it rush out of me in a low snarl. “Oh, if you wanted revenge on this man for all the years he kept me in a tower, then believe me, I’ve delivered it tenfold.”
I lower my voice to a cold whisper. “I’m worse than Malak. I’ve shrouded my cruelty in kindness.”
