Page 73 of The Truth

Atara and Harken wheeled around Aeson, light streaming wherever they moved while Chora and the others stood tight to the apprentices. Above, their soulkin fought in the skies, tearing scales and flesh from those who had betrayed them. More Uraks flowed into the fighting, their numbers seemingly endless.

A scream rang out that chilled Aeson’s blood. He stumbled, every hair on his body pricking as he saw Chora lying on the ground shrieking at the top of her lungs and staring at the sky.

A moment passed, and a dragon fell. The creature smashed into the statue of Lavahîr in an explosion of stone and blood. And in the rubble, Daiseer lay broken. Blood flowed from a gaping wound in Daiseer’s head, and Chora’s soulkin was still as death itself.

Aeson turned away a swing of black steel and drove his níthral up through the Urak’s chin, then took another’s head from its shoulders, all the while looking at Chora who lay screaming in the blood-soaked grass.

Another dragon swept over the Uraks, pouring fire and fury into their ranks before alighting behind them. She stood tall and proud, her scales a flowing white and purple, her eyes liquid gold.

“Avandeer.” Aeson almost smiled at the sight of Tivar and her soulkin, until that moment of relief was shattered when the telltale smell of death and blood reached Lyara’s snout.

“No…” Aeson shook his head in disbelief. He had hardly processed the betrayal when a second dragon alighted on the opposite side of the group, bloodied scales shimmering like rubies beneath the moonlight. “Lyina…” Aeson murmured. “Traitor.”

Three more dragons landed around them, and even the Uraks paused at the sight.

“Lay down your weapons,” Tivar called from Avandeer’s back. “Do not throw your lives away. Too much death has come this night already. Aeson, please.”

“I would rather burn in the void for a thousand years than betray my kind.” Atara levelled her níthral at Tivar. “I call for Alvadru. Is there a shred of honour left in any of your bones? Do you dare face me beneath the eyes of the Enkara?”

“Tivar,” one of the traitors roared. “Eltoar gave the call to fall back. We must go.”

Before Tivar could answer, a series of roars thundered in the night. Above, Aeson saw through Lyara’s eyes as she dropped, the corpse of a dead traitor in her clutches. She released the dragon’s body and watched as it slammed into one of the dragons that surrounded them, crushing the Draleid and snapping the dragon’s wing.

At the same time, Harken and Atara’s soulkins swept back and forth, spewing dragonfire across the Uraks and traitors alike.

“We go now, or we die here!” Aeson roared. He looked over at the apprentices and the hatchlings, at Chora, who still screamed in the grass. Only six of the apprentices remained, their dragons too small to carry them. “Harken, can Thorandír carry Chora?”

The man didn’t even answer, he simply sprinted to Chora’s side and hauled her over his shoulder. Thacia, Atara, and Haviríl all grabbed apprentices, Thacia and Atara both taking two of the smaller children each.

Aeson snatched Atara’s arm. “Fly north.”

She nodded and mounted her soulkin.

Aeson grabbed hold of the last apprentice, a young man of fifteen or sixteen. “Come with me if you want to live.”

As he spoke, Lyara alighted at their side, her wingbeats sending the flames into spirals. The young man nodded and climbed onto Lyara’s back with Aeson.

His soulkin, a silver scaled dragon half the size of a horse, shook his frills and readied to fly with them.

“Iralíse!” Aeson roared. Fly. They did not wait to see the others take to wing. Even as they rose, the traitors were lifting into the air. But no dragon could match Lyara for speed. She cracked her wings again and rose, finding the currents to carry her.

An arc of purple lightning streaked past her on the left, then the right. She folded her wings and plummeted, the apprentice holding on for dear life as she unfurled them once more and swept upwards.

Lyara soared up and over the north-facing boundary wall, streaking towards the western hatchery tower. A glance over his shoulder told Aeson that the traitors were still giving chase, two of them in tight formation. Lyara couldn’t take the two at once, not with the apprentice on her back as well. Nor could she outrun them with the silver hatchling at her side. He was not swift enough.

Aeson drew a settling breath as a plume of fire streaked past them on the right. He opened himself fully to the Spark. If they ran, the hatchling would die. If they fought, there was a chance, however slim.

He reached his mind out to Lyara, and whispered, “Du é ilumel na myonei irís sunvur. L’aryn din niasson ilån våetír na du arkul sathkin, thwe l’uva niassa dir empe thrame aiel é ûrnil. Inre lar tusuk, l’uva andin lenna dir. Aiar værakanra råvke bralunan na lamye míril. Umayar nur råvken vaera kesto. Palín må lar kalíme vaera lirtha bralun na sintu istalién. Draleid n’aldryr, Lyara. Rakina nai dauva.”

You are the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I have loved you from the moment you opened your eyes, and I will love you long after they are closed. Should we fall, I will find you again. They will not sing stories of us. There will be none left to sing. But let it be that we nonetheless will make a story that deserves telling. Dragonbound by fire, Lyara. Broken by death.

Lyara unleashed a bone-rattling roar as she swept out to the side, ready to turn back on the traitors. But as she did, a ripple of energy swept through the air, and Aeson’s skin goosefleshed. Below, the buildings shook, stone cracking and falling. In the distance, an arc of lightning carved through the night and smashed into a tower. A second arc followed, then a third, then a score, then fifty.

Lyara snapped left then right, avoiding the lightning as it streaked from the dark stormclouds above. Across the sky, dragons fell, smoke trailing in their wake.

Lyara shrieked, and Aeson raised a hand over his eyes as a flash of blinding light consumed everything. A shockwave of air smashed into Lyara and sent her careening sideways. She had barely regained her balance when an eruption of fire spewed from somewhere in the centre of the city, striking towards the sky. The flames swept outwards like a tidal wave in all directions, the city becoming nothing but screams and fire.

Aeson watched as the raging flames not only spread out, but up, and faster than his mind could comprehend.