It was nauseating how easily a person could betray their morals and values just to get what they wanted.
“You are dooming another world to our fate,” Nikau countered, distressed by his cousin’s betrayal. “All those innocent people will be—”
“Let the Mirror World fight their own war!” Lachlan bellowed. “I do not care what awaits them at Raithian’s hand, they aren’t my responsibility. Caelisium is.”
“If the only way we can get our freedom is by sentencing more innocent lives to the Warlock King’s barbaric ruling, then I rather see Caelisium lost forever,” Evanna confessed, both courage and sadness glistening in her eyes. “My parents didn’t die fighting for our people to stand again, just for you to condemn another world to live on their knees. If you think selling your soul to Raithian is justified, then you were never the man I thought you were. You are a monster, Lachlan, just like he is.”
“Surrender now and live, Lachlan. Otherwise, you will die too,” I warned.
His jaw worked as he regarded me. “You bastard!”
“Oh, but I’m not a bastard… You know exactly who my father is.” My blast of energy crashed against Lachlan’s chest and sent him tumbling off Saithar’s back. His scream reverberated around us as he fell through the sky.
The possessed Dragons pounced at ours in response, while Saithar dove after her soulmate. With a call of war, Asher, Harper, and Imogen, led Edward, Arlo, Skylar, Harvey, Quinn, and Elijah forwards, while Aaron, Charlotte, Willow, and Louis left the battle below to join our ranks in the sky. This fight was not going to be easy, we only had sixteen Dragons in our Sky Legion and now the Warlock had twenty.
I instantly let go of the floating sphere that kept me airborne, dropping out of their way. “Vyper!”
“The traitor is mine!” Nikau demanded.
“But he’s your cousin—” Kingston began.
“My cousin is dead. That man is an enemy of the Crown and Caelisium. He needs to be stopped.” Nikau dove with Nuri before the chief could stop him, heading straight towards Lachlan—who was now climbing onto Saithar’s back.
Vyper swept me from the sky the next second, swerving out of the way when Nuri and Saithar collided before us. I looked up, my gaze connecting with Evanna. “Be careful… I love you.”
Though she couldn’t hear me, her gaze reflected the intention in my eyes, and she nodded, lunging with Kingston into the fight.
It was just me and Raithian now.
Circling back towards him, electrifying energy gathered between my hands until they trembled from the power, releasing it against the curtain wall when I passed it. My magic exploded against the second ward that kept the land riders from freeing our people, but it only sparkled with my attack. The ward didn’t even move.
“Fuck!” I snapped, seeing the Warlock waiting ahead, a malevolent grin on his face, like the best part was yet to come. This was all a fucking game to him.
Standing, I walked to the top of Vyper’s head while he ferociously hissed, his fins trembling with all the menace he had in him. The sight of Vyper like that was terrifying to say the least, but Raithian’s grin only widened, welcoming the challenge.
“You can only use it once, choose your moment wisely…”
Taking the crown from where it hid under my cloak, I put it on, feeling the bands clasp behind my head automatically.
Absolute silence greeted me. Skylar’s spell had worked.
“No matter what happens to me, you leave this place now, and never look back,” I ordered Vyper and jumped off him, light steps appearing below me as I ran towards the Warlock King.
Shock erased the grin from his face the second he saw me wearing the Dragon Crown, and unadulterated wrath transformed him before my eyes.
A blast of energy abruptly crashed against my face, snapping my head back and flipping me in the air. The crown was ripped from my head before I could use it, but I hadn’t even seen Raithian move. A golden gleam dropped onto the battle below before my body slammed onto a moving surface, but I was too dazed to realize what.
Sights blurred before my eyes, sounds became muffled, my head throbbed from the force of Raithian’s strike, and something rolled down my face. Something liquid… Blood. I tried to lift a hand towards my wet eyes, my hazy vision becoming red, but my body rolled when the moving surface I was on jerked to one side.
Something ribbed wrapped around my body, gripping me from where I was and then laying me on firm ground. Breaths struggle to pass through my lungs, and I scarcely heard roars coming from somewhere nearby.
“Heal, Braxton. Heal!” A voice shouted in my head, its clarity breaking through the muffled darkness just as another roar vibrated in the air, suddenly turning into a whine.
The heat of a fire stream reached my skin, but I couldn’t fully feel it, so I knew it wasn’t aimed at me.
“Get out of my way!” another voice demanded, hatred like I had never experienced dripping from each word.
“Braxton—!” the call broke in my mind, a new whimper replacing it.
Placing a hand on the ground I tried to push myself up, but the world jerked beneath me—something was seriously wrong with my head. A severe concussion pounded at my senses, but there was something else. Something bad.
“Please heal!” the voice in my head begged, yet it was the desperation and fear inside it that brought clarity where there was none.
My eyes opened again, the reddish haze showing Vyper standing before me, wings fully extended while he blocked me from danger, protecting me. His fire breath shot out fiercely, but his body shook again, and again, getting the brunt of the attacks meant for me.
Raithian.
As reason slowly returned, I tried to sense my healing magic—it seemed to be fighting a block. I wasn’t healing. A new thought broke through my muddled mind, and I reached for a vial Willow had placed on all of our belts. Biting the cork off, I eagerly gulped her restoring concoction, instantly feeling something course through my being.
The block my injury formed shattered as energy rushed through me, and the blood began to dissipate from my gaze. My healing quickly took over, taking away the burning as my skin knit back together. Only then did I realize that the Dragon Crown had sliced my scalp open when Raithian shot it off my head.
Feeling like myself again, I stood to find Vyper fighting the Warlock with everything he had to keep him off me. Both love and ire awoke in me, and I jumped onto his back, letting my magic build as it churned with the same contempt I felt.
“Your fight is with me, not him!” I thundered, lunging off Vyper’s head and sending a lethal blow towards the Warlock…
His form folded when the blast crashed into his stomach, his body flying backwards and letting go of the staff he’d used against Vyper. He slammed against the raging fight several feet away from us.
My eyes frantically searched the area for the Dragon Crown, but it was nowhere to be found. It must have fallen in the middle of those fighting beyond us. At least Raithian didn’t have it.
Finding his staff instead, I shot a fireball at it, incinerating it so he couldn’t use it anymore. The Warlock King already had my Dragon ring, I couldn’t let him amplify it with his staff. The stone in it exploded into a million pieces just as his rage turned into a battle cry. He jumped out of the madness, heading straight for me.