Taking a settling breath, I reached for the Dragon Crown on my belt, and gripped it tightly, knowing Skylar’s spell was already gone. Whatever expected me, I would have to overcome somehow, and use this power to end the Warlock King once and for all.
“Are you sure?” Evie asked, placing a hand over mine, thinking the same thing I had.
“It is now or never.”
Without wasting another moment, I placed the Dragon Crown over my face, feeling the bands lock behind my head. Scorching energy rushed through my being and the torturous screams erupted in my ears, the splitting shrieks bringing me to my knees.
My hands snapped to my head. Muscles jerking along my arms and back as I fought not to take it off… This time it was even worse. I not only heard their shrieks, but I actually felt their anguish, sorrow, horror, and desperation beating against my soul. It was like something had cracked open with Skylar’s influence, letting me in to feel their emotions fully.
“Stop!” I shouted at the voices through my mind. “I am not the one who stole your lives. I am not the one who killed your loved ones and disgraced your name! Just as I can feel you, feel your gifted magic running through my veins. Sense my power. Learn who I am.”
The ragged screams and emotions beating against me began to lessen with my every word. Slowly standing, I shut my eyes to regain my bearings.
“I am the man who wants to honor your legacy. I am the man who is fighting to reclaim this world. I am the Dragon King, and I will bring an end to Xavier Devenish’s evil reign, but I need your help to do it. Stop fighting me, and join my cause…”
Their energy returned, rampantly beating through my insides with need for truth. It slapped against my soul like wild waves against a cliff, scanning my essence, and then everything stopped. Complete, deafening silence engulfed my being.
A thunderous surge of power filled my veins the next second, straining against my skin. My back arched backwards as generation after generation of mastered magic was given to me freely, granting me access to everything they had. Like cracking lightning bolts, the power ran along my body, spreading to my very core until it finally settled.
When the Anima Crystallum in the crown’s eyes connected with the pieces on the sword, my eyes snapped open, glowing bright gold.
I was unlimited power.
I was unlimited magic.
I was invincible… I was all.
The light expanded from me, swallowing the hallway, and obliterating Raithian’s waves of green energy the moment they connected.
“It’s done,” I informed her, glancing at her, and a wonder-filled and pleased grin curved Evanna’s lips.
She swirled her retractable spear open next to me, ready for us to charge. With a nod, we marched to the throne room together, my boot slamming against the double doors and breaking them open. Ripping from the hinges with the force, they flew across the throne room, exploding into a million shards of wood against the farthest wall.
The Warlock King’s glowing eyes widened as his head snapped towards us, his energy firing. “You are going to pay for—!”
Lifting a single finger, the words were ripped from his throat, his entire body becoming rigid next to the throne as my fist closed.
I’d frozen him in place without even speaking.
Alarm and shock grew in his eyes when the waves of our ancestors’ combined magic swayed out of me, effortlessly consuming his own with each step Evanna and I took. Including the three balls of fire he’d shot our way.
“The Dragon ring is mine.” Lifting my other hand, I called it to me, pulling it from his finger without even touching him. It flew across the room, landing in my palm.
“That ring belongs to me!” Raithian sneered after I released his mouth. “So does the Dragon Crown!”
Without answer, I slid it onto my finger once more. Its crystal seamlessly connected to the crown’s and sword’s, increasing the magic flowing through me. It was complete. “The Anima Crystallum is mine now, Xavier. You were never worthy of it.”
Rage distorted his face with the jab, unfortunately for him, there was nothing he could do about it. Not anymore. “Do not call me that!”
“Why not? It is your given name, isn’t it?” Evanna asked, enjoying every second of his torment.
Opening my fist, I released him, just to see what he would do.
Raithian’s arm extended to the side, attempting to summon his spear, but I had destroyed it already—my magic consuming it whole. Seconds passed while he frantically shook his hand, but nothing answered him. There was nothing left for him. Desperation surged in him while his gaze frenziedly searched the throne room, only to find the waves of my energy surrounding him.
Realizing he was cornered, a shout of rage escaped him, and he thrust both hands forward, almost too fast for me to catch.
Perhaps before I would have missed it, but not now, not with the ancestors at my side. With a wave of my fingers, his magic turned gold mid-air, seeping into me, and making me even stronger.
The Warlock King’s wrath exploded from his core, and he fired at me over and over, but everything he sent my way transformed before it could even reach me. Unimaginable power exuded from my every pore, my every breath, filling the throne room, and the disturbed look in his eyes told me he could feel it too.
He felt it trembling in the air as strongly as we did.
Before he could try to attack again, Evanna’s spear swirled through the air like a boomerang, slamming against his back and sending him crashing face first onto the floor. She caught it with her other hand, collapsing it again. “That’s enough,” she declared. “You lost. It is over.”
Glowering up at us, he spat at the floor, pushing himself up to his knees. If looks could kill…
“Take my kingdom. Take my crown. You may even take my life today, but you shall never know the kind of power I once wielded,” he growled, with all the venom inside him. “You will never be as formidable as I was.”
“I don’t want your life, Xavier.” I stopped before him, looking down at him through the glowing eyes of the Dragon Crown. “My queen does because you have taken far too much from her. And I don’t want the kind of power you wielded either, because like you, it is beneath me.”
Crouching over him, I gripped his face with both hands and tilted it up, forcing him to hold my gaze. The voices of the Anima Crystallum returned, chanting but a single word…
Justice.
Unbridled terror sparked in the Warlock’s grey eyes, as though he, too, could hear our ancestors’ demand.
“No!” His head jerked, trying to get me off him—the rest of his body paralyzed again.
“What I want from you is something far more valuable,” I confessed. “Something you never deserved.” Energy flowed from my core, travelling in threads of gold down my arms to my hands, and making them glow.
“Aaah!!” Raithian’s panic-filled scream sliced the air, shattering the windows, and reverberating through the Hollow when I began to draw the magic out of him—like he did to our family.
My threads pulled on his, and with every ounce of energy that left him, his face swiftly shriveled before my eyes. His magic scattered around us. Worthless. Unclaimed. Never to be wielded again. The two hundred years he stole from others floated away like wisps in the wind, finally exposing his true self until he looked like a decomposing corpse.