Chapter 192: How It Happened
>>Draken
Vesper landed on the serpent with a brutal, jarring impact, steel boots slamming down hard onto one of its ridged spine plates. She skidded, nearly thrown, but she plunged both swords into the beast’s flesh, anchoring herself.
She held.
It roared, a scream that made the skies quake and the clouds scatter, and immediately bucked and twisted. It wanted her off.
But she dug her blades deeper and screamed back, defiant.
The serpent’s hide was slick, shifting under her as it writhed and thrashed. Black, steaming blood sprayed into the air where she struck, but her blades couldn’t cut deep enough, not yet. It was like trying to slice into a living mountain.
I dove toward her, flanking the beast from above.
"Vesper!" I roared, voice thick and booming in my dragon throat.
She looked up, sweat streaming down her face, fire dancing along her blades. "Find the core! I’ll hold it still!"
"You can’t hold something this big!"
"I can try!"
The serpent swung its massive tail toward me in a blinding arc. I barely had time to twist away. It clipped my wing. Pain shot through me, blinding white. I reeled in the air, forced to beat my wings hard to recover as the beast continued to rise higher into the sky, twisting through the stormclouds like a flying fortress.
It opened its jaws wide.
A swirling orb of abyssal fire began to form in its gullet, burning red and black, unstable, crackling like lightning wrapped in death.
"Vesper MOVE!" I screamed.
She braced just as the serpent twisted midair and fired.
A beam of black flame exploded from its mouth, tearing through the sky, grazing the edge of a mountain range behind us, and obliterating it.
Entire cliffs crumbled in seconds. The air rippled with heat and destruction.
***
>>Tala (Centuries Ago)
The night was thick with smoke and the scent of blood.
I ran through the forested ridge, boots hitting the wet soil in rhythm with my heartbeat, fast, heavy, terrified. Behind me, the sound of arrows whistling through trees still rang in my ears, and somewhere far too close, someone screamed.
There were only a few of us left now. The Solwyn were being hunted like wolves.
The royal army was merciless ,cutting through our kin with the cold precision of soldiers following orders they didn’t question. Our only crime had been power. Loyalty. Love.
And for that, we were dying.
Runuka ran beside me, clutching our son Leo against her chest, her face streaked with ash and sweat. He was barely two months old, bundled tightly in white cloth. He didn’t cry. It was like even he knew that any sound could mean death.
We crashed through the underbrush into a clearing just as a hand grabbed my wrist. I almost struck, but then I saw her.
Salem.
A towns-woman. A farmer’s wife, perhaps. Her shawl was tattered, her hands caked with mud and flour, but her eyes were sharp. Determined.
"This way," she hissed, already moving.
She led us quickly, me, Runuka, Zanaka, and the others, through a narrow path veiled by hanging vines. We ducked low, breathing shallow, hearts pounding. Behind us, the howls of hunting dogs echoed. The torches of soldiers burned in the distance, weaving like ghosts through the trees.
Salem led us to a rock wall and pressed her palm against a moss-covered stone. A groan of ancient hinges sounded as a narrow door opened.
A cave.
"Quick," she said.
We slipped into the damp, earthen passage one by one. It was low and narrow, our backs scraping the ceiling as we moved. I carried one of the wounded while Salem guided from the front, a single flickering lantern in her hand.
The tunnels twisted for what felt like hours. Finally, we emerged behind a storage shed at the edge of a small village tucked in a valley. Quiet. Sleepy. For now, untouched.
She ushered us into her modest home, a small cottage built from stone and timber, and bolted the door behind us. Curtains were drawn tight. The fire was extinguished. The room filled with darkness and the faint sound of our ragged breaths.
There were six of us now. Seven, if Leo was counted.
Runuka collapsed beside me on the floor, still holding our son, cradling him against her chest like a shield. I knelt beside her, running a trembling hand through her hair.
Salem moved quietly through the house, locking every bolt, stuffing cloth under the cracks of the doors to block out light. No one spoke. We didn’t have to.
The others lay down where they could, on woven mats, against the walls, some slumped with backs to each other like a barricade of bodies. It wasn’t sleep that came for us, it was exhaustion.
But not me.
I sat beside Runuka, watching her eyes flutter closed as she kissed Leo’s head.
And then, screams, faint, distant, but unmistakable, cut through the silence from the far end of the valley.
!!!
It startled all of us, and made us shrink where we were.
I clenched my jaw, staring at the locked door, willing it to hold.
Zanaka, leaning against the hearth, didn’t look at me. She spoke quietly, bitterly. "We can run to the edge of the world, Tala. It won’t matter. As long as we wear the sun... they’ll find us."
Her hand rose to her forehead, where the faint gold symbol still glowed dimly beneath her skin. The same mark we all bore. The mark that had once brought pride to our people... and now painted targets on our backs.
I didn’t answer. Because she was right.
We could keep fleeing. Keep hiding. But the light on our skin would always betray us.
I looked down at Runuka. Her brow was furrowed even in sleep, arms tight around Leo, shielding him from a world already trying to erase him.
Then I looked around at the others, Zanaka, wounded Kael, the twins Rima and Sohren, old Neris half-dozing in the corner. The last of us.
The only ones left.
And in that moment, I knew.
