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He couldn’t. My heart sank as I realized the empress was pinning him with her dark power, with his head digging into the rock.
I had failed. And she would show no mercy.
“Your Highness, it’s not what you think,” I said.
Her fingers caressed Neifion’s black snout. He huffed rebellious smoke into her face.
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk, Neifion,” she cooed.
The empress turned slowly. With each step closing the distance from my dragon to me, she glared. “This. Is. Unforgivable. How dare you? You pretended to love me. You spoke pleasing words to me. You devoted yourself to serving me.”
“My Empress, let me explain,” I bellowed.
Her boot came down on my hand, and she ground it into the volcanic rock.
I held back my cry of pain.
“You betrayed me,” she said with even words.
“Not betrayal.” I grunted. “Freedom.” The empress was volatile. She was capable of anything. She couldn’t see how I’d die to save her from her servitude.
The empress turned to her men. “Exile, Caedryn. Into the divide.”
“That holds no fear for me.”
“No?” she asked.
Her tone made my heart clamp down and thud in constricted half beats.
Then she pulled a blade from its sheath. Eighteen inches of silver death. Maybe she’d show mercy and shove the blade into my chest instead of exiling me.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Neifion rose, suddenly free of his bonds. He reared up enough to expose his chest. In an eye blink, the empress surged up to Neifion and plunged the blade into his heart, right between the scales on his breast.
I wheezed, paralyzed with pain and shock. Neifion writhed, flapping his wings furiously, but he fought as if a tether held his ankles to the earth. The empress pushed the blade in to the hilt. Neifion shuddered and fell on his side.
His stinging inhalations ripped through me. I clutched at my chest. Neifion! Neifion. I’m here. I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry.
He was unable to speak. In his dying moments, I didn’t know a single one of his thoughts. The magic of our dragon bond couldn’t save him. The power of the stone around my neck only guaranteed an eternal life if that life wasn’t taken from him.
NO! Neifion!
His voice returned to me. No sorrow for me. I will be at peace.
Don’t leave! I cried out as my soul cleaved in two. Tears blinded me. I couldn’t even hold my dying dragon. My world spun. I fell farther than any soul ever fathomed. I could no longer see as Neifion lost his sight. Coldness swallowed me. Blackness. Then stillness.
Unnatural freedom.
Come back, Neifion!
Lightness.
As Neifion gasped one final time, a part of my soul died with him.
I dry-heaved, convulsing on the ground.
Empress Rhianu’s fingers scorched my neck as she yanked my head back and ripped the dragon stone from me. The chain cut into my skin.
