This illusion was becoming too ridiculous, yet my consciousness was coming back more and more in grim awe of the way the trio tore through the enemy effortlessly.
Just as I was beginning to muster the awareness and strength to push myself up, I was forced up with a tight grip of my hair, and I screamed, not sure what part of me was hurting most.
“One more move and I snap her pretty neck,” Fedora sang chillingly close to my ear.
The fighting ceased, but Nyte, Drystan, and Nadia had finished off the flood of guards anyway. The throne room was a bath of blood and fire and bodies. It was too real…too real.
Itwasreal.
My gaze of horror found Nyte, who stood across the room like a furious storm. Despite all he’d expended, he wasn’t close to being finished expending his wrath.
“I will turn this castle to rubble with everyone in it if she’s not returned to my side in the next five minutes,” Nyte said, his voice so removed from mercy. He wasn’t bluffing.
“I only want one thing from you right now, then you’re free to leave,” his father said.
Nyte’s gaze of liquid-gold targeted him.
“You will get nothing but a painful death.”
“Give me the key pieces and no innocents have to die.”
“I don’t care who dies with you.”
I hardly had the voice to reason with Nyte. All he knew was vengeance, and he deserved to feel this way. But I couldn’t disregard the number of people that were in this castle, with no way to call for an evacuation.
My pleading eyes met Drystan’s. He spoke to Nadia, who looked ready to protest, but after a short exchange, she left in a run.
Was she going to try to get as many innocents out as possible?
Time was too quick in this situation. Less than five minutes wouldn’t be enough.
“You have a true key piece from the underwater temple,” I said to Nyte’s father; my voice was a painful croak.
“Indeed. Now hand over the others.”
I chuckled dryly even though it hurt. “You really think I would have them with me? I’m not the fool here.”
Nyte’s father seethed at me, his anger protruding along the vines at his temples and over his neck.
“It’s about time you faced your inevitable demise,” Nyte said, words that slithered down my spine along with his next. “Time’s up.”
Those two words were followed by a deafening blast of stone. Only it wasn’t caused by Nyte.
He reached me, throwing up a shield of darkness from the fragments of the back wall that tumbled through the throne room. I couldn’t believe the sight of the huge taloned foot that had torn through the castle as if it were paper.
Rastaban roared, and in front of the terrifying black dragon, Nyte’s father stood. Unafraid. A slow, dark smile started to grow on one corner of his mouth…
“That fucking bastard,” Drystan seethed behind us.
Rastaban had bonded with their father. Or at least allied with him for now.
“I believe I have you to thank for handing me such a formidable ally,” Nyte’s father goaded. He turned, beginning to climb over the slope of rocks to mount the huge beast. “Do you want to reevaluate your challenge against me, son?”
“Not in the slightest,” Nyte growled.
He stood, sending his shadowy magick hurtling toward beast and rider, but Rastaban heaved a breath, and Nyte was forced to defend again, creating another dome around us with his magick. With the way his stance shifted, the dragon’s breath of pure black had to be a reckoning force.
The attack cut off suddenly with more than one mighty dragon roar. Weall watched in stunned horror as Eltanin swooped across like a stroke of death, slicing his claws along the neck of Rastaban, who howled in pain and fury. The celestial dragon was gone again in the blink of an eye.
