The rain started to drown us, and he pulled his mighty sword free. The way he marched for me, his hair unbound with wet strands clinging around his wild eyes, was truly frightening. In all the times I’d faced him in combat, I had still seen the man I once knew and loved beneath all the resentment and hatred; now he was gone. Simply a hollow vessel of all his transgressions and pain, and I was his one true target to blame.
I didn’t have a sword, and I only tracked his purple blade with sharp focus to avoid its path. He was so fast it took everything I had, and I would have been lighter on my feet were it not for the uneven ground.
Auster expended himself with powerful throws of agony through his blade, but when they sliced nothing but air, that pain backfired. His face of pure rage slowly started to fall to defeat and misery. That’s when I gripped the handle of my dagger at my thigh, gritting my teeth since it was hardly adequate to meet his blade, but our steel cried against one another anyway.
It distracted him, drawing his eyes to the waved stormstone blade, and his attention was stolen by the memory of gifting it to me so long ago.
I had to take my opening. This had to end here.
My magick engulfed his sword, turning it to stardust, and when I lunged forward our wide stares locked on each other.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Auster’s stunned and terrified face tore me apart. But even as tears flooded my vision, I gritted my teeth, twisting the waved dagger in his heart. He choked, blood spilling from his mouth, and we both crashed to our knees.
“You were my best friend,” I croaked.
His breaths staggered, and I tuned into each one toward his last. The final threads of attachment to him in my soul split during the countdown.
Auster raised a shaky hand, and my first tear spilled to merge with the rain rolling down my face.
“You were my everything,” he said.
My heart didn’t get the chance to fracture when a pain so all-consuming pierced my stomach. I looked down as Auster’s hold on the small dagger slipped and so did my grip on the handle protruding from his chest.
He fell, glass eyes held on the sky as his chest deflated for the last time. Aringing filled my ears and my shaky hands hovered over the small blade that wouldn’t have been fatal… it wouldn’t have been so damning… had it not been for Nyte’s blood on it.
It wasn’t pierced through my heart but panic overcame me that it could still kill me truly.
I found the will to pull the knife out. It was small, but that didn’t matter. The wound hurt far worse than the bigger object that had pierced my side. It slipped from my trembling hand.
A dragon roared with a higher pitch conveying pain. I barely managed to flick my sight up as it came in and out of focus, but at the flash of blue falling from the sky, horror shook me.
The blue dragon landed and wailed again; the intensity of it hit me in a gust of wind from her breath. She came so close, sniffing at Auster’s body with smaller cries rattling from her. Her head nudged him, but he was lifeless.
For some reason, she’d chosen Auster as her rider. I couldn’t understand why this small, delicate dragon would want to bond with someone so wicked. Though perhaps she saw,felt,that he wasn’t always so.
Discovering he couldn’t be saved, she lifted her head and those beautiful blue eyes targeted me. It was then I heard a wonderful name.
Edasich.
My awe quickly turned to fear when she reared up, rattling and crying, preparing to attack me in her heartbreak.
Just as she wailed louder like a declaration before her strike, I plunged deep within myself, summoning an unexplainable voice to speak to her.
“No.” It was a single word with the weight of absolute dominance. I didn’t know how I had this ability to command dragons, but shit, I was grateful for it right now.
Edasich backed away a few steps, her instinct for vengeance subsiding under my command.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I didn’t just drown in sorrow for her loss but mine as well. Auster had been a pivotal part of my life; in reflection we had more tender, joyous memories than cruel. For the man he was, I mourned for him. Curling into myself while my body was wracked with sobs, wishing things could have been different.
In part I blamed the gods, my creators, for what Auster became. Their influence in his mind was nothing but a poison of resentment and superiority. And for that I wasn’t finished with Auster. I would carry his name until I ended the gods once and for all.
Rising on shaky legs, I didn’t look back at the blue dragon curling around Auster’s body as I shuffled away. My next step slipped on a piece of sodden wood and I crumpled.
I have to get up.
