If I couldn’t seize him, pin down his control, I would die. The riders, my brother… Kallias. All of them would be killed. The dragons would become his to wield and bleed dry. I saw it—a vision of him carving them open. Drinking deep. Forcing himself to purge it only to swallow more.
No.
I pulled back a fraction. And his power spread over the beasts once more. I didn’t need to catch him. I had to hold him.
My focus condensed into a spear of light, one I knew so well, bright and fierce. I drove it downward into the dark, piercing his control.
He jerked back, and my body swayed with the strain, muscles trembling. His laughter morphed into a snarl. That slimy essence recoiled, peeling from the dragons, snapping free of their minds.
Then it coiled around my spear.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Kallias
He flinched, his brows twitching into a frown. Not at me. No, Tallon didn’t fear me. Whatever Nienna was doing with his magic twisted something inside him; his power sour and wrong.
The Velli surrounding us shifted, armor rasping, reading my intent before I reached him. He might have ordered them to stand down until his command, but they understood the truth carved into the air between us. When he fell, they would be next.
His gaze fixed on nothing, unfocused. His nose wrinkled. He lifted his canteen and took long, heaving gulps; a line of crimson spilled down his chin, darkening the leather at his throat.
I didn’t slow—didn’t hesitate. I charged, boots tearing through trampled grass, lungs filling with smoke-thickened air.
A scoff slipped from him, arrogance curling across his face in a lopsided smirk. He blinked, jerking toward me as if noticing me for the first time.
But my spear was already flying.
He had trained with me countless times. Every warrior carried a pattern, nearly impossible to break. I knew Greaves as well as my own body, the way it wanted to pivot, the habits stitched into muscle memory. A warrior had to change. Had to be unpredictable.
But lessons only settled into those willing to learn. Tallon never wanted me to teach him anything.
He turned and ran.
No sidestep. No feint. He relied on speed, sprinting in a straight line just as I knew he would, boots pounding a desperate rhythm into the earth.
The spear caught him low, slicing through his kidney. The impact pitched him forward. He screamed, raw and animal, throwing a hand out to catch himself, but the force of the throw pinned him to the grass, the shaft quivering with the echo of the strike.
The Velli surged, racing toward us in a wave of steel and fury. I bared my teeth, tasting ash, hoping the riders had enough sense to burn a circle around us and hold the line.
My boot struck Tallon’s back, and I wrenched the spear free, hot blood slicking the shaft. With a kick, I rolled him over and stared down at the terrified face of a boy I once tried to love. Each breath pushed crimson between his fingers, his futile attempt to keep his life from spilling onto the dirt.
“Father, please.”
I knelt beside him. His face had gone gray beneath the grime, pupils blown wide with shock. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the chill likely creeping into his limbs.
There should have been a fragment of my soul that ached. I had raised him as my son for nineteen years. He was still so young—a full life ahead of him. Despite his heritage, he had potential. He could’ve been so much more.
I lived his entire life believing he was mine, anticipating the day he would stand at my side as heir. Nearly twenty years expecting him to take my mantle one day.
It should have been hard to accept.
I grabbed his collar and hauled him into the air. His mouth fell open, feeble hands clawing at my wrists, boots kicking uselessly.
“Please help me!” His voice cracked, panic shredding it thin. “You’ve been the only father I’ve known!”
“And yet not the father you chose.” Dragonfire roared around me, the thunder of wings and talons shaking the earth. Heat rolled over my back in blistering waves. “I would’ve endured you, Tallon. You could have cut me to pieces, drained me dry. And I would have let you.”
My jaw ticked, fury coiling tight. “But you had to have her. Had to touch my wife.”
