I writhe against his grip, willing myself not to cry out as the sharp pain in my wrist claws up my arm.
“Dragons recognized it too, back in the grander ages,” he continues in the same low, dark voice. “The words I spoke over you that night in Halvgate were not of my kingdom, but of some place far more ancient—the original tongue of the dragons themselves.”
The sharp pain spreads into my chest and becomes something worse: a deep pressure pushing against my sternum, as though something is being gathered up and pulled out against its will.
“It was a vow, just not in the way you understood it. A vow to shape and change this world. And I thought that was what you wanted to do.”
“It is.” The pulling sensation worsens, and I swear my heart is moments away from being wrenched from my chest. My breathing comes in labored gasps, weakening my voice to a whisper, but I grind the words out anyway. “It is,” I repeat. “Butnot with you.”
The pressure explodes into something beyond pain. My vision goes white and soft around the edges. My body feels like it's coming apart at the seams, like it’s being ripped in a dozen different directions, leaving me with no center, no fixed point to cling to. Everything is scattering. Flickering.
I'm likely a moment away from fainting when a change comes over Malachi's face. Subtle at first—so subtle I think I'm imagining it. But no; the distance in his expression is gone, replaced by sharp awareness. Recognition. Alarm.
He grabs his sword and tries to leap up and avoid the figure charging toward us.
The King of Mouren proves faster.
Malachi manages to lift his sword into a guard position at the last moment, but Reave still hits him hard enough to send him tumbling several feet down the hillside.
Instead of countering the attack, Malachi shifts his attention immediately back toward me. His gaze narrows with cold, deliberate focus.
A fresh wave of agony tears through my body. An involuntary hiss of pain escapes me and distracts Reave for an instant—just long enough to give Malachi time to get back to his feet and into a proper fighting stance.
I press my lips together and steel my expression to mask my pain, trying to keep Reave from worrying about me as Malachi slices toward him.
Their blades crash together, the ringing collision of metal louder than all of the surrounding chaos, and then they stepinto a furious exchange of blows that's hard for my still-spinning vision to keep track of.
A small group of Mouren soldiers crests the hill seconds later. They glance uncertainly between me and their king, their weapons half raised.
“Help him!” I cry.
“...Our orders were to get you to safety first,” says the soldier closest to me. He hesitates only a moment more before kneeling and sliding an arm under me, helping me sit up.
I desperately, clumsily pull myself out of his grip, unwilling to tear my attention from Reave. He should have known better than to give such foolish orders; I’m not going anywhere without him.
He seems to be quickly gaining the upper hand, driving Malachi further and further back with expert, relentless pressure. He moves like a man possessed. No wasted motion, no hesitation, each strike designed not just to land but to destroy.
But it doesn't matter how fast he is, or how powerful, or how determined.
Because whatever power Malachi drew out of me seems to have turned the thin threads of his control into something more like chains, allowing him to steer the dragons with far less conscious effort, even as he continues to focus on the sword fight in front of him.
As he parries Reave's attacks, he simultaneously beckons one of the dragons closer.
The beast responds immediately, streaking away from the group Sesca was herding and coming to hover just above the hilltop. It’s enormous, restless, its attention fixed on Reave, glowing white eyes following his every movement.
Malachi blocks an overhead slash and then immediately sprints away, putting several dozen feet between himself and Reave before shifting all of his attention to controlling the dragon.
In the next breath, that dragon drops from the sky in a steep, controlled dive, its bulk blotting out the sun as it descends.
Reave remains perfectly still even as its shadow overtakes him. His eyes are solid black. The air goes cold and dense with the familiar pressure of his cursed power, but it isn’t coming as effortlessly as normal, judging by the tension in his jaw, the clench of his fist, the white-knuckled grip he’s suddenly taken on his sword.
The dragon veers away at the very last instant.
It doesn't go far, twisting aside and rising only high enough to prepare for another dive.
I exhale the breath I've been holding. I still don't know the full power that curse in his bloodline gives Reave. I only know that it isn’t a fuel that burns cleanly, and it's a risk every time he reaches for it. He knows this, too. And he has to realize what it will take to overpower Malachi and the power the Flamebound mark lends him—has to realize it's too much to ask of himself. Too dangerous.
He doesn't seem to care.
