Page 75 of A Court of Darkness and Dragons

The closer I came, the brighter the glow—until it blinded me, until I felt as though I were walking into the sun itself.

Veralin screamed again, a sound torn between rage and fear. “You do not know what you are unleashing!”

But I did not stop.

With one last step, I lifted the key high and pressed it into the waiting lock.

The moment it slid home, a deafening crack split the air. The entire island shuddered as if some colossal beast stirred beneath it. The throne pulsed, its wards shattering like glass under the force of the key’s light. All around us, the castle walls crumbled—illusions burning away, stone collapsing into ruin.

The dark canopy above us, that suffocating veil of storm and shadow that had cloaked the Blood Isle for centuries, began to unravel. At first, it frayed at the edges, wisps of black smoke curling away into the air like dying embers. Then, as Veralin screamed in fury, the entire cloud shredded, dissipating as though torn apart by invisible hands.

For the first time in hundreds of years, sunlight pierced the sky.

Thin, golden rays broke through, spearing down into the courtyard. The light hit the stone, and the ground itself seemed to drink it in, cracked earth glowing where it touched. Dust caught in the beams, sparkling like diamonds as the illusionary grandeur of the castle shattered into ruin around us. Towers collapsed into piles of rubble, walls splintered and fell, and the bones of what had once been a stronghold groaned in surrender to time.

I lifted an arm to shield my eyes from the brightness, but then I felt it.

The throne was no longer a throne.

Where moments before had been an obsidian seat veined with blood wards, now something else stood in its place. A chest—massive and carved from stone so black it gleamed like polished glass, veins of gold running through it like frozen lightning. The key I had used was no longer in my hand; it had fused with the chest itself; the hilt protruding like a handle. The artifact pulsed, alive, humming in resonance with my very blood.

It wasn’t just an object. It was power—older than Veralin, older than the war, older perhaps even than the dragons themselves.

The ground buckled beneath us again, the whole island groaning like a dying beast. Stones split, fountains of seawater surged up through fissures, and the rumbling grew so violent I could barely stand.

Kaelith’s voice roared in my mind. The island cannot hold together much longer. Whatever that chest is, it is the source. The root of his corruption.

I stared at the artifact, my heart hammering as the sunlight poured over it, as if the sun itself had been waiting centuries to reveal its shape. And all around us, the Blood Isle continued to shake itself apart.

Chapter

Thirty

The air trembled with the unraveling of ancient wards, magic shrieking like metal torn apart. The invisible shield that had kept the Blood Isle hidden for centuries finally crumbled, and the land groaned beneath the loss of its anchor. Pillars split, arches collapsed, and the once-imposing towers of Veralin’s dominion fell into heaps of dust and ruin.

Zander staggered across the fractured courtyard, pale but resolute, until he reached me. His hand closed around my arm, steadying me as the earth quaked again. His eyes burned, his voice low but fierce.

“Veralin lied. That chest did more than bind the dragons to him and his people. He used them—bled them—as a power source to amplify his own. Everything he built, every stone and illusion, it’s all disintegrating.”

The words sank into my bones like ice, and my gaze fell to the pulsing chest at my side. Its hum was a constant thrum in my blood, as though it remembered every soul it had consumed.

The others closed in around us, instinctively forming a barrier—Jax in front, sword raised, Ferrula to his right, Naia at my back, and Tae slipping into position with that glint of defiance in his eyes. We formed a living shield around the artifact, as if our bodies alone could keep Veralin’s greed from reclaiming it.

Across the courtyard, Veralin’s red gaze lifted skyward. His lips twisted, and for a fleeting moment I thought he might be calling his dragon.

But then I heard it.

The beating of wings. Dozens of them.

Shadows rippled through the thinning clouds as black dragons broke through, sleek and terrible, their scales gleaming like oil beneath the newborn sunlight. They wheeled in formation, their riders clinging to their backs, the very force that had plagued Warriath since before I was born.

Veralin’s composure finally cracked. His voice split the sky, raw and unhinged.

“Kill them!” He thrust a clawed finger toward us, his scream rattling my bones. “Kill them all!”

The black dragons roared as one, the sound a wall of fury and despair that shook the broken castle to its foundations. They dove as Veralin’s command wrapped around them like chains, their massive wings blotting out the sun.

And all I could think was—we’d torn down his fortress, but the true war was only just beginning.