Page 202 of Burn of the Everflame

The Meros gryvern nearly trampled me as he leapt into a gallop and speared for the clouds.

The Arboros gryvern moved to follow, and I lunged to block her path. “You’ve earned your freedom, but you can still choose to fight with us. I am begging you, please⁠—”

A low rumble brought a shift in the air as my left side stung with a scorching heat. An arm hooked around my waist and shoved me to the grass as a dome of pitch black blotted out the sun. In the darkness, I heard the snap of clicking fangs, then a whimper.

When the shadows receded, Luther stood in front of me with palms extended, a ring of rose-hued flames surrounding us both. In front of him, Sorae’s back was arched, blood dripping from her jaws as a wounded Vexes abandon his attack on me and cowered.

The Arboros gryvern was already gone.

“What in the Blessed Kindred’s names are you doing?”

Remis elbowed through the onlookers and stormed toward me. He jerked to a stop at a warning snarl from Sorae, though his glare shot at me like an arrow.

“Undo it,” he hissed at me. “Bring them back.”

“I will not,” I snapped. “They never should have been bound in the first place.”

“Those gryverns were not yours,” Nidara said. I stiffened in surprise to see her standing at the front of the other crowd. “Tybold belongs to us—to all of us,” she added, gesturing to the other Ignios refugees. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, we have followed you across the continent and served you loyally. We already lost our water and our homes. Now you ruin our realm’s last resource?”

Tybold let loose a menacing growl.

“He is more than a ‘resource,’ Nidara,” I said angrily. “He is a creature with thoughts and desires of his own.”

“And he will still have them after the war,” Remis shot back. “Free the gryverns then, if you must. We need them to win, especially now.”

“I will not!” I screamed. “My army will fight by choice or not at all.”

Vexes flapped his wings loudly, straining hard to lift his portly body.

“Looks like they’re choosing not at all,” someone muttered.

“I think I might join him,” another grumbled.

All across the lawn, faces stared in brutal disapproval. A handful of Guardians looked pleased that I’d just rid the Descended thrones of their greatest weapon, but even their smug smiles were tempered with nerves at what this might mean for the war.

Vexes made it off the ground and slowly bumbled toward the sea. I didn’t bother trying to call him back. From the way he’d just tried to burn me alive with his dragonfyre, he wouldn’t be willingly serving me anytime soon.

My focus swung back to the only two gryverns left: Sorae and Tybold. I reached for the latter and he flinched away, a reminder of the cruelty he’d endured to get here and that he now had the chance to escape.

He nipped at Sorae, but it was all mouth, not teeth. He let out a series of noises that I was devastated to discover I could no longer understand, though as he stretched his wings in preparation to fly, the message was clear: he was leaving, and he wanted Sorae to come with him.

“Tybold, wait,” I started to plead, but the next word that came to mind was why?

Why should he stay? What right did I have to ask him to save a people who had torn him from his mate, abused him, and forced him to do evil, violent deeds? He deserved a life of his own. He deserved Sorae—and we deserved neither of them.

He circled away from me and nipped Sorae again, his rumbles getting more insistent. She looked between us. Indecision was bare on her reptilian features as she edged a step closer to me.

My battered heart swelled at the confirmation that our broken bond had not destroyed the love we shared. And then it shattered all over again, because I knew what I had to do.

I cupped my hands beneath her chin and lifted her face to mine. “You have served me so well, my sweet friend. I could give you all the apples in Emarion, and it wouldn’t begin to repay you. But I can give you this.”

I set a kiss on her forehead, cementing to memory for one final time the glossy smoothness of her scales beneath my lips and the whiskery softness of her muzzle in my palms. I pulsed my love out toward her, hoping that somehow, some way, she could feel it.

“I promised you that I would find a way for you and Tybold to be together. This is it. Go, Sorae. Be with your mate, and be happy.”

Tybold screeched and stamped his talons.

Sorae looked at him and whined, then back at me, her eyes tracing the fall of my tears down my cheeks. She arched toward me, and though it felt like dying a thousand deaths, I moved out of her reach.