Page 189 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘ANOUK, NO!’ Sera’s cry was lost to a thundering roar as Traveller’s Arch cleaved in two.

‘We have to move,’ said Sera urgently.

Theo’s head lolled. ‘Go,’ he said feebly.

She fixed his arms around her neck and stood on trembling legs. She wasn’t faring much better, but she had strength enough to drag him five feet. Then five more.

All the while, rubble rained down. Pillars groaned as they caved, the ground shuddering with each new impact. The dust thickened, blanketing them in a swirling silver fog.

Sera pushed on, clearing the arch and making it to the cobbles beyond. Tobias came through the mist. Sera entrusted Theo to his cousin, then turned back to the crumbling arch as Anouk smashed the final pillar into smithereens. Rock pounded divots in the cobbles as the Stone Maiden buried the unmade prince with his magic still inside him.

Sera squinted through the dust, searching for signs of Andreas. Praying that he was still clinging to life by his fingernails.

Please, Oriel.

It can’t end like this.

There. A flash of gold between the rocks. The prince’s breastplate. And underneath a blood-streaked face peering out at the destruction.

Andreas was alive.

Sera had wrenched the breastplate off the prince and Andreas had used it as a shield from the falling rocks.

Ignoring the tug of her own exhaustion, she picked her way through the rubble. When her legs gave out, she crawled to him on bleeding palms.

Andreas had survived the falling arch but not the dead weight of its carcass. He was buried up to his waist. Sera flung aside the breastplate, fisting the prince’s collar with one hand and pressing the other against his chest, where the skin was red and bubbling.

‘Where we were?’ she ground out.

‘Dying,’ he spat. ‘Is it really worth it, Saint-maker?’

Sneaking one last glance at that glorious light-filled dragon, Sera shoved aside her grief and gave in, at last, to the pull of destiny.

‘I guess we’ll find out.’

‘You won’t.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But it’s not about me.’

And that was the simple truth.

This was not about her. It was not about any of them. She had played her part, but a cost was owed. She felt the sting of it above her heart.

It was the end for both of them.

And, she hoped, a new beginning for Valterre.

‘So the dove has flown all this way just to die,’ sneered the prince. ‘What will your precious kingdom do without you?’

Sera leaned close until he could see the gold of her eyes and the promise therein. ‘We don’t need a dove, Andreas. We have a dragon made of light.’

Andreas looked up just in time to see the beast circle them. His eyes widened and for a fleeting moment Sera swore there was wonder there.

He blinked and it was gone.

She closed her eyes and summoned her magic.

The well of Andreas’s power had almost run dry. She could see it in her mind’s eye, the final gold ripple in the dark pool of his soul. It only took a breath to dissolve it.