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A crack spreads across the mountainside, curling like a snake as it swallows stones and ash and earth. I stare at the yawning emptiness that had just been the solid stone wall beneath the ridge line, and I feel like the mountain is shaking beneath me. The crack widens, jagged and wild, yawning open like a great beast rising from slumber.
A strange amethyst light emanates from the split in the mountain, casting a violet glow on the dozens of dragons taking flight as the mountain tears itself apart. Columns of smoke rise from the purple-tinged emptiness, thin and wispy at first, then growing into thick stalks, like the great curling tentacles of a monster. The crack spreads across the mountainside, flowing like spilled ink as it laps against the ridge.
And then it starts to swallow the soldiers.
The men of His Majesty’s Royal Army fall into the violet nothingness almost gracefully, their arms spiraling backward as they tumble. Harris throws his sword into the sky, as if perhaps it could catch on something solid and pull him back into reality. Tobin grabs the hand of the man next to him, and together they fall, feet first, vanishing into darkness stained with an amethyst glow. Thick black tentacles rise from the crack to wave and snatch at the claws of the dragons circling above, their wingbeats throbbing through the air like a pulse.
Smoke and grit drift through the air in columns, obscuring my view of what cannot be real. What cannot be happening. But the screams echo inside my skull, and the air is filled with the stench of smoke and sweat, of the fear and metal of the army. My army. Which is being swallowed by the earth.
“Dragons,” Rensivar booms from above. “Friends.”
Yawning emptiness spreads beneath him to swallow the lip of the ridge. The strange violet glow shimmers against the cruel curve of Rensivar’s claws and dances along his scales. A few soldiers still try to run, to climb frantically up or down the stone flanks that hug the Tarn of the Maiden. Tentacles find them, wrap around their flailing bodies, and drag them into the maw of the mountain. Rensivar’s strange, hollow laugh scrapes across the stones of the ridge as the jagged hole in the side of mountain stretches almost lazily until it swallows the last of the brave men of Valgros.
Sudden, silent emptiness rings inside my head and crumbles in my mouth like dust. Hobson. Harris. Carlisle. Kings above, even Anslo.
Everyone I’ve ever known. Every last soldier I’d served beside, everyone who had trained me or sparred with me, loved me or hated me, cursed me or blessed me. Everyone who had once shared my home. I blink as my eyes trace the mountainside, the empty stones now painted with the strange, pulsing violet light spilling from the void that just swallowed my entire history.
And it’s shrinking. I blink again. Stones rumble and crash as the rip seals itself. Smoke-thick tentacles curl inward like an animal retreating to its shell. The mountain groans and shakes like a beast in pain, and then, with a final booming crash that sounds like a peal of thunder splitting the night sky, the mountain falls silent.
There is nothing left of His Majesty’s Royal Army, save dust in the air and smears of blood on the stones. Wingbeats pulse through the air as the dragons swirl overhead.
“Is this what happened to the proud race of dragons in my absence?” Rensivar booms. “You cannot even defend yourselves against a mere handful of humans?”
I shiver, then drag myself closer to the silver wire. Rensivar turns his massive head toward the dragons circling in the air, and I stumble to my feet. I’m almost there, to the forest at the cliff’s edge. To whatever is using the silver wire to hide beneath those scruffy pines.
The General, Anslo had said. Whoever the General is, and whatever he must know, he’s here. He must have given the signal to begin the attack, those two flashes of light in the shadows. I glance toward Doshir, and my eyes snag on the crimson glint of blood between the folds of his wing. But what good would I be to him now, as a human? Or even as a dragon? How could I hope to stand against Rensivar? How could anyone?
Rensivar’s wings beat against the air above me, sending a flurry of grit and cold air against my face. Dragons swirl around him like sparks drifting away from a fire. Does Rensivar know I’m here, splayed out on the rocks like an oyster whose shell has been split? Fear trickles through my gut like cold water seeping up from the bowels of the earth.
I press my jaw together and turn away from the dragon-filled night sky. Wherever this silver wire leads, it’s something Rensivar wants to keep hidden. Something hard and sharp rises in my chest, throttling my panic.
I made a promise, once.
I promised I would destroy Rensivar. I would be the weapon that explodes in his hand, the cold, polished blade sliding between the ribs in the place he wants to keep secret. Holding my breath, I take one sliding step toward the forest, toward the silver wire threaded through the trees and whatever it’s hiding.
Then I take another.
Chapter33
Rayne
“Dragons!” Greimbyss’ voice cuts through the night.
Beside the little pond, whose surface is a choppy churn of foam and the curl of dark waves beneath the beating of Rensivar’s great wings, Greimbyss struts forward, the spines on his neck bristling like a pinecone.
“You claim the treaties protect us,” Greimbyss snarls, turning to the silver dragon beside Doshir. “Explain this!”
He raises a claw, then sweeps it across the rubble of the mountainside. Several of the dragons land gently, holding their claws against gashes in their scales or dripping blood from their wings. There are at least a dozen wounded dragons, from what I can tell, although I don’t see any casualties. Doshir bends his neck toward the jagged hole in his wing, and my heart screams inside my chest.
Greimbyss laughs. It sounds like he’s dragging something dead over rough ground.
“Oh, no,” Greimbyss continues, answering his own question. “The treaties have failed. The Council of the Iron Mountains has failed. We need someone who can actually protect us. Someone with magic.”
Voices rise at this, whispers and murmurs, alongside the rustling of scales. Several more dragons settle onto the mountainside, lightly and with their wings raised, as if they don’t fully trust the ground beneath them.
Not that I blame them. I slip down another step, putting more space between me and the ridge that just swallowed an entire army. Ahead of me, the silver wire I’m following flickers dimly between the trees.
“Magic,” Greimbyss says again, “that defeated an entire of elves.”
