Chapter 46

CHAPTER 46

D ragon flames burned with the strength of a thousand suns. Esta's orange and yellow flames were all around me, surrounding the barrier of magic around me and immediately suffocating all air. Dragon flames did not merely burn, they were highly concentrated. They consumed .

Much to my own shock, even as she kept breathing flames onto us, I saw and felt Esta's purple magic race across the floor and add to my own. Strengthening it.

I heard a scream I hoped was Morana's as I focused and sent more of my power out, hoping the barriers held. I let out a yell of my own under the weight of the flames. The sheer heat of them.

A little more, I urged Esta, even as I fell to my knees.

And when I felt the flames lick at me, even from around my dome, when I felt my barriers cracking, only then did I tell her to stop.

My barriers fell at almost the same time her flame did, the world slamming back into focus. The smoke was thick and everywhere, burning my eyes and throat both, causing me to cough .

Zaire was crouched behind Esta, shielding his still-human face from the heat, and Morana was nowhere to be seen.

I spun one way then the other. Where the hell could she have gone? I swore I had heard her cry out in pain, yet there was no body to be found among us. No ashes.

She ran, Esta informed me. I stopped the flames as soon as she did.

I could feel down our bond what she wasn't saying. The reason she hadn't already tore after her was her concern for me. She had to make sure she hadn't killed me. More than she needed Morana dead, she needed me alive.

"I'm fine, Es," I told her.

Zaire was there before I had another thought. "I have to get that out of your wing."

He grabbed hold and pulled on the dagger. I couldn't restrict the scream in my throat from the pain of it.

She will never hurt you again, Esta promised, already stomping for the entrance to her lair.

She didn't have to say a thing more, I understood a dragon on the hunt when I saw one.

One of the hostages was yelling through the rope in their mouth, so much so that Zaire reached down and cut their rope with the dagger. It was the farmer from Rael.

"Ronan," I greeted.

"Her lair," he gasped out. "It's—" He stopped to cough, the smoke still settled in Esta's lair, a deadly fog.

Everything slammed into place in my head in that moment. I distinctly remembered Avril's words. She has a way out. She's always had a way out.

"It's a tunnel," I finished for him.

He gave me a nod and said between coughs, "Yes. It's how she got us here. Into The Drak. Without the other dragons knowing. "

"Can you get the others out?" I asked him. They looked exhausted. Starved.

He gave me a sure nod. "Yes."

"Get him free so he can cut the others free and get them out of the smoke," I told Zaire. "You're with me."

He did so and we were half running, half coughing for the entrance. "Malachi and Nyx?"

"I'll shift as soon as we are out and tell them what's going on, if Esta hasn't already drawn their attention or done so herself," he explained.

"No," I argued. "I need you in your human form."

Zaire was quiet a moment. As if he disagreed.

"Do you trust me?" I asked.

He tilted his head. "I do not always like you, but I do trust you, Prince. Lead the way."

Even amid this battle, I felt my lips turn up at the corners. "She fled to her lair because it isn't just a lair anymore. It's a tunnel. We need to chase her through it and trap her on the other side."

Esta, I snapped.

She and Nyx were at Morana's lair already, half of Nyx's body already in it, his spiked tail out of it. But he wouldn't be able to reach her. Not in his dragon form. Because it wasn't just a cave anymore.

I need you to get to the skies. You and Nyx both.

Her head snapped my direction, smoke still flowing out of her nostrils.

Her lair is a tunnel. She's trying to escape out wherever it leads.

She let out a roar which shook the ground beneath my feet.

I don't know where it comes out, but you and Nyx have to find it. Or she will get away again. We will chase her on foot. You two find her exit.

She's not getting away.

With that, she launched herself into the air, Nyx following. Her words were not just wishful thinking, they were a promise laced in threat.

Have Malachi help the hostages. I realized he was likely somewhere watching and going to be irate with us for his lying in wait if we all made it out alive.

And that was dependent upon if they could find the exit of the tunnel.

Zaire and I took in a few pulls of clean air and we were sprinting.

As we hit the entrance to Morana's cave, I heard movement behind us. I didn't know if it was some shifters arriving or Malachi heading for the hostages, but we had no time to stay and find out.

We ran around large piles of treasure. Esta had alluded to the fact that her treasure was the largest in Dra Skor, and though Morana had said she never felt comfortable in her dragon form, she still had mounds of it. Apparently, she couldn't ignore some dragon instincts.

As the ceiling got lower and lower, the lair kept going. Deeper and farther. Hidden by that treasure trove.

We kept running. I found I couldn't will my wings away with one wing hurt, so I tucked them in and kept moving. As my eyes adjusted back to the darkness of the lair, I noted on the walls were long gashes.

Claw marks.

"It would have taken years ," Zaire said between breaths. "Years and years to dig this out. Likely from the time of her first shift."

"And she did this part before she helped poison all of you."

How much hatred did one person have to hold in their heart in order to plan something like this for longer than a decade? Morana was older than Esta but had to have been a teenager when the plans for all of this began. Morana and my father had been cut from the same cloth. In both instances, an insatiable greed was the roots hiding beneath the branches of evil .

We heard rather than saw movement before us and without saying a word, both of us picked up our speed.

She was moving rather fast for being injured, but I supposed that happened when death was nipping at your heels.

She couldn't get away. We couldn't have just gone through all of that, only for her to disappear again.

We saw a dim light which guided us forward, faster and faster. The deeper into the tunnel we got, the shorter it got. I had to duck down in order not to hit my head or wings, and I was sure the tighter space was slowing us down considerably.

She couldn't get away, I chanted to myself. Not this time. And not ever again.

This had to end today.

As the light got only a little bigger, Esta said, We found it. We are hiding in wait, I called the other shifters down from the sky.

A slow smile hit my lips even as I pushed my legs and lungs to the brink of exhaustion, chasing Morana to her death.

As our feet pounded forward, the shape of that hole of light got bigger and bigger. As soon as it was almost man sized, something was shoved against it, blocking out all light entirely.

A stone. She had a door of sorts to hide the tunnel. She'd opened it to make sure she was safe, unknowingly making a beacon of her location to us.

I was in considerable pain from my wing, but adrenaline took over and pushed down that pain. I sent my magic chasing along the floor from one hand to light up the tunnel and look for Morana, and with the other hand to move the stone out of the way.

Finally in view, Morana was limping but jogging along. When I blew the stone back open, she took off, out the tunnel and into the light.

She'd had an escape, she always had. What she wasn't planning for was the dragon on the other side .

"We've got her." Zaire's voice promised violence.

Morana was moving fast enough I worried there was another tunnel or exit we didn't know about.

As we came out of the tunnel and to the other side, the brightness of the day momentarily blinded us. I squinted and saw where Morana was heading. A portion of the terrain on this side of the lairs had a brutal drop-off which cut down to a wooded ravine. And she was hurrying for that cliffside.

Esta, I warned.

I know.

She let Morana take a few more limping strides before she let out a low growl and launched herself into the sky.

Morana hobbled faster and faster having heard it. Esta was closing in as Morana threw herself off the cliff. Her body went first, her dark hair billowing out behind her, but the dragon queen was faster as she dove right down after her, wings tucked in tight.

Zaire and I moved forward to look over the cliff's edge. Neither of us felt it necessary to move, we both had full confidence in our queen.

I didn't truly care how Morana died, so long as all of this was finally over. Whether it was of Morana's own doing or one of us.

Just before Morana's body crashed into the ground, Esta gripped her in her talons, pulling upward hard with her wings, the sound reverberating in the air with how hard she beat her wings. One huge beat. Two. Three. She tossed Morana into the air, just to catch her in the other hand.

Morana's flesh was pink, even at this distance I could see blistered skin from when Esta had used her flame to cause Morana to run.

I had never heard Esta's dragon voice so cold, so vicious as she told her, Your death will be on my terms, not your own.

She let out a roar which threatened to make my human ears bleed. A shiver traveled down my spine under the strength of it .

"Do it then," Morana seethed.

"You deserve no honor." And with a final swift move, Esta impaled Morana on her talons.

Oziel and Morana both died the same way. A death without honor. One with dragon talons to the back, the other to the chest.

Nyx took to the sky, letting out another roar.

Zaire looked to me.

I gave him a nod and gestured with my head. "Go."

Morana's blood dripped down Esta's talons as she flew in my direction.

Can you get my ring she stole from me before I dispose of her? I do not want it to melt.

Of course. Morana had put on one of Esta's treasures. And Esta's talons were too large to get it off of her in her dragon form. Leave it to Esta to not forget. But I had promised her we would get it back.

I ignored the blood and reached over to slide the ring off Morana's finger. Morana's eyes were already devoid of life, the biggest threat to Dra Skor finally gone. I tucked the jeweled ring into my pocket where it would be safe. I'd make sure it was cleaned and returned to Esta.

Without another word, Esta moved to the edge of that drop off and tossed Morana down it, her body making a sickening crunch at the bottom of the ravine a few beats later. Esta leapt to the air then landed hard next to the body.

Esta cried out, For Kian. For Serkan. For Samori. For Savanna. For Dra Skor.

She began breathing fire. Nyx, Zaire, and Jagen swooped down and joined in. All four dragons scorched Morana's body with flames.

I shuddered. The heat of one dragon's flame was powerful enough. I couldn't imagine the heat of four. By the time they let off and the air cleared, Morana was nothing more than ash and bones at the bottom of the ravine.

Esta's roar again split the air, this time a promise that the darkness was no more.

Malachi dropped from the sky to stand next to me as more and more shifters flew to the sky, so many they dotted out the sun's rays in and out like clouds.

"We did it, brother," I said to him, relief spreading throughout every inch of me. "Justice is found."

We did it, he agreed.

A noise behind me had me turning to find Amory and a few of the land shifters arriving.

A cacophony of roars and stomps were heard in the moments to come as more and more shifters arrived, the smoke tendrils in the air a beacon to the shifters. Eventually the noises became a beat which was gradually increasing.

Two stomps. A roar.

Two stomps. A whinny.

Two stomps. A howl.

Two stomps. A snarl.

Two stomps. And all of the shifters together let out a victory cry.

The enemy was no more.