Chapter Fifteen Unbroken Dragon

Chapter Fifteen Unbroken Dragon

Elloren Guryev

Northern Dyoi Mountain Range

I climb up to the Dyoi Forest canopy that night and surveil our surroundings with my Errilor Ravens, my flock silently soaring

over the Dyoi Forest. The strengthened soles of my bare feet rest on the bumpy surface of the small woven-vine platform I’ve

conjured, two upthrust branches supporting it.

My hand pressed to one branch’s bark, I survey the Forest’s canopy, my gaze sliding over our dome-shield. A line of my power

is feeding directly into it via Oaklyyn’s runes, the multihued, brightly charged runes she marked flooding the shield with

our collective magic. My gaze narrows past the runes, snagging on the Shadow net encasing our shield. Like a soldier sizing

up a disastrously worthy opponent, my gaze traces the imprisoning net’s faint gray lines, exhaustion bearing down.

You’re lying in wait, aren’t you, Vogel? I glower. Ready to spring on us once our power dips...

The affection of the huge ash tree beneath me swoops around me in a wispy embrace. A loving ache squeezes my heart, my awareness

of the Forest’s fragility surging. Worry lancing through me, the feel of Yvan’s incoming fire suddenly blazes through our

bond. He bursts up through the Dyoi Forest canopy, violet eyes aglow, his silhouette night-darkened as he lands on the platform

before me, the verdant strength-amplification rune Oaklyyn marked on us all burning bright on his chest.

He gives me a close look and brings his warm palm to my shoulder, his wings arcing around me. “Get some sleep, Elloren,” he

offers. “I can sense how tired you are. There are more than enough people on watch tonight.”

“I’m scared, Yvan,” I confide as I gesture toward the leagues upon leagues of Shadowed land. “Wrenfir’s right. Even with this staring us in the face, there’s a good chance that the East will choose infighting rather than coming together to defeat

it.” Choking back my sudden rise of emotion, I hold his gaze. “When we blast this shield over the East,” I say, “our power

will be greatly depleted. Just when we could be faced with a very hostile East quickly followed by a very hostile Magedom.”

He lets out a breath, giving me a grim look. “We’re short on options, Elloren. We’re just going to have to quickly convince

the East to fight with us.”

Frustration churns through my fireline as I look over the Shadowed land once more. “Sometimes I think of everything that’s

happened,” I confide, “and wonder how we got here. How did so many people allow things to get so monstrously terrible?”

Yvan gives me a weighted look. “Not realizing the stakes,” he suggests, a hard look entering eyes. “Letting ourselves be divided

by religion .”

I take in his condemning gaze, his violet eyes simmering with long-burning outrage. I’ve understood for some time that Yvan

hates religion. Holds it squarely responsible for the majority of the world’s ills and for the Shadowed wasteland before us.

And I agree with some of his conclusions. To a point.

But not past that point.

Because I can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something vital, the Watchers coming to mind, along with the Verdyllion

Wand and III.

“Religion isn’t all bad,” I carefully suggest.

He huffs out a refuting breath, his hands coming to his hips. “It’s a way to separate and control people.”

“It can be,” I agree, “but Jules Kristian had me read multiple religious texts at Verpax University and it got me thinking.

Perhaps Erthia’s faiths hold teachings in their center that can help us in this fight.”

He gives me an incredulous look. “Elloren, I’m part of a group reviled by practically every religion in the Western Realm.

Almost every single one . I’ve been hated my whole life because of one god or another’s ‘teachings.’ Look what the Alfsigr did to Wynter. What the

Gardnerians did to Ariel and Pyrgo. So, forgive me if I have a jaundiced view of religion. It can turn evil in a heartbeat—”

“When people worship their religion’s flawed parts instead of the things they all have in common,” I insist.

He coughs out a sound of derision. “You mean mindless prejudice and hate?”

“No. The things that lead us into connection with each other that seem to be present in all of Erthia’s faiths—the Watchers.

The Source Tree. The Verdyllion—”

“Elloren,” he says, his fire aura whipping agitatedly around me, “the forces of division and hate are proving to be much stronger than that Wand that abandoned you.”

“I’ve seen the Watchers, Yvan. I’ve seen them again and again—”

“Oh, I have too,” he counters. “On the Mage flag. On their priests’ robes and soldiers’ uniforms.”

“Yes,” I concede. “But that’s their image, not them . Did you see the Watchers when you went into III? I did. And they felt connected to something real and true. Something vital

to this fight.”

He blows out a harsh breath, his brow knotting as he shakes his head, giving me a conflicted look. “I saw them,” he admits.

“And I still don’t know what to make of it.”

We stare at each other for a loaded moment, our magic unsettled as his eyes spark, heat rising on my cheeks as his expression

flickers from conflict to desire, our Wyvernbond heating.

Hot flame shuddering through our bond, Yvan looks away, clearly as flustered as I am by this inconvenient flare of attraction

in the middle of a religious debate. He glances sidelong at me, then full on, before reaching out to take my hands in his,

my pulse quickening as he strokes the sides of my thumbs.

“If anyone can bring me to religion, it’s you,” he says, giving me a sultry smile as his touch trails sparks.

I swallow, my breathing uneven as want scorches through our bond. “If anyone can make me doubt everything about religion,

it’s you,” I return.

“Maybe those are both good things,” he offers as he reaches up to caress my shoulder, the tension shifting as our fire bond

flares hotter, an almost pained look overtaking his expression. “Elloren, I have loved you for so long ...”

We draw each other close, his lips finding mine, and I let out an emotional sound as we deepen the kiss almost instantaneously.

Heat sears through us both, my body arching against his. Yvan lets out a rough groan, his hold on me firming as his Wyvernfire

spirals through me, flickering around every rootline in a sensual caress.

I pull him closer as his tongue twines with mine so enticingly, every troubled thought singes to ash, Yvan’s power fixed on

me with the directness of a sustained lightning bolt as we careen blazingly fast toward a place of pure, love-fueled want , my fingers knotting in his hair, then gripping one of his horns, his hands sliding to my hips, holding me relentlessly close as I luxuriate in his kiss, ready to fuse with both him and his obliterating heat...

Hordefire blasts through us both, rattling our magic, the energy of a cataclysmic threat in it.

We break our kiss, startled, alarm surging through our fire.

“Can you sense where that’s coming from?” I gasp, the reverberating blast of horde power so potent it seems like it’s coming

from everywhere at once.

Breathing hard, he tenses his brow, his nostrils flaring. “I can sense its origin point in the Dyoi Forest,” he says. His

gaze snaps back to mine.

Unspoken agreement flashing through our bond, we grab tight hold of each other, and Yvan thrusts his wings down, soaring us

both into the air before he angles us down over the Dyoi Forest canopy. The fiery burn of threat rises, my sense of our full

horde’s fire growing stronger and stronger as we descend through the canopy and fly into a large clearing.

Our entire horde is there, including Oaklyyn and Raz’zor, all of the Wyverns, save Naga, in dragon form.

In a semicircle around Ariel.

Ariel’s wings are held stiffly out, her black-clad body crouched low to the ground. Her form is coiled with tension, a feral

look on her face that I haven’t seen in a very long time.

We land beside Naga. Her gold-blazing eyes are fixed on Ariel, her wings fanned out to their full breadth, the entire horde’s

fire simmering, low and careful. Confusion tightens my gut as I take in how Ariel’s eyes are spitting fire at their edges.

Off-kilter fire. Her teeth are bared in a threatening snarl, her mouth trembling around it.

My chest contracts with alarm as I register the grayed nilantyr plants spread around her, thick with dark berries.

And the multi-eyed raven perched on the branch just above her.

Outrage spasms through me as I realize this is Vogel’s doing. He led her to the Shadow-infused berries via this corrupted

winged. To destroy her, like he and his forces tried to destroy her with nilantyr in the Valgard prison.

In an attempt to turn her into a Shadow weapon.

I’ve never felt such fury and terror and desperate all-consuming desire pounding through Ariel’s power as intensely as I do right now, her emotions so violent I’m almost blown back from them, the feel of her misery so acute, for a moment I can barely pull in a breath, the dangerously addictive berries the worst possible weapon anyone could deploy against her.

It all comes roaring back—how we almost lost Ariel, more than once, to nilantyr’s powerful addiction. How it almost broke her...

“Ariel, no ...” I rasp as both Yvan and I lurch toward her, ready to force her away from the cruel drug.

“Stay back,” Naga hisses, halting our steps. “She needs to stand her ground against it and against him .” She gestures toward Vogel’s multi-eyed raven, and I understand immediately why no one is throwing fire at the raven. If

Ariel is spooked, she might eat the berries, and if she eats even one, she’s lost to us.

Ariel hisses viciously, a lethal growl erupting from her throat as she springs up and lunges threateningly toward Naga, who

immediately shifts to dragon form, not retreating an inch.

And then it starts.

Yvan and Naga send a stream of invisible hordefire into Ariel, its flow powerfully embracing.

Ariel flinches back as if struck and falls into a teeth-snapping crouch.

But she doesn’t block their flame.

Opening up a gap in the tortured blaze of her power, Ariel accepts their fire’s flow, Naga’s and Yvan’s gold and violet power

blazing around her out-of-control firestorm with encircling support. I join my fireline to theirs, gooseflesh prickling my

skin as the heat of our entire horde rises and we send out our fire to her as one.

Ariel cries out, her neck craning back as she falls to her knees. Tears sting my eyes as she scrabbles to take hold of the

berries surrounding her, a teeth-gritted sob choked from her throat. The sound guts me. In all the time I’ve known her, I

have never once heard Ariel cry.

We double down, sending a roaring ocean of communal fire to her, Yvan’s wings lighting up with threads of violet as they arc

toward Ariel and we stream the full force of our Wyvernbonded fire into her.

Yvan tenses, pulling my fire more intensely into his then sending it out to Ariel, a shiver racing through me as our power

melds and gives a potent flare, our bond amplifying our fused power as we all send the flaming support to Ariel.

For an excruciating moment, Ariel stills, crouched on the ground, head down, wings out, breathing hard. Nilantyr berries gripped

in her fists.

But then, she drops every last shred of resistance and pulls on the horde’s full fire.

Both Yvan and I draw in shocked breaths as the full strength of our horde’s alliance blazes into her. Singes into her. Sends a world-melting level of fire straight into her core.

Ariel’s hands heat to gold, the berries clutched in them exploding into flame and falling away. She lets out a roaring scream,

thrusts out her hands and blasts fire from both palms, incinerating the nilantyr around her before she whips around to hurl

a bolt of fire at the multi-eyed raven, consuming the beast in a bright inferno.

A stifled cry of emotion bursts against my throat as Ariel rises, surrounded by fire. She snaps her wings out, lines of fire

flashing to life all over their expanse, horns rising from her scalp, claws forming on her hands.

Claws made of golden fire.

She lifts her eyes and meets the gaze of every member of the horde. Her eyes luminescent. Defiant. As she lets out a sky-ripping

growl.

Our entire horde growls back, power rising in the air and prickling my skin. Power coming from both Ariel and our entire horde,

our joint fire fusing tighter, my Wyvernbond to Yvan suddenly shot through with so much flame when his hand finds mine, I

can barely keep from leaping toward him.

And then Ariel steps forward, away from the burning carpet of berries, flaps her wings powerfully down, and launches herself

into the sky.

Joy explodes through the entire horde as Wyverns take to the sky with Ariel, Oaklyyn leaping astride Raz’zor’s back.

Leaving only Yvan and me in the clearing.

Tears streak down my face. Tears of pure joy, even in the midst of the Shadow bearing down, as I’m swept up in the certainty

that this is how Vogel and the Shadow can truly be beaten.

By all of us standing together as one.

I turn to Yvan, his fire whipped up by the same wild, euphoric heat as mine, his eyes to the sky, watching our horde soar

through it. My heart clenches as I remember, so many months ago, when Yvan and I left the Amaz lands after rescuing Ariel

and Pyrgo, both of us certain Ariel would soon be dead. I remember how Yvan broke down in the Forest, choking out his misery

for her, his glamoured wings in hiding, even from me.

To keep me safe from his dangerous destiny.

My aching love for him grips tighter hold—love for his courage and willingness to sacrifice for others, love for his fiery

compassion and piercing intellect.

Love for everything he is.

Yvan’s magic sizzles toward me even as his eyes remain fixed on our horde in the sky, the fire flashing through our bond intensifying.

He turns to me, and our gazes don’t so much meet as ignite, a sudden, blazing purpose in his flaming eyes, everything surrounding

us burning away to a blur, my power zeroed just as completely on him.

All hesitation collapsing, we lay claim to each other, his hot hand taking hold of mine, his jaw set ruthlessly tight as he

leads me into the dark of the woods at a fast, purposeful clip, the whole of Nature seeming to thrum inside us with the very

fire that fuels the whole of Life.

Yvan embraces me in a blur, his hot mouth coming to mine as I grasp demanding hold of him, my back hitting the tree behind

me as my fire lurches toward him in an urgent yes .

I open my mouth to his kiss, his tongue wrapping sinuously around mine as I grip hold of one of his horns and pull, forcing

his kiss deeper. Yvan lets out a low groan as I throw my leg around him and tug his body hungrily closer, pivoting myself

emphatically against his hard desire.

Violet light blasts into being, flashing through my closed lids.

I open my eyes to find fire licking at Yvan’s shoulders, a sudden alarm flashing from the surrounding trees.

Yvan draws back a fraction, seeming dazed.

A lust-addled surprise overtakes me as my gaze slides over his flame-coated chest before I meet his gaze once more, finding

none of his usual Keltish reticence there, only a burning Lasair-Wyvern love and lust that sends heat flashing through my

lines.

As the alarm pouring off the trees intensifies.

Breathing hard, Yvan closes his eyes tight, angles his head down, and manages to pull the fire into himself and away from

the Forest, the trees’ palpable surge of relief shivering through the air.

Yvan is quiet for a moment, his hands now on either side of me, palms pressed to bark.

“I’m ready to be with you fully,” I tell him.

Yvan nods, desire burning in his eyes. “I want you so much, I’m feverish with it. If there was no danger to this Forest...”

He grows silent, want burning through his power. And I know, if we could give ourselves to each other without risking harm to the Forest, he’d unleash himself on me right now.

And I’d unleash myself on him.

But this Forest is not the Zhilaan... it can’t handle our fire.

Yvan and I stare sparks at each other, so much want and love in that stare that I feel as if we’ll melt into each other.

There are not enough words. There never have been.

We’re two fiery stars on a collision course, and we both know how this will end.

Unless the Shadow takes us down first.

I hold back from touching Yvan, and I can sense him holding back from touching me, both of us full of the unspoken understanding

that if we touch, we’ll take each other fully.

“I know that... this has been difficult for you,” I falteringly say. “I know that for our Wyvernbond to reach its full

strength, we need to have sex.”

Yvan exhales, his fire incandescent with longing as he pushes himself back a fraction more and reaches up to rake his fingers

frustratedly through his hair. “Elloren, that word is so wholly inadequate. It doesn’t even begin to describe what I want with you.” His eyes take on a hotter glow, a frisson of heat coursing through our bond. “The words

in the West,” he says, then pauses for a moment, his crimson brow furrowing, as if he’s casting about for the right explanation.

“They feel all wrong . There are no words for what I want in the Common Tongue. I hate the way Westerners talk about intimacy. I always have. So base and empty.”

“What is it you want, then?” I half whisper.

He takes gentle hold of my hand, his thumb caressing the edge of it, tracing heat. “I want... tiev’ssssithra’ohvrasssil .”

The sibilant Wyvern words send a line of heat through me, our bond newly alight with a palpable level of emotion just from

his uttering them, a quaver kicking up along his hand and body.

“You’re trembling,” I marvel in a whisper. “What does it mean?”

He swallows, attempting to pull in an even breath as he looks to the heavens.

“It’s almost impossible to translate. It means too much. Runs too deep.”

“Try,” I encourage.

He lowers his gaze to mine, the level of emotion in his eyes an unbridled, Erthia-upending thing. “It’s the joining of my

love for you to desire. The joining of the deepest core of our fire to the joining of our bodies.”

His words bolt fire through my heart, as I realize I desperately need a new language too.

“I love you,” I say, the words ripped straight from my heart, achingly raw, even as a piece of my heart shreds over the cruel

finality of Lukas’s death. “I love you so much.”

“I know you do,” he says, eyeing me meaningfully before reaching up to caress the side of my face.

And then he leads me to a mossy patch of ground, and we lie down next to each other, his arm and wing embracing me, my fire

reaching for his with just as much intensity as his is reaching for mine, our eyes locked. And then Yvan raises my hand to

his mouth and runs his tongue sinuously along the back of each finger, kissing each one’s tip with a spiraling heat that makes

my pulse trip over itself.

“I love you, Elloren,” he says in Lasair, his flame pulsing hot around me. “You’re in the very center of my fire.”

“You’re in the center of mine, as well,” I say, voice hitching, the emotion I’m feeling for him suddenly so hot and tight,

it’s an ache against my chest.

Yvan’s fire gives a harder, passionate flare toward me. “I will love you forever,” he tells me in Lasair.

I nod, my fire returning the sentiment, grief and love and lust balling up tight in my chest.

And then we fall asleep, our fire power linked, hearts binding tight.

A few hours later, Yvan and I follow our horde’s fire to find both them and our allies gathered around the ledge’s runic bonfire,

the predawn light just beginning to illuminate the sky to the East, Or’myr’s line of purple moons still glowing bright to

the West. It’s clear that the shifters and even the non-shifters can sense the new turn of Yvan’s and my relationship in our

close embrace and the steady blaze of our fire around each other and through our Wyvernbond.

In the way it burns .

Jarod and Aislinn, Rafe and Diana, Raz’zor and the other shifters, they’re all silent as I sit down and Yvan pours me mint

tea and hands the stone cup to me, pausing to kiss my hair, tears glassing Soleiya’s fiery eyes as she gives me a heartfelt

smile that I return.

I glance past the bonfire toward Diana, who, incredibly, is sitting next to the huge Amaz Alcippe, Diana’s blond brow arched all the way up as she scents Yvan and me. Jules Kristian sends me a warm smile from where he sits beside Lucretia, his arm wrapped around her, his silver kestrel perched on his shoulder.

Yvan takes a seat next to me, our joint fire aura burning hot around us as Diana’s eyes narrow with an all too knowing light.

But her expression holds no amusement. It’s dead serious as she remains uncharacteristically silent, understanding in her

amber stare. I realize that a Lupine, more than almost anyone, would comprehend the solemnity of this. What it is to lose

a mate with no time to grieve, and what it feels like to be ready to fully bond to a new one.

Yvan’s arm snakes around my waist, our fire power leaping so intensely toward each other that Rafe shoots me a surprised look

before averting his gaze.

I’m not embarrassed by Yvan’s and my blaring love and desire for each other. This thing between us is too profound. Too deep.

We’ve turned a corner. And I realize later, during a break in battle training when Yvan pulls me aside and draws me into a

kiss, keeping his feral, hungry fire firmly in check—barely—that it’s only a matter of time until we take each other fully

as our own.

Blue increasingly lights the eastern sky as growing numbers of Dryad’khin gather around the ledge’s central bonfire for some

food and drink, Yvan pausing to converse with his mother.

Spotting Ariel in an isolated corner, I approach her and take a seat beside her, a small, conjured bonfire before her, the

remaining stars above our shielding and Vogel’s Shadow net rapidly fading, Ariel’s raven kindred perched on her shoulder.

Like Yvan and me, Ariel seems to have turned a corner.

I can sense the triumph simmering through her, sense her drawing more strongly on our horde’s combined fire.

“What happened when Naga left Amazakaraan with you?” I cautiously ask.

She’s quiet for a long moment, a thread of tension simmering to life on the air between us. “Naga found our Wyvern horde in

the East,” she finally says, succinctly, even as I sense her core of fire churning hotter. “They burned the nilantyr poison

out of me.” She grows silent for a moment, a lashing edge to her flame. “I fought them at first,” she admits, eyes tight on

the small bonfire before us. “Bit them. Cursed them up and down. But they stayed with me. And eventually horded to me.” She

sets her gaze on me. “I want no part of the Mage in me. I’m a dragon now.”

I take in her newly slitted pupils and the obsidian horns rising from her head, as well as the dark claws she makes no move to retract.

“You always were,” I agree, both respect and apology in my words.

Because, truly, she always was this fierce, beautiful being. We were just too ignorant to see it. I was too ignorant to see it.

Ariel smirks, narrowing her fiery eyes at me. “I can scent what you and your dragon-boy want from each other from about ten

leagues away.”

I flush at this and give her a sheepish look.

Ariel laughs. A full-throated laugh, and it bolsters me, prompting my own irrepressible smile. It’s a laugh I would never

have imagined hearing from her back in Verpacia. Back in the North Tower.

I peer at her closely, affection for her coursing through my fire and out to her through our horde bond. “Wynter will love

seeing you like this,” I say, the words catching with emotion. “When Naga took you away, Alder said Wynter cried for days.”

Ariel tenses, and chagrin sears through me as I realize I’ve overstepped. Because Wynter isn’t here. Wynter is likely still

trapped in the Sublands of the West and in grave danger, along with her brother and Rhys and so many others.

Passion rises in Ariel’s fire. “When we all deploy West,” she vows in a low growl, “I’m going after her.”

“You’ll go with the full strength of the horde,” I vow in turn.

Ariel glances toward the Forest and winces, growing quiet again for a long moment. “Resisting nilantyr is a daily fight,”

she murmurs, the flow of her fire strained. “I... struggle.”

“But not alone,” I promise.

I send more fire to her, and Ariel’s lips slant up. She catches hold of my power and sends a searing rush of flame into me

through it, strong enough to almost shudder me off my seat. But then our flames link and join, our fire power twining tight,

and we grin at each other, the two of us joined in powerful Wyvern alliance.

A spark of peace burning in my center, I glance up... the spark instantly singed to char, shock igniting, as the Shadow

net Vogel cast over our shield explodes in a flash of gray.