In the sky above, sunlight flared one last time before vanishing behind Periskios. Darkness fell over the mountains, unbroken and absolute. Before she had a chance, Ash created a tiny light in his palm and lifted it to hover in the air above them.
Absently tapping the front of her shirt where the Sahar was still tucked away, she tilted her head thoughtfully. “Tenryu might not be that far off. Nyrtaroth was so afraid that a great dragon would try to bond with him that he made the Sahar to defend himself.”
Ash blinked. “He made the Sahar to use against Tenryu?”
“Yeah, it appears he was misleading Maahes the entire time about why he was interested in making an all-powerful weapon.” She reached out and took his hand again, needing that connection with him. “So that’s why you’re planning to attack Asphodel? So Tenryu can stop whatever Chrysalis is doing?”
“Assuming the source is Chrysalis—that would be my guess too—but I need to ask …” He trailed off for a moment before resuming. “Tenryu wants to destroy Asphodel to stop whatever they’re doing that’s threatening the Underworld’s magic. I want to destroy Asphodel for the reasons I gave the draconians. I don’t know how to describe to them how far we’ve fallen since the dragons left us thousands of years ago. I … want to see if we can be like that again, like the draconians that Tenryu remembers.”
Tenryu’s rumbling voice rolled through her memory: To rule is his birthright. His blood demands it.
“What are you saying?”
“Couldn’t you see how weak and afraid they were?” he asked with a grimace. “Raum and I are better fighters than any of them, and we shouldn’t be. Why wouldn’t they be just as skilled and powerful as us, or even more skilled since most of them are older than us? But they’ve done nothing but hide for centuries, growing weaker and weaker. I don’t want to see my people fade to nothing. I want us to be strong again.”
“But I thought you didn’t want to be a leader. You didn’t even want to be a Taroth.”
“I—I didn’t. I don’t.” He raked his free hand through his hair. “But Tenryu has given me a lot of perspective.”
He reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap. She curled up, leaning against his chest as she tilted her head back to watch his face. He stared at the creek, brow furrowed and eyes distant.
“He remembers what the draconians used to be like. Not just before Hades tried to wipe us out, but long before that. A thousand years ago, Hades would never have attacked us; we would have wiped them out. They knew it and they were afraid of us. I think that fear is still there, deeply ingrained in them, and that’s why Samael is so determined to destroy us for good.”
He lifted one arm, turning his forearm so the tiny light glowing above them gleamed across the obsidian armguard. “This armor is thousands of years old, worn by ancient Taroths when they still knew the dragons. Back then, it was rare for a Taroth to die from the bond. They and the dragons were allies, brothers almost.”
As she watched him, that hint of age touched his eyes again, wisdom and perspective he hadn’t possessed before.
“In Asphodel,” he murmured, “everything revolved around survival. Making it through the day, living my life as best I could, knowing it could end at any moment. The past and the future were inconsequential. Fighting to survive might have made me strong but it’s … hollow. Tenryu showed me a glimpse of something more. I want to be more, to be bigger than just living each day and then living the next with nothing else to it.”
She smiled up at him. “I think I understand. I was always so determined to become a Consul because I didn’t want to live like a human, just eking out my existence with no greater purpose. I wanted to be part of something bigger than just myself. I wanted to make a difference.”
His lips curved in an answering smile. “Before, my purpose had always been to escape Samael. But once I did, I was lost. I wasn’t quite as self-aware as you to realize what I was searching for.”
She grinned. “Well, not everyone can be as smart as me.”
He snorted, amusement lightening his eyes.
She inhaled deeply through her nose, her grin fading. “So you’re really planning to do this? To attack Asphodel?”
His humor faded as swiftly as hers had. “It must happen. Asphodel and Hades are a shadow cast over the Underworld. I don’t know or understand what they are doing to the ley line magic that has Tenryu so upset, but it doesn’t matter. Samael is at his weakest right now. His forces are split between the Underworld and Earth, and we just eliminated a portion of his military.”
“But Asphodel is practically unassailable, isn’t it?” she asked worriedly. “I remember it … the gorge on one side, mountains on the other. The nearest ley line is hours away, even when travelling fast, and he has guards and scouts everywhere.”
Ash smiled darkly. “It’s true that Asphodel is difficult to reach and that the nearest ley line is too far for a successful ambush, but having Tenryu changes the game. He can open a new line ley right on the plateau. We can launch an attack before Samael even knows what’s going on.”
She nodded, eyes widening as she realized just how useful Tenryu’s ley line abilities were. “But will that be enough? Even with Tenryu’s power, there just aren’t that many draconians and Samael has entire armies.”
“Some of his forces are on Earth. I’ll need to do a sweep over Asphodel to see what kind of numbers he has there.”
She twisted her hands together. “But how many soldiers does he have on Earth? That’s a pretty important factor.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t have time to find out. If we wait to do reconnaissance on Earth, that will give Samael time to receive reports about the army we already defeated. He could pull his forces from Earth and reinforce Asphodel with so many soldiers we’d never stand a chance. We need to strike now while his forces and attention are split.”
She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. “How soon is ‘now’?”
“The next eclipse, so in one cycle.”
Three Earth days. Hardly any time at all.
“There is too much riding on this to go in blind,” she said quietly. “You don’t know how many of his forces are on Earth, where they are, or what they’re doing. You don’t have time to find out that information, but I do.”
He stiffened a little. “What do you mean?”
“My father has to be keeping track of Hades’ movements in Habinal City, or wherever they are. Even if he doesn’t know, he can help me find out. I can go to Earth, gather as much information as I can, and get back here before the next eclipse.”
Ash’s worry shifted to thoughtfulness. He mulled it over, and when his eyes dropped to hers, she knew he agreed.
His arms tightened, pulling her closer. “If you’re going to have enough time to collect information, you’ll need to leave immediately.”
She sagged in his embrace. “I don’t want to be apart from you again so soon either.”
His fingers touched her cheek, guiding her face up. His lips brushed softly across hers—not hesitantly, but more like he was savoring every moment of something long awaited. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth harder into hers. His gentleness vanished and he crushed her against him as though he could fuse them into one. She kissed him urgently, needing him so badly she couldn’t understand how she had waited through their whole conversation first.
She was panting for air by the time she pulled back. She just stared into his eyes, memorizing his face all over again.
“Are you sure?” he asked softly.
“I need to do anything I can to help.” She pressed against him, hiding her face against his neck and closing her eyes. “I don’t want to go, but … I have to do it. I don’t want to lose you at Asphodel right after getting you back.”
“You won’t lose me. Tenryu is practically invincible.”
“But you’re not,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut even tighter. “Every reaper in Aspho
del will be targeting you, because if they kill you, they cut off Tenryu’s power.”
“We’ll be careful. We didn’t have any trouble with the army in the valley.”
“I doubt it will be that easy a second time.” She opened her eyes, gazing sightlessly at the trees as she pressed closer to him. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t bear it.”
“I have to do this,” he whispered against her hair. “This isn’t something I can walk away from.”
“I know.” She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out. Every day they had together was a gift that she wouldn’t take for granted. Raising her head, she met his eyes, seeing the same desperate need she felt reflected in his gray irises.
Then her arms were around him and their mouths were locked together. She pushed him back onto the leafy ground, sprawling on his chest without breaking their kiss. His hands were in her hair, holding her mouth against his. Breathing wasn’t necessary. All she needed was him.
If only she could freeze time so they never had to be apart again.
* * *
Piper’s hands tightened on the ropes attached to the spines on Tenryu’s shoulders. She was crouched tight to his back, tension making her whole body ache as she tried to ignore the dizzying vertigo of the drop behind her.
Tenryu clung to the side of a sheer cliff, his long talons sunk into the rock like ice picks into a glacier. Even the curved talons at the tops of his wings were hooked into the stone to hold his massive weight in place. In the darkness of the eclipse, it would be almost impossible to distinguish the dragon from the basalt mountain, which was why they were there.
At the other end of the valley, she could just make out the shapes of buildings. Dread curled in her belly, a slinking fear that wove through her thoughts. Memories stirred deep in her subconscious where she’d buried them—memories of dark steel cells, of tiny white rooms where innocent daemon victims were experimented on, of a large, opulent office where cruel, cunning red eyes cut through her soul and left her bleeding.
The air grew heavy and poisonous in her lungs as she stared at the distant shapes of Asphodel, the memories fighting to break free of her control.
Breathe, silver child.
Tenryu’s rumbling voice rolled through her mind, banishing the encroaching nightmares. She inhaled shakily.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “This place brings back bad memories for me.”
She could only imagine how Ash felt about returning, and he was a lot closer than her and Tenryu. Even in darkness, the dragon was too conspicuous for a scouting mission. Hidden with a cloaking spell and moving fast, Ash was in the middle of a quick pass over the estate to get an idea of what forces Samael had at hand. He needed to know what they would be up against before they could plan their attack.
Tenryu shifted on the cliff, bouncing her slightly. She pressed closer to his warm, hard scales. Part of her mind couldn’t properly comprehend this moment—clinging to a dragon’s back on a mountain in the Underworld. How much her life had changed since that not-so-long-ago evening when her father had handed her the Sahar and casually asked her to keep it safe for the night.
Can you feel it? the dragon rumbled.
“Feel what?” she asked with a shiver. Despite Ash’s reassurances that she could trust Tenryu, part of her still feared him. The pressure of his immense mind brushing against hers made her feel even smaller than his enormous size did.
The poison in the earth, in the air. The shuddering pain of the world’s magic.
She squinted, straining her senses, but she couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary for this place.
“I can’t sense anything,” she admitted. “What are they doing to the magic?”
He rustled his huge wings, seemingly impatient with her lack of understanding. The magic of the world flows across the land as arteries run beneath the skin. Here, the world bleeds.
She took that to mean he either didn’t actually know what Hades was doing to the Underworld magic or he couldn’t be bothered to explain it in a way she could comprehend. That he’d spent a thousand years trying to stop it was a concept beyond her grasp. A thousand years of failure before reaching this point, failure that had driven the wedge between Tenryu and the draconian caste so deep that Nyrtaroth had invented an all-powerful weapon to defend against the dragon.
She craned her neck to get a look at Tenryu’s softly glowing blue eye.
“Is Ash different from the other Taroths you’ve … known?” She hesitated over the last word, not wanting to say “killed.”
Mortals fear death above all else, he rumbled. A child knows nothing of mortality, but with age, the inevitable death looms and the fear of it grows to an illness, weakening body, mind, and soul. Ashtaroth knows his mortality but he does not fear it. His soul burns undiminished by mortal fear.
She nodded slowly. Ash didn’t fear death. To him, each day was a gift, not an expectation. He was prepared at any time to die and that was the primary reason he had always seemed so fearless to her. Yes, of course there were things that frightened him—like losing his loved ones or his willpower—but in his mind, he had already outlived his life expectancy and every day he was allowed beyond that was a fleeting, temporary offering to be cherished. And with that acceptance came a strength that the prospect of pain or death couldn’t dim.
“Is that why he survived bonding with you when so many draconians didn’t?”
His body is mortal but his soul is of the dragons.
Her gaze returned to the dark shapes of Asphodel, where Ash was scouting, unseen. If he had grown up among the other draconians, hiding in the mountains his entire life, would he still have the fearless strength he had now?
In a way, Samael had created his own worst enemy. He had punished and tortured Ash, driving him to become stronger, more determined, more fearless with each passing season. He had forged Ash’s will into unyielding steel honed by years of suffering. Samael’s ancestors had tried to wipe out the Taroths, but Samael had taken the last of their weakened bloodline and compelled him to evolve into a draconian strong enough to survive a great dragon’s fire. The irony was chilling.
Samael had never intended to allow Ash to escape and he would do everything in his power to destroy Ash, especially once he learned about Tenryu.
He returns, the dragon rumbled, breaking into her thoughts.
She looked up. Ash shimmered into view as he dropped his cloaking spell, gliding on silent wings toward them. Relief swept through her. She’d tried hard not to worry about him—he knew better than anyone how to get around the valley unnoticed—but she hadn’t been able to completely quiet her trepidation.
He dropped down on Tenryu’s back beside Piper, breathing hard from his flight. The dragon spread his wings. Piper clutched her handholds as Tenryu pushed off the cliff wall and let go. His wings caught the air and they swept away from the mountain and the long, dark valley. She settled more comfortably as Tenryu flew among the jagged peaks, heading back toward the distant ley line they’d arrived through.
“Well?” she asked tersely, pressing her shoulder against Ash’s for the extra contact.
He unclipped his faceguard, casually holding on with the other hand—far less concerned about falling off the dragon’s back than she was. Beneath the armor, his expression was bleak.
“I’d hoped he would have sent more troops to Earth,” he said. “But the barracks in the estate and the ones in the valley are full.”
“How many soldiers are there in the valley then?”
“Over a thousand.”
She blinked. “But that’s … that’s four times the number of draconian warriors.”
“Not including any extra help Samael might have lurking in and around the estate. He usually has anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred mercenaries hired on at any time.”
“But …” Her blood went cold in her veins, chilling her entire body. “The draconians will be too outnumbered. How will you win?”
“We have
more magic and we’re better fighters. And Tenryu and I can do more damage than a hundred soldiers of any caste.”
“But …”
His eyes turned to her, grave and haunted by shadows. His fingers closed over hers. “I never said it would be easy.”
“It sounds impossible.”
“It’s not. We just have to fight smart. We’ll have the element of surprise.”
She turned her hand up so she could clutch his tightly. “I need to find out what’s happening on Earth. If he were to bring in any more troops in the next cycle …”
In a small fight, even numbers weren’t always as crucial, but in a war … How would a mere two hundred and fifty draconians plus one dragon be enough to win, especially when attacking a place as heavily defended as Asphodel?
She briefly hoped the draconians would refuse to join with Ash, but, she realized, that wouldn’t save him. He would end up fighting the entire war alone, just him and Tenryu—because neither of them were walking away from this.
Well, him, Tenryu, and her, because there was no force on any of the three worlds that could make her stay behind, suicide mission or not. She’d already gone to hell for him once and she would do it again without a second thought.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She would have liked to see the draconian city, but the darkness of the eclipse was so complete that she couldn’t make out a thing. If not for his extra draconian senses for flying in the dark—an ability Tenryu must have shared—Ash would have been just as helpless without a guiding light as she was.
When the dragon landed, she created a small orb of light to hold in one hand, just enough to illuminate the small outcropping of rock they’d landed on, surrounded by the barren mountain slope. A pair of draconian guards stepped out from a shadowed crevice, eyeing Tenryu warily.