by Lindsey Duga
“I’m sorry, my love.”
With her words, screams ripped through the cavern, echoing louder than the booms of the egg that shook the mountain.
I’d heard these screams before.
They were the screams of Myriana when the dwarves had cut out her heart.
As the screams echoed, the purple fire rose off her and disappeared into thick smoke, a twisting mass of shadows and fog—the warped heart of Queen Myriana. Then, as quickly as it rose, it burst into golden dust. It was as if the Heart could not withstand Millennia’s pure act of love—forgiveness.
Millennia passed out in my arms. Who could blame her after holding an evil spirit inside her for months?
About twenty feet away, Bromley stirred on the ground, groaning. I tried to call to him, but my words were drowned out by a gigantic crack as loud as thunder. The three of us looked up.
A single red eye stared down at us through a break in the shell.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Hatched
The rumbling had stopped. The booms were gone. The mountain was still once again. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t about to be torn apart by the dragon.
We were in no shape to fight. I was still coughing up blackness. Zach blinked hard and shook his head a few times, as if he was fighting to stay conscious from a concussion or worse. Brom had just woken up and likely also suffered a concussion. Millennia was out cold, and powerless at that. And here we were—the baby Sable Dragon about to break free of its shell.
Myriana was right—this would be our end.
Still gripping Millennia, I stared at the red eye. It blinked slowly as if it was trying to focus on us. Then the claw scraped down the side of the egg, and half the shell fell with an earth-shattering boom, forcing us to our knees. I swear all of the Wu-Hyll Mountains trembled. Half its scaly black body emerged, and a wing dripping with black ooze twitched. With that one twitch, the rest of the egg shattered, and pieces flew everywhere.
Zach pushed both Millennia and me flat, ducking as a shell fragment flew over our heads.
The Sable Dragon stretched toward the cavern’s ceiling. It was easily fifty feet tall, even as a hatchling. The scales on its face, neck, shoulders, and tail extended outward like flower petals, each one sharper than the last, glittering like the bones of a rowan deer. Its black wings spread out, still covered in slime, and its body shimmered obsidian. Just like the ancient text had said it would.
The ancient text… I struggled to remember what I had read in the library that day. The day I’d searched for the spell for a Kiss to destroy it.
Its only vulnerable spot is its mouth, where the very flames are produced.
The cave shook as the dragon gave a roar, revealing row upon row of glistening teeth sharper than a sword’s tip, stronger than steel.
“I’ve got an idea—do you trust me?” I said in Zach’s ear.
Zach met my gaze. “With my whole heart.”
Despite everything, I smiled. How he could still make me smile in a situation like this, I’d never understand.
Bromley was already limping to us. I pulled him down, hugging him, then drew back to admire my brave little brother…maybe one last time. What I saw on his face was love. And unconditional faith. “Brom, if this fails, if Zach and I…if we don’t make it, I need you to take a message back to Myria. Tell them about the Hydra Curse. About Myriana. Everything. Make them believe it. Do whatever you have to. Can you do that?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. He nodded.
I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Find shelter and watch over Millennia. Zach and I have a dragon to slay.”
Brom grabbed my hand, kissed it, and whispered, “Milady.” Then he stooped and hoisted Millennia before limping behind a large shell fragment as big as a boulder.
Fighting back tears, I let Zach help me up, and together we faced the dragon, arm in arm.
“What’s the plan?” Zach said, as the dragon swished its neck from side to side, testing its jaw, smoke already curling from its nostrils.
I opened my mouth to tell him when the dragon decided it was done being ignored. The great beast jerked the rest of its body out of its shell, and the other half crashed to the cavern floor. Only this time, the floor didn’t hold its weight. The rock crumbled under the force of the marble shell, and the floor caved in, falling into what were probably dwarven mine shafts.
Zach grabbed my waist, and the two of us clung to a stalagmite that managed to stay upright as the rest of the floor tilted. Rocks and bits of marble rolled downward to the giant crater where the altar and egg had once been. The dragon was so massive that it barely noticed when the floor caved in. It shook its hideous body and got down on all fours, huffing smoke from its nostrils.
“We have to get closer,” I yelled over the sound of sliding rock.
Droplets of sweat and blood rolled down the side of Zach’s face as he quickly inspected the newly slanted floor. It was full of cracks opening to the caverns below and sharp rocks that could skewer us as easily as the dragon’s claws and teeth could.
“I see a path.” He pointed to a large slab of rock—what I realized was the destroyed altar—almost directly under the dragon’s chin.
It would be the best spot for what I had planned.
Zach gripped my hand tightly. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
As if the dragon heard us, it lifted its spiked tail and whirled it around—Zach and I dove, the tail slamming into ground where we’d just been. More rock crumbled away, falling into the black abyss.
Still holding hands, we slid down the stone, picking up speed as the incline grew steeper.
“Zach!” I screamed as we sped toward the altar—a giant outcrop of stone that jutted out of the floor. He’d seen it. Zach stabbed his dagger into one of the many cracks littering the stone floor. It sparked, and the blade snapped, but it had stalled our descent enough to help us get to our feet and jump onto the rock altar instead of smashing into it.
We stumbled onto the altar that was covered in the egg’s black ooze.
Steadying each other, we looked up to see the dragon’s head tilted toward us, watching our progress.
“Might be a good time to clue me in on that plan, princess,” Zach muttered, his eyes locked on the dragon.
How could I tell him what I had planned next for us? I swallowed. “The most vulnerable part of the dragon is inside its mouth.”
“Ivy, are you suggesting we get eaten?”
“If only,” I whispered, as the great beast arched its neck toward Zach and me. It seemed mildly impressed by two puny mortals standing in front of it without screaming.
I took his face in my hands, forcing his gaze away from the dragon. “The flames will burn slowly. If we can withstand the fire and get into the mouth…”
Zach detached my hands and gave my fingers a tight squeeze. “We can run it through.”
“It’s going to be excruciating. Every evil, dark emotion will eat away at us in physical pain.”
“Oh, is that all?” He pulled me close, wrapping one strong arm around my back.
“But we’ll…” I couldn’t make myself say the words. In the background I could hear the dragon draw breath, preparing its flames.
“I don’t care,” Zach whispered against my temple.
“Zach—” I gasped. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But I didn’t want our lives to end this way. Just then, what I regretted the most was that I hadn’t been able to give him my answer.
“I never meant it,” Zach said over the rumbling within the dragon’s long neck.
“What?”
He drew his sword. I placed my hand over his on the hilt, covering Myriana’s mark, staring into his eyes.
“I lied when I said I’d try to stop loving you. I didn’t try once. And I doubt I’ll ever stop.”
Like everything else when it came to Zach, it was completely unexpected and unbelievably inappropriate, given the situation. Her
e we were, about to be burned alive, and I was…happy. Beyond happy. Beyond reason and logic happy.
Then the black flames engulfed us.
It wasn’t just being burned alive, it was every terrible emotion I could’ve ever thought of—anger, pain, hate, jealousy, loneliness, and suffering, so much suffering.
Suffering of a thousand tortured souls, writhing forever in eternal darkness.
But even that was nothing compared to the ugly emotions I felt and connected to. Real-life pain that I experienced and lived with every day.
Fear for going up against the Evil Queen and the Sable Dragon. Fear I wasn’t ready to defeat them and I’d doom the rest of the kingdoms…times ten.
Guilt for surviving while Kellian and my other partners had not…times a hundred.
Shame when my mother lashed out at me or hit me or looked at me with disgust in her eyes…times a thousand.
My flesh was searing hot and burning cold at the same time. My insides thrashed in agony as if needles were stabbing into my veins and forcing poison into my bloodstream. Both my head and heart were splitting in two—physically and emotionally—betrayal, devastation, jealousy, hatred. Emotions so strong it made me want to cut out my own heart and give it to dwarves—sealing away my pain so I could never feel again.
Just to make it stop.
Maybe Myriana had been right to get on that altar surrounded by dwarves. Make it stop.
Then something under my hand twitched.
Zach.
I focused on that one sensation. That I still had hold of someone.
Someone who stood with me, hands on a sword, burning in black flames, to save the kingdoms.
Someone who loved me when I cried.
Someone who loved me even if I yelled at him.
Someone who loved my freckles, my imperfections.
Someone who wanted to love me, and did.
I couldn’t use words to give him my answer. He’d never hear me. But I could show him.
Once, just once, before we burned and drove the sword into the dragon’s mouth and probably died, I would have that kiss—the kiss I’d craved since the Master Mage joined our hands…for reasons I hadn’t realized then.
I stood up on my toes. Somehow, through all this pain, I was able to move. I touched his cheek. Flames licked our bodies—nothing could compare to this agony. Razor teeth loomed over us now, the very heart of the fire only feet away.
And I kissed him.
His lips weren’t soft or full. They were rough and chapped. He smelled like smoke and sweat and blood.
Still, it stopped time. It pulled the sun from the sky and tossed the stars into the sea.
Or maybe it was all in my head. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this kiss.
Zach dropped the sword and wrapped both arms around me, pulling me tighter, kissing me back.
I let the sword fall from my fingertips as well, lost in his kiss.
The mountains moved. The sick were healed. The flames stopped.
The flames…stopped?
A small part of me realized that was not in my head. It was real.
As our lips briefly broke apart, a breath away from each other, I vaguely noticed Zach and I were both encased in gold.
Shining, gleaming, shimmering in pure, beautiful golden light like we were children of the sun.
As Zach shifted his lips against mine, deepening our kiss, letting our breaths mingle as one, a giant cascade of gold like a tidal wave washed out of the cave, dissolving the dragon into a thousand orbs of congealed light.
When Zach released his hold on me, letting me slide out of our kiss, I finally looked up, blinking through all the golden light and dust.
The dragon was gone. The shell fragments were gone. The darkness in my chest was gone.
I looked back at Zach, my mouth open in shock.
Clearly just as surprised, he blinked, and slowly, his lips spread into a grin.
“Looks like I have my answer.”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Lead By Example
Even as we picked our way through the tunnels, back out to the light of day, all of us now healed thanks to the Golden Effect, or rather the magic of True Love, I could not escape Zach’s smugness.
So maybe I was in love with him.
And maybe our kiss had killed the dragon and sent a golden wave through the cave that could’ve spread our magic over an unknowable distance.
But he needn’t seem quite so full of himself.
Of course, I couldn’t keep from smiling the whole way, either.
Millennia stretched out her arms and sighed, her face lifted toward the sun. She wasn’t as pale now, with rosier cheeks and her eyes less of a deep-blue and more of a gray-blue. I wondered how much of the queen’s spirit had altered Millennia, physically and otherwise.
“I haven’t felt so light in months,” she said.
“Do you remember how she possessed you, Millennia?” I asked.
She frowned and tilted her head. “I remember going into the forests back home right after I’d tried to save Tarren. Then the next few days were blurry…” She shook her head. “I just remember waking up and knowing I had to leave Raed. It feels like the last few months have been like that. I decided to do something, but I never remembered the thought process of the decision. But…I was still…me.”
Her face clouded over as she talked, as if she was worried she had done terrible things while being possessed and was suddenly remembering them all.
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. You’re free now.”
She tackled me with a hug. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
“If you hadn’t reached me back there,” she said, her voice right next to my ear, “that evil old hag would’ve been eating at my soul for eternity.”
The two of us pulled away. “That was you. I can’t imagine how you could forgive the Legion, but I’m glad you did.”
“I was able to forgive them only because I met you, princess. When you asked me about Tarren, and about Love, you proved to me that Royals aren’t cruel. Just ignorant.” She gave me a wink.
I squeezed her hands. “It’s true. We have a lot to learn. But I promise, we’ll get Tarren out of the dungeons.”
With tears in her eyes, she kissed my cheek.
“So can you still do magic?” Bromley asked, sitting with his back against a tree, also enjoying the sun after the darkness of the cave.
Millennia shook her head. “I haven’t tried. I’m not entirely sure I want anything to do with it anymore. I’d much rather sit and listen to Tarren sing every night.”
Zach looped his arm around my shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world—I tried to stop myself from blushing. “Not that I don’t think spending every night in a theater is a wonderful thing, but I wish you’d reconsider. You’re a good fighter. Something tells me that wasn’t all the Queen in there. We could use your skill against the Forces.”
Millennia squinted up at the blue sky. “I’ll think about it. Maybe once Royals and Romantica finally see eye to eye, but who knows when that will happen.”
“It may take some time, but it is going to happen. It has to,” Zach said. He turned his hand over, studying the Mark of Myriana that still remained. “We have to assume that if our marks are still here, then the curse on the Royals still exists. But now that we know the truth of the Kiss, we can finally gain the upper hand.”
For the first time since our kiss only hours ago, anxiety crept back in.
“I’m going to get some water,” I announced, brushing off Zach’s arm and walking away from the cave’s entrance, toward the stream running down the mountainside.
Millennia’s and Brom’s voices, talking about the events of the battle and the dragon, faded and were soon replaced by the sound of the little waterfalls cascading over rockslides. I dipped my fingers into the icy stream. It felt heavenly. Cupping my hands, I sipped from the c
lear brook.
Soft footsteps came up behind me, and I didn’t move as Zach reached over and filled his own hand with the refreshing water. “I know what you’re thinking, Ivy.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No, but—”
“It’s impossible.”
“That’s what you said about Love.”
I brushed back strands of hair with my wet hand, leaving droplets across my cheek. “This and that are different.”
Zach knelt in front of me and took my cheeks in his hands, his thumb brushing away the water. “Only a little. Getting the Legion to believe in Love won’t be as difficult as you think.”
“You obviously don’t know the Legion.”
“And you’re underestimating Love again.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then closed it.
Did I really need a reminder of how powerful Love was after what we’d just been through?
I smiled. “I guess I am.”
“You have to be the one to tell them, though. No way am I breaking the news to those stubborn geezers.”
“Zach!” I jerked back and splashed him.
“Cold!” He laughed then caught my wrists and pulled me close. His breath tickled my cheeks. Water clung to his bangs and eyelashes.
“You know,” he said softly. “I think I’d like to kiss you without the excruciating fire all around us.”
Nerves bounced in my stomach then leaped into my throat, only so I could swallow them back down. “Oh?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Would that be all right?”
“Only if you promise not to use a spell.”
Zach chuckled, tilting his head to rest against my forehead. I laughed, too, and closed my eyes, leaning in to his touch.
My laughter was cut off by his lips. He captured my mouth fully with his and drew me in tighter. I succumbed to his kiss, all laughter gone, leaving nothing but a sensation that filled me—a sensation of such warmth and desire and pleasure and pure…happiness that I felt as if I were going to burst.