The Dragon Queen Selection Chapter 168

CASSIAN

The world was fire and wind and screaming.

I woke with a gasp, my hands gripping Taheer's scales, my body pressed flat against his neck, my head pounding like someone had split it open with an axe.

‘Hold on,’ Taheer's voice rumbled through my skull. ‘She is near.’ 

"Who?"

‘Veyraxis.’ 

I looked up.

The sky was wrong.

Dark. Churning. Clouds twisted in spirals that shouldn't exist, lit from within by flashes of crimson lightning. The air was thick, heavy with magic, with age, with rage.

And there, at the center of the storm…

A massive ancient shape.

"Taheer," I breathed. "What have you done?"

‘What I should have done centuries ago.’ 

The cloaking spell fell away like shattered glass.

\---

Veyraxis turned.

She was enormous, almost as large as Taheer, Her scales were the color of blood, cracked and scarred from centuries of imprisonment. Her eyes were pits of fire, burning with hatred so old it had become part of her bones.

Her wings spread wide.

The storm answered.

Taheer circled her, slow and deliberate, his black scales gleaming against the darkness.

‘At long last,’ he said. ‘After five hundred years. We meet.’ 

Veyraxis's voice cut through the air like a blade.

‘Taheer, the great betrayer.’ 

I flinched.

I could hear her, not with my ears, but with my own mind. Taheer had opened the channel between us, letting her words pour into my skull like poison.

‘You bonded with them,’ Veyraxis hissed. ‘You made the First Pact. You sold our freedom for their protection.’ 

‘I saved us. Did you forget we were being hunted into oblivion?’ 

‘You didn’t save us, you doomed us.’ 

\---

Their conversation unfolded in my mind like a nightmare.

Taheer's voice was calm and measured. The voice of someone who had been waiting for this moment for centuries.

‘The First Pact was necessary,’ he said. ‘We were being hunted. Our magic was waning. The humans of Aurelia, the Valemont king, he offered peace. A way to survive.’ 

‘Survive?’ Veyraxis laughed. ‘Our survival was not dependent on the humans. We were meant to rule. The skies were ours. The magic was ours. And you gave it away freely.’ 

‘I made a choice to protect our kind.’ 

‘You made a costly mistake.’ 

She circled him, her wings stirring the clouds.

‘The First Pact did not save us. It enslaved us. The humans took our magic. Made it their own. Made themselves lords of dragons while we became little more than…’ 

‘Partners’, Taheer interrupted. ‘We became partners.’ 

‘Pets!’ Veyraxis spat. ‘You became pets.’ 

\-—————————————

Taheer was silent for a moment.

Then:

‘You were never a pet,’ Veyraxis. ‘You were always the wildest among us. The strongest. The only one who refused to bend.’

‘And you treated me like an outsider for it.’ 

‘I didn’t. You were free.’ 

She stopped circling.

Her burning eyes fixed on him.

‘Free?!’ she repeated. ‘I was hunted for rejecting the pact. I was hunted for years. I was lured back to the palace under the guise of you needing my help. They tricked me into thinking you had called for me. And when I came, they chained me. Buried beneath a mountain for centuries. While you…’ 

‘I did not know.’ 

‘You did not want to know Taheer.’ 

‘I searched for you. I looked for you for centuries.’ 

‘Did you search beneath the palace? Did you search beneath the feet of the very humans you served?’ 

Taheer's silence was answer enough.

Veyraxis laughed, a terrible sound, full of centuries of grief.

‘You were right under them,’ she said. ‘Right under their boots. And you never felt me. Never heard me. Never came.’ 

‘I made a mistake. I should have searched harder.’ 

‘You made many mistakes. Starting with the First Pact….’ 

\---

She banked left, her wings catching the wind.

‘Tell me, great betrayer. How has the Pact benefited our kind?’ 

Taheer said nothing.

‘Where are the hatchlings? Where are the young? Where is the future you promised when you sold our freedom for peace?’ 

‘The magic is waning,’ Taheer said quietly. ‘The world is changing.’ 

‘The world is dying. Because of you. Because of the Pact. Because you gave our magic to them.’ 

‘That is not…’

‘They took my eggs.’ 

The words hit like a physical blow.

I felt Taheer's shock ripple through our bond.

‘All thirteen,’ Veyraxis continued. ‘They took them from me while I watched. While I screamed. And they destroyed them. One by one. By. One.’ 

"Veyraxis," I breathed.

She ignored me.

‘But one survived,’ she said. ‘One egg did not die. One hatchling lived. Hidden right under their nose. Protected. By magic so old even I did not know it existed.’ 

Taheer's voice was barely a whisper.

‘Where is the hatchling now?’

‘With the girl. The one who carries the blood of the old. The one who bonded with my daughter.’ 

‘Your daughter.’

‘My hatchling.’ Veyraxis's voice shifted, something almost like pride breaking through the hatred. ‘And yours.’ 

The world stopped.

What?

‘You heard me, great betrayer. The hatchling, Luna is yours. Mine. Ours. Conceived before the chains, before the mountain, before you signed your soul away to the humans.’ 

Taheer went still.

Completely, utterly still.

‘I have a hatchling,’ he said.

Yes, and she is bonded to the girl who would save your precious kingdom.’

Veyraxis's eyes gleamed.

The irony is not lost on me.

\---

She pulled up, soaring higher into the storm.

‘Get out of my way, Taheer. I will spare you. I will spare your useless prince. Stay out of my path, and you may live to see your hatchling grow.’ 

‘And if I refuse?’ 

‘Then you will burn with the rest of them.’ 

Taheer was silent for a long moment.

Then:

‘I cannot let you do this.’ 

‘Then die!’ 

\---

They charged.

The sky exploded.

Fire and claw and scale and fury, two ancient dragons colliding in midair, tearing at each other with centuries of rage. Taheer's jaws closed on Veyraxis's neck. Her claws raked across his chest. Blood rained down like scarlet rain.

I clung to his back, my hands gripping his scales, my mind reaching for my powers.

Now, Taheer shouted. NOW.

I reached out with everything I had.

Magic surged through my veins, through the bond, through the air, through the space between heartbeats. I found Veyraxis's mind, her ancient, hate-filled mind, and I pushed.

She screamed.

Not in rage, in pain.

The blow landed.

A fatal blow.

I felt it crack through her skull, through her thoughts, through the centuries of grief and fury that had sustained her.

She screeched, a sound that shattered the clouds, that shook the mountains, that made the world tremble.

And then she charged.

Not at me.

At Taheer.

She hit him head-on, full force, full fury, fire streaming from her jaws, the heat of it, I could feel it singeing my skin. I yelled out in pain. The impact shook Taheer's body, sent him spiraling, sent me…. 

Falling.

The saddle slipped.

My hands grabbed at nothing.

The wind screamed past my ears.

And Taheer, Taheer was above me, reaching for me, his claws stretching, but Veyraxis reached for him. He jaw snapping at his claws. 

Too late.

I fell.

The sky swallowed me whole.