Chapter Text
So many pyres—so many more on my side compared to those burning on his.
The war drums have been pounding across the valley since sundown.
I’m sitting outside my war tent and monitoring his army. It looks endless. I walked out of the tent where all my war leaders had gathered, bearing maps in their hands and not a shred of hope in their hearts. I could scent it on them—the fear. The despair.
This is it.
Tomorrow is going to be the end of it all.
You should rest, θεά.
I look over my shoulder and watch Vesryn, sitting on her hind legs, her dark gaze already on the two armies stretched below us. I turn away from her and face the countless enemy fires.
“This valley is now a death trap,” I say.
“Come dawn, it will be bathed in blood.”
And I led them all here.
There’s still time till dawn. You could run.
“I’m not abandoning my people. Besides, There’s nowhere to go. No place to hide. But you should go. You’re a dragon. Leave. There are only two of you left. You should go. You have a chance, Vesryn.”
I’m your protector θεά. When you fall, I fall with you.
Before I can reply, I notice Soldiers stirring in their camp below. Men and women, murmuring, swearing and weeping. I track the source of their terror—all the way across the valley.
One by one, as if a great hand of darkness wiped them away, the fires of the enemy camp went out. The war drums beat louder.
He had arrived at last.
Koschie himself had come to oversee the final stand of my army.
Koschie had come.
“We are not going to win this war,” I say, Vesryn’s face aglow in the light of her uncut power and anger. “But we can delay it a little while.”
***
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE , θεά. HE WAS A CHILD! YOUR CHILD, θεά!
“He was my child, Vesryn. But he’s also next ember. He will be powerful, and we will prepare him for the future.”
I know that. But-
I cut her off, “if I didn’t do what I did, there wasn’t going to be a soul left after tomorrow to fight, Vesryn. There was no future for my kid—or for anyone, for that matter. This was the only way. I know he’ll inherit our war, but he’ll also inherit my powers. This was the only way.”
Heavy, exhausting silence settled between us.
“I want both of you to be his. You’ll both be his protectors, and you will prepare him for the future.”
η επιθυμία σας είναι η εντολή μου, θεά.
I hope I gave us all a chance—A hope for a better future.
I look up at the star-flecked night sky and send a prayer that the unborn, faraway scion of this night, heir to a burden that would doom or save the world, would forgive me for what I have done.