I choked on my emotions as a fresh wave of agony tore through me. “No!”
I reeled to see my father, still alive, standing over my mate. The emperor held a long knife in his hand, dripping afresh with Kamini’s Phaetyn blood. He stood over Tyrrik and met my gaze.
Emerald surrounded me, and I screamed as I scrambled for my powers. It was happening too quick, all at once, everything in a mess. Draedyn’s power pinned me.
Ryn! Tyrrik shouted, his voice echoing from far away. Be ready!
I blinked through the crushing weight of my father’s power and watched as he drove the blade through Tyrrik’s abdomen.
“No!” I mouthed as Draedyn’s force flooded into me.
Onyx strands chased the emerald green down; Tyrrik’s strength coursed through my veins. Tyrrik pushed his energy into my body, bolstering me on his deathbed. Tyrrik’s power slowed to a trickle, and I gasped, unable to even clutch my chest as I felt our bond wither. Tyrrik’s onyx bands turned to threads then tendrils, fading into wisps. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and my heart gushed with agony as I watched the wisps turn to smoke. Then the smoke floated up into the sky to be lost among the dust and ash.
Tyrrik! I screamed, throwing up my defenses. Tyrrik!
No, there still had to be time. My soul, my very being couldn’t accept anything else.
I filled my mind with my moss-green power as Draedyn pummeled his emerald tendrils against my mind. And an epiphany blasted through me.
Draedyn shouldn’t have ever been able to get through my veil. He shouldn’t be standing before me now after I’d stabbed him. Drae repelled Phaetyn and vice versa, but he’d never had too much of a problem with me after my Drae transformation. I stared at my moss-green powers as though seeing them for the first time. I’d always seen my powers as different entities, my green Phaetyn power totally different than my lapis lazuli Drae. But Phaetyn powers were gold, not green. Whatever I possessed once, before my Drae transformation, had changed. I no longer had pure Phaetyn power. Blue and gold . . . made green. My Phaetyn power was a mixture, tainted by my Drae nature. That’s what he’d meant.
Just like I couldn’t kill Tyrrik with my blood because of our bond, my blood hadn’t killed my father. Draedyn was my kin, which meant we had a bond. Whoever I was bonded with had some immunity to my Phaetyn blood.
I needed . . .
I writhed with the force of Draedyn’s energy. He left the blade pinning my mate to the ground and walked to me.
“I knew your mother had lied, and when the Phaetyn queen died, I knew you would live. But I was content to bide my time. I’ve bided my time since the very beginning. Baeyn refused to see it, but Drae were never meant to serve. I was meant to rule. I was always meant to rule them all, Ryn. And you will help me.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong. It’s why your brother wouldn’t give you help in your sick pursuit.”
“Aedyn?” He laughed and then bent down to look me in the eye as he spoke his next words. “I am Aedyn. I don’t know what story of our history you’ve heard, but let me tell you the truth. I left the Drae. After millenium, I found there was a difference between peace and pleasure. A difference between strength and power. I left. Baeyn and I disagreed, so I left.”
I clutched my head as his anger beat against me.
“And when there is no one else, daughter,” Draedyn continued in his calm voice, “you will turn to me. I will be all you have left. And you will be all I need.”
I couldn’t access my powers. He had me trapped.
“The interesting thing when you’re the oldest of a mostly extinct species, you can say whatever you want about your kind, and there’s no one wise enough to refute it. You can create the history you want, the very world you want. You just have to be patient. And I am very patient.” He nudged Tyrrik’s body. “I’ll tell you a secret, heir-daughter . . . you won’t die when your mate does. I didn’t die, though at the time, I wished I had. You’ll get over it and be stronger alone, just like I am.”
I wasn’t stronger alone. I didn’t want to be stronger alone. I wanted Tyrrik by my side, his strength and his kindness, his humor and his patience. I wanted his arms around me and his love inside me. Without my mate, I felt like half the person I was meant to be. I tried to move, but I couldn’t break through. Tyrrik, I sobbed. Tyrrik . . .
Draedyn crouched next to me. “One day, you’ll become everything I want you to be. I will make you into an indestructible weapon. No one will stand in my way ever again.”
Hatred burned deep within me, and I stoked the flame as I struggled against the slithering green. I needed to find a break, just a small one. But only two things had ever been able to break Draedyn’s powerful hold.
“I bet your mate begged for death just to be away from you,” I whispered to Draedyn, wielding the first. Distraction.
He blinked, and I barely processed that despite his words, he still loved his mate. I focused, gathering the onyx power Tyrrik had given me, the second. My mate’s power. I shoved through the oily green force pinning me down.
I grabbed the blade at my waist and twisted as I drove the blood-coated knife from the Phaetyn in the dungeon deep into Draedyn’s heart. “My blood may not work,” I said through gritted teeth, “but I’m not the only Phaetyn. And they all hate you.”
The emperor reeled back, falling to the ground.
I leaped to my feet only to kneel on his chest as I pushed the blade deep. I followed the receding emerald power into Draedyn’s core while I pulled my energy, not separated but coiled about each other, blue and moss-green, and then I shrieked, blasting all of it at Draedyn’s core.
Thunder rolled overhead, and Draedyn bellowed in pain, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the blade. Smiling maniacally, I knocked his hands away, shoving the blade in farther, driving the weapon all the way in to its hilt.
He gasped, eyes wide, and I soaked up his demise, vindicated by knowing that his death was right. I would never tire of seeing the life drain from the man who had hurt so many.
“You will never take from anyone again,” I snarled. I hurled another blast of power at the monster who’d ruled Draeconia for centuries. Over and over again, I pummeled him, and Draedyn’s emerald core splintered and then shattered, and I nearly fell forward as it evaporated, giving me unfettered access to his mind.
“Daughter,” he choked.
I wanted no part of him. Especially not his sick mind. “I am no daughter of yours.”
I collected everything left of myself and Tyrrik, and for us and all of those I loved, I blasted my power into Draedyn, wave after wave, not stopping even when his body numbed and his thoughts ceased. I continued to beat him even when his mind was void and his soul had departed to whatever black abyss it might belong. I didn’t stop my assault until every last spark within me knew he was gone.
I rose, my legs trembling, and stood, staring down at the man who’d ruled in terror, his eyes glassy, forever fixed unseeing at the sky overhead. Yet there was no triumph, only a hollow ache in my chest, a void nothing would ever fill.
Turning, I looked at the still form of my mate. My soul reached for him with trembling fingers, searching over and through his body and soul for any wisp of onyx energy remaining. My hunt started tentatively, afraid to confirm, desperate to negate.
Chaos moved around me, sliding through my awareness. Lani dropping to Kamini’s side, a small group of Phaetyn sprinting to Dyter, rings of Gemondians, Veraldians, men, women, kings, and queens gathering in silent circles to stare upon the emperor’s body.
And to witness my grief.
A wracking sob worked up my throat as I stumbled to my mate. Another cry followed the first as I fell to my knees by his side. I ran my hands over his body, my heart rending when my palms rested on his still chest. His silent heart. I threw back my head and screamed in agony. I screamed until my throat was torn raw.
I would scream until my last day in this cold, hard realm.
Tyrrik was gone.