They were holding together a bubble of shelter around the sentinels and other fighters who had managed to reach him, while not twenty feet away, a hurricane force had picked up once again and battered against their shields. They were cut off from the rest of their troops, including Ferion and the other Wyr. Nobody else could fly in or out.
Even as he studied them, one of the magic users faltered and fell out of the pattern. Carling repaired the hole quickly by reweaving the other spells together, but Dragos could hear the strain in her voice. She wouldn’t be able to hold the spells together for much longer, and when she lost control of the pattern, all the rest would fall apart.
Dragos gently pushed Pia’s arm out of his mouth and shapeshifted, rolling onto his hands and knees. He straightened and put his hand on Pia’s shoulder, squeezing, as he asked Carling, “Can you hold for a little while longer?”
Not far away, Rune glanced over his shoulder as he batted several Elves away with one wide swipe of his giant paw. Carling’s face twisted but she nodded. The Vampyre wrapped her cloak tightly around her body and pulled the hood over her head, still chanting.
Pia said hoarsely, “I need to go to Calondir.”
There was nothing anybody could do for Calondir, but he did not tell her that. Instead he let go of her shoulder and said, “Go.”
Pia wobbled to her feet and, cradling her arm against her side, she limped toward the Elf Lord’s still form. Eva noticed and pulled back from the fighting. As soon as those on either side of her filled the gap that she left, she jogged after Pia.
He could no longer act in partnership with a dead man. Freed from his oath to the High Lord, Dragos turned his attention back to the sole reason why he had come.
To Gaeleval, who couldn’t seem to leave his mate alone, and who couldn’t seem to go off and be a maniacal despot in a pocket of Other land somewhere else that had nothing to do with Dragos or the Wyr.
And Dragos could learn to give in sometimes, in some ways, but there really was only so far he could bend.
This was not going to be one of those times.
This was the time to make a real victim out of that son of a bitch.
Dragos cloaked himself with a spell so tight, not a mouse would have sensed his presence. Then he strode between Constantine and Aryal, into the howling gale, and he walked into the enthralled army.
As he hunted through the sea of hollowed eyes and empty faces, one by one he filtered everything out. Carling and the other magic users. The God Machine.
Everything but that last thread of Power, the blood of his prey.
When he located it, he did not try to push against it or fight it. Instead he followed it, tracing it back to its source.
Unlike Gaeleval, he did not have a God Machine to magnify his abilities. He needed to draw close to his target for what he meant to do.
When he had gotten close enough, he curled his own Power around that singular thread, and he began to whisper a beguilement that brought him into an almost perfect alignment with it. Then he slid his intention into it obliquely, as if by accident.
You are the bringer of the end of your days, he whispered. His enemy was very near, gathered behind a knot of strong Elven warriors. This is the final note in your song. It was set in motion at your beginning. You have forgotten that Death himself is part of your whole. You have done your job well, and you can let go. Let go. What you wish for is here, your ending. Now you can fall into silence.
Others like Gaeleval might share a talent for beguilement, but no one could beguile quite like the dragon, who could whisper death with such gentle purity that it marked the soul for which it was intended.
Even still, his prey could have fought him, and might even have had a chance against the beguilement if his survival instinct had been strong enough, except that Dragos used what Gaeleval wanted most against him.
The singular thread of Power dissolved. He almost imagined a sigh of relief as it dissipated.
His eardrums pounded as the howling gale died.
Gaeleval’s army staggered to a halt.
Wyr shouted to each other and to him, while Ferion and others who had been left on the bluff raced toward them.
Several minutes later, searchers came upon Dragos standing over Amras Gaeleval, who was dead. The Elf sat in a lotus position, his empty hands in his lap. Like Calondir in the painting, Gaeleval looked as though he cupped something immeasurably precious.
Dragos stared at Gaeleval in silence for a long moment before he turned away.
? ? ?
Even as Pia and Eva had come close to the High Lord, Pia had known Calondir was gone.
Still, as she struggled to get past the restrictions of her leather armor and her stiff, sore body to kneel beside him, she knew she had to try. While Eva leaned over to shield her with her body, Pia slit her palm and let a few drops of her blood fall between the Elf Lord’s parted lips. Of course nothing happened. Her blood could heal, but it couldn’t bring back the dead.