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“This is where I need to be,” she said firmly. “With you.”

“You could fight. I can stand on my own.”

She shot me a smile. “I can’t fight like them.”

I understood. Compared to Nyxaris, Kage, and Lysander, we were not the tip of the spear.

“Not everyone has to be a warrior,” Regan said quietly. “We’ve both fought our own battles.” Her voice grew stronger as she watched our consorts fight. “They have this.” Her expression was almost peaceful. She knew with that much certainty how this battle was going to end. I nodded.

Above us, Nyxaris and Viktor collided again, bodies meeting with a heavy rumble. Fire burst out across the low clouds. The Duskdrake rolled through Viktor’s flames, but came out of them snarling and unbroken.

Regan felt me tremble. She tightened her arm and leaned toward me. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Our mates.”

I looked at Nyxaris, blazing across the sky like a midnight banner. At Lysander and Kage, one pure steel and the other pure fang, moving together side by side as they wiped out guard after guard on the open ground so Nyxaris could finish what he’d come to do.

My eyes watered. “Yes. They are.” I tried to get my body to accept the truth. Viktor’s end was coming.

A roar suddenly split the sky. Above, Nyxaris had slammed into Viktor. The dragons wheeled together in midair, clawing and tearing at one another through cloud and smoke. Viktor’s head turned toward one of Nyxaris’s wings. His maw opened wide, and I saw the flames mounting.

“Nyxaris!” I gasped.

But my dragon was feinting. He lured Viktor closer with the promise of that wing and then he dove in, his jaws closing around Viktor’s Inferni throat. Viktor let out a wild sound, not a roar but something shocked and furious. I saw dark blood spray from the wound on his throat. Nyxaris’s teeth were still in. He held on tight, like a dog with a bone, shaking his head back and forth and widening the wound. And then the dragons were twisting together in midair. I watched Nyxaris’s black wings beat as he wrenched Viktor off-balance. Together they began to fall in a violent spiral—Viktor thrashing as Nyxaris held on with savage tenacity. They hit the ground, shaking the earth under our feet and churning the dirt. Nyxaris’s teeth were still in Viktor’s throat. Slowly he released the Inferni and took a step back. The red dragon convulsed on his back, red scales and black veins spasming. Soon Viktor Drakharrow lay on the ground in a man’s body, naked and bleeding.

For the first time since I had known him, he looked truly weak. Black veins webbed over his chest, pulsing with rot. His white hair was no longer slicked back. Instead it hung in stringy clumps around a face that was suddenly showing every single mark of time. His body looked frail, all jutting bones and paper-thin flesh. Viktor Drakharrow was no longer regal or terrifying or immortal. He was a pathetic ruin of a man. But his eyes … Those red eyes turned toward Regan and me, and I saw they were the same: red and full of pure hatred. I knew he would never, ever stop.

Regan’s hand squeezed my waist. I looked up at her. Her mouth had gone hard, but I could see the emotion underneath. I knew what she was feeling because I felt the same things—the anger, the grief, the shame. And always the fear. I felt a sick, disorienting pull at seeing our abuser finally laid bare. The urge to both kill him and run from him.

Regan’s breathing had grown uneven. Near Viktor, Nyxaris stood, still in Duskdrake form. I knew he would not shift back until Viktor was dead. Kage loped slowly toward us with Lysander beside him. As they reached us, Kage shifted. He grabbed his clothes and began tugging them on.

“One of you must end this,” Lysander said quietly, with all the solemnity and dignity of an ancient knight. “In the end, this battle was always yours, for it is you who this man has wronged the most.”

Regan and I looked at one another. Her face was pale and beautiful and angry all at once. I glanced where Viktor lay, searching myself for the rage that had consumed me for so long. It was still there, but it had shrunk. I knew it would continue to dwindle. The desire for vengeance was still inside me—but it was no longer the most important thing. I looked at Nyxaris. Soon, we could both breathe. Soon, this would end. But the fight wasn’t finished. Viktor wasn’t the last threat to our peace. I knew that now.

“I want you to do it,” I said to Regan. “For both of us. Please.”

Her brows knitted together. “Are you sure? He took from you just as much as me.”

I thought of what she had gone through, what she must have endured as Viktor’s consort—and even after all I’d been through, I wondered if that was true. I slipped both my hands into hers and squeezed gently. “I just want it to be over. I want him gone. I want us to be free.”

She stared at me for a long moment, then she nodded and began to walk across the field.

Chapter 65

BLAKE

It turned out victory felt a lot like mourning. If anyone had asked me a few days earlier how I’d feel after eliminating the Mortis squad, I’d have said satisfied. I’d probably have pictured myself holding Silvio’s fucking hand up like a trophy. Pendragon would have been safe in my arms, and I’d have felt like a fucking hero for once.

That was the fantasy. The reality was Silvio was dead, Mortis was gone, and after losing Hawl, I didn’t feel like much of a hero.

Our trek going forward had been much quieter. No one was in the mood for talking. Not even Kazmyn. Pendragon was going through all the right motions. She ate and slept and walked beside me. But I’d seen her face and felt her body wracked with sobs when we were in our tent. She let me hold her, but she wouldn’t talk to me. Not yet. During the day, she was mostly silent. I understood. Hawl had been more than a friend, more than a protector. The bear had known her all her life. They’d been the thread she never thought she’d find—connecting her old life to this one. Now that was gone and she was bereft. When I touched her, she wouldn’t pull away. But she didn’t reach for me either.

Then there was Magda. I’d had to tell Pendragon about her loss, too. Had to explain how Professor Stonefist had sacrificed herself at the third ward before any of us could stop her. Like she’d known from the start this was where she’d been walking all along. Knowing Zaira and her fucking secrets, for all we knew maybe Magda had figured it out. Professor Stonefist wouldn’t want us to focus on her death, she’d want us to finish the quest. But we were all so numb from the amount of sacrifices needed to complete this journey, I began to wonder what we were fighting to save anymore. Imagining an end to this whole ordeal seemed impossible if the world we’d be building on the other side lacked so many of our loved ones.

Everyone walked slowly, carrying their grief with them. The only one who seemed remotely eager was Zaira.

We’d been walking through a narrow tunnel. Now it opened up into a huge, high cavern. Ahead of us lay something new. A sweeping stone staircase.

“This is it,” Zaira announced breathlessly. Her face was practically radiant with excitement. “The inner vault lies at the top of those stairs.”