Ember
For a minute, all I can do is sit there, numb and mute. Panic races through me as I stare in shock at the broken pieces of the Shadow Bracer. My hand goes to my wrist, where the flesh is painful to the touch. My heart is going haywire inside my chest.
The Shadow Queen’s Bracer. The source of my magic. The enchanted, cursed object that set all of these events into motion, gathering my mates to me, giving me the power to protect myself and reach through the very fabric of space.
The artifact that first put me in the Shadow King’s sights, and gave me reason to believe that I had a claim to the Grand Throne. That I could really be the Queen of all dragons.
Without it, what am I?
Nothing, a voice whispers in my head.
And that isn’t true. It’s just my insecurity talking.
But what if it’s not?
I reach out to pick up the shattered pieces of the bracer, but my hands are shaking too badly. My nerves are like live wires that have all been severed at once, the broken tendrils of my magic jangling, everything inside of me throwing off sparks. I’m weak and electrified, elated and reeling with devastation.
The adrenaline of the last five minutes deserts me all at once, but it doesn’t erase what happened.
I found my dragon. Just when all hope seemed lost, the path ahead of me suddenly became clear. Unconflicted and uncomplicated. Amy conjured Black Flames, and I stepped into them. My dragon Emerged, dark and brilliant and majestic. My wings were a part of me, and I soared. I rained down magic and fire, smiting my enemies and tearing them from the sky.
And then I fell.
A violent shudder rolls through me, and I hug myself tightly. The shock is too much, and I need– I need…
“Mates,” I breathe through the shivers.
I look up, and Jianyu’s dragon is descending from the air, his gleaming, silvery hide disappearing to leave golden skin and oh-so-human eyes. Malik’s aquamarine dragon swoops in close before diving toward me to land. Rafe is a crimson streak in the sky as he approaches, too. Storm’s landing is less graceful, his wings tattered and his scales bloody and singed. When his human form hits the ground, he’s limping, his face bearing an ugly bruise, and he’s cradling one of his arms.
My connections to all four of them sing, and I could cry from the relief.
It’s possible the bracer was what drew them to me in the first place, but its loss hasn’t ripped them out of my heart.
Not yet, at least.
“Ember,” Malik intones, dropping to his knees in front of me. His hand on my arm sends waves of warmth rushing across my skin, reassurance pouring into me with the certainty of the tides. “That was–“
Pride pours out in his tone, wonder and awe mixing together, and my dragon preens within my chest, reveling in the attention of her mate.
“Fucking awesome,” Rafe agrees from my other side. His dragon is still close to the surface of his consciousness, his eyes full of fire as he takes me in.
Skitters of desire race through me, my dragon and human minds both on the same page when it comes to our need for our mates.
“Magnificent,” Storm agrees, his voice rough. But there’s a softness to his gaze. “Just like I always knew you’d be.”
But as Storm staggers toward me, sympathetic pain flares its way up my side, and the genuine ache lingering in my left wrist gives a sharp twinge. The naked flesh where the bracer used to be is raw.
Jianyu steps closer. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
Every thread of connection in my mating bond draws taut.
And it’s not as if my other mates were unaware of my distress. But the wonder and the exhilaration of our dragons finally meeting drowned it out.
Until now.
My gaze goes automatically to the shattered pieces of the Shadow Bracer, still lying on the ground.
“I–it–” I choke on the words, my eyes stinging, but I’m not going to cry. I won’t. “I don’t know what happened.” I look up at my mates, who stare back at me with expressions of concern, dismay, love. “One second, I was on top of the world, and the next…”
Without my noticing, Rhiannon, has come over to join us. Grimly, she finishes my sentence for me. “The bracer failed you.”
That’s a kind way to put it.
Deep down, I know what this loss feels like. It’s the moment Storm denied me and said that I was nothing. It’s the morning I woke up to find out my father was missing–and then, weeks later, to discover that my mother was, too.
The Shadow Bracer rejected me.
Even though I haven’t spoken it aloud, just thinking the word sends a shiver racing through me. The truth of it is overwhelming.
“But why?” I ask, looking up at Rhiannon, my heart sore. “How?”
The bracer was an object, not a person, but its betrayal cuts deep.
“I don’t know.” Rhiannon’s uncertainty is almost as frightening as the bracer’s abandonment. Crouching beside me, she reaches for the shattered pieces of black metal. Careful not to touch the shards themselves, she uses her sleeve to sweep them into a bag she produces seemingly from thin air. Flicking a glance at me, she frowns. “Though perhaps we should keep this development to ourselves for the moment–until we better understand what’s going on.”
My stomach sinks, even as anxiety rises in my chest.
Right. Best not to advertise the fact that the source of my magical powers is basically a pile of scrap metal now.
Grasping her meaning right away, Jianyu takes off his jacket and wraps it around me. Its long sleeves have no trouble concealing my naked, bruised wrist, and I squeeze his hand in gratitude.
Rhiannon tucks the bag of shards away in a hidden pocket of her dress, just as Amy’s newly Emerged, black and white and pink dragon does a loop-the-loop above our heads and comes in for an enthusiastic–if less than graceful–landing.
“Holy shit,” she gasps, launching herself to her feet, covered in dust from her crash landing but beaming from ear to ear. She whoops, loud and joyful. “Holy shit!“
She runs toward Grace, arms outstretched. Grace approaches her with caution, but Amy isn’t deterred in the slightest. Amy plants a passionate kiss on her mouth before leaping to the ground and racing toward me.
“We did it!” she cries. “I never thought we could, but we did–Ember– It was incredible, wasn’t it? Can you believe?”
Her excitement is infectious. The loss of the bracer is an unbearable weight, but for just a moment, I let the exhilaration of taking flight for the first time eclipse my despair.
I rise and brace myself just in time for Amy hurl to herself at me. I hug her tightly, laughing. “I always believed in you,” I promise.
“It. Was. So. Cool.” She pulls away and waves her arms wildly in the air. “I felt the magic, and then my dragon was right there, and the flames! Holy crap, the flames.”
“They were amazing.” My eyes sting, but in a good way this time. “They worked, Amy.”
“I know!” Giggling maniacally, she throws herself at Grace again, sagging into her arms absolute happiness. “I can do magic, and I can fly. Who would have imagined?”
“Who, indeed,” Rhiannon murmurs dryly.
Amy waves a limp hand at her mom dismissively. “Oh, hush.”
Grace pats Amy’s head, gingerly encouraging her to stand. As soon as Amy is upright again, she takes a small step back, her voice unusually reserved. “You need a snack–and probably a nap.”
I frown. Grace is acting weird, especially considering she and Amy just exchanged declarations of love, like, five minutes ago. But I don’t have the energy to consider her behavior right now.
“You probably need a snack and a nap, too,” Jianyu reminds me.
They’re not wrong. The exhaustion of Emerging–not to mention smacking dozens of Shadow and Air Dragons out of the sky–is not a joke.
There’s no time to rest, though.
As if to underscore the point, Freya’s gleaming white dragon soars over our heads, on a mission. I follow her trail with my gaze, and my chest squeezes.
The town of Unity lies in ruins. The dust is still settling, the air choked with smoke and ash, but the once-green central square is a mess of broken earth and shattered concrete. Buildings all around the area have been laid to waste, reduced to piles of rubble. Half of them are still smoldering or pouring deep purple smoke from smashed windows.
And then there are the people. I recognize so many faces–Amy’s friends from trivia night at the pub, regular customers of Rhiannon’s shop. Wolves and bears and dragons alike pull themselves from the wreckage, bruised and bleeding, their skin gray with dragonfire and ash.
There are bodies, too.
My vision blurs, a deep guilt tearing at my chest. This isn’t my fault. But it is my responsibility.
“We have to help,” I mutter, lurching forward, but my knees wobble. Jianyu’s steadying hand on my arm is the only thing keeping me from falling ass over teakettle.
“On it.” Malik has barely finished speaking before he’s launching into the air, his dark skin giving way to gleaming turquoise scales.
Rafe isn’t far behind him. Storm lumbers in their direction for a few steps, but when he tries to shift, the pain radiating all along his side overwhelms him, sending crushing waves of distress through our bond.
Jianyu is itching to go be a hero, but he glances between me and Storm. “They’ve got it,” he assures us.
“But–” I start.
“There’ll be plenty to do,” Rhiannon assures me, rolling up her own sleeves, surveying the battleground with a grim determination.
“Oh, shit,” Amy murmurs, but there’s none of the joy from earlier in her voice.
I track her gaze to what’s left of her and Rhiannon’s home. My throat goes dry at the giant hole in its facade. The only blessing is that the shop is unharmed.
Actually…
I narrow my eyes. The magic shop is suspiciously unharmed.
“Geez, Mom,” Amy grouses, basically confirming my suspicions. “You couldn’t extend the protection wards another twenty feet or so to the right?”
Rhiannon shoots her an unimpressed look. “Next time, you’re welcome to help me create them.”
Amy rolls her eyes but concedes the point. “I guess it was more important to shield the rare and powerful magical artifacts than my shoe collection, but still. They were some pretty great shoes.”
“They were,” I agree.
“Oh, well.” Amy brightens up fractionally. “Shopping trip!”
I chuckle, but I don’t feel any humor in my heart. Shoe-shopping is the last thing on anyone’s agenda right now, and Amy knows it.
My attention is pulled from my friend and her family’s losses by a dark cloud gathering over Jianyu’s side of our mate-bond connection. I reach out for him mentally, and he settles his gaze on mine.
“We’ll help with the rescue effort, of course.” He lets out a rough breath. “But you know that we can’t stay here.”
The inside of my chest constricts.
I look around at the destruction, and my eyes sting. This town is the closest thing I’ve had to a home in so long.
But he’s right. For our sake–and for everyone else’s.
My throat tight, I nod. “I know.”
“No.” Lord Rook stumbles over toward us, dirt on his face, and favoring his injured side even more than he was before. “You don’t.”
Instinctively, I tug down the sleeve of Jianyu’s jacket to conceal my wrist even further.
“Rook,” Rhiannon warns.
Rook shakes his head, his tone going gravelly and foreboding. “The Shadow King knows you were here. He knows your dragon has Emerged, and that you are more powerful now that even he feared.”
A pang fires off behind my ribs. The loss of the bracer is an acute pain. But I need to keep my new vulnerability a secret–at least for now. If King Erembour believes I’m stronger than ever, I can’t disabuse him of that notion.
Unaware that anything is amiss, Rook gestures with his uninjured arm. “The Shadow King’s forces may have been defeated, but he will retaliate with a vengeance. He will hold this entire town responsible for harboring you. Even now, his servants will be returning to him to feed him information about your victory.”
He’s right. In my rage, fueled by the bracer’s magic and the power of my Emergence, I felled a horde of his minions, but enough escaped to tell the tale of what happened today.
Including…
I look around, searching for Fury and Jasmine. My dragon knocked my former tormenters out of the sky, draining them of their magic, at least for a time. They fell to the ground, human and defeated.
But there’s no sign of them now.
“Fury, Jasmine–” Already, the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me all I need to know.
I meet Storm’s gaze, and he confirms it. “Gone.”
“Returned to their master.” Rook’s mouth is a grim line. “There is no time to waste.”
“So what do you propose?” Jianyu asks, curt.
“You can’t stay here.” Rook glances among us all. “But neither can anyone else.”
Read The Dragon Queen – coming November 21
© Dizzy Hooper 2024
As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases