The Dragon Queen (Death #4)

8. Talon

Chapter 8

Talon

The sound of the horn was distant, so distant that I didn’t hear it.

Khazmuda did. They’ve spotted General Ezra and the soldiers. He stood beside me on the small beach at the bottom of the cliff. With his midnight-black scales, we were able to come close without being detected due to the darkness.

I should be so nervous that my mouth was full of bile, but my heart beat so slowly it seemed about to stop for good. My palms were dry like the air in the Arid Sands. My body carried armor made of dragon scales with a sword that Calista could barely pick up, but I felt weightless.

The moment had arrived—and I was ready.

Khazmuda looked up the cliff, as if that would somehow make him hear better. Then he turned to me. Inferno and Macabre and the others are moving in. Calista and Queen Eldinar are safe. He looked at me like he expected a response. Are you ready, Talon Rothschild?

I’d never felt so calm and so angry at once. My muscles were pumped with the blood I would need to wield my sword faster than I ever had before. My focus was a concentrated force of blood lust. Even without my dragon and my powers, I was the most powerful man in this hemisphere.

Because I was that angry. “Yes.”

Khazmuda lowered his body so I could climb up his scales onto the saddle. As am I.

I gripped the horn of the saddle as he jumped from the beach, his powerful wings making him ascend into the sky faster than ever before. I could feel the pull on my body, the way my weight shifted backward as the wind slapped so hard into my face it created tears.

The cliff was high, an imposing mountain in the sky, but we reached the top in mere seconds.

Khazmuda rose above the castle, the torches around the courtyard basking it in light. Time seemed to stop for a short moment when Khazmuda opened his toothy mouth and released the mightiest roar I’d ever heard.

“ Rooooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr .”

Powerful enough to collapse the cliff at our feet, it was deafening on the ears, audible to every person in the Southern Isles.

It’s time to burn.

“It is.” I looked at the castle in the dark, the night identical to the final one I remembered. The only thing that was different was the trees cut down and used to torch my family. New trees had never been planted, so the dead stumps still protruded from the soil. Decades had passed, and Barron’s memory of the execution had dulled—but mine had never faded.

Khazmuda swooped down and landed in the courtyard—in the very place where he’d saved my life.

I dropped down his side and landed hard on the stone, but my body was packed with more adrenaline than it could possibly expend so I recovered from it quickly. I walked in front of Khazmuda and unsheathed my blade, ready for my challenger to try to take it from me, to be foolish enough to try to finish the job he started twenty years ago.

Khazmuda pushed from the ground and took flight.

I continued to the front of the castle, the hilt gripped in a steady hand. I wouldn’t enter the castle and chase him down in the drawing room or his chambers. He would meet me right where I stood, the very place where my wife drew her last breath because she turned to ash.

Angry tears burned my eyes. I felt the strain in my face as I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth. I had too much rage to keep inside any longer. I’d stored it in every corner of my body, but now it oozed from every pore, released with every breath.

The soldiers who guarded the castle turned frantic at the sight of Khazmuda in the air, quickly realizing this wasn’t one of the dragons that served them. In the dark, he was hard to see, one with the night.

“ Rooooooaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr .”

I’d recognize my dragon’s voice anywhere. He felt my anger and released a roar so loud it shook the stars in the sky and made them fall into the sea.

“ Roooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar .”

The soldiers hesitated before they came for me, despite the fact that there were dozens of them and only one of me.

I flicked my sword around my wrist before I slammed my fist right into my chest plate. “You will die for a king who won’t die for you.” I raised my fist before I slammed it down once again.

Then they came—the dead.

The living soldiers moved in, all coming toward me at once.

I came at the first one and struck my sword with such speed, it slashed straight through the metal plate of his armor. I kicked him back before I slid my sharp blade straight through the neck of another. With an unbreakable focus, I handled the soldiers like it was a dance rather than a fight.

Some of them screamed when they realized we weren’t alone.

“What the fuck!”

Those who had fallen before converged on my enemies. The dead from the graveyard on the outskirts of the courtyard, the one that contained my relatives who had passed on before my time, rising once again to fight for the kingdom that was in my blood. My grandfather and my great-grandfather and his father before him. Surrounded by my dead kin, I slew the soldiers like they had no wives or children, like they weren’t human at all.

“Barron!” The dead soldiers lay around me in the courtyard, and I had no doubt more would head to the castle to protect their king. The only reason he’d overpowered me before was because it had been an unfair fight.

But now, it would be fair.

“Face me like a man rather than hide like a coward—for once in your miserable life!”

Khazmuda landed on the top of the castle and released a roar so powerful it made the stone of the keep shake. “ Roooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr .”

It was so loud my eardrums nearly ruptured from the volume, but my focus didn’t waver. I gripped my bloody sword and stared at the double doors, a faded blue where my family’s crest had once been carved into the center. But the symbol had changed, a sharp knife changing the name from Rothschild to Augustus.

I came closer to the castle, my hand still gripping the hilt of my sword with the same tightness that I gripped the pommel of Khazmuda’s saddle. The castle was lifeless, and the double doors were barred. That meant Barron knew I was there, probably watched me from one of the windows in the place that had been my home. “Face me like a man, or I’ll burn this castle to the ground with you inside it!”

“ Roooooaaaaaarrrrrr! ”

I stood there and waited, the dead idle around me, anticipating their next order. They’d grabbed the swords dropped on the ground and brandished them as if life and purpose still flooded their veins. My family had never been buried because there had been nothing left to put in a grave, but now I was grateful for it because my dead father and brother wouldn’t be there beside me, nothing but skeletons because they’d been dead for so long.

I continued to stare at the castle and wait for the doors to open or something to happen, but it remained quiet, like no one was home. Minutes packed with tension passed, the air too thick to breathe. “Then die like a coward! Khazmuda, burn it to the ground!”

“ Roooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrr !” Khazmuda opened his wings and took flight.

There was an audible click, and the doors slowly swung open.

My inherent calm faded as adrenaline and rage took the forefront. The anger I’d carried for decades had simmered beneath the surface to a boil, but now, I lifted the lid off the pot and let the steam escape. The rage reached an intensity I’d never allowed myself to feel, a crescendo so potent it made me shake. As I stood in the spot where my family had drawn their last breaths, I heard their screams of terror, smelled the ash that burned my lungs, remembered the way I’d begged him to spare my wife…and he’d refused.

The doors opened completely and someone was visible, fully covered in midnight-black armor that took on a shine from the torches. A cape was visible behind him, a blade across his shoulders. I assumed he’d gotten fat and lazy from sitting on his ass these last decades since he’d let his kingdom fall to ruin, but he seemed to still fit in his armor.

He marched through the gates, and that was when his sons became visible, trailing behind him in similar armor and capes. I’d assumed they were commanders in the military, but I guessed I’d given them too much credit.

They continued forward, Barron’s features becoming more distinct as he stepped into the light of the torches that burned around the courtyard. He stopped twenty feet away, a gust of wind brushing his cape from the ground.

His sons stopped behind him, their features matching my memory perfectly. They were both fused with dragons and preserved in time.

Barron hadn’t changed either, except for the gloating smile. But that was nowhere to be seen tonight. Eyes the same color as mine looked into my face, our shared blood visible in our mutual features. But he didn’t have the honor my father possessed, didn’t have the characteristics required to be a noble king.

I’d worked so hard to come to this moment, and now I needed to savor it, savor the calm before the storm, savor the fear in his eyes at the sight of me. My chest rose and fell from the labored breaths my chest needed to take. So much rage was bottled inside me, and now it erupted like a geyser. Hatred spewed forth and drowned me from the inside. I gripped the hilt of my sword so hard I nearly popped every knuckle.

“I look upon the Death King, a necromancer who’s taken the Northern Kingdoms with fiery death,” he said. “But I still see Talon Rothschild— a boy .”

The sound of his voice made the world pause. It was exactly as I remembered it, but I still couldn’t believe I heard it. The insult didn’t provoke me because any word he spoke was meaningless.

“You’ve come all the way here to join your kin— how touching .” His serious expression faded when a smile came through. “I knew you survived. I knew this moment would come. The last surviving Rothschild will burn like the others—and your line will truly be gone from this world.”

I gripped the hilt of my sword before I spun it around my wrist. I repeated the action, feeling the sword slice through the air, feeling it fall over my wrist before it came back around. My focus had never been this unmatched. He couldn’t provoke further anger from me when I’d already reached my full capacity long ago. “I wish you the best, Uncle Barron. Because when you’re beaten and bloody, I’ll burn your wife. Then I’ll burn Jairo.” I turned my gaze to him behind Barron’s shoulder. “Kael.” I looked at the other brother before I looked at Barron again. “And then I’ll burn their wives, their children, your mistresses, every friend and family member who carries the Augustus name. You’ll listen to their screams of sheer agony pierce the night. Listen to them beg for the mercy you never gave me. And once there’s nothing left but their ashes…you’ll be next.”

The smile was wiped from his arrogant face. We shared a hard stare, his dark eyes showing all his unspoken rage. “You have no chance, Talon. I’m sorry you came all this way just to say a few words.”

“I disagree.”

“As impressive as your army of the dead may be, it has no chance against our dragons.”

“And that’s why I brought my own dragons.”

His eyebrows furrowed slightly and gave away his hand.

“Your kingdom is being taken by an army of dragons, and you’re none the wiser. Perhaps Astaroth isn’t as loyal to you as you believe.” I didn’t know what was transpiring with Calista and Queen Eldinar down below, but I assumed good things were happening if Barron didn’t know this.

His features hardened into an anger he couldn’t control. He probably couldn’t figure out how I knew Astaroth’s name, but he was far too proud to ask. His confidence was undermined in that moment, and it showed.

“My dead kin will watch me reclaim our kingdom. I can slay three of you at once on my own.” I spun my sword around my wrist and moved forward, prepared to take on three fully armed men protected by dragon armor.

Instead of looking at me, Barron’s eyes glanced to the sky.

“ Roooooaaaaaaaarrrrrr !” I knew Khazmuda’s roars just the way I recognized Calista’s voice—and I knew it wasn’t him.

Constantine appeared in the sky, enormous and powerful, breathing a streak of fire aimed directly at me.

I dodged out of the way and avoided the flames, but the fire was so hot the heat was felt through the thick plates of my armor.

“The only person you have left is your dragon,” Barron said. “And now you’ll watch him die.”

Khazmuda crashed into Constantine in the sky and knocked him away from the courtyard, cutting off the next line of fire that was directed at me on the ground. The two titans collided, and the world stopped for a split second.

My anger was shattered when concern replaced it.

Defeat him. I’ll handle Constantine.

I felt the surge of his power explode inside me, immediately setting my veins on fire. I inhaled a deep breath when it filled me, when it heightened my focus and my strength. But the second I felt it, I pushed it right back. I don’t need it. Kill Constantine if you must. His life is not worth yours.

Barron and the others will use their dragons’ strength.

Keep it, Khazmuda. Trust me, I don’t need it. There was no force in the world more powerful than the rage that had grown inside my body these last decades. The ferocity was unmatched, the blood lust insatiable. I felt his strength leave my body, and I didn’t miss it when it was gone.

I turned back to Barron, whose eyes were on the sky, watching the two dragons fight in the air. Jairo and Kael were just as mesmerized by the battle that was taking place in the air. I moved back toward them, some of the trees in the courtyard ablaze from Constantine’s fire. “This is for my mother.”

Barron turned his gaze back to me.

“For Rosella.” I marched into battle, the dead restrained on the edges of the courtyard, my dragon protecting me from the sky, the hilt of my blade in my ironclad grip. “For Silas. For King Bolton Rothschild— my father .” I moved faster, furious, angry, vibrating with all-consuming hatred. Barron finally unsheathed his black blade and took his stance to meet my attack. His sons did the same, remaining behind him. I could taste their blood in my mouth, taste the ferocity that had burned in my veins all these years. With angry tears in my eyes, I raised my blade and prepared to strike him down. “ And for Vivian and Lena—my wife and daughter—the people I loved most.” Tears streaked down my cheeks as the greatest strength I’d ever known filled me, as if they were both there with me, gripping the pommel of the sword squeezed in my hand. “ You took them from me—and now I’ll take everything from you !”