The Dragon Queen (Death #4)

13. Talon

Chapter 13

Talon

I stepped into the home I once shared with Vivian. The sunlight came through the windows exactly as I remembered, and for a brief moment, I was taken back in time, like I’d just come home from my night duty with the guard to find Vivian in the kitchen making me breakfast. She was always waiting for me to come home, no matter how late it was.

The home had been inhabited by Jairo or Kael, based on the clothing and items in the rooms. The furniture was mostly the same, but all the items that had belonged to us had been tossed or donated to the poor.

But when I stood there, I could still feel her…distantly.

You’ve accomplished everything you’ve wanted—but your sadness is worse than it’s ever been.

My sorrow was aggressive like a disease that invaded the body. It’d been tendrils before, but now the infection had run rampant. If I didn’t take the antidote, I would die. I stepped outside to the grass and looked at the tree where Vivian and I would sit in the shade and look at the view. We’d spend hours waiting for the baby to kick.

Khazmuda was there, his black scales a contrast to the color of the grass and the sky. The fires had been put out. Though there was a lot of destruction and the scent of human flesh was still in the air with the ash—the war was over. He bent his neck to bring his face close to mine. Why does your heart bleed on the inside?

It was the perfect description and made me wince involuntarily. Like a soldier facing a battle where he was outnumbered a hundred to one, I was too overwhelmed to make a decision. And I knew I had very little time to make it. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

Anything .

“If I asked you to do something for me…with no questions asked, would you do it?”

Khazmuda studied me with his dark eyes, taking a pause as he absorbed the weight of the request.

“Even if it meant doing something bad to a good person?” Like Queen Eldinar. I couldn’t look at him as I said these things. If I did, I would see myself in his reflection…and hate myself.

Khazmuda remained quiet.

I waited for his answer.

My loyalty to you has no bounds. If you asked me to do something, no matter how horrific, I would do it without reservation—because I trust you wouldn’t make such a heinous request without good reason. You know I would do anything for you, Talon Rothschild—and I would take your secret to my grave.

I kept my eyes on the ocean beyond the cliff, feeling a flush of pain at his words. I could hear the sincerity in his voice, trust that he would keep his word if I asked him to. If I told him to snatch Queen Eldinar out of the courtyard and fly her to Bahamut’s domain, he would do without hesitation.

I could spare my life—and my soul.

“I apologize for my absence.”

Calista had left to help the wounded in the village and the fields. She seemed to understand that I needed my space once Barron was dead, to roam the grounds of the castle where my family had lived and died. She seemed to understand I needed to say my final goodbye to Vivian—like she could read my mind. Now, she’d returned to the courtyard, showered and cleaned up after the long night. “I know you must feel a lot of different things right now.”

She had no idea.

“I hope peace is one of those emotions.”

I felt it briefly. Then the stress of my decision covered it like storm clouds. “My entire purpose for the last twenty years has been fulfilled. It’s hard to accept that my life’s ambition has been completed.”

She watched me with soft eyes.

“It brings me peace. It brings me satisfaction. Even pride. But the pain… Nothing will ever cure that. I returned to the place where Vivian and I used to live, went down the hallways where we’d walked, remembered conversations I thought I’d forgotten. I know it’s time to say goodbye…and let her go.”

“You don’t have to let her go, Talon.”

I turned to look at her.

“It’s okay to love someone even when they’re gone. I know she’ll always be a part of you—and that’s okay. Your love for her and Lena is one of the many reasons I fell so deeply in love with you.” She gave me a slight smile to show her sincerity.

I didn’t know how to respond to that, to feel such unconditional love from a woman I’d wronged. Her love for me was so pure that she didn’t know jealousy, didn’t care that a vigil for someone else remained in my heart.

She continued to smile at me. “I know your home doesn’t look the way it did before, but it’s beautiful. I’m sure in time you can rebuild it to be exactly as you remember. Assuming this is where you want to live.”

The insufferable pain had returned to my chest, the weight of the decision that affected everyone around me. I could hurt the two I loved most, or I could let someone else suffer instead.

“Talon?”

I turned back to her.

Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Are you alright?”

No .

She continued to stare at me.

“Yes…I’m fine.”

She kept up her stare, and it was obvious she didn’t believe me. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I looked away. “Nothing.”

I stood in the courtyard alone, the torches ablaze, showing the stakes that had dried and withered. The bodies were still there, so charred it was hard to know what was flesh or bone. A breeze moved through my hair, and that was when I knew he was there.

Bahamut.

Most of the trees in the courtyard had been burned. It used to be a beautiful place where my father hosted his parties. Rosella would flirt with the men at court, and my mother would gossip with the women. Silas was never interested in royal affairs and hooked up with the servants in the storage room, as I had a couple of times myself.

Calista had gone to sleep in our tent, choosing to sleep on the hard ground rather than occupy the castle that still smelled like smoke. The place wasn’t my home anymore, and even though it was rightfully mine, it felt strange to invade it when Barron’s belongings were everywhere.

Bahamut came to me in the form of a handsome man, steel-blue eyes that were endless in their depths. He was so real that the breeze moved his hair, but he was visible only to me. “Was it everything you wanted, Talon Rothschild?”

It was. “Everything and more.”

“Then I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain.” The cruel smile wasn’t plastered on his face, like he had some ounce of humanity. “Now it’s time you fulfill yours.”

The dread had begun once I was forced to accept what Calista meant to me. That she healed old wounds and made my dead heart beat once again. I’d dragged my feet with every step I took, anxious to arrive at this moment but absolutely detesting it simultaneously. But time had passed within the blink of an eye, from Shadow Stone to Riviana Star to the beach in the Lands of Thalian. I’d fallen in love with the only woman capable of capturing my heart. And I loved another completely and utterly—a creature covered with hard scales that breathed fire.

“What have you decided?”

I felt a warm breeze through my hair, smelled the jasmine through the smoke, savored the feeling of home. It was different now and had been cursed by Barron and his family, but it would always be special to me.

He continued to stare at me, waiting for the answer I didn’t want to give. “How will it happen…if I don’t choose her?” I asked for information I didn’t want to know. Wanted to understand the horror that Calista and Khazmuda would discover if I didn’t betray Queen Eldinar.

“I’ll take your soul, here where you stand, and they’ll find your body at dawn.”

Now I wished I hadn’t asked.

“But you can avoid that, Talon Rothschild. Your dragon has agreed to serve you in this task.”

“How do you know that…?”

His smile came through. “Because I see everything—even when you don’t see me.” The smile reached his eyes, the possessiveness burning bright, his tendrils slowly hooking around my arms and legs to take me where I could never escape. An eternal damnation. “Queen Eldinar occupies a tent with her husband to the south of the city. Slit his throat. Knock her out. Carry her from the camp to the outskirts where Khazmuda can meet you. He can carry her to my lands while you remain behind. No one will suspect you, and no one will notice that Khazmuda is gone.”

“She’s the one you want, isn’t she?”

His smile returned. “Don’t be jealous, Talon Rothschild. You may be a king to men, but she’s a queen to something far greater. If you fail to choose her, you’ll devastate the two that love you unconditionally. Imagine Calista’s face at the sight of your body. She’s lost so much—and now she’ll lose you. And your dragon, your closest friend and confidant, the one who will grieve for you the most. While your service in the underworld will be agonizing, it will pale to the hurt they must carry for the rest of their lives.” He cocked his head slightly. “Can you really betray those you love most?”

I bowed my head as the shame rushed through me. The pain was so intense I could barely tolerate it. This had been what I wanted more than anything years in the past, but now, all I wanted was to live in a little house by the sea…with the two I loved most. I’d made the wrong choice—and now I couldn’t take it back.

“You’ve suffered enough, Talon. It’s someone else’s turn.”

I felt his claws hook into me, felt him twist my arms to get me to bow to his will. His desires were as distinct as the moon on a cloudless night. All I had to do was give him what he wanted and I could walk this world as a free man.

But I couldn’t. “I’m the one who made this deal. I’m the one who must suffer the consequences.” My voice shook as I spoke, feeling the doom cast over me, feeling the unshed tears burn my eyes. I’d gotten my revenge, but that accomplishment seemed hollow in light of the cost. It was my worst regret, and I would suffer that regret for all eternity. “I can’t let her take my place.”

Bahamut’s smile disappeared from his face. Now his eyes hardened like the tips of blades. He stared at me for several seconds as he struggled to swallow his disappointment. “So be it.” Within the blink of an eye, he changed, shedding his human form for the monster underneath. His pallor was gray, with the muscles exposed without skin, with his dead heart visibly beating on the surface of his chest. He was suddenly two feet taller, his eyes a solid black color. He moved to me, and with every step he took, the surroundings began to fade. The torches and stones died away as the world became wrapped in darkness and smoke.

His palm flattened against my chest, his size so enormous that it took up nearly all of me. Then his claws dug into me, piercing through the armor made of dragon scales and sinking into my flesh and making me bleed.

The pain radiated down my arms and to my stomach, but I held my silence, feeling the life leave my body as I was savagely ripped from this world like I’d never been there in the first place. Light burned out of my chest until it exploded into flames.

My body crumpled to the ground. I smacked against the stone and hit my head. My eyes closed, and I knew the end had come. But instead of feeling the void of nothingness or the warmth of Riviana’s spirit, I felt cold.

Cold and wet.

I opened my eyes and saw the stone ceiling high above. The black chandelier in the corner. The shuffling of a nearby creature. Distant screams and heavy breathing. I lay there and didn’t move, refusing to lift my head to see what waited for me in this new place.

Then a head appeared before me, a creature with a back so hunched he couldn’t even lay flat. He looked down at me as he wheezed and hissed, razor-sharp teeth in a crooked mouth. His eyes were wide with excitement, like I was the dinner they would serve on the table.

Bahamut’s voice came from elsewhere. “Abaddon, put our new servant to work.”