Page 2 of Mantle

They were holding it back.

Holding it back as they worked to kill it entirely.

I struggled harder, panic, rage, and agony colliding in a devastating symphony of sensation, and I felt my flesh ripping, wounds widening, bones being scraped to shit, from the magical hooks as I battled against them.

“Motherfucker!” I screamed.

Sweat drenched me, soaking my clothes, along with so much fucking blood I was losing at a far too rapid rate.

My body was shuddering uncontrollably from the brutal inundation slamming up against the Ashbinding itself now coursing powerfully through my veins, so fucking potent now that I could feel it taking hold of my dragon fire, starting to eviscerate it.

The process was damning and horrific, but it didn’t take long.

And if it reached completion, I’d lose the essence of what I was.

I tried to call my magic, but I was too weak to manage it, and it couldn’t come from nothing.

“Almost there,” one of the dragons uttered.

“Good. This is rather distasteful,” I heard my mother say.

Distasteful?That was the extent of it to her?

“It won’t be long now,” my father reassured her. I strained to look as he conjured forth a Ceremonial Dragonbone Blade, then started over to me and those surrounding me who continued to stream their poison into my veins. “Forged from the remains ofMalrik Titanus, one who fell in disgrace. Once this process is complete, I will use it to breach your dragon hide as only this can, pierce your heart, and this will all be over for you, son.”

“Don’t… call me… that,” I ground out. Then I hissed, “Zepharion.”

He was no father to me now.

I glared at my poor excuse for a mother. “Serapha,” I spat.

I lurched as the spell drove deeper.

Zepharion drew closer and I took in the pearl-white blade veined with cracks of old magic. I could sense Malrik’s essence imbued within it. The essence of my bloodline.

The very thing that was now attempting to take my life, no doubt to wipe all trace of my existence while they were at it, all trace of my special abilities.

And that was what they’d become to me—special.

Because not only did I stand apart, in a way that wasn’t just fucking detrimental and dangerous like the perception my parents had about it, but I was also in a position to help Ariana, my found family, and the supernatural world as a whole.

Thatwas how I stood apart from House Titanus now, and the whole motherfucking Dracoryn Realm as a whole. Iwasn’tthe same as Malrik. I was so very far from it.

It was a motherfucking tragedy that my own family couldn’t recognize that.

But it was too late to prove it… I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold on much longer.

As the spell continued to progress, wracking my body, making me shudder violently, sweat, bleed, and roar… the latter waned… my roar fading to grunts and weaker utterings of agony.

I couldn’t move.

It was a fight to remain conscious.

And drawing in a breath was becoming near impossible.

I was fading.

A strange tingle around my right wrist pulled me back from the edge.

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