Page 73 of Kingdom of Fire and Ash

“Tell me,” she demanded.

I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and tried to regulate my breathing before I answered.

“The Drakán stopped growing intellectually because of their selfish natures. They became greedier for things. Not for knowledge. They only relied on their brute strength in battle. And when the Atlanteans accused us of killing their queen’s infant son and declared war on us, the Drakán ultimately couldn’t defeat the Atlantean inventions or the strength of their magic. Their rage and determination was too great, and the Realm of the Drakán fell into nothingness.”

“That’s right. And who is every Drakán’s sworn enemy?”

“The Atlanteans,” I answered automatically.

The Realm of the Drakán had been a barren land, filled with volcanoes and black porous rock—a land that suited its inhabitants in every way. It was the volcanoes that had surrounded our Realm and the lava that flowed within them that we drew our magic from. It was an impenetrable Realm that no enemy could ever breach because the dragons’ psychic powers could sense when the Realm was going to be invaded, and the Drakán would have their armies ready and waiting to fight.

But it was one woman who’d had the power to destroy us.

I knew the tales of how the Atlantean queen had sacrificed herself and destroyed our race to avenge the death of her child. She hadn’t listened to reason when my ancestors claimed their innocence. All that mattered was her vengeance. The queen had figured out a way to block herself from the dragons’ psychic powers, and she’d flown through the portal to the Drakán Realm undetected. She’d fought the fire of our volcanoes with ice.

My mind finally got a grasp on what Esmerelda had been hinting at. I shook my head in denial, then immediately wished I hadn’t because the pain was so great.

“It’s impossible,” I said. “The gods completely destroyed Atlantis as punishment for the queen’s actions. I’ve never heard about there being any survivors.”

“The Drakán Realm was completely destroyed too, but here we are. Why is it so hard for you to believe the Drakán are not the only creatures hiding in the Earthly Realm?”

I’d heard something similar to that before. Noah. He’d known all along what I was. And now I knew what he was.

“Your mother was Atlantean royalty, Rena. It was her mother who sacrificed herself and destroyed our Realm. Our forefathers’ brute strength was no match for her invention of ice combined with her control over the elements. She destroyed the entire Realm with ice and fire. The five warriors were very lucky to escape with their lives. No one else did. Julian recognized the symbol on the torq you gave him. He also knows who you are.”

At the mention of my lost heritage, the unknown power I’d been wielding surged around me. It pulsed in time with my heart and fed my blood. I gasped as I felt the hatred inside me. It recognized the Drakán as its enemy and wanted to kill it. It recognized the dragon inside me and wanted to kill her too. No wonder I’d always felt so many conflicting emotions over who I was.

I soothed my power and let her know that the dragon inside me was a friend, and she calmed, though she didn’t like it. My dragon nudged against me, not wanting to be forgotten, and I felt the thread of Julian’s power. It pulsed with his life force. He was alive. I pulled his magic to me, absorbing his powers.

I’d had enough. My body had had enough. It was time to fight or die. The red glow of my fire erupted around my body and spewed from my mouth. Black smoke curled from my nostrils. The air around me whipped with gale-force winds, and lightning flashed in arcs just over our heads. But Esmerelda laughed at me and held me tighter in her grasp.

I could feel the urgency in Julian’s magic, and I knew he wanted me to take more from him. I drew his magic in until it filled me to bursting. Esmerelda’s eyes widened in surprise, as she felt the link that existed between me and Julian. My Drakán magic was powerful, but it was my Atlantean magic that would destroy her.

The pressure in my chest built to the point of bursting, and the castle walls began to crumble around us. Esmerelda’s hold on me lessened as she moved to dodge chunks of flying granite.

Rocks filled the doorway, blocking our only exit, and I flinched as the stones blew into the room like bullets and turned to dust as they made impact. It wasn’t my magic that had caused the explosion. Julian staggered into the room with a gray cloud of dust and debris. His dragon form was gone, and his naked body was badly damaged. Blood dripped steadily down his side and was smeared across his face and neck. His arm hung limply down at his side—useless. But he was alive.

Esmerelda raised her hand and gathered her fire in the palm of her hand. She pointed it toward Julian and sheer terror for his life forced me to fight harder against her bonds. Julian stumbled to his knees, and I screamed his name. A ball of orange flame grew larger and larger, and as the intensity of its heat grew, the color changed from orange to white. It looked as if she held a bolt of lightning in her hand.

I pulled the thread between us harder, finding the strength to stand on my own two feet, while praying for a miracle. And then Julian did something so unexpected I almost staggered beneath the shock of it. He shoved every ounce of power he had through the thin thread that bound us. It was painful and at the same time invigorating. The rush was euphoric. But the rush didn’t last long.

Julian had given me his power and left himself with none. He was no better than a human now, and his wounds were mortal. I embraced his power with my own and shoved everything I was—Drakán and Atlantean—into Esmerelda. The fire consumed us both. Her laughter grew and raised chills upon my skin. But her laughter died as my flame grew hotter. The red flame turned to orange—then yellow—then blue. No one could survive the power of the mating fire.

Her body blurred through the flames, the intensity of it uncomfortable even for me. My body hurt, and I wasn’t sure Julian would live, even if I succeeded in killing Esmerelda. But he had to live. We both had to live. I thought of the lost Promised Child and fought harder through the pain.

When the blue flames around us turned almost white, Esmerelda released the vise around me and my lungs and organs took a great sigh of relief at the loss of pressure. She reached toward me with her hand, and I knew if I let her touch me that it would be the end. She would take my heart with her into the Realm of the Dead and then I would have no choice but to follow her.

I stomped my foot, displacing the ground beneath me, and moved my arms back and forth in a gentle sway, controlling the elements in a dance that was unfamiliar and second nature both at the same time. The ground shook with the force of my power. The once-beautiful white castle crumbled to ruins, and large stones fell dangerously close to our bodies.

As Esmerelda’s hand moved closer, I slashed out with the vicious claws of my silver dragon, ripping out her heart and crushing it to dust. I pushed my power harder and the stone walls crumbled faster, crushing her under their weight. Her shrill screams of terror pierced my soul and vibrated over my skin. I blew one last breath of fire and watched as her body went up in flames.

I fell forward on my hands and knees. My body was slicked with blood and sweat, but the walls were still falling and I had to protect Julian. I shoved his power back down the thread. His body jerked as he accepted it, and the renewal of energy gave him strength so his wounds began to heal. I wished I could have said the same for my own. I was completely spent.

He crawled toward me and covered my body with his own. He used his magic to erect a shield around us and protected us from the falling rocks. I huddled beneath him on the cold marble floor and waited to die.

Then as suddenly as it started, the wind stopped blowing and the rocks stopped raining down on us. The lightning ceased and the thunder faded out with one lingering rumble. Everything around us was completely still—there wasn’t even the sound of a pebble falling in the rubble.

The calm before the storm.

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