Chapter Thirteen
Vale
When Vale had been a little boy his father had told him a story about a village of humans who had been fighting against another village. The battles were long and brutal and while the attacking village had the stronger army, the other village had the advantage because they were able to hide behind their walls they didn't need to be strong. One day, the attacking village surrendered and as part of that surrender, they gifted the village behind the walls with a beautiful wooden horse.
Vale didn't need to think about how that story had ended because he feared he was living it. All around, he heard the screams of his people.
The attack had occurred a few hours after Blaze had left with Landon. Whatever happened, Vale would be forever thankful for that fact. The black dragons had appeared inside the dome without warning, sliding down the tunnel and into their paradise like a jar of wasps released through a single hole. They brought their shadow beasts with them. About the same size as lions, the beasts were hairless and as black as a cave at the bottom of the ocean. It was said that they feared water, but they gave no attention to the ocean still surging above the dome. They scattered throughout the land as the onyx dragons began breathing their dark fire. Vale had been able to pull Juniper back seconds before his balcony was enveloped in flames.
Juniper.
He'd told her to run, to hide. But hide where? They had no safe houses, no safeguards. He'd been a fool and now he would pay. As an onyx dragon neared him, Vale hurtled a branch at the beast. The force of his throw caused the branch to explode into splinters that lodged into the dragon's thick skin, wrenching a brutal scream from his mouth. Vale shifted and delivered a full breath of fire that sizzled and smoked while the dragon's flesh burnt right alongside the wooden branch.
The onyx dragons would pay as well.
Vale spun around, spotting another dark shape entering one of the homes, inside, people were screaming. He ran forward, yanking the dragon by its tail he tore it out of the house and then, letting go of the tail, he clamped down on the beast's head. It struggled, Vale bit down, heard a crunch and the beast ceased its struggling.
Still, another trio of black dragons headed into the castle while screams beckoned Vale back to the marketplace. He turned to run to them when he felt a pain so severe his eyes watered, and his body fell to the ground. He shook his head like a dog and could just see the tip of an arrow that had lodged into the flesh of his cheek. The archer had meant to pierce his skull, but luckily for Vale, his aim was a bit off. A team of two dragons approached him, likely thinking he was injured beyond fighting. Vale remained still until they were almost upon him. He vaulted from the ground, lashing out with his claws, he snagged one of the dragons at its throat. Black liquid oozed from the wound like tar and the dragon fell, bleeding profusely. A gang of shadow beasts stopped in the middle of tearing apart a home and leaped onto the fallen onyx. Vale surged forward, stopping when he realized that his enemy was turning on his enemy.
The feared shadow beasts were drinking the onyx dragon's blood. The slurping sounds they made were enough to make any person ill. The second dragon who had attacked Vale paused to glance at his fallen comrade.
"You'll pay for that, Flower King," the dragon growled.
"What did I do? Looks like you are the one who needed to feed his beasts." Vale launched forward, digging his claws into his enemy's flesh while the onyx did the same. They were a mass of jumbled fighting. Vale kicked, clawed and bit against all that he could touch. When his foe finally collapsed beneath him, his body brutalized beyond repair, Vale used his clawed hand to rip the rest of the arrow out of his face, turned his neck around and roared at the sky.
That was when he spotted Blaze and his sweet, sweet, pregnant mate riding on Blaze's back. Relief quickly faded to terror. What was he doing? Why had they returned?
"Turn around immediately!" Vale ordered him.
Landon's mouth dropped open as Blaze flew them toward where Vale stood, bleeding and breathing hard. His fledgling guard force gathered around him, though there were more of them than he would have expected. They pushed against him, nearly blocking his view of his mates. Vale attempted to pass them, only to have them close ranks in front of him, blocking his path.
"Your Highness," one of them spoke up. "The shadow beasts draw near!"
Indeed, a swarm of shadow beasts bared down on them, urged forward by an unseen master. They moved as a group, so close to one another that they snapped at each other's limbs with bloodthirsty anger. Vale had never seen so many shadow beasts in one place and was glad that he was in his dragon form if only because that meant no one could sense his trepidation.
"Hold!" Vale commanded as his mated flew closer. "Take him away from here, Blaze. That is an order from your King!" The shadow beasts were nearly upon them. The closest lunged forward, snagging one of the guards by the heel. Vale surged toward it, slicing with his claws. The guard fell back, the shadow beast's jaw still connected to his heel while the beast itself fell to the ground. Its companions paid it no mind. After what happened last time, Vale half expected them to consume their fallen. They trod over him though, giving it the same care as a patch of dirt.
Vale felt the first drop of ocean water on his wings. He ignored it, but when it began to look like it was raining within the dome, he looked up. Blaze was up there, flying just under the dome shooting tiny bursts of fire. With their rations depleted, the holes, even as tiny as they were, closed slowly allowing moderate amounts of water to flow through. The swarm of beasts in front of them began to shriek as their skin sizzled.
Why risk beasts that can be hurt by water to attack an underwater paradise? Vale knew the answer to that question immediately because they hadn't expected a fight.
His people were showing the onyx dragons just how wrong they'd been.
With the shadow beasts' running back to their masters, those that could still run, Vale searched for his mates. Blaze landed beside him as Landon slipped off his back. They shared a brief embrace.
"We found out on Chryseum Island, golden dragons like Avia can't control dreams, only onyx dragons have the power to slip into other people's dreams. She's been helping them all along. She's—"
"Over there," Blaze growled as Avia came into view. She was in her human form and looked to be floating above the earth as a line of archers escorted her with their arrows already notched. She certainly didn't look like she'd been torn apart by a sea monster. Beside her, Luca, the Onyx King's brother walked with a smug smile.
"Fire!" Avia commanded and before Blaze or Vale could do anything, the archers set their arrows loose.
Landon jumped in front, much to Vale's horror. He turned his back to their enemies and with a wink, he shifted, spreading his wings out so that they blocked the emerald dragons, including Vale and Blaze from the arrows hurtling toward them.
Vale lunged forward as the arrows made contact. But, they didn't sink into Landon's flesh as they had with Vale. They bounced off his glittering skin, ineffectually pinging before hitting the ground.
"You forget, I'm diamond plated," Landon said.
Blaze yanked him back when he shifted, pressing him behind them as the remaining emerald dragons grouped together. Vale looked at his people, each had obviously fought for their lives, some bled at that very moment, but they were a united front.
Luca stopped short, his smile faltering. He clearly hadn't expected so many of them to be left, while so few of his own dark dragons remained. Only he remained with Avia and the line of archers. There were a few more onyx dragons that joined them, but they did so slowly, leaving trails of black behind them.
"Give us Avia and you may go now," Vale announced. He hated to let the onyx leave but Avia had more crimes to answer to.
For a second, Luca's eyes slid to the ancient woman at his side. He clearly gave thought to Vale's offer. In that second, Avia launched upward, shooting through a hole in the dome that Blaze had made with his fire. Her wings caught the edges of the hole, tearing it so wide that the water that came through poured at an alarming pace.
"Gather the survivors, bring them to the safehouse topside," Vale ordered as he jumped forward.
Blaze grabbed him, pulling him back. "Our home is crumbling apart. If you stay, you will crumble with it."
Vale looked over Blaze's shoulder at Luca who scrambled to shift and leave. A fire burned in Vale's gut, demanding that he exact his revenge, that he make the dragon who hurt his people hurt as well. But, his people still needed him. His mate needed him. Vale turned from the panicked onyx dragons and their sizzling shadow beasts and began helping his people gather, grabbing only what was necessary as they made their way to one of the last tunnels they had asked the gardeners to grow. It had been built for this purpose exactly, an escape.
With Landon in sight back on Blaze's back, Vale scooped up a few of the older emerald dragons and together they climbed away from their sinking home.
When he came out the other side, squinting at the sudden unfiltered sun, the island shook. The plant below cracked and broke as water filled the once empty space. Vale, the last of the emerald dragons left to escape, watched the tunnel slip down behind him, torn in half and pulled under like a final bell. The Garden was gone. But they were alive.
As he looked around, he noticed they were the only ones. There wasn't a single onyx dragon among them, not on the island nor in the sky. Avia, that slithering serpent, had escaped once more, but she had been the only one able to.
Vale shifted and waited for the ground to grow around him. When it didn't, he paused for only a fraction of a second, grieving for all that they had lost that day. Looking around them, he saw that they had also gained. Landon handed him a pair of pants that he slipped on before grabbing Landon's hand and kissing his knuckles. "That was a very brave thing you did."
"No, it wasn't, bravery is doing something even if you might be hurt. I knew I wouldn't be. Those arrows weren't strong enough to penetrate my skin."
"You saved us from the arrows," Vale told him. "And you saved us from the beasts," he said to Blaze, bringing them both into a tight hug.
Juniper rushed toward them, her glasses cracked on one side, but other than that, she looked unharmed. Amazingly, she still had her calendar and papers, her pen poised as if she had come over to tell them their daily schedules. "We've sustained casualties though, not as large as those who attacked us. I've estimated our injured at around seventy-five while ten emerald dragons have died. We'll have to…we'll have to retrieve their bodies." Juniper's voice became clogged with emotion and Vale settled his hands on her upper arms.
"Are you okay, my niece?" he asked her, searching her eyes.
She stared at him, unblinking before her eyes filled with tears. "No," she admitted, sobbing into his shoulder.
"It's okay," he soothed. "We're going to be okay." He looked up at his people. Sitting and standing, crying and supporting each other. Some simply stared out to sea with blank looks. They were unaccustomed to hardship, unaware of the finality that came with injuries and sickness. "Everyone gather round." At his command, they formed a close circle around him. Some carried chairs that had already been moved into the few buildings they'd managed to build already. "I can tell how you may feel hopeless right now. Helpless even. While I wish what happened, hadn't, it did, and we rose to the occasion. They came with a small army, with beasts easily defeated because they thought we were easily defeated. The onyx dragons believed that if they could simply find a way into our paradise that they could take it. You may think that is what they have done but I am here to tell you, our home was never what remains below us. Our home is where we are. We will rebuild topside. We will grow our armies so that when enemies come again, and they will likely come again, they will regret that choice. We are strong. And we will become stronger."
No one cheered or stomped their feet at the end of his speech. Vale hadn't expected them too. They did blink and turn their faces away from the ocean though. They bent down to lay a comforting hand on their neighbors and most importantly, they looked proud of what they'd accomplished. All of them, together.