Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [93]
Her sword blazed again, and when she swung it toward the ground, a gout of flame flowed down at Drego. The Trane threw himself out of the path of the blast—
And onto one of the burning glyphs scattered across the floor. He screamed as the sigil exploded, disappearing in the burst of fire and smoke. Thorn was surprised by the shiver that gripped her heart, but there was no time to go to him.
“You can’t win this battle,” Daine said. His dragonmark was glowing, and there were familiar veins of shadow running along the crimson path of the mark. There was a new weight in the air—the echo of the despair she’d felt when fighting Vorlintar.
He’s drawing on his power, Torn realized.
“No!” Vyrael cried. Her flames increased in intensity, until it was nearly painful just to look at her. Thorn couldn’t feel the heat, but it was clear that the others could. Daine staggered back a few steps. But he continued speaking, and Thorn could feel the growing misery in the air.
“You are no guardian,” he cried. “You are a prisoner, forsaken by those above you, cast out of Shavarath and Syrania to sit beneath this miserable city. You are no eternal flame. You’re guttering candle, burning away your last moments.”
“No!” the angel roared, and another wave of fire exploded from her outstretched wings. “I am eternal! I am the glorious flame, the light that stands against the darkness, the fire that cannot be extinguished. My glory shall be your doom!”
Vyrael raised her blade above her head, and it glowed with a light as intense as the sun itself. Somehow, Thorn knew Vyrael was preparing a blast even more powerful that what she’d flung at Drego, a burst that would incinerate bone itself. Yet even as the angel raised her blade, Thorn was in motion.
She bounded onto a floating chunk of rock and leaped atop the head of a Cannith construct, a massive metal mask slowly spinning in the air. As Vyrael pronounced their doom, Thorn leaped on her from behind. Calling on her own unnatural strength, she grabbed hold of the angel’s burning wings and crushed them in her grip, pinning them to Vyrael’s body. Despite her apparent resistance to heat, she could feel these flames. Yet it was enough. Vyrael tumbled back to the ground, the two of them striking hard. The angel twisted and squirmed against her, but Thorn caught hold of her arms, pinning her to the ground.
“You cannot do this!” Vyrael cried. “No mortal can survive my fires! I—”
“You may be part of the Burning Host,” Thorn said, silencing her enemy’s complaints with a knee to the back. “But I’m the Angel of Flame.”
Vyrael raged and screamed, but she couldn’t break free. And though the searing heat pained her, it didn’t actually burn Thorn’s skin. The angel thrashed and howled, but slowly her fires began to diminish.
And Daine was there. He set his hand against her mask, and Thorn could hear it sear his flesh. Daine didn’t flinch. The brilliant tendrils of his dragonmark wrapped around Vyrael’s head, and the angel screamed again, even louder than before. The temperature dropped sharply, and the brilliant flames of Vyrael’s wings flickered out, one by one. Now the angel’s dark robe was smoke, and her body collapsed into mist, flowing into Daine’s fist. Moments later, all that was left was the mask and the battered blade, which fell to the ground.
Daine rose to his feet. A ball of darkness was caught in his palm, flickering with bursts of flame. He took a deep breath and closed his fist around it. Then he screamed, a howl of pain as horrible as Vyrael’s had been. The lines of his dragonmark were truly burning, the flames spreading up his arm. Daine opened his eyes and stared at his hand, gritting his teeth to cut off his cry. His eyes widened with the effort of concentration, and the flames against his skin vanished. But the mark itself was still glowing with a baleful radiance, shining in the darkness. Thorn could see the mark spreading across Daine