The Fading Dream_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [104]
“No!” the dragon roared.
“Enough!” Thorn said. “Go! Just get out of my sight.”
Sarmondelaryx looked back at her, and there was a gleam of desperation in the dragon’s burning gaze. “We can bargain, you and I.”
“Oh? And what do you possibly have to offer me?”
“Power,” the dragon said. “Vengeance. Those who bound me killed you to do it. They murdered the man you loved just to make the story real. You can’t possibly fight them on your own. With my power, you can strike terror into their hearts. You can make them pay for all that they’ve done to you.”
“And what would I have to do?”
“Release me. Give me my body again. Join with me. Let us become something new, Thorn and Sarmondelaryx together.”
Thorn knew the idea was madness, that she had no way of knowing if anything Sarmondelaryx had told her was the truth. And yet … she thought of Lharen, the man who’d given her his heart and who’d been ready to give his life for Breland. She thought about Nyrielle Tam, the dreams a young girl once had. And in that moment, there was a part of her that wanted that vengeance for both of them.
“Drego told me I wouldn’t last if I merged with you. That you’d dissolve my personality.”
“In time, surely. But how long did you ever expect to live, Thorn? You’re mortal. You could last a decade before you fade completely. And in that time, you will see your enemies fall.”
Thorn thought about it, about how glorious it had felt when she’d battled Drulkalatar. How wonderful it would be to see those responsible fall. Thought they might share a thirst for vengeance, but there was little else she had in common with the fiend before her. Just a moment past, the dragon had spoken of slaughtering armies and devastating nations. As long as Thorn held her contained, that could never happen again.
She remembered the words of Drego Sarhain when she kissed Cadrel at the Silver Tree: You may be doomed, but do not go easily, Nyrielle. And don’t fall to the likes of this one. She didn’t know if there was truly anything of Drego in those words. But she was going to stand by them.
“Go,” she told the dragon. “You can’t fight me. You have nothing I want. Go now and maybe you’ll find a home in someone’s nightmares.”
Sarmondelaryx hissed. Yet she’d had time to think as well, and she’d come up with a new weapon.
“You’re clever, little one. I can’t kill you without killing myself. And yet …” she moved her foreclaw, placing a talon against Drix’s stomach. “I can certainly kill the boy.”
Surprised as she was, Thorn almost laughed. “Perhaps you missed the last week of my life,” she said. “But I think you’ll find it’s not that easy.”
“Perhaps,” Sarmondelaryx rumbled. “And yet here we are, standing in a circle designed just for that purpose. The eight shards of Ourelon’s Gift around us. If the fallen fey was right, I might even spread the Mourning in the process. I can’t kill you. But him? I’d kill him just to make you suffer.”
Her talon shifted and Thorn moved. Reaching out, she set her palm against the dragon’s claw and pulled. She called on all her anger, all her strength, and sought to drag the spirit down into the prison of the Preserving Shard.
It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. When she’d swallowed Toli, Daine, even the eladrin guard, it was instinct and desperation. When she’d forced Sarmondelaryx back into her chains down beneath the streets of Sharn, the dragon was weak, barely released. The nightmare was something else, a Sarmondelaryx who’d had time to savor the sensations of life again.
Thorn felt wings sprouting from her back. Her neck stretching as her tail thrashed against the floor. She grappled with Sarmondelaryx as an equal, two dragons struggling on the top of the tower of nightmares.
“You can’t defeat me,” Sarmondelaryx snarled. “Tonight you finally go to your rest, little ghost.”
Thorn couldn’t spare a moment to answer; the