27 Chapter 28: Dragon- The True Battle Begins (1/2)

Chapter 28: Dragon- The true battle begins

I had been watching, but I had to concentrate more on Kelose to get anywhere on his healing.

But Kysael's screams brought me out of my focus on healing Kelose.

My attention whirled around to see her again, and Manwen held bright, glowing hands over Kysael's heart after she had finished eating his heart.

She was now on the ground, and the dying Skyelf king leaned, crumpled, over her body haphazardly. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

How could he be living if she had eaten his heart? Or if his heart had been removed to begin with?

Screaming, her eyes glowing....

What...? What was happening?

I felt burning in my own blood, and I startled as I realized what was happening. Kelose seemed to sense the change as well, because he moaned and thrashed with the pain, his eyes clenched shut as he gasped against my healing energy.

”No!” Kellerok screamed, trying to get around Mafrien.

Mafrien continued to fight his father, his eyes ever so often glancing in Kysael's direction, trying to get a grasp on what was happening.

Kysael's body shot into a sitting position, and a scream I'd never heard from her before ripped itself from her throat as wings of the purest silver I'd ever laid eyes on came shooting out of her shoulder blades, blood pouring down her back as she cried tears.

As her eyes stopped glowing, fading to a new and brighter shimmering silver color, Manwen fell dead, his lifeless corpse covering her body.

She blinked, confused, and looked at her hands, dazed....as if she didn't understand what had just happened to her.

The blood from Manwen's heart still covered her chin, and she looked at his dead body with confused awe.

She was truly a sight to behold, now. Her hair, silver strands lighting her hair to a completely different shade.... her silver eyes, her silver wings....

And her Wraith marking still remained, though it was changed.

Instead of two spikes coming down from her forehead to rest on her cheeks, it was now a pair of wings, one on each cheek, looking ready to take flight. It was a little darker, richer. More vibrant.

Her ears had been enlarged.

So only her Woodelf-self had been changed into Skyelf, though her markings had been slightly changed. She still remained half Wraith, then.

”Kysael!” Mafrien shouted, still fighting his father.

Her eyes shot up to look at Mafrien's battle with Kellerok, Mafrien beginning to wear down against his father's constant blocks and jabs as they fought midair.

Her eyes whirled around the battlefield, and I could see her eyes calculating, plotting out her strategy quickly.

Then, her eyes shot to the Wyvern Lord. ”Coal!” She shouted.

Coal immediately responded, hovering in a circle in the air space around her, and she leaped up onto his back as he flew in a circle around her.

I watched the future unfold as they soared into the air, and Kysael summoned a great sword of flames, leaping off of Coal's back, free falling in a fighting position down toward the battle, toward Kellerok.

I could only look on in amazement.

Her wings began beating against the air, keeping gravity from pulling her to the ground.

It was if she were bred for battle as a Skyelf.

As if it were completely natural to her, despite having only just transformed. It was nearly overwhelming how at ease she truly seemed to be with the form. She seemed to have finally become what she had always meant to be, and my heart soared with pride.

I could feel a similar reaction from Kelose beside of me, his golden eyes watching their battle unfold with the same awed wonderment that I was sure was etched upon my own face.

Kellerok's face was enraged as she descended upon the battle.

He went to stab the air where she would be in the next moment, but she shifted ever so slightly, causing her body to be to the right of his blade, and she swung her sword down with a speed that I couldn't see clearly.

Kysael shouted as she knocked the sword out of Kellerok's hand, and whirled her body around, lifting her leg simultaneously to round-house kick him across the jaw.

Mafrien broke in, stabbing and jabbing, while Kysael fought Kellerok from his other side, and together they dodged and parried Kellerok's blows.

She was actually on par with this creature, this ancient dark king.

Getting angrier, Kellerok soared higher into the air, and brought his wings in on himself, somehow still floating in the air.

Mafrien and Kysael followed after him, but with a great, guttural sounding roar, Kellerok shot his wings back out, a wave of wind knocking Mafrien and Kysael to plummet to the earth below.

Before I could rush to her, she stood, wiping a small blood trail from her lip. ”You will die here!” She shouted in a voice that I didn't recognize.

Her voice sounded entirely different than before her transformation. It was full of born authority, power that one could only be given at birth.

I could suddenly feel a desperate longing, a stinging burn radiate from the core of my being to my fingertips and toes, and I could feel her order before she gave it. And for the very first time in her life, Kysael put her energy into song, the tone eerie and frightening, demanding, before it was finally put into words, the vocalization hitting us as if she were running her talons down our bodies.

Kelose stirred restlessly beside of me, and I could sense that she was about to address the both of us.

”Come to me!” The order struck through us, and fully healed, Kelose stood, his body running to the scene.

My own body obeyed, and fear struck through me. I didn't know what she had in mind, but I would have to trust her in this moment where she held complete control over my body.

Kelose and I surrounded her, and Kelose's golden eyes glowed eerily bright like the sun as he began to shoot arrows at Kellerok, and I pulled out my own weapon and went to Kysael's side, and with all of our efforts together, wearing Kellerok down wasn't as hard as one might have thought.

We all attacked, parried, jumped, slashed, jabbed.... It was quite simple. Kelose, Mafrien and I fought to defend Kysael as she delivered most of the attempting-fatal blows.

This was truly what she had been born for.

And every instance of the last twenty years of my life, protecting her absolutely, every instant where I felt that she were meant for something of great importance, where I felt that she had an important role in the future of this world....it all made sense, crashing around me in shattering pieces of a puzzle. It all came together, now.

”I will end you!” Kysael shouted at Kellerok as she swung her sword toward him.

Kellerok threw his head back, laughing. ”Oh, I shall soak the ground in your blood, girl. And Mafrien, trying so hard to protect you! Ha! He will watch you die, and your followers will die after you have been slain!”

She straightened her back. ”Not if I slay you first,” she whispered with deadly intent. And her wings lifted her to shoot into the air like an arrow shot from a bow.

As her body soared upward, she summoned a new weapon of flames, and held it out in front of her, making herself into a makeshift spear.

Mafrien shot up to be behind Kellerok, blocking off his escape.

Kellerok laughed in maniacal insanity as Kysael's spear burned his flesh as his body took the spear clean through the shoulder, melting the flesh around the blade so that the blade remained.

Kellerok simply continued to laugh.

”What is so funny?” Mafrien asked from behind him, a knife to his throat.

Kellerok said nothing as his body vanished from our sights.

Kysael was the first one to foresee his reappearance. ”Mafrien!” She shouted. But it was too late.

Kellerok had already delivered the blow to the back of Mafrien's head, rendering him unconscious and throwing his body like a ragdoll to the ground.

When his body hit the ground...he didn't get back up.

Then Kelose suddenly shouted as he, too, was thrown away from us.

His body hit the ground with a hard thud, and he gasped as he clutched the hole in his side from Kellerok's knife.

I, too, felt the blow when Kellerok stabbed a dagger through my shoulder, and kicked me hard in the gut before throwing me away like a rag doll.

The fall was hard, and I struggled to sit back up.

My healing powers wouldn't be able to help me for a few minutes, and all I could do in that moment was sit back and watch the rest of the battle unfold as I pulled the dagger out of my shoulder and rip off a piece of my tunic to tie around the wound to stop the bleeding.

Kysael's eyes narrowed dangerously as Kellerok laughed.

”It looks like it's just me and you now, girl. Your move.”

Kysael flinched. I could see the thoughts rushing through her mind, trying to formulate a plan.

And then, she closed her eyes, and spread her arms out wide, her face markings glowing a brilliant blue. And I knew what she was doing.

She was going to use her Wraith self to help her win this battle, since the Dark Realm was in that self.

It would better understand how to defeat Kellerok. Skyelves were peaceful, and didn't want war.

The Wraiths were different. They craved blood, and fed on it.

Literally.

She sighed, releasing a deep, icy sounding breath as she opened her eyes again, pure silver. ”Let's move to the ground,” she said softly. ”If you don't mind, of course,” she said mockingly.

Kellerok laughed, but obliged her. They both lowered themselves, coming to rest with their feet planted firmly on the ground.

”You have wasted your effort, girl. I will slay you here on this night.”

”I don't think so,” she said, her tone dangerously calm.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood, gooseflesh appearing on my arms.

I knew that tone.

She fully intended to kill him.

”I have killed many Wraiths. I have killed many Woodelves. I have killed many Skyelves. You are no match for my power.”

”Perhaps I wouldn't have been, a few decades ago, had I been alive.” She paused, before her body disappeared from view.

I was startled.

Despite the injury she'd sustained only a few months ago, and how long it had taken for her rehabilitation, despite that she had barely been able to walk just the last couple of weeks, she moved with a speed that even I could not detect with the naked eye.

Surprised, Kellerok's eyes scanned the area, looking for her...and his eyes got wide when he couldn't find her. His search became almost frantic.

He startled when she broke through his arms, her hands grabbing his hands to force them down and her head, fangs bared, launching to rip his throat out.

I myself startled at the sheer speed, at the ferocity and force of her power as she jolted up to deliver what would be a fatal blow if it landed properly.

But the problem with this method of attack used by many Wraiths were the variables.

If the victim saw it coming fast enough, they could adjust to make it non-lethal, and when a Wraith bit a victim at that force, their jaws locked and it took a few moments of them being vulnerable before they were able to release their grip.

It was a dangerous move to try to play against such a powerful opponent.

Unfortunately, this was one opponent that she shouldn't have used such a technique against.

Seeing it coming only at the last second, Kellerok barely shifted so that it wasn't his throat that got caught, but his collarbone instead, making her attack non-fatal.

In the instant that her jaws locked on his collarbone, he shoved his entire arm through her stomach.

I shouted and cringed with the pain, and I startled at what that had to have meant.

It was then that I suddenly remembered. When Manwen had transformed her, I had felt it in my own blood.

My Blood Bond was now tied to someone who was no longer half Wraith and half Woodelf, but half Wraith and half Skyelf instead.

The bond was now powerful and potent enough that I could feel her injuries, and I knew then that I truly was doomed forever.