Christie Golden: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

“The twilight dragons,” she breathed.

They were coming for Wyrmrest Temple itself.

It was not in the manner Alexstrasza would have wished, but it did seem that the sudden presence of the twilight dragonflight galvanized the other flights into unified action. Without another breath wasted in argument among themselves, they lifted into the skies, charging to attack the enemy, to protect this sacred temple from danger.

It was an incongruously beautiful violence. Dozens of powerful forms in hues of ruby and emerald and sapphire wheeled and turned in midair. Their foe was all the shades of day turning into night—purple, violet, indigo—and grace and brutality combined into a bloody battle.

As they clashed, a voice seemed to echo in their very ears.

“How kind of so many of you to gather together in a single place, that I might destroy more of you weak creatures so readily.”

Alexstrasza flew directly toward a cluster of three dragons, diving out of the way of their deadly breath, colored as purple as they were. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the blues hover for a moment, casting a spell and then folding his wings and diving straight down. She swerved quickly and avoided the sudden storm of what looked to be icicles. One of the twilights managed to turn herself incorporeal, but the other two were too slow. Seizing the opportunity, Alexstrasza darted upward to clamp her massive jaws into the sinuous throat of one of them. Caught in his corporeal form with insufficient strength to transform, the twilight dragon let out a strangled scream and frantically beat the air with his indigo wings, trying to tear away from her. His black claws raked at her belly. Her scales blunted the damage from the attack, but white-hot pain still rippled across her stomach. She bit deeper, and the pain stopped. She opened her jaws and released the limp body, not sparing it a second glance as it tumbled downward.

“Who are you?” she cried, her own voice amplified and carrying on the cold, clear air. “Show yourself, name yourself, or be known for the coward and braggart that you are!”

“Neither braggart nor coward I,” the voice came again. “I am known to my followers as the Twilight Father. They are my children, and I love them.”

A chill rippled through the great Life-Binder, though she did not know why. If the name was true, and he was the patriarch of these beings—

“Then come forth and protect your children, Twilight Father, or sit back and behold as we slaughter them one by one!”

Two of them dove at her from opposite directions. So intent was she on locating the source of the voice she almost did not sense them in time. With barely a tail’s breadth to spare, she folded her wings in and dropped like a stone, turning over as she did so. Directly above her the two twilight dragons shifted into their shadowy forms an instant before their collision, their two bodies passing harmlessly through one another.

Laughter, harsh and smug, enveloped her. “You are as a foolish little girl, for all that you are the great Life-Binder. It will be delightful to watch you crumble to pieces beneath what is to come.”

A roar shattered her ears, and Alexstrasza’s heart ached as one of her own fell in battle, great red wings still trying to bear him aloft although one of those wings had been ripped to ribbons. She dove toward her comrade’s killers, bellowing and screaming fire. One of them immediately shifted from solid flesh and threw himself out of the path of flames. The other, either braver or more foolish, turned and hurled sharp daggers of dark magic at Alexstrasza before opting to shift. The arrogance cost him his life. She opened her jaws and breathed a sheet of flame along the full length of his body before the transformation was entirely complete. More powerful than the breath of an ordinary red dragon, the fire seemed to almost melt the bruise-colored scales, making them curl up as the flesh beneath them was burned to the bone. One side of his body scorched beyond recognition, the dragon fell, half in and half out of physical existence, but wholly in agony.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alexstrasza saw her normally gentle sister, Ysera, also fighting fiercely. Her jaws were opening, exhaling air that could be as sweet as summer flowers but had now turned sickly green and toxic. Two twilight dragons recoiled, gasping for breath, their wing beats faltering and their attention diverted long enough for Ysera, claws extended and great mouth gaping, to cast a quick spell. They howled in terror and began to fight each other, each one convinced that his fellow was the enemy. In a few seconds they would do Ysera’s work for her.

Alexstrasza fended off another attack, diving and circling back over her foe to snap his neck with a mighty stroke of her powerful tail. As the lifeless body hurtled to the earth, she realized two things simultaneously.

First, there were two Aspects present, both in fine fighting form. There were far too few twilight dragons to realistically take them down, especially now that the elite drakonid who normally stood guard at the entrances to the sanctums had temporarily left their posts to join the fight. While they could not fly, any wounded twilight dragon who had the misfortune to land while merely injured was dispatched quickly. It was too easy.

And second, all the fighting was gathered in one spot.

Why?

A better tactic would have been to separate the various dragons, surround them, lure them away from any protective defenders, and utilize the architecture of the temple itself as a weapon. But the twilight dragons were clustered as thick as a colony of ants above the apex of the temple, right where they would make fine targets for Ysera and Alexstrasza.

Alexstrasza’s gut twisted as a nameless, almost crippling fear shot through her. Something was horribly wrong.

“Break away from the enemy!” she cried, her voice clear and strong and belying her terror. “Lead them from the temple and attack them one by one!”

The defending dragons heard, and immediately scattered in all directions. The twilight dragons stayed clustered in a tight huddle, only a few of them breaking what now to Alexstrasza’s eyes seemed almost like a formation to follow their prey.

And then she realized what it was. They had not come to attack. They had come to distract—

The explosion, both physical and metaphysical, was powerful enough to send Alexstrasza hurtling head over tail through the air, tumbling helplessly as a newly hatched whelp caught in a cyclone. She extended her wings and bellowed in sharp, surprised pain as they were almost ripped off, but managed to catch herself. Her entire body felt as if it had been pummeled by a living mountain, and for a long moment she could hear nothing.

But she could see. And as the pain ripped through her, she wished she could not.

Wyrmrest Temple still stood. Barely. Several of the glorious, graceful arches had been shattered, their remnants looking like melted ice. Red magical energy roiled upward from the base of the temple.

And at the base of the temple were—

“The sanctums!” someone cried. “Our children!”

Many of them broke and dove downward, and for a terrible instant that lasted an eternity Alexstrasza could not find her voice.

The Ruby Sanctum … the children … Korialstrasz …!

When she did finally find the ability to speak, she could not herself believe what she was saying.

“Hold fast!” she cried. “We cannot afford to lose anyone else! Drive off the enemy, my flight! Do not let them harm us further!”

More than her own red dragonflight rallied at her impassioned cry, funneling their rage and grief and terror at what they feared had just happened into their attacks. The twilight dragons seemed startled by the ferocity, and soon enough fled.