Chapter 245
The battlefield was chaos. Smoke coiled into the sky like the breath of the dying. The clash of steel and shriek of dragons filled the air, a violent symphony of war. And at the center of it all, standing like a rot-stained monument, was the Bone King.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t have to.
The storm moved for him.
Winds ripped through the valley, carrying whispers that made warriors drop their blades. His revenants tore through our front lines like wet paper. Limbs scattered. Cries echoed. The stench of death thickened with each breath.
But I wasn’t afraid.
Not anymore.
Kyral landed hard beside me, her golden scales slick with blackened ichor, her wings torn but still strong. She let out a warning growl as the Bone King finally turned.
His eyes met mine across the ruin.
And he smiled.
“You’ve come,” he said, his voice rippling through the flames like silk soaked in venom.
“I always would,” I replied. “It ends with us.”
He stepped forward slowly. The air around him shimmered — not with heat, but decay. Even the ground wilted beneath his feet. His skeletal armor glinted, laced with bones from creatures I could barely recognize. Some had once been dragons.
“I once loved your kind,” he said. “Fire. Strength. Defiance. Until they turned against me.”
“You turned first,” I growled.
“I evolved,” he said, voice rising. “While your ancestors clung to fading light and broken seals. You think your flame can stop what I’ve become?”
I stepped forward, drawing the Elderblade. It ignited instantly, the fire white-hot, surging from my very soul.
“I don’t think,” I said coldly. “I know.”
He attacked.
No warning, no posturing. Just black magic surging from his palm, twisting through the air like a spear of shadow. I threw up a barrier with one hand, flames flaring around me, but the force slammed me backward.
Kyral lunged to my defense, fire spitting from her jaws.
The Bone King spun, conjuring a wave of bone shards from the ground that met her fire midair, detonating with a blast that knocked both of us apart.
Zaerion dove from above, his dragon form slicing through the clouds, ice-fire trailing behind. He hit the Bone King head-on, driving him back—but not down.
The revenants swarmed.
Lilah’s forces pushed through the eastern pass, trying to hold the flank. I could see her from the ridge—bloodied, screaming orders, blade in hand. A general in the thick of hell.
I pushed to my feet, coughing smoke.
The Source’s flame still burned in me. I could feel it pulsing in my spine, crawling down my arms, begging to be released.
“Kyral!” I shouted. “Let’s end this.”
She rose beside me, battered but unbroken.
“Together.”
I leapt onto her back, and we soared.
Above the battlefield, time slowed.
I could see everything.
The fallen. The fires. The fear.
And I knew… this was my war now.
We dove. Flames erupted from Kyral’s jaws, slicing a path through the Bone King’s horde. Revenants scattered, shrieking. I raised the Elderblade, calling on the Source’s gift, and the sky cracked open.
Lightning surged.
Fire turned gold.
We struck the Bone King mid-charge.
But he didn’t fall.
He absorbed it.
The flames curled around his armor like threads, sinking into him, making him glow.
He laughed — a horrible, echoing thing. “You think I didn’t plan for this? Every time you burn me, I grow stronger. I was born of flame and shadow, child. You’re feeding me.”
I froze.
Kyral bucked beneath me.
“If that’s true—” I breathed.
“Then the fire alone won’t be enough,” she finished.
And suddenly… I understood.
The prophecy had never been about destroying him with flame.
It was about who wielded it.
Me.
The cursed. The chosen. The queen of shadow and fire both.
I dismounted midair, landing hard in the center of the battlefield. The Elderblade’s flame vanished in an instant — I sheathed it.
The Bone King paused, confused.
“No blade?” he mocked. “Giving up already?”
“No,” I said, stepping toward him. “Just remembering who I am.”
My hands ignited — not with fire, but with light.
Golden. Blinding. Warm.
The Source. Unfiltered.
It pulsed from my chest, cracking the ground beneath me. The whispers that haunted the field silenced. The revenants shrieked and collapsed into ash. Even the sky dimmed to watch.
“I don’t need a sword to kill you,” I said. “I am the weapon.”
The Bone King screamed in fury and threw everything he had — a blast of twisted souls, black fire, bone chains, and memory curses.
I held my ground.
The magic struck me.
And stopped.
Swallowed whole by the light.
I stepped forward.
And he backed away.
“What are you?” he snarled.
“Everything you feared Thalara would be,” I whispered. “And more.”
I raised both hands.
The light surged forward in a shockwave.
The Bone King screamed.
His armor cracked.
The souls within him howled.
The flames didn’t feed him this time. They burned him.
I felt every scar he’d left on this world. Every wound. Every loss. I felt my mother’s death, and Kyral’s chains, and the children buried beneath ruined cities.
And I let it all go.
The wave exploded.
He disintegrated in midair — turned to dust by the same fire that once birthed him.
Silence fell.
Utter, soul-shaking silence.
Then—
The wind shifted.
And the clouds parted.
The battlefield stood still.
The Bone King was gone.
The revenants were ash.
And in the distance… the sun rose.
Real sunlight. No corruption. No shadows.
I fell to my knees.
Kyral landed beside me, folding her wings. “It’s done,” she said.
Zaerion approached, bloodied and pale, but alive. “You did it.”
“No,” I said, standing slowly. “We did.”
Lilah arrived next, limping, half her armor scorched, but her eyes bright. She looked around at the field.
And she smiled.
“For the first time in my life,” she said, “we’re free.”
The celebrations didn’t come immediately.
Too many were dead.
Too many needed to be buried.
But Westeroz began to heal.
The skies were blue again. The trees grew green. The waters ran clear. The corruption that once bled through the world was gone — burned away by light and sacrifice.
I didn’t attend the first feast.
Instead, I stood at the old throne, where Thalara once ruled.
The Elderblade rested against the marble beside me. Kyral coiled at my feet, watching the sun set over the horizon.
“Do you think she’s proud?” I asked.
Thalara.
My mother.
The flame queens who came before.
Kyral didn’t answer right away.
Then, softly: “I think they’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”
Later that night, the Alpha came to me.
He hadn’t spoken much since the final battle. I wasn’t sure if it was shock… or disappointment.
But when he stepped into the chamber, something about him had changed.
He knelt.
“Don’t,” I said quietly.
“You’re the queen now,” he replied.
“I was before.”
He stood slowly. “Yes… but now they see it too.”
I studied him in the dim torchlight. “Do you?”
His jaw clenched. “I always did. I just didn’t want to lose you to it.”
“You never lost me.”
He stepped closer. “You’ve become something… untouchable.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve just become me. And that includes you. If you’ll still stand beside me.”
He hesitated.
Then he took my hand.
“Always.”
The war was over.
But the world still needed rebuilding.
Dragons had returned to the skies.
The Flame Council met once again — this time, with me at its head.
We began to write new laws, new pacts.
Peace was no longer just a dream.
It was a possibility.
And in the heart of it all, I stood.
No longer running from my power.
No longer haunted by my blood.
No longer afraid to burn.
Because I was born for this.
A queen not just of dragons…
…but of everything the fire touched.
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