Unbroken Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #6)(13)

The moment we had returned here, I could see the cracks beginning to show on her carefully pasted-together facade. No matter how righteous she may feel in her work now that she is doing so to defend her Bonded Group and the community itself, it still takes a toll on her that no one understands as well as I do.

Her kill count in the Wasteland was only rivaled by my own and Nox’s, the sweeping clouds of our Gifts flooding over the soldiers and tearing them apart in the most vicious and violent ways. There isn’t an inch of remorse in me, but still, the cost of that power is heavy on my shoulders. It’s part of being a human with a soul, I think. Knowing that the weight of that choice is yours alone to carry.

I might believe in my abilities to tell right from wrong, but there's no denying that to the Resistance and families of the East Coast, I'm the villain for what I can do, a role I'll gladly play again and again for our safety and freedom.

“Are we going to remember the past lives as well? Am I ever going to remember what it was like to be a dragon back then?” Gabe asks, and when I look up, he's staring at the Soothsayer.

It stares back at him with its blank and soulless eyes as though it has no intention of answering him, but Gabe stares back at it with that open and easy way of his. Whether or not it's that that breaks the god-bond down, he does eventually answer. “If the Draconis chooses to share it with you, then yes, but it has always only ever communicated with the Eternal. It's only ever wanted her.”

Gabe nods for a second and then shrugs. “It communicated well enough with us both when she jumped into my dreams, so I'm not worried. I don't have to remember the past lives to know that everything is okay.”

I hope it’s really that easy.

I shut my eyes again, rubbing a hand over them more out of irritation than anything else, and my bond speaks once again.

I will show you. I will show you what happens if we fail.





I’m surrounded by a sea of cobblestones and bodies. Underneath my feet, there are rustic wooden slats with nails sticking out everywhere, as though the platform had been thrown together in a rush with whatever materials were on hand. The buildings around me look like quaint village houses rather than any of the modern architecture that I am accustomed to, straw rooftops and roughly hewn stone walls everywhere. It’s as though I’ve been thrown hundreds of years into the past in the blink of an eye.

I guess I have been, in a way.

I don't know where I am or what time it is, but I glance over and find my brother standing with me.

That one thing has stayed true, no matter what.

He doesn't look like Nox, of course. His face is so different, but I get the same feeling from him as I do from Nox. It’s the protective urge to kill anyone who might want to harm him and a sense of familial connection, the need to make it out of this situation alive for him as much as for myself and my Bonded.

For him to find happiness and contentment.

I feel all of that for myself as well, for all of us to make it through this hellish experience that I’ve found out we’re stuck in, both back at the Sanctuary and here in this memory.

The cheering and shouting around us is my first clue that that isn't going to happen.

I look down at my hands, but they are bound together in front of me with iron chains. The skin all the way up to my elbows is black, the same blackness that it changes to when I call on my shadows, but they’re nowhere to be seen. I haven't run out of power for my Gift. I can still feel it there, but there's a block inside of me, something stopping me from accessing it, even though I can feel the shadows pounding beneath my skin to come out, to devour, to kill and to protect, to stop this from happening.

I glance around, but my Bonded isn't here with us. It's just me and the Corvus standing on a platform in the middle of a rudimentary village, facing a crowd of Gifted and non-Gifted staring up at us as though we are monsters.

It's not something that I’m unaccustomed to. I’ve spent my whole life bearing the Draven name and the legacy that comes with it, but the fear in these people's eyes is so stark, the hatred all-consuming, that there’s no doubt about why we’re up here.

A man steps forward onto the platform with us and addresses the crowd in a booming voice. I don't recognize the words that he's speaking, a language ancient and long-since dead, but I still know what he's saying.

He’s sentencing us to death for the crimes of our shadows.

I can feel my bond’s indignation at this, but at the same time, it's resigned to this fate. It doesn't want to put up a fight. It doesn't want to find a way to survive here. It just wants all of this over with already.

As I look out over the rooftops of the small houses, my eye catches on the blood covering the stones out further past the crowd. With a sense of dread in my gut, I follow that blood, follow it all the way down until I find the large and scaled body of the dragon.

If the sheer amount of blood covering the streets wasn't enough to convince me that it’s dead, the spear skewering the large animal's body straight through the chest and digging around as though they were attempting to spill its guts out would be a sure indicator.

I can't look away from it.

The more I stare at it, the more horrifying the vision becomes. One of the wings has been partially cut away, the other in shreds from where arrows have gone through the thin membrane. Its jaws are wide open, and I can see where teeth have already been removed, as souvenirs, I'm sure.