I flew higher, running up his side, my hooves bashing against his body in bruising strikes as I charged towards his head, my breaths falling heavily from my nostrils in a fog of white as I focused on my target, galloping up his spine with victory humming my name.
I’d drive my horn into his skull and finish him.
I wasn’t his victim anymore. I was a survivor of his reign, and he would rue the day he ever dared to try and dismiss my kind as weak.
But just as I prepared to strike him, a tendril of shadow came out of nowhere, locking my front legs together and making a neigh of fright leave me as I tripped, tumbling over my father’s head and whinnying in horror as one of my wings got lashed to my side too.
I heard Lavinia laughing as I fell and I kicked my back legs feebly, my other wing stretching out in the hope of slowing my fall before I crashed to the ground.
I slammed into the dirt and the front talons of Lionel’s shadow foot raked across my side as he held me down, agony spilling through the wound as his weight pressed onto me and my ribs snapped beneath his tremendous bulk.
I whinnied in pain, my eyes falling on Sofia and Tyler as they galloped towards me through the press of fighting bodies. She blasted fire magic from her position on his back as they fought to reach me, but they were going to be too late. And my gaze begged them to run, because I knew they couldn’t face my father and win.
A line of Nymphs charged into their way, blocking their path to me and forcing them into a fight I prayed they’d win. Sofia raised a flaming sword and Tyler neighed furiously as he reared up, but another group of Nymphs arrived and I lost sight of my Subs beyond them. Panic bloomed within me, and I hoped to the stars that wouldn’t be the last time I’d see them in this life.
Lionel reared over me, a rumble of rage sounding through his huge body before his jaws clamped down around my wing and his head whipped sideways.
Agony seared along my side as he ripped my wing free, tearing it away from my body so that it fell into the trampled long grass beside him and shock juddered through my entire being as I could only stare at it in horror, the lilac feathers stained red as they fluttered in the wind pathetically like a broken bird.
Blood poured and panic blossomed inside me as I stared up into the merciless eyes of my father, knowing he would make this hurt as much as he possibly could before he sent me beyond the Veil.
Lavinia released me from the shadow binds as her attention was snared by a line of rebels, but there was no way I could get up with the weight of a Dragon pressing down on me. And as my death closed in on me on all sides, I knew this was my end.
A furious neigh cut through the air and my eyes locked on Tyler as he came sailing down from the sky with Sofia on his back, his hooves slamming into Lionel’s head. My father snapped his jaws at them and I whinnied to them in desperation for them to flee. But it was clear they weren’t going to abandon me.
The weight lifted from my side as Lionel turned, taking off into the sky to try and catch them, but I couldn’t get up to help as I watched him follow the two Fae who held my whole heart towards the stars.
C old air billowed around us where we stood on the turret above my room, and the others kept a lookout for signs of anyone noticing us here while I worked to get us inside. There was a door up here which led down into my old room, but I’d long since figured out that my father had placed detection spells and magical alarms on it to keep him informed of my movements.
I moved to the side of it instead, ignoring the door and activating the magic I’d left there which made the bricks rumble and part for me, bypassing my father’s magic and allowing me entry into my old rooms.
The others followed me into the dark and I hurried down the twisting stairway, a feeling of deja vu stirring my senses as the familiarity of this, coupled with the length of time it had been since I’d returned here mixed into something that sent the hairs along the back of my neck standing on end.
I moved into the dark space, passing the familiar layout of my furniture and quickly moving to a safe which I had concealed beneath a flagstone by the foot of my bed as the others followed.
I unlocked it, grabbing the fat pouch of stardust from inside and smirking triumphantly as I wondered if I could try and break into Father’s vault and steal a whole lot more of it while I was here too. This bag wouldn’t be nearly enough to transport our army, but if I could get my hands on his stores, then I could use his own beloved form of transportation to relocate an entire legion of so called ‘unworthy’ Fae with it. There would be some sweetness to that act which was hard to ignore.