Chapter 259 - The Dragon That Ate the Sun ( Part 2 )

For the first time since entering the dragon’s shadow, Jennie saw the ground beneath her feet.

And the enormous claw that descended upon her.

"Oh, come on!"

She threw the burning bone as far as she could. It flew to the other side of the valley.

The dragon’s head turned instantly. The claw turned to another direction.

The beast rushed towards the flame, breaking through a cluster of old bones. Its jaws closed upon the burning object.

The light disappeared. Darkness ate everything up again.

Jennie stood frozen. Then she let out a shaky breath.

"It worked."

The dragon followed the heat. Not her voice. Not her moves. Not her magic.

Heat.

She had found the weakness.

Unfortunately, she had also learned that one burning stick wouldn’t help much in fighting the primordial dragon.

Jennie probed the mineral deposit until she felt the chunk of dark stone. She tore it free, wrapped it in another piece of cloth, and ignited the remaining sparks.

The second flame was larger. Jennie threw it at the opposite side of the valley.

Vorthal followed.

Jennie rushed in the opposite direction.

For a few valuable seconds, the valley belonged to her.

She ran through the gigantic skeleton, moving towards the warmth of the deposits. Some of them were buried underground. The others were located on the cliffs and glowed like embers in a block of black stone.

The heat was growing as she got closer to the narrow canyon at the northern end of the valley.

Jennie stopped in front of it.

The entrance was so narrow that the dragon could barely fit in there. Rock formations stood densely on both sides and the walls converged until they practically touched each other.

The horrible place for anyone to get stuck. But a perfect place to confine something giant.

Jennie looked at the glowing mineral in her hands and then at the canyon.

"All right, Vorthal."

She swallowed.

"Let’s see how much you’ll like fighting in a corridor."

The dragon caught her when she tried to set the trap.

The first sign was the sudden fall of temperature. The second one was the disappearance of the tiny flame in her hands.

The third one was the sound of dragon’s jaws closing behind her.

Jennie fell to the floor. Teeth scraped her coat, tearing it apart. She fell to the floor, rolled under the fallen rib and felt the dragon’s breath as the freezing storm.

She started trembling.

The darkness came out of Vorthal’s mouth and spilled on the ground, covering the bones and extinguishing the last light. Jennie’s magic was flickering inside her like a candle under strong wind.

She tried to conjure a gust of wind. The spell hardly formed.

Then the dragon’s breath extinguished it.

Jennie gasped. Her knees started to buckle.

For a second she lost the connection with the Divine Swords. The connection that she had lost while losing her companions. Lost while watching Rudy’s death. While failing to save Lilia. Lost while Snow was sacrificing his life for her return from the abyss.

And now she was losing her small magic power as well.

She pressed her forehead against the cold stone.

"No."

The word escaped her lips in a whisper.

She clenched her left fist.

"No, you won’t get that either."

She stood up.

Vorthal’s huge head appeared from the darkness ahead. The jaws were open. The shadow was becoming deeper around its teeth.

Jennie could hardly stand on her legs. But she wouldn’t let the dragon switch off the lights in this place.

She picked a burning mineral fragment and threw it into the canyon. The burning stone hit the wall of the narrow passage and shattered.

Sparks illuminated the narrow passage, lighting the jagged rocks for a second.

Vorthal turned to follow the heat.

Jennie ran.

She entered the passage as the dragon was chasing the heat of the fragments. The head was squeezing into it, tearing the rock with its horns.

Jennie reached a cluster of exposed mineral veins and dived under the huge boulder.

The dragon attacked the burning deposits. Its jaws hit the wall.

The impact shook the whole passage. The section of the cliff crumbled.

The rocks fell down on the dragon’s head and neck. The creature roared in anger. Its voice was so loud that Jennie heard the vibration in her bones.

The narrow canyon has confined the dragon. At least for a moment.

Jennie took another burning mineral fragment and threw it further into the passage. Vorthal turned to the heat source and rammed the wall.

The canyon shivered. The cracks appeared in the stone.

Jennie looked up.

"...That might have been a mistake."

The ceiling crumbled.

She ran.

A boulder fell down from the ceiling behind her. And then came a shower of smaller rocks. Jennie fell under the stone shelf just as the whole canyon filled with dust.

Something hit her left leg.

The pain shot through her knee. She screamed and fell to the floor.

The world was spinning. For several seconds, she couldn’t move, holding the injured leg in her hands and biting her lip to stop from screaming. The blood was dripping from her leg and getting lost in the dust.

She tried to stand. Her leg buckled.

"Come on..."

She dragged herself out of the passage, pulling herself with her left arm.

Behind her, Vorthal was struggling to break through the passage. Its roar shook more stones.

The dragon was trapped in the canyon. But the passage wouldn’t hold for long.

Jennie reached the entrance and crawled into the valley. She laid on her back and looked up at the darkness.

Her knee was pounding fiercely. Her shoulder was numb. Her ribs hurt every time she was breathing.

And the magic was almost gone.

She started laughing again. Terribly.

"Wonderful. I’ve managed to injure myself in a place where the ground is trying to kill me, the monsters are trying to eat me, and the sky doesn’t even exist."

A shadow passed over her.

The laughter ceased.

Vorthal was breaking free of its prison.

Horns rose up above the falling stones as its great head began emerging from the breaking mountain wall. Stone chips fell from its scaled skin. There was a crack in one of its horns and a gaping wound down its throat.

The creature was wounded. It was furious. And it knew exactly where she was.

Jennie struggled to her feet, feeling the pain from her wounded leg shake beneath her.

She could not outrun Vorthal. She lacked the strength of will required to distract the beast with magic and she carried no weapon that could pierce those scaled defenses.

It approached.

Jennie took two steps back before her heel hit a piece of ancient bone. She stopped.

She had no where else to run.

Vorthal breathed. The last shreds of light disappeared.

Its great maw opened revealing rows of teeth that seemed to stretch off into infinity. Darkness pooled in its mouth obscuring the teeth and the walls that held it open.

It was preparing to eat her.

Jennie looked into the void.

There was just a brief moment where she considered running. She considered the possibility of crawling under the bones and hiding behind the remains of some ancient structure hoping that she could make it just long enough to escape.

Then she thought of her sister, laughing as she mocked Jennie for her poor cooking or her lack of admitting she was scared.

She thought of Lilia, standing under the golden glow of Seraiya’s castle looking at Jennie like she was too good for the world to ever be taken away.

She thought of Snow carrying her through the sky, with a spear driven through his heart, not letting her go until he got her to safety.

They were gone. She had been focused on trying to rescue them so much that she had almost forgotten how to live.

But they died for more than just a futile existence running from whatever danger came next.

Jennie looked down at her right hand and noticed how motionless the fingers were.

She looked at the broken dagger fragment in her belt.

And then she looked into the open mouth of Vorthal.

Strangely enough she felt a sense of calm come over her. She was scared. Of course she was scared.

Bravery was not an absence of fear but rather a determination that something was worth it.

And for the first time since awakening in Walden Jennie realized something that no battle, divine blade, or old gods could teach her.

She did not need to be Leonis anymore. She did not need to reclaim the power she once possessed.

She only needed to decide what she wanted to do with what was left of her.

Jennie stepped closer to the opening maw of Vorthal.

She felt the cold wind of its breath against her.

She lifted her chin defiantly and looked straight into the abyss.

" I’ve already lost everything I was afraid to lose."

Then Jennie Queens stepped into the mouth of the creature.

And the Eclipse Devourer devoured the girl who was searching for a blade that could kill a god.