Chapter 16: Legacy (3)
Leona's voice boomed through the icy tempest, the blizzard around her spinning into a maelstrom of freezing power. Adrei's lips twitched at the pressure of the ancient magic, the weight of decades from Demond's journey with the wolf, the essence of their bond now coalescing into a terrifying force.
"You two are really one of a kind."
Both lived with pride as their code, and died with solitude as their shroud. Adrei's mind was drawn back to her father, he too died a miserable, lonely death, as a tyrant should. His arrogance had been his downfall, and she vowed not to follow suit. Her eyes narrowed, the fiery orbs reflecting the determination that had fueled her reign.
She will not allow her father's mistake to be repeated again. That is her pride as a daughter who buried her father without a drop of tears, an honourless peacekeeper who would succeed his arrogance but not his fate.
With those words, Adrei let go of her scythe, as her scales grew and shifted into a fiercer form, her eyes burning with a fiery determination that could melt even the coldest of hearts. Her human form melted away, revealing the true majesty of a dragon queen, her scales now a mosaic of golden lava. She spread her wings, the heat from them causing the ice to retreat, leaving a circle of fire around the two combatants.
The wolf's icy gaze met the dragon's fiery stare as the room grew quiet, the only sound the crackling of the flaming scythe on the frozen ground. The tension between them was palpable, a silent promise of an epic clash about to unfold. The warmth of Adrei's transformation reminded her the tyrant's wrath, and her own fear as an inferior being. Her claws and runes screamed for her to retreat, but her eyes, her pride, it remained steadfast.
With silence that could shatter the very fabric of the world, the dragon queen and the wolf queen lunged. Adrei's fiery wings flapped once, sending a shockwave of heat towards Leona. Yet the wolf remained unfazed, the blizzard around her thickening into a shield of solid ice. The two's claws collided with a force that would have shattered mountains.
Auras of fire and frost clashed, a spectacle that painted the throne room in a fiery blue hue. Adrei's golden scales reflected the light from the raging spirit of an honourless pillager, while Leona's fur stood tall, each strand a shard of the purest ice. The dragon's eyes narrowed, the fiery pupils dancing with the intensity of a star about to go supernova.
"Impressive, but not enough." Adrei's voice echoed through the chamber, a hint of respect seeping through her fiery tone. Her fiery claw dug deep into the shielded blizzards, cracked cackled in Leona's shield and sorrow as Adrei was pushing back the ice with the force Leona was so, so familiar with.
Leona's eyes remained fixed on Adrei, her teeth bared, her breath a cloud of frost. This dragon, she knew, was not the tyrant, yet strength and mana could not lie. The dragon queen's fiery might was something she had felt before, as menancing as the spirit king, as malicious as the strongest demon she and her master faced. The wolf felt a twinge of doubt, the hell of the past flared up her mind, just as the ashy torso tormented her spirit, yet she knew, she had no longer the luxury of fear, just as that fateful day they stood against the tyrant, the forest's fate hanging in the balance.