Multiple POV event timeline for Onyx Storm’s ending chapters (63 Imogen, 64 Violet, & 65 Xaden):
Terror busts through the ice.
— Putrid fear consumes the bond, followed by another roar that nearly buckles my knees. —
Berwyn just killed a dragon with a dagger. How the fuck is that possible? "Were you watching? Because that's exactly what's about to happen to yours." He turns to me and saunters toward Sgaeyl as she thrashes futilely under the net. "You'll have to channel deep to replace the loss of her power." He lifts the blade, and I don't just skate over the ice. I become it. "Stop!" Sgaeyl roars, blowing back Berwyn's robes. "Do not do this to save me!" Do this? It's already done.
— Sgaeyl. My head jerks upward, my heart lurching against the cage of my ribs as Tairn snarls, his talons furrowing in the forest floor. "Don't!" —
How fucking dare they pull my dragon from the sky, snare and hurt the one who anchors my existence. I throw my blades into the air, fall to one knee, splay my hand over the canyon floor, and break. In my final act of resistance, I become the very thing I despise. Maybe it's good that I can't feel a single damned thing. I breathe in the power that pulses beneath my hand like a living, breathing creature, and exhale darkness. Shadow streams through the canyon, thick as tar and black as ink, blacking out the afternoon sun and turning the space pitch-black. Shadow plants my daggers in the chests of the two venin standing guard. Shadow drags Berwyn from Sgaeyl and knocks both him and my new brother unconscious. Shadow brings quiet.
— Terror clogs my throat as I shout for Xaden, but he can't hear me. Draithus is enveloped in darkness, and the shrieking cries of wyvern soon follow, racing across the field and echoing off the rock above. —
My soul departs like pieces of ash from a fire, flaking free and drifting away as power consumes the space it once inhabited. I'm no longer on the ice—I am the ice. And still I feed, tunneling deep into the source of magic itself and surging outward simultaneously, finding the identical heartbeats that mark wyvern and slicing through scale with shadow, ripping their runestones free. I start with the one who dared set its teeth in Sgaeyl's shoulder, skim past the one who now thinks himself my brother, then destroy the six blocking the entrance to this canyon. Save them, the last remaining pieces of me beg, holding on with teeth and claw to keep from being torn away, too. My shadows surge from the canyon, over the city, ending every wyvern in the air and on the ground. I'm everywhere at once, shredding the net that ensnares Sgaeyl, tearing the heart from the wyvern who has Dain and Cath backed into a corner, rushing over Imogen as she looks to the sky.
— I unsheathe my last alloy-hilted dagger and stare up at the wyvern-filled sky. Then I make my way back inside, slip Quinn's last dagger from her thigh sheath, and reach for Glane. "Tell every rider within the walls to get over here and disarm. It's the only way we're living through this." Outside, the sky darkens further. Sorrengail better take their leader all the way the fuck out, or this will all have been for nothing. —
I'm at the pass, plucking wyvern off one by one, listening with satisfaction as their bodies hit the ground in front of the people she loves. I stream up the cliffside, fall back at the magic that burns to the touch, and surge north.
— "What—" Theophanie pivots toward the noise. Shadow spreads like a ripple on a lake, devouring the field in the fury of an onyx storm and sweeping toward us at a speed that squeezes the hope from my chest, then outright shatters my heart. The pain hits like a physical blow to the center of my chest. He's terrifyingly powerful with Sgaeyl, but not like this. This is the kind of force that ends worlds. And it's almost here. —
"I love you." Violet's voice cracks the cold, and a silken thread of warmth wedges itself in the opening before it seals shut, locking it in place.
— "I love you," I whisper down the bond, and the ice cracks, but it's not enough to halt the approaching wave of darkness. —
No. Wait. I grab for that thread with desperate hands, clawing to keep her as more of my pieces are blown away, lost to the void. She is warmth and light and air and love. My shadows consume the valley she stands in, dagger bared, defending Tairn from the same style of net that caught Sgaeyl. I shove the Maven to the ground, regardless of her rank, then slide over Violet with a gentleness that takes all my concentration.
— Shadow throws Theophanie to the ground a second before it rushes over me, whisper soft against my cheeks, tossing us into pitch-black night. —
I love her. That is the emotion I cling to, the fire of pure power burning at the feeling's edges, and I know if I take it any further, it will be the next and final piece to float away. I bare my teeth and yank my hand from the ground, gasping for a full breath as my heart thunders.
— "Use the darkness!" Tairn orders. My heart stutters. Use the very thing that's taking Xaden from me? I never dreamed that taking every possible path to cure him would lead to his choice. The fire devouring me from the inside out threatens to consume my very bones, and for a second, I debate letting it. I couldn't stop my mother, and I can't stop Xaden. I can't save him. —
I've never felt so strong and so defeated at the same time. This was the only way. I rise to my feet and release the shadows, and the canyon comes into view.
