Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I chose to turn the dial only by a couple of minutes.
My Blake. I would save him.
And I would save the world.
Chapter 31
The Starlight Dagger
Blake
The Carpenter had me pinned down. I pushed up with all my strength, but somehow, the man was more powerful than me, even in his human form. He drove a knee into my gut. I snapped up at him with my jaws, but he grabbed my maw in a tight elbow and slammed it shut. I bit down hard on my tongue. The copper sting of blood filled my mouth, slipping down my throat. The sounds of battle and chaos surrounded me like the world’s worst orchestra.
Everyone was preoccupied. In the last seconds before my death, I thought of Xavier. Of how I let him down. How I should have stayed home. This wasn’t a place for me, no matter how much confidence I had built up over these last months. It was all false. I was that same scared, awkward kid Xavier had met in the White House.
Simon’s face twisted. His jaw extended, developing canine teeth that put mine to shame. His eyes still gleamed a venomous red. The color of death.
He reared back. I tried to fight, but he wasn’t fazed by my struggle.
It was over.
I’m sorry, X. I wish we had more time.
Then, out of nowhere, a blast of sand slammed into Simon’s side. He hadn’t been expecting the hit. It launched him off me and sent him slamming into a boulder. I sucked in a deep breath, shocked. Xavier came running to my side. I quickly shifted back into my human form. He helped me up onto my feet.
“You good?” he asked, his hand cupping the side of my face. He looked more frightened than I felt.
“Yeah, I am. Thank you.”
He gave me a quick kiss. It was like the eye in a hurricane. A brief moment of respite where the world stops spinning and roaring and trying to tear you down.
Brief being the key word. Simon got back to his feet and ran toward me. He was stopped by a thick tree branch that slammed into him like a mace. Warrick was behind him. He ran over to Simon and placed a green-taloned foot on the man’s back. He gave a triumphant roar, the vines hanging off his head shaking.
“No! No!”
The shout had come from behind us. Joshua stood, eyes wide, staring down at the dagger in his hand. The glowing stars that had once adorned its blade were gone, the light snuffed out like a candle in the wind. His expression twisted in disbelief, then panic.
“The stars… they’re gone,” he muttered, almost to himself. His grip on the hilt tightened, knuckles white against the dark metal. The power he had wielded, the force that had driven him to betray everything he once held dear, had been drained. Used.
“What have you done?” Simon hissed, his voice laced with fury. He struggled beneath Warrick’s foot, thrashing like a cornered animal. But it was too late. The dagger’s power had been spent, and with it, whatever plan they had harbored was crumbling into dust.
Around us, the battle began to shift. The enemies who had been so powerful moments before were now on the defensive, driven back by the sheer force of our will to survive. The Time Turners had fallen. The last of the Shade Dragons was frozen by a blast from Maddox, falling down to the earth and shattering into a thousand different pieces.
The battlefield was silent, save for the ragged breathing of those who had fought with everything they had.
Joshua stood frozen, staring down at the useless dagger in his hand. He looked as if he were a man lost, adrift in a sea of confusion and regret. The red tint in his eyes began to fade, leaving behind the dull, lifeless gaze of someone who had been emptied of all hope. The Chaos King must have realized his plan had failed. The soldiers he recruited were defeated.
I could hardly believe it. I braced myself against Xavier, my legs feeling like they were close to giving out.
“You’ve lost,” Xavier said. “It’s over. I used the dagger. I turned back time to save Blake.”
My eyes darted to him. To save me? What had happened?
Joshua looked up at us, his expression unreadable. The other siblings shifted out of their dragon forms and came to flank us. “I thought… I thought I could fix everything,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I thought I could bring her back.”
“You were being used,” Damien said, stepping forward, his eyes filled with something almost like pity. “The Chaos King preyed on your grief, twisted it into something dark and ugly. This isn’t who you are.”
Joshua’s grip on the dagger loosened, and it clattered to the ground, the once-powerful weapon now nothing more than a piece of cold metal. He looked around at the carnage, at the bodies of the Time Turners and the remnants of the Shade Dragons.