Chapter 20
We sprint through the thickening mist, past disoriented parchment larks turning in tight circles and bumping into walls. I barely feel the pins in my back, as though my flesh is thick and strong as stone.
Strong as dragon scales.
A temporary fix—as is the energy flaming through my veins—but a welcome one.
There’s a roar. A guttural scream. A ground-shuddering thump before … silence. No thunderous pound of Rygun’s wings, which could only mean one thing.
He’s on the ground.
Fear squeezes my heart so hard I’m certain it’s going to burst, the mist growing too thick to see more than three feet ahead.
Something Rygun hasn’t flown near since I found him in that sinking sand all those phases ago.
Something he purposely avoids even if it means daes of extra travel to reach our destination.
But he flew into it this dae. For me.
For Raeve.
The panicked thrash of his pulse rallies within me as I cut down a wider alley, chasing my internal intuition. “This way.”
“The Tri-Council are going to have a fuckin’ ball with this mess!” Pyrok belts out from the back of our pack. “Might as well bang the dusty war drum and arm the borders.”
He’s not wrong.
I did much to avoid this. Caught a carter in so nobody would know I’m here. Walled Rygun off to prevent him from thinking I needed help at any stage, only for him to charge forth with a chest full of flames the moment I fell unconscious.
He attacked a member of the Citadel’s battalion, something that will absolutely be seen as an act of war. Given the impending moonfalls, retribution may not be swift, but it will come.
I’d stake my life on it.
“All that matters right now is that we all get across the border, Rygun included,” I growl, hunting my intuition down another thin alleyway.
I can’t lose him. I don’t know how to exist without him.
I won’t.
A streak of yellow tears through the sky above. All four of us jerk toward an arch of stone to shelter beneath, when the Moltenmaw releases a familiar high-pitched shriek. Feminine.
Panicked.
“Fuuuuuck,” Pyrok says, bursting into a sprint, chasing the small dragon coasting through the mist. We explode into a courtyard the moment Maell drops to the ground, fluffing her gold-threaded plumage at Pyrok rushing forward.
“She didn’t want to stay behind on her own,” he tosses over his shoulder as Maell nuzzles his chest and coils her tail around his waist, seeking comfort.
Looking like she’s preparing to climb into Pyrok’s arms despite being a lot fucking bigger than she used to be.
Twice the size as Líri, minus all the growl and bite.
Rygun snarls from somewhere within the Mists ahead—a graveled chastisement.
“You’re old enough to know better,” Pyrok says, and though his tone is nurturing, I agree with his words.
Maell is too young and sheltered, her nature too sweet and delicate to have flown into such a hostile situation.
“Will she carry Roan, too?” I ask, eyeing the male leaning against a fallen branch, working hard to catch his breath. “It might be easier if we ride in twos.”
“We’ll be fine. Just worry about that,” Pyrok says as a gust of wind parts the mist, revealing Rygun posturing atop a flattened tree. And beneath his fierce claw gouged into the woody remnants … the red Moltenmaw pinned in place, splayed across the ground.
The Moltenmaw’s chest rises and falls in fast, panicked beats, eyes bulging. Easy mark when there’s only one, but if the entire battalion turns their beaks in this direction and works out where we are, Rygun won’t hold up so well. Especially if he’s discovered on the ground.
I look at the Moltenmaw’s rider now hanging from Rygun’s maw like a scrap of meat—limp and burnt.
Dead.
I curse beneath my breath.
Rygun growls past his ravaged prize, eyes on me as I draw closer, his breaths ragged, heart quickening every time the Mists sweep close.
“Dath doon ah, Rygun …”
We’re okay.
A lie, of course. Neither of us are okay.
The only reason I’m standing is because he saw me on the ground from a distance—saw Raeve get pinned, then charge into battle—and pumped me with so much flame and energy I almost combusted. Still might if I can’t get him to calm down.
Keeping my posture strong and steady, I edge forward another few steps, hoping to ease some of the panic blazing in his chest. “Dath doon ah, vueh to nahh de. Hast ata.”
We’re okay, but we need to go. Fast.
Through our bond, I show him an image of Raeve climbing atop his saddle blanket.
He rumbles low, drops the soldier, and dips his head, smoke billowing from his flared nostrils. Quiet acceptance of my request.
I move forward until my hand meets his blood-soaked nose, the Moltenmaw still squirming beneath his claw. “Raeve, climb his ropes.” I hold Rygun’s eye contact while rubbing the space between his nostrils, buffeted by hot breaths. “Quick. We need to get him into the sky.”
Raeve scans the misty courtyard as she moves past his left flank, grips the ropes, pauses.
Snarls.
Rygun does the same, the sound of scuffing boots coming to me from the south, west, and eastern alleyways.
My stomach drops.
They’ve located us despite the heavy cover of mist. Sneaking up, probably arming the famous ballistae crowning the city.
The moment Rygun beats his wings, the mist will gust away, exposing him. It doesn’t matter how big or strong he is, his wings will be vulnerable. As will his tender underbelly.
Which leaves me one choice. A decision that feels like swallowing a seed that’ll grow into something ugly. I just hope the stores surrounding the courtyard are empty. That any innocents cleared out the moment Rygun brought down the Moltenmaw.
I meet Raeve at the ropes, seeing a blade pinched in her hand. “Keep climbing,” I murmur.
Though she frowns, for once, she doesn’t argue—offering a clipped nod before she tucks away her blade and continues climbing. She settles atop the saddle blanket, binds the strap around her wrist, and grips tight.
I swing my leg around the back of her and settle into place, thread my hands past her waist, and take hold of the reins.
The grinding crank of a lever judders the silence. The only warning we get before a large iron spear shoots through the sky, skimming past Rygun’s left wing.
A growl shreds my throat.
Raeve turns, looking at me, those big eyes exploding with icy wrath. “Let me dow—”
“Varough duht ah, Rygun …”
Burn it all.
My dragon inflates his chest, kindling the embers within.
Raeve pales, then turns, tucking deep in her cloak with swift and panicked motions she probably thinks I don’t notice.
Little does she know I’m currently brimming with Rygun’s flame, his strength, his senses.
All I can hear is the panicking pump of her heart.
All I can smell is the sharp taint of her fear.
Her entire body tenses as Rygun stretches his neck, opens his maw, and blasts a torrent of flames—sweeping his head from left to right.
The Mists rear back, cowering from the eviscerating might swallowing soldiers, softening the storefronts until they’re bright red, dripping into growing puddles of magma.
No longer able to support the dragon-killing ballistae in the immediate vicinity.
If anyone screams, I don’t hear it, deafened by the internal flames billowing through me, pumping my muscles so full it feels as though my skin’s about to shred … until nothing is as it was.
I urge Rygun to leap off the Moltenmaw, toward the misty canopy still bearing over us. Maell launches into the vortex churning in his wake with Pyrok and Roan perched between her sunbeam wings.
All that’s left behind is a smoking blister of molten stone.
Rygun stiffens beneath us as we bludgeon into the Moving Mists, Maell gusting above the shielded safety of his left wing, both tearing toward the border—a thunder of dragons blindly chasing.
Raeve is strangely quiet, tense, even once we outrun the battalion and fly free of Bothaim’s skies. Not that I need her words to know what she’s thinking.
So long as we all survive the impending moonfalls, war is coming for The Burn.