Chapter 36 #2
The force of it sent us pitching downward, the dragon’s wounded wing beating erratically, trying to catch air, trying to fight gravity, trying to do the impossible while bleeding out in the sky.
Valen’s body jerked, his breath tearing out in a broken sound, and I felt warmth splash onto my shoulder, felt it soak through the thin cloth like a brand.
His blood.
Or the dragon’s.
It didn’t matter.
They were the same.
“We’re falling,” I choked, voice nearly gone. “Valen, we’re falling!”
“I know,” he snapped, and then his voice cracked, just barely. “I know.”
I looked down.
The barrens below were a battlefield of movement and fire, soldiers scattering, magic flashing, the forest army surging forward like a tide. And I saw the exact moment the world decided we were prey again. The soldiers weren’t running away anymore.
They were running toward where we would land.
Toward where we would crash.
Toward where they would finish it.
Something inside me broke open.
Not fear.
Not surrender.
Fury.
I threw my magic downward with everything I had left.
Ice erupted from the ground in sharp, rising spires, exploding upward like the world was growing teeth.
A wall of frost shot up in the path of the charging soldiers, jagged and violent, catching men mid-sprint, forcing them to scatter and climb and break formation.
Ice spread across the snow in a slick sheet, turning the battlefield into a trap, legs slipping, bodies crashing, weapons clattering uselessly.
Valen made a strained sound beside me. “Elara?—”
“Don’t speak,” I snapped, because I could not afford his distraction. “Just stay conscious.”
Another wave of ice shot outward, thicker, broader, freezing the slush into hard glass. The cold surged up through me like it was drinking what little life I had left, and my vision flickered at the edges, darkness pressing in.
The dragon bucked again, slipping lower.
Valen’s head dipped.
His breath hitched.
“No,” I whispered again, but this time it wasn’t pleading. It was a warning.
“You do not get to die,” I hissed, voice shaking with fury, with terror, with something so possessive it scared me. “Not after you came for me. Not after you tore the sky open. Not after all of this.”
Valen’s laugh came out broken. “You sound angry.”
“I am furious,” I spat, ice still surging. “Stay awake.”
His voice turned faint, as if it had to travel far to reach me. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Tell me you’re real,” he said, and the vulnerability of it made my throat close. “Tell me I didn’t imagine you.”
My chest tightened so sharply it hurt.
“I’m real,” I said, voice rough. “I’m here. I’m in your arms. And I swear to every dead god in this kingdom, you are not leaving me alone with these people again.”
The dragon’s wings caught air.
Not enough.
But enough to stop the plunge from becoming a death sentence.
We surged forward in a staggered climb, low over the barrens, the wind roaring past, the ground terrifyingly close beneath us. Valen’s breath was ragged against my neck. His arms were locked around me like the only thing keeping him upright was the act of refusing to let go.
Behind us, ballistae fired again, bolts slicing up into open air, missing by feet, by inches, by nothing at all.
The dragon roared and unleashed one last burst of flame, a wide curtain of fire that swallowed the wall’s edge and forced the crews back from their weapons.
Smoke rose thick and black, twisting into the sky like a signal flare.
And then we crossed the first line of trees.
The forest swallowed us.
Branches whipped past. Shadows flickered. The cold returned in brutal waves, and the world narrowed into wind and blood and the sound of Valen’s breath getting weaker by the second.
I pressed my forehead to the dragon’s burning scales and closed my eyes, forcing myself to stay awake through sheer hatred of the alternative.
“Valen,” I whispered again, softer now, shaking. “Stay with me.”
His reply was barely more than air. “I’m trying.”
The dragon beat his wings once, twice, struggling, the wounded side trembling under the effort. I felt the bolt lodged in his flesh like a cruel, impossible weight. I felt the blood trailing behind us like breadcrumbs for death to follow.
And then Valen’s body went heavy against mine.
His head sagged.
His breath stopped catching right.
“No,” I said sharply, panic snapping through me like lightning. “No, no, no.”
I tried to turn, tried to look at him, but his arm was still wrapped around me, and I couldn’t move without risking both of us. I could only feel the frightening stillness creeping into him, like the battle was leaving and something darker was arriving in its place.
The dragon’s roar faltered into something low and pained. His wings dipped. The trees below rushed closer. And I understood, with brutal clarity, that we had not escaped.
We had only traded one execution for another.
Somewhere in the forest ahead, the world opened into a steep ravine cut through ice and stone, black water visible far below like a mouth waiting to swallow us whole.
The dragon was losing height, losing strength, losing the fight against his own wounds, and Valen’s grip on me loosened by a fraction that felt like the end of everything.
I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I’d bitten through my lip without noticing.
My magic surged again, frantic and wild, trying to freeze the wind itself, trying to give us something to land on, something to catch us, something to hold us in the sky.
The cold snapped outward.
The air glittered.
The world went white.
And then the dragon’s wounded wing finally gave out.
We dropped.
Straight toward the ravine.
Straight toward the dark.
And Valen’s voice, barely there, brushed my ear like a dying confession.
“Elara,” he breathed, “if I don’t wake up…”
I screamed his name.
The sky vanished.
The cliff rose.
The dragon fell.
And the last thing I saw before the world swallowed us was the snow below, waiting like a grave that had always known my name.