Chapter 13 #2
I sink to the ground with exhaustion.
With a sigh, the dragon curls herself around me.
“What do you eat?” I ask the dragon hours later, when it feels like I can move again.
At that question she gets up, and I’m knocked onto her back in a flash. Before I can recover my stolen breath, she’s in the air.
“You can’t just—” I cough, sputtering. “You can’t just—”
She looks at me over her shoulder, as if to say, I’m a dragon. I can do whatever the fuck I want.
That smug look shuts me up. I grip her scales and see where she might take me.
The air is cold up here. It feels like flying through an icy river, without fear of drowning. I peer over the side and forget to breathe.
This far up, the land looks like the weaver’s quilts—cut into patches. Forests I’ve been told to fear are just streaks of green. Mountains that would have taken days to scale are just daggers, dug into the ground.
Stellan taught me never to trust anyone.
But all I can do up here is trust. If this dragon shifts to the side, I’m dead.
If she decides her food is me, there’s nothing I can do about it.
That doesn’t scare me. No. Because she saved me.
I trust her, and it means I don’t just have to count on myself anymore.
Someone is leading the way. Someone’s got me.
We fly for less than an hour before she begins her descent. This time, I hold on better, and only slightly bruise my ass when she lands.
We’re in the center of a small field, at the base of a mountain, in front of a sparkling gray rockface.
I look around, confused. It’s … empty. There aren’t any creatures roaming about. I can’t hear anything. I slide off my dragon and onto my feet, then pause. Listen.
Nothing.
“What—”
The dragon turns in a flash of silver. With a thunderous whip of her spiked tail, the stone begins to fall away, revealing cluster after cluster of glimmering red gems. Rubies?
My mouth goes dry. I inch forward, blinking quickly as if this could be some sort of illusion.
Priceless. These gems must be worth enough to feed a quarter of Stormside.
My dragon lowers her neck—
And devours the stones, teeth crunching them into powder.
I watch, dumbfounded, as the wall slowly goes gray again, picked clean. Only then does my dragon sit back, tired, having had her fill.
“You eat … gemstones?” I ask, incredulous. “You’re going to be an expensive creature, aren’t you?” She huffs as if she’s saying, Look at me. Were you expecting anything less? I frown. “Your diet. Is that why you were underground? Do all dragons eat precious stones?”
She doesn’t answer, of course.
I sigh. “Strange creature,” I say. By the way she nuzzles up against my side, she takes it as a compliment.
Unlike the dragon, I don’t eat rubies. It doesn’t take long for my own stomach to grumble. After a few minutes, my dragon seems to tire of the sound. She sighs, then lowers her neck. Come, the motion says. Then we’re off again.
I understand now why the writer of the journal said a creature was so crucial to this journey. My dragon knows these lands better than a map ever could. With her, I likely don’t need a map at all. Before long, she’s landing in the center of a forest.
Red is everywhere, just like the rubies.
But instead of gemstones … these are berries.
I slip off my dragon and grab handfuls greedily, smelling them for a moment, then shoving them into my mouth, eating just as quickly as my dragon did.
I close my eyes and groan. Sweeter than honey. Sweeter than anything I’ve ever tasted.
I eat until my stomach twists in pain, and then I gather the rest to keep for later. “Thank you,” I say, offering some to the dragon.
Her huff says, I don’t eat anything as pedestrian as fruit.
Very well, then. More for me.
The sun is almost setting.
My dragon takes off into the sky, and I grip her scales. We glide like that through the pinks and oranges, flying through the sunset. Tears prick my eyes. I’m not alone. Not anymore. She is going to take care of me.
We are going to take care of each other.
My chest is flush against her back. I can hear her heartbeat somewhere deep inside. It’s in sync with mine.
“Thank you,” I say, because I’m not sure I did before. “For giving me a second chance.”
Her chest rumbles beneath me, a response.
“I never thought I would do anything like this,” I tell her, my words being swallowed by the wind.
I huff a cruel laugh as I think of all the impossible things I’ve done in the last few days.
“I was never brave, not really. I would run into my parents’ room almost every night, as a child.
Every creak of the wood of the house scared me.
But then … my sister came, and I realized I needed to be brave for her. So, I was. I tried, and—”
Sometimes trying isn’t enough.
I go quiet, wondering if the dragon heard me at all, but then her chest rumbles again. She hears me. She’s listening.
So, I keep going. “What I’m trying to say is I never thought I would leap from a mountainous tree. Or wield a sword. Or race toward certain death.” I smile, a little. “I never thought I would fly through a sunset.”
I reach down to brush her scales—
And jolt back as she shudders.
She screams, and the sound doesn’t just pierce the sky. It lances through me. I look down to see if I’ve been struck, but no. Just her.
There’s an arrow through her side. It’s long, sparkling metal. Starside steel. Strong enough to go through her scales.
A roar rattles the skies.
Then a monstrous dragon like a barbed shadow blocks out the rest of the sinking sun. He’s twice as large as mine. He parts his jaws in another bone-rattling shriek, then dips, revealing his rider, holding a bow.
Cadoc.
Fury flames through my bones. He killed Stellan. Now, he’s wounded my dragon.
How was he able to claim such a creature? Did he kill its original rider? If dragons are anything like swords, the connection must be accepted both ways.
Which means this beast is just as wicked as Cadoc.
Everything in me wants to kill him. But I can feel my dragon’s panic as if it’s my own. We won’t survive this fight. I grip her scales. “Go,” I say, and she rushes down, fast as lightning, but it’s useless.
The creature is beside us in a moment. Wind howls in my ears as I turn to see Cadoc, grinning.
“First, I’ll take your sword. Then I’ll take your dragon,” he yells through the wind. “I’m going to feed it to mine.” His dragon turns his head. Through the beast’s dark scales, red rises. Orange. Like a sunset spreading through his stomach. Fire.
I gasp just before a column of flames shoots right at me.
My dragon lifts her wing at the last moment, blocking the flames like a magnificent shield.
I can feel her pulse quickening—the move has cost her. Some of the fire goes through the thick shreds of her wings, setting them ablaze.
“Down!” I scream. “Go down! We can’t win up here.”
He’s larger, and faster. Perhaps lower, in the cover of the trees, we have a chance at escaping him.
At first, I think my dragon either doesn’t hear me or isn’t going to listen. Then, just as Cadoc’s beast opens his maw again, fire rising, she nose-dives like a shooting star, right into the forest.
Fire paints the sky like a second bleeding sun. We crash through the trees, branches snapping, dirt ballooning all around us, and land with a bone-splintering thud.
Then the woods go quiet.
Everything hurts. It doesn’t matter. My dragon is injured. The fire through its wings is out, but I can smell the burned flesh.
The arrow is buried close to where I sit, and I lean around, snap its end—and slowly slide it out. She tenses. The scale the arrow hit is now missing.
I’m going to kill Cadoc. I’m going to fucking kill him. But not today.
I slip off her back and face her. Her eyes are looking in all directions. She’s focused, listening with her superior hearing.
She goes still, and I know what that means. They’re close. They’re coming.
“He wants me,” I say.
She looks at me almost in warning, as if she could possibly anticipate what I’m about to say.
“You’re injured. That dragon—he’ll tear you to pieces. He’ll burn you to ashes.”
She huffs steam out of her nostrils. But that’s the extent of her power. She doesn’t have fire. She doesn’t stand a chance.
A shriek tears through the skies, just above us.
They’re here.
There’s no time. I lean forward, my forehead against hers, and she lets me. I think about all the people lost because of me. I won’t lose anyone else.
“Go now. He’ll see you’re without a rider. He’ll chase me instead of you. I’ll be fine. Go.”
She doesn’t move an inch.
The forest trembles as the monstrous dragon lands nearby. “Go,” I say, my voice breaking on the word. “I will find you. I promise. But for now—for both of us—go.”
She looks at me with an intensity I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Silver eyes. The star on her forehead gleams.
Then she’s gone. She shoots up into the sky. I hear yelling. I tense, watching.
But no one chases her.
They’re going to chase me.
I run.
There’s more movement. More creatures approaching. I see them in the sky, through the treetops, a mess of wings.
Cadoc and his friends have all claimed creatures. They’re all hell-bent on getting my weapon.
The forest floor trembles as they land, one by one.
“You can’t hide forever,” a voice calls, close by. “Night is approaching. And you’re going to be trapped on the ground.”
Fuck.
In my attempt to save my dragon, I forgot the simplest rule of this side: Be anywhere but outside at night.
I shoot a glance at the horizon. The orb of the sun is completely gone—only its smear remains. And even that is weakening.
I run faster.
Suddenly, a pillar of flame charges through the forest, roaring like a beast, burning everything in its path.
The fools are going to try to trap me. They’re going to try to burn their way to me.
If I can just survive until nightfall, they’ll have to take off into the sky, right? But then I’ll still be here, in this burning forest. Without a plan.
Another roar. Flames getting closer, lighting up everything. I run through the burning trees, racing, panting as I look behind me.
And nearly crash into the side of a rocky cliff. I look up—and there’s an opening. A cave? All I see is a place to hide. A vantage point. Can the night demons climb? Will I be safe here?
Behind me, the trees rustle as if something is tearing through them. Getting closer.
It seems my choice has been made for me.
Dirt lodges beneath my nails as I scale up the rock face, fear melting down my spine as I hope the trees don’t part and they don’t see me here, vulnerable, on the side of this cliff.
The sword is heavy on my back, weighing me down, but soon enough I’m reaching into air—the opening.
I haul myself inside and scramble to my feet. I turn to look out into the forest below, and swing my scabbard to the front, my hand curled around the hilt, ready to unsheathe my weapon.
I swallow.
They’ve made a maze of the woods. Long lines of crackling fire burn everything in their path. Smoke curls into the crimson-brushed sky. My heart hammers, remembering. Everything is burning. Just like it did that night. That night.
Leaves fall in balls of flame. Branches crash down and ignite the forest floor.
Everything alive and beautiful is gone. Gone.
A brutal command echoes through the forest. “Find her.” Cadoc.
I take a step back, moving farther into the cave, and tense. Somehow, I feel it, prickling the back of my neck—an awareness.
I’m not alone.
With trembling hands, I slowly unsheathe my sword, inch by inch, and hold it in front of my face. In its reflection is a towering shadow right behind me. A monster in human form.
Harlan Raker.