Chapter Forty. When You Fall
CHAPTER FORTY
WHEN YOU FALL
FARREN
Nity and I are sitting ducks. As Nity tries to gather back distance from these predators, I realize how tired she is.
Heavy panting accompanies the wind, and the jeers of that lead poacher.
With his mask off, moonlight catches his bright blond hair.
I know him. I’ve seen him at the Murphy tracks.
One of the scalers, which only strengthens my fear of what will happen if we’re caught.
A spear ricochets off Nity’s stomach and she flinches. I jolt upward at the force to only come crashing back down. The red scrapes on my knees deepen and blood flows down my legs. Another net tries to snag Nity’s feet, but it’s silver lined and I sense it more than see it in the plunging darkness.
We can’t keep this up all night. We need a place to hide. I look up at the low-hanging clouds. “Nity, up.”
Spreading her wings, we climb into the clouds.
Without reins I can’t signal or really control her, but Nity’s listening to me. She flew back for James. She helped me save him. So, we’re in this, together. As we reach cloud cover, a blanket of cold wet mist surrounding us, she stills and flaps her wings in place.
We don’t have to wait long.
“Little bird?” the poacher calls in a taunt. His voice brings a different type of chill down my back. “You like to hide, little bird? So scared, and for what? This doesn’t have to be your fight.”
Oh, but it is. This is my fight. Nity chose me for this, she gifted me the power over gold to be her protector. So, I’ll protect her.
His voice seems to echo as he circles me, trying to find me in the dense clouds, trying to draw me out. But I don’t need to rely on sound. All I need to focus on is silver.
At first, I can’t sense a thing but fear coursing through me. I close my eyes, ignoring the whoosh of wings and even my own pounding heartbeat. I reach out for the metal like I’m in the fields of the sanctuary.
There! There he is.
Eyes snapped open, I pull gold off my upper arm and hurl it to my right. The clouds part as my metal whips through the mist. Enough to see the silver Sprinter flying in the air. The gold whirls right above the saddle, an empty saddle.
“Looking for me, little bird?”
I turn and the scaler is feet away on Nity’s back.
How? My brain stutters. He’s ditched his armor. The only metal he owns is that same sharp sword.
I’m no warrior. I’ve never been in a fight. I wrench the sword out of his hands. His weapon goes flying.
“So, you don’t want this to be quick? Fine by me, little murderer.” He whips out a dagger. I raise my hand to bend the metal to my will and fling it away as well, but nothing happens.
He laughs when I frown. “Obsidian.”
Before I can pull a golden weapon into being, he lurches forward. All my focus is pulled toward that knife. I need to dodge. Watch for when he moves that weapon even an inch and I’ll—
With his free hand, he backhands me so hard I spin and fall across Nity’s back. It’s like landing on sharp rocks and I cry out from gold denting my armor, stabbing into my sides and legs.
Before I can even get up the poacher is on top of me.
“So powerful, and yet still so weak. Just like James.” He looks down at me, a predator messing with his prey.
“I should tell you. I lied earlier. That little wedding at your neighbors’?
Some of my friends are already there. We had a lot of ground to cover, a lot of places to look for the golden dragon.
What good fortune we spotted James and you descending the cliffs, huh? ”
My head empties as my heart seizes. So, it was my fault. My fault for checking on them.
The scaler laughs. “I see you understand. I’ll be blunt. To ensure everyone’s safety you need to turn this dragon around.” He tsk-tsks. “Because if we aren’t back by a certain time? My men have been instructed to use force.”
My dad. My mom. Shelly and Jeffrey. Who did they go after?
He shakes his head. “Needless violence. All needless, because in the end, I’m going to get what I came for. This dragon is mine.”
“No,” I say through clenched teeth.
“No? Well then.” He thrusts the obsidian dagger into my bicep, right where my arm lays bare.
A scream erupts from me. I can’t understand how I was able to produce the sound when I feel like my throat is closing up in panic and pain.
Something clinks. And I realize it’s the dagger having gone completely through my arm and hitting Nity’s golden scales on the other side.
“You had the power to make this easy, little bird. With you we could have properly taken this Rimback’s gold with minimal pain. Now she’ll be stripped one scale at a time until there is nothing left. I’m going to enjoy it, too. Enjoy her screams like I’m enjoying yours.”
I gasp like a fish out of water. Fight back! But I can’t focus enough to even sense metal. The throbbing pain overwhelms. It’s already so dark and yet black spots dance in front of my vision.
“Now be a good girl. Turn this beast around. Maybe I’ll let you save whoever my men hurt at the party trying to find you.”
“Nity,” I wheeze, but I don’t exactly know what I’m asking from her, how she can help. She’s exhausted too. I don’t know how to get out of this.
“Is that her name? Nity?” he scoffs. “You think she’s your friend? She doesn’t care whether you live or die.”
Suddenly, Nity jerks sideways, and it surprises him enough to roll off of me. I suck in my first full breath in minutes. She … listened to me. Saved me.
I climb clumsily to my knees, hand pressed to my knife wound gushing blood. I don’t dare pull it out though. “You want gold so badly?” I craft gold off my forearm and throw the rich yellow metal at him. “Take it.”
The gold connects to the scaler’s chest. The blow doesn’t kill him, but the hit knocks him to Nity’s left side, teetering on the edge.
“No,” he shouts. Hands scramble to detach the golden mound of metal on his torso. He thinks I mean to craft against him, that I mean to stab him like he stabbed me.
“Nity will never be yours. How can she, when she listens to me?” I crouch, holding on to Nity’s spikes as I yell out one clear instruction. “Nity, turn.”
She tips to the side and he stumbles. The gold on his chest acts like a weighted stone. The poacher is a pinwheel of arms one moment, gone the next. He screams as he falls and then … nothing. Soundless except Nity’s beating wings and heavy breathing.
The sky lays calm. And I relax, sagging against Nity’s scales, from the wretched pain throbbing in my arm. I’ve done it. I stopped their leader, knocked that poacher right off Nity. I saved her! I breathe again, a deep gulping relief of air. I—
Nity lurches.
I’m jerked with such a staggering force I pitch sideways and right off Nity’s back. My hands clamber for a handhold, but swipe at empty air. For a moment all I know is I’m falling. Then I twist, and I see her. Nity tumbles in the other direction, feet away.
“Nity,” I shout as loud as I can. Because she still could grab me out of the sky. We’re not finished yet. I made a mistake and missed an attacking poacher, but she can still save me. She can rebound from inferior metal hitting her like she has this whole fight.
But Nity doesn’t flap her wings. She’s limp and unresponsive.
Her power, the tremendous energy of her golden metal flickers like a light.
When her body turns, shining yellow in the darkness, I finally notice the spear sunken into her chest. A river of blood courses down her golden scales.
I can’t breathe as wind whips and roars around me.
Reality slams down and though I refuse to think it, I still know why Nity isn’t commanding the air and disregarding gravity.
I know why I can’t feel her. That lance hit one of her unprotected, unscaled spots.
She continues to fall because she’s dead. The last golden dragon is dead.
Time slows, and so do I. It must be a trick of my mind, but I’m weightless.
For excruciating seconds, I don’t notice the wind or the cold or the darkness anymore.
I’m a torrent of screams. And not because I’m plummeting to my death.
I scream for Nity, reach for her. All useless because we’re both falling.
Somehow she reaches the ocean before me.
A giant splash erupts like a thunderclap.
Then nothing. Because she’s already gone.
She’s not resurfacing, and neither will I.
The grief and agony come just like the freezing water—all at once.