29. Chapter 29 #3
“Because I have her in my fortress in Skaldrathia.”
“Come again?”
“I have her,” he goads, leaning in so close, I can feel his breath spill over my neck, “in my Skaldrathian fortress. Well technically, in the Sanctum, to be precise.”
I close my eyes in agony. “And how did you manage that?”
Sylas doesn’t flinch. “Use your imagination.”
“This is our stop, boss,” Axel declares from up ahead as he gingerly sets Lily down on a nearby rock.
“Our stop?” I ask.
Sylas points up to the gaping hole in the cavern ceiling.
“I don’t understand…” I drift off as a cracking noise reverberates loudly up ahead.
Axel’s flesh transforms into armored scales, glinting in radiant beams of titanium and midnight grays.
His teeth elongate into fangs. His shoulder blades erupt with wings, which span at least a hundred feet wide and flap with monstrous intensity, creating a windstorm of debris that makes me cough.
I hold a hand up to shield my eyes, watching as his transition from man to dragon becomes complete.
He proceeds to scoop Lily’s limp body into his talons and soars skyward toward the opening in the ceiling, which is the perfect size for a dragon…
almost as if it was carved out by a dragon in the first place.
Wait. They tore through the cave’s ceiling to find us?
“Just wait until you see Bronk.” Sylas chuckles to himself. “His scales are a tantalizing hue of reddish orange. Your friend is going to love him.”
As if on cue, Maxine comes running down the cliffside, screaming for Bronk to get the fuck away from her.
Bronk—or rather, the fiery beast that is now a gargantuan reddish orange dragon—soars high into the air and lands on the edge of the cliff, exhaling a plume of smoky tendrils filled with impatience and sending rocks spilling everywhere.
“You’re supposed to climb onto his back and ride him,” Sylas says, shaking his head in exasperation. “Both of you.” He motions toward Bella, whose eyes are laden in disbelief.
“I fear this ride might be a bit too big, don’t you think?!” Maxine screeches, nearly barreling right into me. Panting, she positions herself somewhere behind me, like I’m a human shield. “What the ever-loving fuck! Who was going to tell me they were dragons!”
Bella and I exchange a look.
Sylas runs a hand over his face. “If you won’t ride on him willingly, then I suppose Bronk will have to leave you here for the queen to find.
I’m sure that she’ll be positively smitten to see you.
In fact, don’t let us get in your way.” He cups his hands around his mouth and directs his next words at Bronk.
“You heard the lady, Bronk! She wants us to leave her here to be cremated by the mad queen!”
“Your boyfriend thinks he’s cute, doesn’t he?” Maxine grumbles hotly into my ear.
I open my mouth to inform her that Sylas is not my boyfriend, but Bronk decides on this opportune moment to drop his entire supermassive body onto the cliff’s edge, causing more pieces of loose rock to tumble all around us with harrowing thuds.
He snorts loudly, as if telling Maxine to hop on, his breath sending plumes of smoke swirling everywhere.
“Time is ticking!” Sylas calls out to Maxine through the smog.
Maxine curses Sylas’s mother, steps around me, and stalks toward Bronk at the top of the cliff. Hesitantly, she clutches onto his leathery scales and climbs onto his back. Then she reaches down to help Bella climb up his side next.
Once both girls are settled and ready, Bronk lifts himself high into the air, keeping his back straight and his wingbeats steady.
Maxine screams so loudly that pieces of the wall break loose and rain over the sarcophagi, some of which tumble down into the craters below, where they’re swallowed up by an abysmal darkness.
Finally, Bronk disappears through the hole in the ceiling after Axel and Lily, leaving me alone with him.
“Our turn,” Sylas says with a delighted smirk.
I tuck my hands under my armpits and glower at him. “Perhaps Augustine was right. You deserve to be castrated.”
Sylas’s lips fall open, and he sputters, “I think I was the one who threatened to castrate him.”
“My point still stands.” I snort.
“Look, I need you to trust me," he says, his smirk dissolving. “I know that you love him, but right now, I need you to let that go. This is important.”
I purse my lips together, yet somehow manage to exhale loudly. “I don’t love him.”
“Sure you don’t.” He gives me a pointed look as if he doesn’t quite believe me, and then he strolls up the cliffside to put distance between us.
“I don’t love him!” I shout, watching as his silhouette grows smaller.
“Keep telling yourself that!” he shouts back.
His shadow explodes in size a few seconds later as he transforms into the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, with snow-brushed scales, veiny wings, and frost-laden horns that embalm my heart in ice.
I count three silver spikes seated on his head, two poised on his ears, and one on his snout, each of which resembles the pointed spire of a winterglass fortress.
He lowers his body onto the cliff’s rocky edge just as Bronk had, then tilts his head in my direction, as if beckoning for me to climb onto his back.
I stare at his giant blue eyes for a second longer than I’d like to admit, my heart free-falling in my chest. No words are exchanged between us in that moment, but it feels like an entire conversation rings out amidst the cave’s deafening silence, lasting for an eternity.
I know you love him.
But I need you to trust me.
I prepare for the incline by first shaking out my hands, then biting back a wince as my shoulder blade zings.
I slowly approach him, dragging my leg with every step, which is now experiencing a level of pain I would’ve thought unfathomable prior to this.
Although, I suppose it could be worse. Like what if I tumble off his back when we’re soaring through the clouds?
What if he drops me into the mouth of a sea wyrm on purpose?
What if…
What if…
What if…
My thoughts continue on relentlessly as I grab onto a thick piece of his hardened scale, which feels like slick armor beneath my fingertips as I climb onto his back.
Or at least, I try to climb onto his back.
That is, until pain explodes in my leg, white-hot blinding pain that I can no longer ignore, causing me to lose my footing and slip.
I see my death in that instant. It’s at the bottom of this murky cave where the bats will surely pick on my flesh for the rest of eternity.
Mortification courses through me at the realization that Sylas’s face will be the last thing I see, and I will become nothing but a haunting memory.
Just like Solara.
Mid-fall, a silver wing scoops me up like a blanket catching a broken dove.
With that wing, Sylas gently nudges me up the side of his back, where I finally remember that my lungs require oxygen.
“Thank you,” I gasp out, making myself comfortable.
In return, he puffs out a gust of vaporous steam, and then proceeds to sail skyward, taking my heart along with.