Chapter 22
TAMSYN
I FELT ACHINGLY ALONE PERCHED HIGH ON THE RIDGE, THE wind buffeting me on all sides.
I stared down at the dragons who had taken Fell. I remembered that first time I’d seen them, or some of them, on my flight with Fell from the Borg into the Crags—my terror as they’d materialized beside me.
The way they had attacked us, crashing into us with such brutality, trying to bring us down without knowing anything about us. It was enough to make me want to turn around and forget about this rescue attempt, to get away from them.
The truce could not protect me from them.
Vetr had established that truce for himself and the pride.
Out here, I was not one of the pride. Out here, I was on my own.
These others could take me, claim me as they had Brenna’s sister, possess me as they did this poor creature gnawing on a bone like a starving animal.
And yet I could not move from my perch.
The night howled around me. Discarding my gloves, I continued to blow heat into my cupped palms, careful that none of the red glow from my breath escaped outside the shelter of my hands.
I reminded myself that I had been alone before—lost in the skog, just after I turned, after I’d incinerated Arkin into a smoldering pile of ash. A frightening time. I had thought it the loneliest of my life, but now there was this. A different kind of lonely.
Desolation threatened to swallow me as I waited in the dark, not knowing my next move, not knowing how I could possibly break this witch away from her captors. I watched and waited for some sign, some idea to come to me as they settled in for the night, their movements below quieting.
I dozed atop the ridge, on a hard outcropping of rock, exposed to the snow and razor-sharp wind.
I was half asleep when the sign appeared, jerking me to full waking alertness.
Just when I thought the skelm was done for the night, one of them lumbered to his feet again.
The mountain from earlier strode to where the witch hunched low to the ground.
He yanked her to her feet by the elbow and began walking them a distance, deeper into trees. Her feet worked double time to keep up.
I tensed and sat up a little higher, noting they were moving off to where the others had gone at various times, presumably to relieve themselves away from where they camped.
This was my chance. Perhaps the only one I would get.
Turning, I snatched my knapsack and slung it on, scrambling down the sloped backside of the ridge in a flurry of sliding steps. Fortunately, the night wind was blustery and eating up the less-than-stealthy sound of my descent.
I slowed when I reached the bottom and made my way carefully in the darkness, hardly breathing, my heart a bolting horse in my chest. I was abreast of the camp now, a few dozen yards separating us.
The outlines of their sleeping bodies struck terror in my bones, and I wanted to put as much distance between me and them as possible.
I bit into my dry lip until I tasted blood, creeping like a shadow, wishing for invisibility, wishing I was a visiocrypter so I could make myself vanish altogether in this moment.
I dove into the cluster of trees, moving deeper into the brush until I could hear the huge onyx and the witch stirring about, leaves rustling, feet stamping on the snow-packed ground.
“Hurry up, would you,” he snapped amid a bounty of other curses. “Wasting precious sleep on you. Should have told me you needed to piss earlier.”
With a furtive glance over my shoulder, I reassured myself I’d left the camp well behind.
I could handle the mountain. He was only one.
I could catch him unaware. Fear tripped through me at the prospect, but mostly because I didn’t know yet what I was going to do in the moment. Would I actually kill him? Could I?
I did not know what my dragon would do tonight—would it be like with Arkin? Instinct taking over? Whatever the case, I was going to trust it—myself—to know what to do.
I spotted the mountain first. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously, his massive back to me, long black hair trailing amid the pelt of his cloak.
He didn’t bother giving the witch any privacy.
She was squatting a few feet away, going about her business.
He kept up his grumbles and curses. He wasn’t listening to the soft crunch of my nearing steps.
But then I was not listening either.
Not as I should have been—too confident that I had put enough distance between me and the others.
Of course, it should have occurred to me that they had posted a lookout, someone stationed beyond the camp, outside my periphery when I was up on that ridge.
I’d given myself away when I came down. Or …
perhaps one of those sleeping figures in the camp had not actually been asleep.
Either way, I’d been seen, and I realized my mistake too late.
Suddenly, frenzied footsteps rushed behind me. My heart lodged in my throat. I didn’t even manage a full turn to face the threat before I was knocked off my feet and sent flying, crashing into the hard-packed snow.
The moment echoed all those times I was laid low in the arena, except the force of this was stronger, more brutal than any practice spar I’d endured. I landed on my side, the impact radiating through my shoulder, rattling my teeth, sending my still-mending rib screaming.
“A little wren decided to pay us a visit.”
“This is no wren.”
I looked up at what had felled me. A pair of onyx dragons loomed over me, swapping smug looks before pinning me with their ruthless, prismatic black eyes.
“Is that …”
“A fire-breather,” the other finished, his big hand coming toward me.
My damnable hair. Gave me away every time—at least to those who knew what they were seeing. Of course, it was not the only thing. My skin flushed with heat, pulling and tingling, snapping and buzzing in a way that warned me that my dragon was coming.
A quick glance down at the back of my hand confirmed it. My skin flashed and blurred, shimmering faintly like amber trapped in sunlight even in the night. I saw it, and they saw it, too. They knew.
“Where did she come from?” the mountain demanded, looking disgruntled that I had crept up on him and been so close to getting the best of him.
“Doesn’t matter. She’s here and ours now.”
Ours.
As though I was only an object to be owned. The words spiked a fury in me. A surge of self-preservation. No. I would not be anyone’s property.
Right now, it was just the two of them. Any moment, the rest of their group would be alerted. I had to act.
I opened my mouth, ready to expel a torrent of fire, but they anticipated that. Acted fast. Faster than me. A hand landed on my ankle, dragging me and flipping me over.
My face was pushed down into the dirt so that I couldn’t release my fire anywhere—on anyone—that mattered, anywhere that might help me.
Snow filled my mouth. I writhed, choking, trying to buck free. A large boot pressed down on my back, digging into my spine with a grinding crack, pinning me in place. My still-healing rib cried out, throbbing in pain.
They laughed.
The mountain directed, “Go wake the others. Show them what we caught.”
At this command, the other onyx started off. I twisted my head to look up, to watch his gloating face as he backed away.
And then I couldn’t see anything.
The ground surged, lifting in a great rolling swell beneath us—as though an immense beast had come awake to shake the earth’s skin from its back and toss the dragon off it.
The earth sprayed everywhere in a great tidal wave, blinding me to everything around me. I blinked rapidly against the deluge, fighting to regain my vision. Through the clearing monsoon of dirt and snow, I watch as the ground grabbed hold of the onyx dragon who had been leaving.
More than that. The land opened, cracking wide, pulling him down, sucking him under, covering him quickly, smothering him so completely that he did not even have a chance to cry out before his mouth was filled with muddy snow.
The pressure in my back eased. Freed, I rolled over, scanning wildly, trying to compute what was happening.
The dragon was no more. Gone. Buried deep beneath the ground.
Now just the one remained, the original mountain, standing on earth that had fallen suddenly still, the snow and dirt settled into place, the ground beneath us no longer shifting and bending.
But how?
Then I spotted her. Kerstin.
A relieved breath rushed out of me. She’d come back. She had not abandoned me, after all.
She looked ready to topple over, wobbling where she stood, legs braced apart, hands held aloft in the air. With a staggering, clumsy step, her trembling arms dropped to her sides like too-heavy weights.
“Kerstin!” I gasped.
The onyx reacted, lunging toward her, clearly reaching the conclusion I had.
She was the one who had done this—who had pulled his comrade beneath the ground.
I watched it all in horrible slow motion.
He went for Kerstin.
Kerstin, weak from using her talent in a rare display of strength, struggled to lift her hands up to defend herself, but she couldn’t do it.
I could see that at once. It wasn’t happening.
He was almost to her, his arms outstretched, talons breaking free from the tips of his fingers, ready to tear into her and rip her apart.
I squeezed my eyes in a tight, quick blink. When I reopened them, the world was different. My vision changed, sharper. Everything was in full blinding color and clarity—even in the middle of night.
All of this I absorbed in an instant as the fire left me, blasting through the air, devouring him in a roaring inferno.
I felt the snap and pull of my bones, the crackling burn of my fevered skin as river upon river of flame escaped me.
My dragon pushed against my clothes, eager to fully emerge, but I resisted.
I’d gotten better at this. Better at controlling and managing myself.
I could now retrieve parts of my dragon while not fully turning until—unless—I wanted to.
The mountain collapsed at Kerstin’s feet, never reaching her, as the fire devoured him. He was just a body now, blackened flesh beneath rolling flames, melting the snow away and charring the ground around him.
I swallowed the fire back down, tucking it away inside myself.
I moved to stand beside Kerstin, gazing down at the smoldering pile of flesh and bones on the ground.
It was a moment I’d lived before. Perhaps not as shocking, but no less terrible.
I didn’t want to kill anyone—especially not a fellow dragon.
I didn’t want to be a creature that extinguished life with such ease. I didn’t want this to be my normal.
Kerstin was still panting heavily, exhausted from her efforts. I’d never seen her do anything like what she just did. When we trained, she was barely able to stir up dirt in the arena, much less do that.
“You were incredible,” I murmured.
“Yeah. You too.” She blew out a shuddery breath and leaned against me as though she needed the support. “I didn’t know I had it in me. Too bad no one from the pride was here to see that.”
“I suppose you never know what you can do until you have to do it,” I said numbly, thinking of how I had been able—at last—to control my blood when Stig whipped me.
“Hate to break this happy little pat-yourselves-on-the-back moment, but we should get out of here.”
Our heads swiveled to the girl … woman … witch.
She stood, watching us back with an air of impatience.
I’d forgotten she was nearby. That the mountain had brought her out here to relieve herself.
Those wise eyes with their bruised shadows peered out at us solemnly from deep inside her hood.
We were still in danger, the skelm’s camp only yards away. “We should go,” I agreed.
The witch nodded. “There’s an earth dragon asleep in their midst that wouldn’t be nearly as easy to subdue as these two. He could bring down an entire mountain if he wished. I’ve seen it.”
“We would not like to face him.” I glanced at Kerstin for confirmation.
“Definitely not.” She nodded doggedly while fixing a suspicious gaze on the witch.
Together, we fled, knowing our time to escape was precious. It would not take them long to realize they’d been attacked in the night—their witch stolen right out from under them. Hopefully it wouldn’t happen until the morning. That only gave us a few hours. We needed to be far away by then.