Chapter 29
Isla
I throw more at her as the sky goes dark.
I glance up and note that the darkness is made up of wings and scales. Then there’s a blast of fire, and I duck. The flame erupts from one of the beast’s great jaws.
It looks like all the dragons have assembled above us. They fly at the queen, fire pours from their open jaws in great torrents, converging on Snow from every direction. The streams of flame twist and braid together, all directed at her. The heat reaches me even from this distance.
Snow throws her arms up. A dome of ice forms above her, absorbing the fire, but the sheer volume of flame is staggering. The ice melts as fast as she can form it. Water runs in rivers down its surface, evaporating before it reaches the ground.
Steam rises in thick columns where the fire meets snow, ice, and damp earth.
Snow staggers back, her hands thrown wide in front of her, palms out. The dome thins, and for one wild moment, I think the dragons might actually overwhelm her.
I don’t get to see what happens next because two icefae guards rush at me from the left. I spin, pulling the last of my fire to my hands. It’s thin now. My well is scraped almost clean.
The first guard swings his sword, and I duck under it, throwing fire into his face.
He screams and drops his weapon, clawing at his eyes.
The second thrusts a spear at my midsection, and I twist sideways, barely avoiding the sharpened ice tip.
I lash out with shadow, a weak tendril of it, but it catches his ankle, and he stumbles.
I use the opening to put distance between us.
More take their place. Several of them fan out to surround me. Their swords are drawn, their pale armor spattered with mud and blood. One of them is shouting orders to the others, but I can’t make out the words over the roar of dragon fire above.
I back away, turning in a slow circle, trying to keep them all in sight. My magic is almost gone. I have to use it sparingly, which means that I am not going to survive this.
Several of the guards scream in terror, their eyes lifting to a deep, guttural clicking directly above us.
I don’t have time to look.
Scaly talons close around my body in a grip that pins my arms to my sides and lifts me off my feet as though I weigh nothing at all. My stomach lurches as the ground falls away beneath me. Mud, bodies, and the churned wasteland of the battlefield all shrink as I’m carried upward.
I scream, but the wind tears the sound away before it leaves my mouth.
“Sebastian!” I cry with my next breath, catching a glimpse of him lying on his side in the mud. He hasn’t moved an inch.
I begin fighting against the talons, twisting and kicking. The dragon’s grip doesn’t loosen by even a fraction. “Let me go!”
The dragon doesn’t respond. It banks hard to the right, and my body swings with the motion.
I look back, craning my neck as far as the talons will allow. I try to catch a glimpse of my mother, but all I see is a mass of riders. I think I catch a hint of red somewhere in the middle, but I can’t be sure because by now, I’m too far away.
Movement catches my eye. It’s the shifterfae, who are all falling back. Great streams of them are fleeing in organized groups.
I lift my head, and a strange sound escapes when I see an enormous black dragon with gold steaks at its horns and ridges.
It cuts through the murk like a blade, and it is nothing like the others.
Where the shifterfae dragons are pure black, green, or copper, this is not.
It’s bigger too. Its wingspan dwarfs the largest of the shifterfae beasts.
The other stark contrast is that there is a rider on its back.
The figure is small against the dragon’s enormous body, cloaked and hooded. I can’t make out any features from this distance, only the shape of them, hunched low against the dragon’s neck.
The dragon beneath me clicks and growls. Others make the same noises. Then they screech so loudly I wish I could close my ears with my hands, but they are still pinned down by its talons.
The strange dragon screeches, too. The sound is different from the shifterfae dragons. It hovers, its great wings beating slowly, before turning and flying like the wind itself, going in the opposite direction from us. Within moments, it vanishes.
My mind races. Was that Snow’s dragon? It might have been.
The dragon carrying me picks up speed. The wind is brutal now; it feels like it cuts right through me, it’s so cold. My breath comes in hard pants that mist up around me. Below, the deadlands roll past in a blur of mud and dead wood.
We keep flying south. If I look back and squint, I can just make out the other shifterfae on the ground because their formation is so big. They are moving with a swiftness that doesn’t seem possible.
Why did they take me with them?
What do they want?
Gradually, the landscape below begins to change.
The rot is still there, but it’s not as bad.
More and more trees carry leaves; they’re thin and pale but green.
Moss covers the rocks and the lower trunks, and it’s the soft green kind rather than the slimy gray mold of the deeper deadlands.
The ground is drier here. Patches of grass push up through the earth, scrubby and stubborn, that slowly turn into actual grassy sections.
The trees get bigger and greener. There is actual sunlight breaking through the clouds in thin, golden shafts.
The dragon descends slowly. Others around us are doing the same.
The ground rushes up, and I brace myself, squeezing my eyes shut. The landing is surprisingly gentle. The talons open, and I tumble out, hitting packed earth and rolling once before coming to a stop on my back.
I lie there, winded, staring up at the partially blue sky. The dragon shifts, and bones crack and reform. It doesn’t take long before a naked man stands before me. He cares nothing about his state of undress. Other dragons land and shift around us, men and women alike.
I turn to the male who carried me here; his skin is bronzed. He is tall and muscled with shaggy black hair and pointed ears.
“Get up, female,” he barks at me in a guttural voice that sounds more animal than human.
I push myself into a sitting position, and then slowly stand.
Before me is a low mountain with many entrances to what can only be caves.
They are carved into a ridge of red-brown rock that rises from the hillside.
The entrances are wide and tall, some of them twenty feet high or more, and they’re not natural formations.
I can see the marks of tools in the stone, the deliberate curves and angles of shaped rock.
Vines trail over the mouths of some, and the moss that covers the surrounding trees also creeps across the rock face.
There are shifterfae everywhere, moving in and out of the cave mouths, including the shifterfae dragons that just landed.
Most are in their fae forms, which means they’re either completely naked or wearing next to nothing.
An animal hide is draped over a shoulder, or a strip of leather is wrapped around hips.
Their bodies are lean and hard, all corded muscle and long limbs.
Some of them have markings on their skin, dark lines that could be tattoos or something painted on.
They adorn both the males and the females alike.
A few turn to look at me as I stand there in the dirt. Their eyes are various shades of amber, brown, or green.
They look at me like I am some sort of strange creature, which I guess I am.
Two fae females walk toward me. They are both tall and broad-shouldered, their hair hanging loose and tangled. One of them jerks her chin toward a cave entrance. “Inside.”
I take a step; my legs are shaking a little, which is to be expected after everything I just went through.
“Where am I?” I ask. “Why did you bring me here?” I ask the male fae who brought me here.
I get nothing. Not a flicker of acknowledgement. They walk on either side of me, herding me toward the cave.
I look back at the male fae, who is walking away.
I’m guided through the cave entrance, and the temperature shifts immediately.
It’s warmer inside, dry and still. The ceiling is high, the walls smooth.
Animal furs line the floor, and there are low platforms carved from the rock that serve as beds or seats.
Rough-hewn shelves hold clay pots and what look like dried herbs.
A fire pit sits in the center, though it isn’t lit.
Light filters in from narrow openings carved high in the walls, shafts of that thin southern sunlight cutting through the dimness.
There are no doors, just a wide opening. We walk down a sort of hallway lit by candles and lanterns.
Shifterfae are in some of the rooms we walk past, going about their business. A female is eating. Another male is sleeping. A group of females sewing a hide stops what they are doing to peer at us.
I hear strange grunting noises and the slapping of flesh. When we walk past the next room, the sound grows louder. I gasp when I see a man behind a naked fae woman. She is on all fours. It is clear what they are doing.
I look away when he looks up at me, unperturbed that they are being watched.
What a strange species.
They are almost more animal than human in some ways.
We reach a larger entrance than the others, and I walk through.
“You can sit over there,” the taller of the females tells me, pointing at a stack of furs.
The other female hands me a skin. “Drink and be quiet,” she tells me.
Then the two females take up positions at the door, guarding me.
“Where am I?” I try again. “Did you bring my friend back as well? The Shadowfae King? Is Sebastian alive?”
I might as well be talking to the rock.