Chapter 12
HAILEY
A couple of days later, on the other side of the portal, Ransom was waiting. “Hailey. Jax,” Ransom said. His tone was calm, but his eyes were edged with something that might have been fatigue or desperation.
“Any updates?” I asked.
Ransom didn’t waste time. “Vaelog’s human form is still in the secure facility in Milan. Dominic says he’s irredeemable. Won’t speak, won’t even acknowledge people. He’s a weapon without a handler.”
“Meanwhile, his dragon spirit is on a killing spree here.” I twisted my lips.
Ransom clenched his jaw. “If you can kill the dragon, kill it permanently, the human might just go catatonic. Or he might die, but at least the threat would be neutralized.”
Jax’s face darkened. “What about the other option?”
Ransom hesitated. “If we kill the human side first, the dragon might die, but then again he might just get stronger. You said when the humans die here, the dragons go there. I don’t have a good feeling that killing the human Vaelog would do any good. The risk is too high.”
I folded my arms. “Agreed. So, it’s on us.”
“It’s always been on us,” Jax muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
Ransom straightened. “We’re monitoring his human half on this end. I wish we could go through and help you hunt his dragon down.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but the portal shimmered, the image distorting. I reached out and put my hand against the surface. Ransom did the same.
“We’ll see you soon,” I said.
Jax was already shifting, his mind-voice a quiet rumble. “Are you okay?”
I shifted back, scales rippling, the wind already teasing my wings. “I’m good. Just getting a little homesick.”
He pressed his side into mine and I leaned my head so it touched his. His love pulsed through our bond, giving me the boost I needed. “Let’s go back to the castle and end this so we can go home.”
We were halfway back to the castle when the horns sounded, a rolling, thunderous call that ricocheted from peak to peak. The alarm. Jax and I locked eyes, no words needed. We banked as one, plummeting toward the valley, ready to face whatever this world had for us.
The castle came into view. Jax and I punched through the last band of cloud in a dead heat, wings aching from the effort, nerves already humming with anticipation.
We hit the courtyard as one, claws tearing furrows in the glassy basalt.
The moment we landed, Corvus was on us, his wings snapping open in an arc that commanded every eye in the courtyard.
Solenne stood to Corvus’s left, every inch the regent. Her fire-opal scales caught the light and threw it back in a fan of color, making her look half-celestial and half-military dictator. Next to her, Adalinda was coiled with tension only seen in animals seconds before they killed something.
“Vaelog has been sighted,” Solenne said, her mind-voice clear and resonant. “Eastern valley, near the ridge with the cloud-forest.”
She sent the image of the map into our thoughts. A craggy, wind-blasted cut between two floating islands, notorious for its unpredictable wind currents.
“We go now,” said Corvus. “Full sweep. All wings.”
He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he snapped his tail, and the assembled warriors, maybe twenty in all, sprang to life.
I recognized many of the faces from the last two days of court drama.
The Garnet delegate, now stripped of his jewelry but carrying himself with the same stiff pride.
The topaz matriarch, eyes narrowed and dangerous.
Even the ancient who’d complained about sulfur levels, now baring fangs in anticipation, ready to fight as one.
Jax shifted at my side. Flint was there, too, scurrying up the ramp from the lower nests. “I want to go,” he sent, the words pitched to me but loud enough for every dragon in the valley to hear.
Corvus bristled. “You will stay with the hatchlings. This fight isn't for you.”
Flint’s disappointment was a physical thing, a spike of loss that made me want to scoop him up and run. Instead, I said, “Keep the other kids safe. If this goes bad, you’re the last line of defense. Can you do that?”
He straightened. “Yes, Mama.” He wanted to say more, but he swallowed it, chest swelling with the dignity of the deeply aggrieved.
The formation moved, and we moved with it.
We launched as a single, violent cloud of color and scale, fanning out over the valley in a pattern I’d only ever seen in the flight plans of military jets.
Solenne and Corvus took the high left, Adalinda and two guards cut low and right, Jax and I sliced the centerline.
We gained altitude, the wind scalding across my scales, every muscle tuned to the hunt. I kept my body close to Jax’s, drafting him on the thermals, but after a half-mile I let myself slide up and over, catching the ridge view and looking down over the sweep.
It was magnificent, terrifying, even, to see so many dragons in the sky, all pointed at a single goal.
Below, the valley looked abandoned, the forests rippling in the wind, but no sign of movement that wasn’t ours.
Jax arced toward a high bluff, a move so clean it made my flight seem clumsy.
I followed, the two of us in perfect tandem now, wings nearly touching.
The sky ahead darkened, the clouds turning a sickly shade of yellow as we approached the ridge.
The wind here was unpredictable, slamming at us from odd angles, but the formation held.
Corvus’s training paid off. Even the least experienced dragons kept their places, none breaking ranks even when the gusts tried to throw them.
Jax banked hard, and I mimicked his movements, sticking close.
Below, Solenne’s squad skimmed the treetops, their scales barely visible against the shifting light.
I felt, rather than saw, Adalinda pacing us, her focus pure and absolute.
We split the search pattern, running north-south, the others combing east-west. The valley looked empty, but every instinct I had screamed that we were being watched.
We slowed, hovering, and I scanned the horizon. Nothing at first. Then, just for a second, I caught a flicker of movement in the clouds above. Something big, and not just big, but wrong, moving with the silence of a predator who had waited its whole life for this.
I pointed with my snout. “There.”
I opened the dragon-psychic channel to Corvus and broadcast the location. At once, the formation shifted, every dragon in the valley banking toward our point.
Vaelog dropped through the cloudbank with a roar. “You don't belong here, and I will remind you why.”
The sky turned black with the shadow of his wings. He hit the formation dead center, claws out, teeth bared, a living missile of hatred.
Jax barely had time to react. He banked hard, and I flew into Vaelog’s side, knocking him off balance. Jax and I flew in opposite directions to regroup.
Behind us, Corvus’s squad broke apart, some diving, others rolling up and away. For an instant, I lost sight of everything but the blur of Vaelog’s pitch black hide as it knifed past.
Jax rolled left, tucking wings, and Vaelog missed him by less than a meter.
His claws sliced the air. I short forward to try to distract Vaelog, and Adalinda dove from above like a golden comet chasing a black hole.
She aimed for Vaelog’s spine, but he twisted, absorbing her impact like a stone wall absorbs a rainstorm.
Adalinda’s claws scraped off his armored hide with a shriek.
He bucked, throwing her off, and for a moment, all three of us tumbled together in a death spiral.
I felt the heat of his breath, the static charge of his wings, and then we broke free, the ground far too close for comfort.
Jax didn’t speak, just dove, claws forward, aiming to slash across Vaelog’s exposed underbelly.
Vaelog saw it coming, rolled, and caught Jax by the wing with a snap so loud I thought it had to be broken.
Pain lanced through our link, so sharp and sudden I nearly blacked out, which caused me to drop from flight.
I recovered just before hitting the ground.
Jax screamed, but instead of retreating, he barrel-rolled into Vaelog, jaws snapping for his throat.
Still feeling the effects of Jax’s injuries, I stayed on the ground a moment too long. Vaelog saw me, and his eyes widened, not in fear, but in something that looked like recognition. For a moment, he hesitated. Then he twisted, flinging Jax towars me. I shot up into the air. Break time was over.
Vaelog came for us again, this time slower, more deliberate. The rest of the formation was circling, regrouping, but no one else dared get close. This was personal.
He hovered, wings beating in slow, monstrous rhythm. “You do not belong.”
Vaelog launched at us. We matched his speed, climbed into the sky, but the crazy dragon was gaining on us. I braced for impact. And then, out of nowhere, Luci appeared. He was just… there, floating ten meters above the kill zone, arms crossed.
He looked down at the three of us, cocked an eyebrow, and in a voice that carried through the sky as clear as a trumpet. Then he turned to Vaelog and said, “Here, hold this.”
A wheel of cheese materialized in his hands.
It couldn’t truly be called a wheel. It was wheel-shaped, yeah, but it was the size of a large kitchen table.
He handed it to Vaelog, who, in his confusion, actually took it.
The entire fight paused. Vaelog stared at the cheese, claws digging into the rind.
He looked at Luci. He looked at us. For a full three seconds, no one moved, no one breathed.
Then Luci winked, snapped his fingers, and the cheese exploded in a cloud of sticky, yellow mist. Vaelog yelped, dropped the remnants, and for the first time, looked less like powerful villain and more like a child at a birthday party gone wrong.
He shook himself, glared at Luci, and in a gesture that was as close to petulant as I’d ever seen in a dragon, turned and bolted, diving through the clouds at a speed that made even Corvus’s jaw drop.
The sky went silent. The only sound was the drip of melted cheese falling toward the valley.
Luci dusted his hands, smiled down at us, and with the theatricality of a stage magician, bowed.
Then he lowered himself to the ground, walked over to a plant with a pink flower, picked it, put it into his suit jacket pocket, and vanished.
Jax and I hovered, stunned. Adalinda, recovering from her shock, banked toward us. She looked at the cheese residue, then at me, and if dragons could blush, she would have.
The rest of the formation slowly regrouped, each dragon eyeing the cheese mist warily, more than one of them sniggering.
No one spoke. No one needed to. We had survived.
Barely. But as the wind cleared the last of the cheese from the air, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Luci had just bought us time, not a victory.
Vaelog would be back. But so would we. And next time, we’d be ready.