Chapter 57
RAINIER
After making three soldiers collapse in the street, I’d had to rift away before I was spotted. Though it truly didn’t matter anymore. Irses, the enormous dragon created from one of my favorite fucking memories, had decided to forgo all subtlety and announce his presence with ear-splitting roars.
Perhaps the council had a point about chaining them. We were lucky Lux hadn’t joined him in his haste to reach Em.
It was likely that before the Supreme had even left Lamera to attack Astana, he had prepared his city for dragon attack. He’d seen what Em had done to Folterra to rescue me and planned accordingly. The moment Irses was spotted in the sky, his soldiers vanished from the streets. From my new location, perched on a chimney a few streets south, I couldn’t tell where they all went at first. Until I let my gaze move upward. On the rooftops of buildings closest to the Seat, as yet untouched by my encroaching fire, the Supreme had set up ballistae. They had abandoned putting out fires for a new task: carrying massive dragon-killing spears to the soldiers manning those dangerous machines.
After what had been done to Ryo, I couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing such a thing again. An attack upon Irses would likely bring harm to Em as well.
I had to get Irses away from Lamera.
Of course, the dragon I needed to convince had to be the most willful and protective of them all. I didn’t even know where to start.
Peering up at the night sky, I watched him in flight. Curving around one way, then turning another to cross back over his path, the dragon was predictable. The moment the archers were able to line up a shot, they’d take it. The only protection he had was how high he flew. Irses might have been out of range, but I wasn’t confident enough to abandon my task. If he were hurt, it would likely kill Em. If not physically, by weakening her while dealing with the Supreme, then mentally. If she even made it out of that battle.
My plan was stupid at best and deadly at worst. Though I sat upon a rooftop, I opened a rift high above the clouds. “Irses!” I shouted, instantly chilled to the bone from the wind. “Come here!”
Despite every muscle seizing from the cold, my hand clinging desperately to the chimney, I leaned forward into the open air. Creating a rift in the exact point in the sky was a near-pointless endeavor, but I was far closer than I expected. The dragon circled below me, only tilting his head the slightest bit. A large, emerald-green eye peered up at me, but he paid me no mind.
“Irses!” I threw all of my irritation into the boom of my voice, but nothing happened—until I used my wind divinity. Frustration with the stubborn beast below heated my blood along with the air as the draft of my wind carried the dragon higher.
“Irses, go home!” I commanded, and all he did was snarl as he turned and repeated the same path. Enormous stone-grey wings flapped against the wind’s current, and I knew I’d have to take my pestering even further. Despite the rift’s toll on my divinity, I summoned as much of Em’s divine fire into my hands as I could—and then I threw it at Irses. I lacked Em’s ability to manipulate the flame, but with my wind divinity working to assist me, the fire found my target.
Irses roared, flying up toward my open rift. When he ducked beneath it, narrowly avoiding slamming into the boundaries of the two locations, I summoned all my courage.
And jumped.
Scrambling for purchase, I gripped the ridges of his neck, holding on with everything I had.
“Home, Irses!” I ordered once more, using my divinity to fashion some sort of shadow halter around the giant beast’s head. With all my strength, I tugged, turning Irses toward the southeast. Towards home. He raged against it, growling and roaring and trying to shake me free from his back. This dragon, whose fierce devotion for the woman far below us mirrored my own, fought me with all the force I imagined a giant, obstinate beast could muster.
When the first bolt struck his wing, it tore the thin membrane, but sailed right through.
“Higher!” I shouted, but he wasn’t fast enough. Though Irses rolled, dodging the second bolt, my luck had run out. I desperately gripped the shadowed ropes of divinity I’d attached to lead him away. I attempted to create more, to use my wind to propel me back onto him, but nothing worked. As I tumbled from his back, turning head over foot as I fell, all I could see was bright flames and the darkness of the night as it claimed me.