Chapter 26 Skylar
Skylar doesn’t even manage one step back from the dragons before impossible cold descends over her. It is pain unlike any she’s ever known, though she cannot scream, cannot make a sound. Because her very insides are freezing, her blood solidifying.
She can see the dragon doing this to her, its scales the color of cool sky. And she knows—she has strayed from the path. She has found something they do not want her to find—and they’re going to kill her for it.
Panic is flaring within her. Her body is turning inward, desperate to protect itself. Something sparks, hot and angry. The ice within her subsides just a little. She sees the blue dragon tilt its head, considering her.
The world becomes darkness and shadow. It pushes down on her like a heavy blanket, wrapping around every one of her senses. She is cut off from everything. Trapped.
Then there is a voice inside her mind. A voice like dark smoke, curling through her.
Run.
The shadows lift, releasing her, and she doesn’t even think before she sprints. Away from the dragons, and toward the cover of the forest. There is an angry roar behind her and the ground trembles in fear.
She doesn’t know how she is moving this fast. The green around her is blurred, her legs pumping like they no longer belong to her.
It is like there is boundless energy within her, propelling her faster so that she reaches the trees within seconds.
She knows dimly that it shouldn’t be possible.
That she shouldn’t be able to outrun a dragon.
It’s like the magic of the island is imbuing her with power, like the island wants her to escape.
She’s safe in the trees. She tells herself that even as she hears wings above her. They can’t land here, can’t get to her.
But a tree crashes down in front of her and she falls, her hands only just catching her, rough bark scraping her skin. She looks up as a silver dragon rears backward, opening its jaw. Lightning strikes. She darts out the way, avoiding the bolt, which hits another tree instead.
She can’t let herself think, stop, panic. She has to get off the island. She has to not die.
She weaves as she runs, trying to make herself a harder target. Ice crashes to her left, exploding like glass. She lifts her forearm to protect her face, feels the shards slice her skin. She runs the other way. Bright light, hot enough to sear a line in the earth, flashes on her right.
They are driving her away, she realizes. And unlike when she first encountered the dragons on the island, she knows that this is not a test. They are not deciding if she’s worthy. Whatever was in that cave—she was not supposed to find it.
The trees around her are growing less dense, and she can taste the sulfur in the air, can see the harsh red earth that is the face of the island. She slows, nearing a stop. If she steps outside the cover of trees, she’s dead.
A roar, then wind whipping through the forest, tearing up the nearest tree. She rolls just in time to avoid it. Fuck. If she stays here she’s dead, too.
Panic threatens to overwhelm her as she makes herself breathe. Think, Skylar.
She takes another breath.
She can hear the beat of wings high above her, can feel her heart hammering, can see flashes of scales.
But for half a second, she makes herself let all that go.
She closes her eyes and focuses on the energy crackling within her.
She grabs hold of it, channels it into her senses.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing, exactly, but when her eyes fly open, everything comes into heightened awareness.
The colors are even more powerful, the screech of the dragons louder.
And there. There is the ocean. She can hear it. Smell it.
She runs. Out of the forest, onto red earth.
A dragon dives, and she jumps, like she jumped over Simone, so high that she’s almost flying.
Not over the dragon, but out of harm’s way, so that its jaws snap dust. She can see the cliff now.
But there is another dragon, circling above, and with it, the air is rising around her. A tornado, ready to tear her apart.
She’s not going to make it. Even at the speed she’s running, it’s going to take her too long to get to the cliff. She hears the bubble of lava, not just from the river she was supposed to follow, but from other valleys around the island.
And she has an idea.
She changes tack, running away from the cliff and toward the hiss of lava.
It bubbles at her in that strange human way—like it is telling her something.
Everything is overpowering—her senses are too alert.
And some part of her loves it. Even through everything, it feels like a drug, like she is dangerously high.
Steam hisses at her back and she ducks behind a boulder.
The skin on one leg is raw and open, where steam managed to melt flesh.
She knows it should hurt. But right now, she can’t feel it.
There is a roaring above her, an answering clash of teeth—like the dragons are talking to each other with their voices as well as their minds.
She jumps up, runs to the lava, and leaps over it, not stopping to think about how stupid, how dangerous this is. She keeps sprinting for the volcano, and the dragons follow.
She stops, turns. Three dragons—blue, gray, white—beat their way toward her. She stares at them, while shadows creep around her feet. A black dragon is somewhere near. The same one, maybe, that helped her.
There is a moment, no longer than a twitch of a muscle, where the dragons each regard her. Then they open their jaws. And Skylar moves the fastest she’s ever done, cutting through the shadows, smoky tendrils clinging to her. One second she is there, then she isn’t.
Ice, sunbeam, and lightning hit the volcano as one. It rumbles horribly as magic pulses through it.
Then it erupts. What was almost a gentle flow of lava now surges, angry and destructive.
The noise the dragons make is awful. They take flight as Skylar runs, the lava so close behind her that her back is molten sweat.
She hears a hiss as water hits lava to her right—a water dragon, trying to mitigate the damage.
The cliff is right in front of her now. Shit, she didn’t think: the lava will come over the edge, even as the dragons work together to stop it, to protect their home.
That smoky voice, again in her mind.
Jump.
So she does. She leaps, throwing herself off the cliff, lava barely inches from her ankles.
She is falling, the bright orange cliff rushing past her, wind scraping against raw skin.
The sea below is approaching too fast—she’s going to hit it, she’s going to die.
Behind her, there are snarls and snaps—the dragons, coming after her.
If the fall doesn’t kill her, they will.
Impossible pressure builds within her, her whole body screaming at her.
If there’s anything you’ve been holding back—now’s the time to let loose.
She screams, and with it, the energy bursts from her. It’s like an explosion of pure force, pulsing from her in all directions, smashing into anything it meets. An explosion of magic.
She feels the power connect with something above her—multiple beings thrown back. Dragons. Dragons thrown out of the sky, by the force of her eruption.
She hears her name, screamed in panic, just before she hits the ocean.
She’s too exhausted to swim. She survived the fall, but now water floods her mouth, and she has no energy left to pull herself up. She tries to kick, but her legs won’t move. Her lungs burn, even as her arms flail pointlessly.
Then there are hands, dragging her to the surface.
She is gasping, spluttering, as Axel pulls her through deep water into the shallows.
She is on her knees, coughing. He kneels, too, gripping her shoulders.
He is white when she looks at him. But he is here.
He stepped foot onto dragon soil, put himself in danger—to save her.
She looks up, still coughing, to see the dragons circling above. But they do not dive. She doesn’t know why, but they’re not attacking—maybe, after everything she did, someone breaking the rules about coming to aid an heir is the least of their worries.
She glances down, around where she is kneeling.
The very ground is white, all color leached from it.
The trees that grew out of the cliff edge have wilted.
There is a circle around her and Axel, she realizes, where there is no life at all.
Like it has been pulled away, the land left bare.
There is rubble around them, parts of the cliff littered on the rocks.
She did this, when she exploded. And though it feels like a relief, to have it out of her, she knows, when she meets Axel’s gaze, that there is no coming back from this. The evidence is all around them.
Axel is still holding her arms, on his knees before her. He does not look terrified. He looks awed as he scans their surroundings, taking in all the life that has been drained. Drained by her.
Then he looks right at her, and says the words she has always known would be a death sentence.
“You’re an Exhauster.”