29. Ava
AVA
Ava stumbled over the mangled remnants of the entryway to the keep, her heart in the back of her throat as she chased after Jerrid.
She had to help. She could let Dragon use her again, and maybe the three of them—together—could stand a chance against this nightmare monster.
Especially now that Prince Haryk was here.
But as she slipped over the damp moss, Ava’s stomach twisted into a knot. The air pressed against her, hot and thick and smelling of something rotten. The particles crackled as unseen forces prickled over her exposed skin.
Oh, how it stung! She flinched, a dull roar filling her ears as she skidded around the tower and came around the building to look out over a small clearing.
A massive whirlwind of black smoke spiraled up into the sky. The monster’s laughter rolled over her, and she almost swore she could feel its fingers against her skin, even though she was nowhere near the heart of the storm yet.
Dragon flung himself toward the storm, spewing fire and smoke, but the shadow flung him backward, his claws digging into the ground as he skidded away.
She couldn’t even see Prince Haryk. Was he lost somewhere in the middle of that storm?
“Dragon!” she yelled, sliding down the small embankment and dashing toward him.
His sinewy neck twisted, eyes narrowing as she approached. “Get back to the castle!”
“You need my help!” She stopped beside him, Dragon positioning his body between her and the swirling, enraged mass of magical energy and malevolence.
“No! I need you to get out of here!” Dragon roared.
He shoved his snout against her hip and pushed her hard, driving her backward. Her boots skidded over the damp moss and torn-up earth. She ground her teeth together and put both hands on his massive forehead as she shoved him back.
He snarled and shook his head, glaring at her through his slitted eyes. “Get…out…of…here!”
She dropped to her knees and caught his angular jaw in her hands. “No. You need my help. Dragon, are you listening to me? Can you shift both of us at the same time? If we fight together, with Prince Haryk’s help—”
“No.” Dragon shook his head violently, but his eyes glittered. “At least, I can’t shift you both completely…”
What did that mean?
Ava bit her lip. “But you can shift us partially? Is that what you are saying? Well, that’s better than nothing!”
His nostrils fluttered as he inhaled deeply. “Jerrid doesn’t like this plan.”
“When does he ever like our plans? But they usually work, don’t they?” She patted the top of his snout. “Ignore him and do it.”
Dragon’s eyes glittered more brightly, but then he dipped his head, shuddering as his body began to contract and change shape.
When he stopped, Jerrid stood before her in dragon-scale trousers with arm guards.
He lifted his head, his hair tangled and spilling over his shoulders. Dark circles hugged his eyes.
“Don’t do this,” he rasped in his own voice.
She reached out and laid a hand on his armored forearm, forcing a smile that didn’t go to her eyes. “Trust me.”
His tongue snaked over his lower lip, a resigned slump tugging his shoulders downward. “It’s not like you’re giving me any choice. When you and Dragon team up, I can’t stop you, and you both know it.”
Her stiff smile slipped, suddenly sheepish. “Sometimes we need help to realize what is best for us. Now I’m ready. We need to act before the shadow kills the prince!”
She closed her eyes and imagined her mind opening to let Dragon have access. He slipped between the cracks in her thoughts with little effort, his familiar presence warm inside her head.
She allowed him access to her limbs, shivering as the change took hold of her.
Her legs grew stronger, her hands bigger—and clawed.
She rolled her shoulders as scales rippled up to her shoulder blades, encasing them in dragon-scale plating.
Her skin itched and burned until the scales fell into place.
And then they felt natural. A part of her. A part that had always been there.
She curled her claws into a fist and then flexed them, testing their strength and flexibility. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart sank when she realized she didn’t have wings like Jerrid did. Apparently, Dragon hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he could only shift them partially.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I’ll be fine, Dragon whispered, but he sounded strained and far away, and when Jerrid lifted his head, the shadows beneath his eyes seemed darker, the hollows in his cheeks more pronounced.
This joint shifting would take its toll.
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” she asked.
“As long as I have to,” Jerrid said, but the words came out grating and harsh as if spoken by Dragon.
Jerrid blinked and scowled but said nothing as he backed away from Ava, his wings sweeping wide to each side. “Don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger, will you?”
She made no promises, but she tried to smile to reassure him that all would be well. But if it came down to her being in danger and allowing that creature free to attack Finnr and the women and children…
No. They had brought the creature here. She and Jerrid, Talos and Haryk. The four of them had been present the day they cast the creature out of Haryk’s mind, when they thought he had killed it. But now they knew it had merely followed them into the darkness to seek out new victims to torment.
She would never forgive herself if anyone got hurt.
They turned to face the howling storm together. From within the swirling tornado, violent flashes of blue light revealed that Prince Haryk was fighting.
But the shadow just laughed as it spiraled around the prince, paying no attention to Jerrid and Ava at all. They probably seemed like insects to it, their magic weak and insignificant.
And maybe alone that was true. But together? Together they could be strong.
“Let’s do this,” she whispered, bracing her feet on the ground to prepare for a running start.
Jerrid slid a glance in her direction before rolling his head side to side and crouching low.
Ava let Dragon take charge of her instincts as they launched forward as one, each of them a vessel for the dragon’s battle attack.
His strength surged through her body and gave power to her legs.
She bared her teeth, not recognizing the animalistic snarl that tore from her lips as she willed a feeble flicker of fire to ignite in her scaled palm.
That flicker of a flame exploded into a fireball. Shrieking, she hurled it toward the shadow without thinking, stunned by the power of her own magic. It smashed into the swirling winds, shattering into thousands of fiery-blue tendrils that wound round and round with the storm before dissipating.
Dragon laughed, long and low in the corners of her mind. You’re stronger than you realize, you know…
Narrowing her eyes, she lifted her hand again and whispered for another spark of fire. Again, a fireball ignited in her scaled palms. She tossed the ball from one hand to the other and shot a grin at Jerrid, who was eyeing her with a cocked eyebrow.
“You’ve been holding out on us!” he shouted as he left the ground and flew toward the shadow. “Give me one of those!”
She tossed it up to him, as if they were two children playing an innocent game of ball. He caught it in his claws and drew back his arm before launching the fireball at the shadow. It exploded into the wall of wind with a horrific, thundering explosion.
The shadow howled and launched a tendril toward Jerrid, but he dove toward the ground and flew around the storm. Coming back into view, he offered open palms to Ava.
Grinning, she tossed him another fireball, and another, and another. Together they continued to attack the shadow from without while Prince Haryk fought from within. The storm’s howls grew louder, angrier, its lashing attacks more erratic and powerful.
If their goal had been to make it more dangerous and cranky, then they had definitely accomplished that.
“This is fun,” Ava shouted as she tossed Jerrid more ammunition, “but are we getting anywhere?”
He flung the fireball and ducked and rolled through the air to avoid the expected retaliation that came moments later. “I don’t think so! Can you make these things any bigger?”
She inhaled a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to imagine something massive and devastating. Something that might bring down a monster. It needed to be bigger and filled with molten heat, overflowing with deadly magic.
Did she have that kind of power in her? Dragon’s energy sizzled through her veins, but even he had his limits. How far could they go before one or both of them couldn’t come back from this?
Gritting her teeth, she opened her eyes and stared down at a massive fireball, three times anything she had created so far. She nearly dropped it in surprise.
It was too heavy for her to throw, the blue tendrils of fire spiraling around her wrists and forearms as they licked greedily at her scales.
The edges of those scales were beginning to turn molten gold, as if they were heating in a forge.
She lifted her arms as high as she could to offer the magic to Jerrid.
He swooped toward her, batting away a vine of smoky shadow before scooping up the fireball.
Ava began to build the next one as Jerrid hurled it into the storm with all his energy. The explosion flung him backward, smoke and shadow and blue fire filling the night sky.
“Dragon’s teeth!” he yelped as he flapped wildly to keep himself in the air.
Prince Haryk emerged from the smoke, staggering out of the storm where he had been trapped. He was forming his own flaming inferno, his unseeing eyes a blaze of blue magic. White and gold lightning crackled around his hands as he too flung his attack toward the shadow.
The storm changed its shape, no longer a spiraling tornado, but now a mass of flailing tentacles and vines exploding from a huge, dark mass at the center. The heart of the beast was so dark, so huge, it seemed fathomless. A thing born of pure nightmares.