Chapter 11
I turn in the air, grabbing for the castle’s wall to slow my fall. My body slams down onto something hard. It’s a four-story fall to the hard rocks below.
Except I’m not on the rocks, and I didn’t fall four stories.
I was grabbed by a dragon. Each individual claw is wider around than my thigh. The dragon’s grip squeezes, pressing my neck in an uncomfortable angle and threatening to crush my ribs. Held sideways instead of upright, the wind rushes over my ears and I fight the urge to vomit.
My arms are pinned to my sides. I flex my fingers, trying to reach my sword’s hilt, hoping it hasn’t fallen from the sheath.
I’m not insane, and I know there’s no chance I can single-handedly kill this thing.
Not without a Hellion or a full suit of enchanted armor.
But I refuse to go down without a fight.
A cut on its paw won’t do more than annoy a dragon this big, but it would be something.
“Let me go!” The wind snatches my words away, but the claws holding me tighten. I draw a thin breath, feeling my body bow in as my arms are pressed in front of me. I can’t get my sword. The dragon’s grip is too tight.
As my legs kick and each lurching beat of the wings pulls me higher, I’m strangely clear-headed.
I can’t see Roiven. I can barely see anything.
Moonlight glitters on the black night ocean below, telling me we’re over the water now.
Above me there’s only pitch-black darkness: the dragon itself, blocking the cold glow of the stars.
I think I see the other dragon flying behind us for a moment, and then it’s gone, and we’re alone. At least the other exiles will survive. Well, unless the second dragon killed them all before following us, but… I squeeze my eyes shut and tell myself they’ve lived, even if I won’t survive.
Death doesn’t come.
Maybe the dragon didn’t realize we were mortal enemies. Maybe it thought I was one of Roiven’s allies. My mouth moves in a silent laugh. There isn’t enough breath in my crushed lungs for the sound to escape.
I run through plans in my head. What to do if the claws ever loosen. How to move my arms to cling to the dragon if it tries to drop me. I imagine scaling up its leg and climbing the beast’s neck, to ram my sword straight through one of its eyes.
If I manage it, the beast will surely burn me alive. Again. A cold sweat breaks over my body at the thought, but I’m dead either way.
An hour passes, maybe two. Then another.
We fly lower. I hear the ocean crashing against rock. Cold salt spray mists my face, and my face scrunches in disgust. The heavy wing beats slowly. The claws loosen.
Stupid, to think I’d be able to hold on when the drop came. My whole body is numb, my living arm and legs asleep, and my reaction time is worn down a nub. I slap down onto damp, rough stone. Not a bad fall, maybe a foot. I reach for my sword hilt.
A shadow looms over me as I wrap my metal fingers around the hilt. One advantage of my enchanted arm? It hasn’t gone numb like the rest of me. I draw the blade and point it up at Roiven’s throat.
Moonlight illuminates his features as he stands above me, and his eyes burn all the brighter for the darkness of our surroundings. A wave roars, and mist speckles my face.
I struggle up to my feet, keeping the sword pointed at him.
“Kneel.”
Roiven sinks slowly to both knees, his hands raised. The sight of him glaring up at me makes something low in my torso tighten. The dangerous balance between us has shifted, but I still hold the reins controlling him.
I know I’m supposed to keep him alive, but if I can’t stop him from escaping, surely killing him is the next best option.
“Give me one reason not to ram this through your throat.” My voice comes out croaking.
“You won’t make it off this rock alive.” He says it without any emotion. Like he hardly cares if I try.
“I ordered you to keep me safe.”
Roiven stares at me flatly. The moonlight glazes the arrow still sticking from his arm. He definitely didn’t fly here crushed in a dragon’s claws, like I did.
“You are safe. For now.”
“You threw me out the window. How? The enchantment…”
“Your castle was under attack,” he interrupts. “Savasaeirn was willing to kill you. You’d die if I didn’t.”
His damned dragon found a loophole. Or he did. Keeping me ‘safe’ from the dragon meant kidnapping me.
“Sava…” I echo, but I’ve already forgotten the mouthful of the name. My sword wavers in my grip. My metal arm might be limitless, but the shoulder holding it up is still human muscle, and cramped.
A massive head comes into view, and a hot, rancid blast of air washes over me. I gag.
Moonlight glints off a jagged face, spiked and scaled, heavy-jawed.
I will not give in to fear.
“Tell that thing not to kill me.”
For a moment Roiven is silent. The wind tugs at his hair, blowing it back away from his face.
“Savasaeirn says she will do what she wants. Even if you continue to abuse the enchantment on me.”
“You can talk. In your minds,” I question flatly.
“She also says to sheathe your sword before she melts it.”
I turn and spit on the rock.
The dragon growls in a low reverberation that seems to shake the whole island. The hairs of my neck rise on edge.
“If she attacks me, you have to fight to save me.”
“She knows,” Roiven says quietly. “You think I’m not willing to die, to protect my people from you? You think I wouldn’t have done so already, if I could?”
If I kill him, the dragon will definitely kill me. He can’t attack me himself. And if the dragon tries to attack me, well, he’ll have to intervene. I should kill him anyways. But what if the dragon kills me first, and I die without even harming him?
Slowly, I sheathe my sword. Roiven rises to his feet and fixes his eyes on the dragon.
What else are they saying to each other?
I still don’t know where we are. The Wild Seas has thousands of islands. With how long we flew and how fast a dragon can travel, we could be anywhere.
Roiven still has to obey me. Doesn’t he? He hasn’t ignored a command, but the whole ‘throwing me out the window’ business has me on edge. I need to make sure the enchantment hasn’t somehow broken. It’s the only advantage I have in dealing with this dragon.
He clearly wants me to think he’s bound. I’m sure he’d follow an easy order, whether or not he had to.
“Kneel, and tell me something you don’t want me to know.”
The witch’s orange eyes snap back to me, and his lips curl down. Roiven sinks back to his knees on the hard black stone.
“I had nightmares after I thought I killed you,” he mutters.
“Good. You deserved it.” But there’s an uneasy feeling in my stomach. In my bones I know that this is wrong, taking away somebody’s free will, but I need to know he’s under my power, because it’s the only safety that I have right now.
I’m still not convinced.
“Slap yourself.” I hear Roiven’s hard exhale.
The moment his palm connects to his tattooed cheek, the dragon lunges.
“No!” Roiven shouts. He bursts back up, launching himself toward me, arms outstretched. His back thumps against my chest, shielding me from the dragon. I get a mouthful of his hair.
Sava stops with her jaws a foot from us. Her head alone is taller than I am. The dragon’s sulphuric breath makes my stomach turn.
Roiven stands pressed against me, his arms thrown out to either side, as if to say she’ll have to eat him too. That, more than anything, convinces me. Nobody sane would put themselves between an angry dragon and its prey.
Roiven is still mine to command. If the dragon thought bringing us here would change that, she was wrong.
“Take me back to the Bluff,” I order him. “Now.”