Chapter Sixteen
OZIAS LEAPS INTO the air and I follow without a second thought, going higher than even Ozias, well above the wall.
It’s the first time I’ve had the wind beneath my wings, but that’s not what steals my breath.
Out in the wide open Sere, the ground is alive with the movements of hundreds of Dyēus’s men, both in their human forms and dragon.
Every one of them are heading right for the Realm.
Ozias lets out a low, warning rumble.
What is this? I question, slowly drawing closer and closer to the edge of the outside wall, until a sensation of moving through water coasts over the scales of my face.
Kaisa! Ozias warns, but I realize my mistake too late.
A snarl rips from me as something latches around my long neck and pulls hard.
Ozias roars as I hurtle outside barrier. I beat my wings, but I’m unused to them, and whatever force has its grip around my throat has no intention of letting go.
From behind, Ozias wraps his body around mine. It slows us, but he doesn’t have enough strength to pull me back. Another hard jerk and together, we tumble and hit the ground on the outside.
My body wraps tight around Ozias, and my scales suddenly feel wrong, bristled and spiked.
My mouth opens wide, teeth aching. I’m trembling with the effort to focus, to hold onto my mind, to stop it from going savage.
I try to detach myself from Ozias and unfurl my body from his.
I need to get as far away as possible. I can’t hurt him, and if I stay close, I will.
The thin tether I have on my mind is slipping through my hold.
The power around my neck jerks me hard and I stumble.
No, Ozias’s voice comes to my mind and he wraps himself around me tighter, pinning me to him, back onto the ground.
You have to go back, I bark. You’ll turn, too.
I won’t go without you. I give a warning snap of my teeth near his face and indignation swarms me when he huffs, his laugh deep and rasping in my mind. I snap again, my body trembling with the effort of maintaining my mind. I thrash my head, trying to loosen whatever power Dyēus has holding me.
Ozias, I think, loud and incessant. Let go.
He coils around me tighter and my muscles begin to twitch, rib cage billowing out erratic, misty breaths.
No.
I roar again, my anger swelling like a tide washing high up on shore, and no matter how much I want to fall back, to be absorbed into the waves, it keeps coming and that’s when I know I’m going to lose my hold. My vision grows hazy. Ozias stands. I’m draped over his neck.
He crouches, straining against my weight and the force of the curse pressing in.
An impact from the side rocks us. Ribbons of blood ripple past my face in the wind.
Ozias tips his head back in a pained roar.
Wheeling around, he rips out the throat of his attacker.
The dragon falls into my line of sight. In its mouth is an arm—Ozias’s arm—talons dangling limp and lifeless.
Horror and rage churn my gut. I whip my head around, but no other dragons are in range of us. Yet.
Thick swaths of crimson red streak and speckle the ground, dripping from Ozias’s wound. A snarl slides along my teeth.
Hold on, Ozias says.
But I can’t. My mind slips. My body thrashes.
I am half there, and half not, my mind of reason watching, screaming as my dragon body thrashes and claws at Ozias.
I need to stop, but it’s like shouting across the plains only to have my words ripped away on the wind, dampened by the siss of the dry grass.
Ozias wrangles my body, pins my thrashing limbs.
A sharp pain here and there not registering in my dragon’s mindless state, but I can feel it.
I’m so close, but too afraid to draw nearer to the beast itself.
So I cower while she thrashes and keens.
I weep while she pulls apart my seams and I catch the moment Ozias’s eyes glaze over, his lips peeling back into a fluttering snarl.
Out of the corner of my eye, the advance of Dyēus’s troops draws nearer.
They’ll kill us. Or take us and use us. Probably both.
If I let the beast they’ve created loose, I will lose everything.
I can’t let that happen. Not when I know what it’s like to have it in my grasp.
I sense something inside me break and it’s like opening up a door to the outside to let fresh air tunnel through.
I let that air flow through me, taking every last bit into myself.
The very ground beneath me vibrates. The troops advancing on us stand completely still.
I cast a glance around, but don’t see anything stopping them. It’s almost as if they’re afraid.
Kaisa, a voice grits out in my mind, strained and strange. Almost unfamiliar. I can’t…hold much longer.
Long lines of drool fall from Ozias’s mouth, pooling onto the parched earth below, and I’m amazed he can even form a thought with how far gone he looks.
I don’t spend another moment wondering why Ozias is losing it, but I’m somehow suddenly holding myself together.
I dare a look back out into the Sere. Some of them are in motion now, but most stay at a complete standstill.
I need to get Ozias and myself back on the other side, but the openings in the wall are too narrow for a dragon’s body. I’ll have to go up and over.
Mounting him, I wrap myself around his body, dodging his sharp teeth as he twists to snap at me.
My claws dig into his scales and I pump my wings hard and fast. The ache is unbearable and I keen out a long, strangled sound as I muster every ounce of power I have to propel us upwards.
Ozias’s claws, frantic and wild in his attempt to free himself, slashing clean through the scales on my leg.
I ignore the sharp pain. I push harder and harder. We lift but not enough.
Go, I hear in my mind, and then I’m rising with Ozias tight in my grip, him fighting with all his might to break free of my hold.
My flight is not gentle or graceful. It’s a hurried, haphazard dash.
We slam onto the wall and across the barrier, and right as we begin to tip over the edge of the wall into the Realm, the sun rises.
My body twists hard and fast back into my human form, but Ozias doesn’t.
Another energy blast expels from one of the dragons of Dyēus, aimed right for us and I give one last shove with my legs against Ozias’s body.
Together, we fall.
My breath is stolen from my lungs as we plummet to the ground and all I can do is cling to his mane and shut my eyes tight as we crash into the Realm.
The dust hasn’t even settled before I scramble off of him and to his side.
“Ozias?”
He groans, and with a sluggish curl of vapor, he shifts slowly, so slowly that as he draws back into his human size, I see the slip of his scales back into his skin, revealing the places he’s bare and the places he’s clothed.
He doesn’t move. My hands hover over his form. “Ozias?” I say again. Still he doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. Leaning down, I put my ear near his mouth, listening for his breath.
Then I feel the brush of his nose against my cheek as his head lolls towards me. I pull back enough to see the grin on his face revealing his perfectly white teeth. “You held it together pretty well out there.”
I shove him and he hisses. Lacerations crisscross the lower half of his face and neck, and, without his shirt on, I see they continue down along his chest. Wincing, I curl my hands into fists. “What were you thinking coming after me? You knew what would happen.”
“Clearly, I didn’t. I wasn’t expecting you would be the one to save us.”
Shaking my head, I sit back on my heels and cast a glance over my shoulder towards the wall, my mind wandering to the soldiers who stood stock still while I felt like I was drinking in the world. “I’m not sure what happened.”
Grunting, Ozias rolls onto his side and pushes himself up with one arm.
My hand flies to my mouth, stifling my outcry as my gaze locks onto his left arm, or what would have been his arm.
It’s gone from above his elbow down, a mess of flesh and blood, though it appears as if it’s no longer actively bleeding.
My eyes catch his. My memories already muddled, I can’t exactly remember what happened, who did what. I swallow. “Did I—”
Ozias shakes his head. “Not the arm. That wasn’t you.”
Gashes pepper his skin, some much deeper than others. “Those, though. That was me.”
He lowers his head to catch my gaze. “It’s nothing.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a headache thrumming to life behind them. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” he says again. “I’ve had and will have worse.”
“But your arm,” I say. “It’s—it’s because of me. You were distracted and I couldn’t—”
“It will grow back.”
Shock rocks me, making my head spin. “It—it what?”
“Draconem regenerate. I’ll have it back in two days,” he says, a hint of a smile creeping on his face at my dubious expression, no doubt.
I deflate, unable to truly process what turns out to be a minuscule inconvenience to him, but would have been a life changing event for any human. “Right. Of course.”
I push myself up to stand, but as soon as weight goes onto my right leg, I gasp and nearly collapse back onto the ground. Ozias uses his hand and the shoulder of his injured arm to catch me at my waist, his nose nearly pressing into my navel from where he’s kneeling on the ground.
“You’re concerned over me and have yet to notice yourself.” His brows pinch together, a frown drawing the corners of his mouth down. “Don’t dole out your apologies so easily until you realize what I’ve done to you.”
I step back, but his hand remains firmly against my hip as I look down.
My bare stomach is crossed with cuts just as bad as Ozias’s, and on my thigh, a dark red stain blossoms across my linen pants.
With trembling fingers I touch the edge of the stain.
The pain is so acute that my head hurls back as I bellow out a grunt.