Chapter Twenty-Five
THE REALM COMES into view the moment the sun is severed in half by the line where sky meets land.
Above, the sky is turning the deep blue of night, the first stars glinting into their glory to announce that evening is nigh.
Unconsciously, my body tightens its hold on Ozias.
Somewhere along our flight home, the tension of Ozias’s muscles eased, but the stiffness is back again as we draw closer to the Realm, yet still too far.
We’ll make it, he vows, but I know it’s a lie meant to soothe me. As he spurs himself on faster, grunting with the effort, I offer what comfort I can, drawing slow, delicate circles on the side of his neck.
I glance over the Sere, the ground dark with long shadows dragging behind each rock monument, signifying the end of our time beyond the Realm. Movement catches my attention. My hand on the side of Ozias’s neck stills. He cants his head, a snarl ripping from his throat as he sees what I do.
Dozens of dragons moving in tandem—straight towards us.
Ozias beats his wings faster, snorting as he pushes himself, his ribcage expanding and contracting with his efforts. I hold on tighter, but I’m weak from the attack and the long hours I’ve spent clinging to Ozias today. The sun is a deep red, like an angry watchful eye telling us we’re out of time.
From the mountainside, another pack of draconem appear.
An ambush. Ozias leaves the Realm often and as far as I understand, this has never happened before.
The only difference this time is me. Perhaps if Ozias hadn’t expended so much energy he could drum up what he needs to use Thrace’s power.
Perhaps, if I could shift and use my power, I could help him hold them off.
But he did, and I can’t. I brace myself for whatever happens next.
The Realm is within our reach, the last slice of the sun barely visible beyond the horizon, its final glow a brilliant warning. Then we’re nearing the concealing haze of the Realm. A tingle races up my spine. My skin coats with a sheen of light sweat that mingles with the mists.
As Ozias adjusts to begin his descent into the Realm.
The dragons behind us close in, the ones on our right from the mountains not far behind.
From the corner of my left eye a movement steals my breath.
I open my mouth to shout a warning, but it’s too late.
A dragon collides hard with Ozias’s back end, knocking my grip on him loose.
I scramble to recover, but the impact sends Ozias spinning, and then I’m falling, twisting in the air as Ozias plummets, wings wrapping around his feet.
We were up so high that the damage he’ll inflict—upon himself and whatever stands in his wake—will be immense.
The Realm below is a riot of frantic movement.
From the lookout wall, Isaa and another draconem I don’t recognize leap off and dart for Ozias and grasp his tail and an arm between them to slow his fall.
Another dragon slices through the air under me and catches me hard on her back behind a set of powerful wings.
Are you all right? Atlanta’s voice. Adrenaline settles into my system at the same moment a shiver wracks my body. My bones crack and I feel the transformation jolting through me. My mind and body are so out of sorts that falling into it smoothly is well beyond my reach.
Kaisa?
My fingers press into her red-orange scales, my breathing labored. In her effort to catch me, Atlanta’s trajectory is facing up, toward the open sky, instead of down into the safety of the Realm.
Kaisa, answer me, she pleads, worry etched into her voice and I swallow, drumming up the will to respond.
Atlanta roars and her body jerks hard mid-flight.
I dig my fingers into her tough scales, splintering my nails.
Blood fans across the open air. Atlanta wheels around and plunges her sharp talons into her attackers face again and again until he releases her wing.
As we tip sideways, Issa shoots as fast as an arrow towards our opponent and gouges him with her antlered head.
Atlanta plummets and we cross into the Realm’s border, one wing flapping hopelessly while the other hangs limp at her side.
Our fall turns into a full spiral, then another.
My mind whirls. Another twist and I’ll be pinned beneath her.
I let my transformation take over. I curl my talons under her and pump my wings, slowing her as well as I can, my injured shoulder screaming at me to give up.
With a frustrated growl, I implore my body to do as I say, and will every ounce of power to come to me.
From all around, wisps of energy stream towards me.
It comes from the sky. It comes from the magical barrier around the Realm.
The energy travels to me in cascading ribbons from every dragon within my line of sight.
In that moment, Atlanta feels as light as air, my lungs breathe easy, and the pain in my shoulder dissipates as if carried away on a wind.
I lower her gently to the ground on her uninjured side, and Ozias meets us, running, in his human form. Without meaning to, without even thinking, I melt back into my human skin.
Atlanta stays in her draconem, and I can’t make out the difference between her scales and the blood that runs in rivulets down her side from the apex of her wing.
Ozias yells for water and healers, kneeling beside me to examine her wing with frantic yet practiced movements.
The healers come at once, cleaning her wound.
I inch my way towards her head, laying a hand on her brow.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Atlanta tips her head further into my hand, a soft whine wheezing out of her.
Ozias joins me at her head. “Atlanta, can you hear me?” he murmurs.
She whines again. The line along his jaw tenses. He cranes his head back towards the healers, checking out the wound. His jaw tightens. “It’s deep. You’re in pain. But you’ll heal from this. You’ll be fine.”
Atlanta sighs and lets her eyes drift shut. Her breathing begins to even out as the healers finish cleaning the wound, draping it with a damp cloth suffused with the deeply astringent scent of herbal antiseptics.
Ozias lets his forehead fall onto the side of her neck, his own eyes closing, his breaths flaring his nostrils. He cares for her in a way that goes beyond loyalty.
Looking at them twists some emotion inside me I can’t name, and I rise, giving them space, and make my way to the infirmary to get cleaned up. I feel my dragon battling with me to come out again, but I take the calm, cool air of the night into my lungs and will her to do the same.
The single healer left in the infirmary wastes no time helping get the blood cleared from my face and shoulder. It doesn’t sting like it ought to, and when the blood is gone, there are only tiny, nearly healed indentations from where the ravaged punctured my skin.
The healer’s brows twitch together. “That happen tonight?”
“Earlier this evening,” I admit.
She hums. “We heal fast, but that’s unheard of.” She sniffs around me. “Smells like your blood, otherwise I’d ask if you were sure if the wound was that deep.”
“Could faster healing be my elahi?” I ask, wondering if that’s why Ozias and I haven’t been able to figure it out. Then I remember my wounds from the time we were taken out of the Realm. I healed at a pace on par with Ozias then.
The healer shrugs. “Only one way to find out.” And before I can open my mouth, she slices the back of my forearm with a knife.
My mouth snaps open in surprise. “Brutal,” I hiss, as she places an herbal cloth over the new wound. She pulls it away, and still it bleeds.
“If it’s as healed as the wound on your shoulder in a few hours, then you’ll know for sure.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I mumble, then turn and leave before she has a chance to open me up again. Her hearty chuckle follows me out the door.
When I step outside, the dark of night obscuring my vision save for the reach of a few lamps along the pathways, I remember again I’m still in my human form.
Beneath my skin, I feel her itching to come out.
No. Not tonight. The pull I felt towards Zhoric on the beach rocked me to the very depths of my core. I can’t afford to be weak.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve gone deeper with him than I intended, and I fear the tide of my feelings if I go to him tonight.
He saved me. I appeared before him, distraught and hurt, and he removed himself from whatever he was doing to save me.
To kill a ravaged for me. I stop short. A ravaged died tonight. Which means…Ninon.
My feet move on instinct and I sprint, running full tilt towards the enclosures.
One after the other after the other empty.
Doubling back, I tear through the pathways, the wild beginning of the night still in the air as people clean up debris from Ozias and Atlanta’s falls into the Realm.
I ignore all of that. I run for the fields, my eyes jumping from draconem to draconem, a hoard of them grounded for now, a scant few in the sky.
I see Issa’s bright scales and head for her, the twine wrapped around my heart finally releasing when, right over Issa’s shoulder, I see the familiar form of Ninon’s dragon.
Ninon spots me at once. She bounds over to me and presses her large forehead to mine, her mane tickling against my temples.
I heard you were fine, but it’s good to see with my own eyes, I hear her in my mind.
I’m nodding, but my breaths come ragged and erratic as the evening’s events catch up to my mind. Tears fall, and my chest is unbearably tight.
Breathe, I hear her say. Breathe.
Her breathing comes deeper and longer and I struggle for a few beats to match hers before mine evens out.
I feel my dragon nudge me and I squeeze my eyes tight.
“Kaisa.”