Chapter 7
Seven
Ella
The whistling was the first thing I became aware of.
Blinking rapidly, I opened my eyes to see nothing but gray-brown rock far above me. The view changed, and then snow-covered rock was approaching rapidly. Then gray-brown. Repeat. All the while, the whistling of air in my ear was swiftly becoming a painful shriek.
Falling.
That was the next thing I experienced. Stomach in my throat weightlessness. Nausea. Hair whipped across my face, choking me and obscuring my vision. I tried to scream. The wind tore the noise away before I could hear it.
I’m going to die.
There was no calm, logical embracing of that knowledge as I hurtled toward the ground. A bone-deep fear wrapped itself around me like a wet blanket, robbing me of breath.
How had I gotten to that point? It was a chaotic blur.
I recalled nothing after telling Dirk to kiss me.
The bright-eyed lust that had filled his gaze was the end of my control.
My dragon and I had been battling until that moment, but seeing my desire echoed in him had snapped the few remaining barriers I’d had against the strange entity trying to break free.
But that first kiss, oh, how I remembered that. The burn of his lips on mine, the press of his fingers on the back of my head and down my spine. Even as wind sliced across my bare skin and most sensitive spots with painful sharpness, I warmed at the memory of that moment.
Even with death imminent, I wanted him. That was how I knew it was wrong. That I wasn’t thinking straight. Nothing could be that single-minded.
That single-mindedness has gotten me killed. Thanks for nothing. Never there when I want you and leaving me right when I need you the most. Useless.
No response to the angry thoughts. It was like she had disappeared entirely.
Something was wrong with my dragon. Not that it would matter in a few more seconds.
Once I hit the ground below, I would either impale myself on one of the giant brellwoods or end up a splatter no thicker than a dragonscale.
The wind roared and buffeted, shaking me, and something slammed into me from behind, all sharp and hard surfaces wrapping themselves around my torso.
“I’ve got you,” a warm, soothing voice rumbled as giant wings of purest white curled inward, creating a ball around me so I could not see my death approaching.
I knew that voice, knew who it belonged to. But in the moment, I could not summon words to speak.
Ice filled the little globe inside of the wings, shooting from side to side in wild beams and pinning me in the middle. I struggled to move, but it was useless. They built and built, reinforcing one another and the hold on me while covering most of my body except my nose and ears. I was stuck fast.
“I’ll keep you safe,” the voice promised, thick with warmth and something deeper than that. “I’ll prot—”
Impact.
The globe bounced. Hard. It shook free of the wings and shattered, the crystalline ice structures scattering everywhere as they absorbed the force of the impact. That force alone should have killed me.
Instead, shaken and battered but very much alive, I rolled across the ground and went headfirst over a small embankment. Plunging into the thick snow, I was stuck fast. Too fast.
I couldn’t move. My body from the thighs up was thoroughly embedded in a snowbank, unable to move. I couldn’t free myself. Couldn’t scrape a pocket of air about my face. The snow pressed in, a thick, unmovable weight.
No. No, no, no. Not like this.
I forced down the panic, keeping my body still. I hadn’t survived the fall just to die upside down in the snow. Me. An ice dragon, dying in the snow. I would never live it down.
Focus. Stay calm, and don’t use up more air than you need to.
I tried to wriggle one arm free. My legs were in the air, exposed. I couldn’t bend at the waist, but from the knee down was free. Air was close. I just had to go about it smoothly.
But the burning in my lungs was growing, and I couldn’t get an arm free. It was pinned too tightly, the snow too heavy, and my muscles weakened from everything that had already happened.
I called to my dragon. She was there. She had become free. I had used her strength to rip the door free to knock down the Red. I knew she existed. All I needed was a bit of her power to command the snow to do as I needed—to melt and free me from its embrace.
Try as I might, scream, cajole, promise it everything I could think of, nothing worked. All I received was silence.
I thrashed but couldn’t move as panic took hold. Adrenaline pumped into every muscle, but it was no use. I was pinned. And going to die.
A wave of sadness followed that grim reality. Pain for all the things I would not get to see or do. My friends. Watching Anna become who she was meant to be. She was always the greatest of the three of us, and now the world was beginning to see it.
But not me. I would miss everything.
A pit formed in my stomach as the edges of my vision darkened with the lack of oxygen. I would never get my chance to break free of the shackles society had put upon Clippys.
And it’s all your fault for taking off like that. You should have known better. Should have had a better plan in place. But like always, you …
I toppled over as the snow melted on one side of me. Air rushed into my lungs and I gasped and heaved, desperate to inhale each and every spare molecule I could.
A low groan nearby clued my scrambled brain in to how my rescue might have been affected.
Digging myself out fully, I crawled up the embankment. Another moan. This one weaker than before.
Dirk. It had to be.
As I crested the top of the embankment, I feared what I would see. But the sight waiting for me was worse than anything I could have imagined.
Just as I’d suspected, Dirk had saved me, both in the air, and now from the snow, having used his powers to melt it away from me. But the price. By the orb, the price …
I pulled myself fully onto the flat ground and toward him, trying to figure out how he was alive.
Naked and covered in blood, he lay at the base of a brellwood tree.
The trunk—fully as wide as three men standing on top of each other and composed of tough, incredibly strong wood akin to steel—had been smashed inward from the impact, leaving a huge dragon-sized dent twenty feet in the air.
Blood leaked down the side of the trunk, leading right to his broken body.
“Dirk.” I pulled myself to my feet, fresh adrenaline propelling me to his side.
It was worse up close. I didn’t know where to begin.
One eye was fully closed, so swollen as to be invisible.
Something had torn a ragged line down the other side of his face, leaving the skin uneven and bleeding.
One arm was pinned beneath him. The angle was not possible without at least two things being broken.
Bone was visible from his lower leg, having pierced the skin during the fall.
How he was still alive was a miracle. The blood was so thick it could have been a blanket I lifted off him. I stared in horror at the sight. I wasn’t a healer. This was beyond me, but I was the only one there. I had to do something!
“But what?” I whispered, looking him over, too concerned for his well-being to do more than distantly note that he was completely naked.
A loud creaking noise interrupted my initial thoughts. I looked around but saw nothing, so I returned to Dirk. My fingers were coated in his blood as I pushed wounds together, trying to stem some of the bleeding so his healing could take over.
“There are so many.”
I wished Anna was there. She would do better. I wasn’t suited to thinking on my feet. I needed time and a plan. This was too much. I was too stressed out, not thinking clearly.
Come on. You can do this. Dirk needs you.
Reaching down, I pressed the sides of the gash on his forehead together, willing the skin to knit itself together.
It didn’t.
Something snapped, and the creaking returned, this time with a bone-deep ominous bass to it from somewhere above me.
Looking up, I spotted the source. It was the brellwood tree. The tremendous weight of the upper trunk was starting to shatter the weakened area. Even as I watched, more bark gave way and bunched up as things settled.
Oh, no.
“Dirk.” I tapped his shoulder, the one area that wasn’t a ruined mess. “Dirk, you need to wake up. We have to move. The tree is going to collapse.”
No response. Not even a groan. I stared at his chest for a moment, but it still rose and then, an agonizing moment later, fell. He wasn’t waking up anytime soon.
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing how much pain I was about to cause him and also knowing I had no choice. He had to move out of the way. The brellwoods were hundreds of feet tall and weighed unimaginable amounts. It would crush him.
I got under his shoulder as best I could and tried to get his weight onto me so I could move him.
The tree trunk shattered in places and bark sprayed everywhere, peppering my skin as the entire thing began to lean precariously.
“Damn it, Dirk, get up!” I screamed, pulling on his arm. He didn’t budge.
I cursed and fumed. This should be easy.
If my dragon was awake, I would have the strength to move him, to save his life, like he had mine.
So where was she? Reaching into my mind, I sought out that cold, alien entity that had filled my head not so long ago.
I begged her to come out, pleaded. I yelled and commanded.
All I received was silence. Again.
The tree shattered with a roar that threatened to burst my eardrums and echoed my scream as it came down.
Without thinking, I threw myself on top of Dirk in some stupid, last-ditch effort, as if I could protect him.
The ground trembled and shook, and I screwed my eyes shut, bracing for the end. It would be swift, at least. I hadn’t expected to live past the fall anyway, so how could I be sad?
Something collided and we both bounced a few inches off the ground as thunder sounded all around us in a deafening cacophony. I clung to Dirk, screaming through it all and wishing it would just happen already.
And then the silence rang out. Nothing moved. Nothing shook. And I still drew breath.
Nervously, I cracked open one eye. Tree trunk filled my vision. Lots and lots of tree trunk, no more than five feet away, and stretching as far as I could see.
“It missed,” I whispered, stunned at the luck.
A heavy grunt followed by a snort of air alerted me to the presence of another. “Not quite,” a familiar voice said wryly.
I looked up and over my shoulder. A gigantic white dragon was crouched nearby, grimacing slightly and covered in wooden splinters.
“Caz,” I whispered, stunned at the power it must have taken to move the falling tree. Even for the Ice Tyrant himself, that was unbelievable.
“Are you okay?” His green dragon eyes were filled with concern.
“I am,” I said softly, peeling myself from Dirk.
The vertical eyelids of the ice dragon narrowed as Caz caught sight of his brother’s unconscious form.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It’s all my fault.”