Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Leave before you think you should. Even then, it’s probably too late.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Pain plagued me. I pushed past tree limbs, stumbled over fallen branches, and stepped on sharp rocks. But I didn’t slow. I navigated the forest, cradling my injured hand to my chest as it throbbed fast and furious, matching the erratic beat of my heart.
Trees towered in every direction, camouflaging what lurked ahead. My anxiety grew with each step. There could be traps. Mers could be hiding, watching me, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Either way, danger tracked my every move.
Once the primordial and his army healed—and they would heal—they’d hunt me if only to use me against Sebastian. So I sought shelter first.
If I could recover my strength, I could fly.
If I could fly, I could escape this land.
If I could escape this land, I could burn it and my pursuers to ash.
A manic laugh bubbled from my dragon. Ja. Kill—them—all.
The forest thinned, opening into a hollow I hadn’t sensed until I stood at its edge, nearly falling in. Stone all around. Not the jagged, torn rock of the shore, but something older. Ancient masonry that had endured time, wars and tide. Heavy with the weight of the ages.
Amber-veined boulders rose from the earth, forming a series of towering circles with razored points. The last rays of sunlight struck the rocks, seeming to ignite them from within.
I whimpered with relief. So did the dragon. Gold. Not polished, but alive. The kind only created by dragon fire and the passing of centuries.
Nests, accessible only by air. This place had once known a dragon’s hottest flame. This must be one of the islands Sebastian had mentioned.
Someone, perhaps the mers, had attempted to extract the gold. Score marks abounded.
Didn’t matter. Safety.
I used the last of my strength to unleash my smokewings, the appendages a tangle of heat and ash. The current dragged the weight of my body high, higher, every flap a new lesson in agony. Reaching the jagged upper points, I noticed abrasions. Courtesy of grappling hooks, I’d bet.
The mers had been here, and they’d climbed inside. Woven beds of seagrasses and broken shells lay scattered about. But not a sign of scale or fin. A mercy, considering my wings evaporated as the last of my strength depleted. But it meant they could get in again. I’d have to remain on alert.
To get inside myself, I could do nothing but fall. Down, down I tumbled. Boom! I crashed into the nest’s bottom with a hard, heavy thud. Bile rushed up my throat. Dark stars winked through my vision, and my breath came in ragged pulls.
Moaning, I rolled into a fetal ball, sucking air through my teeth and trying to ignore all the new aches and pains. Part of me wanted to stay like this until I recovered. To do nothing but breathe. To wait until Sebastian found me, as promised. My mind shouted, And let my foes win? Never!
When my stomach calmed, I looked at my hand to assess the damage. Tears welled, blurring at the gruesome sight. My pinky was gone. Not removed cleanly, but torn. Blood still oozed sluggishly, dark and sticky. Jagged bone peeked from the ruins.
Unlike Sebastian, who’d lost his pinky before immortality sped up his ability to heal, my appendage would grow back. Even still, rage flared hot and bright. I wanted the primordial’s head and heart on a silver platter. Imagined feeding both to swine, even as part of me recoiled.
But regeneration required fuel. Fire. Breathing deeply, I pressed my mangled flesh and exposed bone into a fissure that branched through the stone.
A ragged groan slipped past my lips. Warmth from the rock, from the heat of the day, from the latent gold threaded below the surface leached into me, trickling up my arm, into my shoulder, then through the rest of me.
Scales rippled beneath my skin. The wound burned, not worsening, not any longer, but changing. The raw edge tingled, cells knitting slowly, bone preparing to grow.
As strength chased away weakness, some of the fog in my mind cleared. My plan cemented. I forced myself upright and got to work, gathering as much seagrass as possible into the center, creating a mound. Around the pile, I scored a shallow channel into the soil with my claws.
I knew that what I was about to do would act as an arrow to my enemy. Here she is, come get her. In fact, the moment I did it, a countdown clock would start, the next battle imminent. But there was no other way to finish the rejuvenation process. So…
Thinking of the mers and the primordial, I drew in a breath so deep it scraped my lungs raw. Heat answered the call, flooding my jaw, my throat, my veins.
I didn’t blow the fire. I loosened it. Flame struck the pile and roared to life, devouring the grass in a heartbeat. Smoke danced skyward.
As I stepped into the inferno, my undergarments turned to ash. Bliss came. Sharp, familiar, and oh, so exquisite as the flames wrapped around me. Fed me. My skin drank it in, the heat melting pain and weakness from my bones.
Strength swelled anew. More than I’d ever wielded. Where agony had hollowed me out only moments before, power now thrived. No new pinky yet, but the wound had closed. Relief and exhilaration surged.
My senses sharpened to needle points, honing in on the surrounding boulders. Then I heard it. Telltale noises carried by the wind. The haunting warsong of surf where none should be. The scrape of tridents against rock.
The mers approached.
They were running… sprinting… determined. Judging by the scent of brine tingeing the air, they were a mile back.
I had only minutes. Lifting my chin, I cast my narrowed gaze to the wide expanse of dark blue sky, where smoke collected, resembling storm clouds.
Inhale, exhale. Thoughts gathered in my mind, tinder for my dragon.
I’d been on a date. Mers had attacked. Sebastian had vanished.
A madman had eaten my pinky. Munched on it. As he’d once munched on Sebastian’s.
The berserkerage slammed into me like a tidal wave.
With a roar from the depths of my being, my dragon broke free in full, nothing held back.
Smokewings burst forth in a wild torrent, lifting me off my feet, suspending me midair.
Colors faded until my world narrowed, and I saw only heat.
Scales bled over my skin, covering my nakedness.
My teeth lengthened, and my claws curled.
I let my wings take me over the walls of the nest. Higher still, until only the forest spread out beyond the rocky roosts.
Blood boiling, I hovered there, waiting. Vibrating with eagerness.
My patience paid off.
In a rush of armored bodies, the first line of mers erupted through the underbrush. Their shell-plated torsos glistened as they readied their weapons…
They died screaming in my fire before ever mounting a proper defense.
My dragon wasn’t satisfied. Not even close. The primordial didn’t lay dying at my feet.
The second line cleared the bush. Prepared for my scorching assault, they raised shields while hurling spears and tridents. I ducked and dove through the air, flames tearing free from my throat.
Their weapons melted mid-air. Their screams filled my ears. Music. A lullaby that fed the beast inside me.
Except, as I flew through smoke scented with cooking flesh, a niggle of concern rose. That I had wreaked this destruction… it scared me a little.
Didn’t matter. I refused to care. The primordial wasn’t among them, and I would not stop until he burned.
Death to all!
The remaining warriors reached the clearing. Moving without thought or mercy, I delivered precise, devastating strikes. Their nets wilted into slag. Metal weapons became liquid.
Diving lower, I swooped over them, clawing through anyone left standing. And I loved every moment of it. Mostly. That niggle…
A knot formed beneath my ribs. Who am I?
The dragon answered for me. Vengeance.
The more fire I sprayed, the more screams I heard. A chorus of agony came from every direction. When the few remaining soldiers tried to flee, I didn’t allow it. More fire. More screams. Endless stream of blood. Red, not blue.
Then the battle was over. No more challengers. No more screams.
A river of bodies lay twisted among blackened roots. The smoke was so thick now, it created a hazy canopy overhead. But still, I sought one more.
“Face me,” I roared to the primordial, flying from one end of the island to the other. Searching, searching. No sign of him.
He’d retreated? Or never even showed? “Coward!” I bellowed, landing in the center of the carnage, chest heaving.
The worst of the fury receded, and my vision righted, colors returning. But exhaustion slammed into me. I stumbled back to the stone and slumped against it, blinking grit from my eyes. My hand throbbed, but I’d started healing, tendons sprouting. Then muscle and flesh. Then a little pinky nub.
There was also a gash in my side; it was healing, too, though not as quickly as it should have. I was burning through my healing energy rapidly.
Which wasn’t surprising. A berserkerage always emptied a berserker.
Weakness surged to my limbs. My knees buckled. Impact flattened my lungs.
A hysterical laugh seeped from me, half sob, half triumph. If the primordial came back… if a new round of mers arrived…
No way I could survive. Not here. Not out in the open like this.
I tried to crawl somewhere, anywhere safe. Footsteps reached my ears. Heavy. Deliberate.
Heart thudding, I craned my face around, fire already blooming in my throat—and froze.
Gunnar and a dozen kraken warriors stalked into the hollow. Their hair and clothing soaking wet, as if they’d just emerged from the sea. Each man and woman clutched a weapon.
Relief flooded me. Friend, not foe. “Here,” I called with all the strength I could muster.
The bodyguard’s eyes crackled with ferocity, but the second he spotted me, his vehemence morphed from anger into concern. “Do not look at her,” he commanded the others, marching forward to block me with his body. “Turn around and go back to the shore. Now.”
They obeyed without hesitation, asking no questions as they pivoted on their heels. In seconds, they vanished beyond the trees.
“Primordial?” I asked him.
“Fled,” he replied.
I gnashed my teeth.
Then some of his other words registered. Not look at me? Frowning, I scanned myself. Aaah. Okay. I got it. I was naked, covered only in splatters of blood, the dragon scales gone.
“By the deep, princess,” he said roughly, scanning the carnage before sheathing his blades. “Let’s get you covered.” He stripped off his shirt and tossed it in my direction.
I sagged back against the stone, on the last of my reserves. The garment landed in my lap. Arms trembling, I donned it.
Only then did he look at me. He catalogued each of my injuries, something grim and reverent settling into his expression. “The king is repairing the dome. He sent us through the hole to get you.” He edged closer, slow and steady, as if he feared startling me. “When he returns, heads will roll.”
“I’ll help,” I murmured. I didn’t care how afraid of myself or others I was; I didn’t want him going in alone.
“You will help best by recovering. I swear to you, I will die before I let anyone else harm you.”
I remembered how much he adored Sebastian, and I believed him.
But I still fought against the pull to rest as he lifted me in his arms, gentle, so gentle, and clasped me against his chest. Fought even as he carried me through the forest. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to sleep again, no matter how desperate the need was. My mind shouted, Too vulnerable.
“The king will never forgive himself for this,” Gunnar admitted softly.
“He did nothing wrong.” I didn’t blame Sebastian. Nein, this travesty lay at the primordial’s door. “Where’s Sebastian?” I asked, lids as heavy as rocks. Nein, nein. Stay awake! “He vanished.” Wait. “Did you say he is repairing the dome?”
“When it broke, it called him back. He had no choice.”
“Is he safe?” Should I rally and find him?
“He is fine.” A pause laden with uncertainty. “He’s a good man, princess,” the bodyguard continued for my ears alone. “I’ve known and admired him since I was a boy. He protects those he loves with his very life.”
Ja, and that was the problem. The cost to him… perhaps being drained to death as his mother had been, and I was supposed to help him do it.
We reached the beach, where a large watercraft waited. Having never been on a boat, ship, or submarine, I tried to examine it, curious and a little concerned. But darkness had begun weaving through my vision.
I fought it, mind churning. I’d just burned an army alive and frightened myself doing it.
I’d been marked by the same monster who’d marked Sebastian.
And still—still—the last thought before the dark took me, ending my efforts, was of him.
Maybe that was the firebrand bond. Maybe that was just me.
Either way, I wondered if I could make him love me before the cost came due.