Trade #2
And then Thea led the way on Starspark's suddenly cooperative back, toward Claw Hold. Basically empty, which meant the fight had already begun, and the druids were protecting their own. Thea stopped them quickly by the training grounds, choosing weapons for Aaryn from a building she unlocked with a rune. Thea shoved a weapon into her hand, a crossbow. “This is easier than a full bow, just point and shoot. And—here,” she said, thrusting a staff in her direction. The top of it was coated in a shine she’d never seen before.
It felt good in her hands, weighted on the one end just like her brush was.
“Try to stay on Starspark. But if you get knocked off or—” she shook her head as if she couldn’t bear the thought.
“It’s dragon scale that’s been powdered down and melted with dragon’s breath.
Stronger than metal. Use it just like we’ve been training, okay?
The only difference is pointy end bad for enemy, yeah?
” Thea told her, lips tense with the humor forced into her words.
“Hey,” Aaryn said, and cupped the back of her neck, pulling her close. “You taught me well. I’ll stay out of reach. I’ll be fine.”
Thea kissed her. Nodded, and then they were on Starspark again and flying through the barrier of the Heart.
A fire smoldered, unsupervised, the pot of stew hanging above its low flames beginning to bubble. A comical stack of bowls was scattered to the grass. Less comical were the anguished screams and terrified shouts spilling from the druids as their new neighbors suddenly turned on them with weapons.
Aaryn had never seen so much blood.
If they had targeted Claw Hold, maybe there would be less bodies. Instead, this was an isle full of refugees and families and homes and children. It was the Heart of Cloud Haven.
Aaryn thought of the children who had brought her drawings—of Finnan, who had lost his family, and Kiam, whose family had taken him in.
The hottest rage filled her, the desire to protect them scratching at her throat like tears, burning hotter than the fire whose flames leapt toward the morning sky.
She directed Starspark toward the fight, and Thea squeezed her shoulder before she leapt down into the fray from his back. She took Aaryn's heart with her.
Aaryn drew her crossbow, and wished she knew more magic.
She wished she wasn't here, doing this—and things went a little quiet. Distant. Like a roar in her ears, sometimes pierced by a scream that was too close.
With a squeeze of her knees, Aaryn knew just how to shift with Starspark and hover so she could steady her aim.
Other dragons dotted the skies, visible over all the circle, wading into the fight to defend, and Aaryn's heart ached at the widespread panic and devastation Evergale had managed to cause from so far away.
Their reach was vast and terrible. And Aaryn wanted to cut it off at the source, but she would have to settle for a few stingy digits in the form of the traitors Evergale had carefully planted amongst the refugees. It wasn't an intelligent strike. They were outnumbered—but Evergale knew that.
It was pretty easy to tell who the enemies were. They were stabbing the screaming and running innocents.
Aaryn hated this, a target's lurch as her arrows struck home, the cries and the pain—but she did not mourn the ones who brought this upon themselves. They’d made this choice.
Choices to hurt people Aaryn had eaten with, or passed on the walkways. Or met at the bonfires, or tended to in the healers’ tent. Who'd laughed with her when she'd stumbled during training. Who'd scratched Starspark's belly until his leg kicked.
Strangers who had become Aaryn's people.
People she wanted to protect. People worth fighting for. People she didn't hesitate to kill for—for once in her life, decisive without a second thought.
Eventually she ran out of arrows. And even if she wanted to ask Starspark to use his dragon's breath, she couldn't risk the innocents who would be caught in the crossfire.
Druids were not helpless. They were magical by nature, and even those who didn't fight could control nature to an extent.
Aaryn watched as druids brought vines to life, rupturing the earth to capture Evergale's people, giving others just enough time to run away as the traitors struggled to escape or slashed at the weak grasps on their ankles.
In some cases, protective barriers were created, and the traitors left them for the easier targets.
"I'm going down there," Aaryn said, though she knew not if Starspark understood her.
She spied Thea's horns and stroked Starspark's scales before leaping into the mass of fighting people.
Aaryn finally learned what it was to wield a weapon. Now she knew not the weight of a sword, but a staff, whose pointed spikes on one end caught the light of morning. At least until she found an enemy’s side carelessly left open, and took advantage of it.
"Do you get used to what one does with it as well?"
Thea's expression shuttered, emotion clamping down behind a polite mask. "We all do what we must."
Aaryn preferred arrows, if she was honest.
Starspark's roar followed her, and she risked a glance backward to see him graphically borrow someone's head from their body. They would not be getting it back.
Bile rose.
But then someone swung at her and she had to swallow it, because she didn't think throwing up on them would deter them as much as the pointed end of her staff.
Aaryn hated it. But she fought because Thea did.
Thea, who Aaryn managed to spy every now and then through the gore and blood and viscera and shouts and screams and dragons’ roars—not only Starspark's, but many dragons.
Thea, who wielded her staff like a blade itself, magic bursting from its tip as it made contact, stunning or flinging her opponents away.
She was like a fantasy.
Until a sword went through Thea, the point crimson red as it peeked out her back. Then it was withdrawn, and Aaryn opened her mouth to scream as Thea tilted to the side, lurched out for one last attack with her staff, and—
Thea was not as untouchable as Aaryn had built her up to be in her mind. Or maybe it simply was the fact that love wasn’t supposed to hold up to a blade's edge.
She didn’t see who wielded the blade, but it didn't matter in that moment. Starspark let out a deep growl, and Aaryn turned to him.
He always knew when she needed him.
His ever-sharp teeth gleamed in the light of morning, and a sharp pain lanced through Aaryn’s hand.
Starspark met her gaze and seemed to understand. He opened his mouth. An offering.
Aaryn scored her left palm against the sharpened tip of one giant fang.