Chapter Thirty-Three
Elysia
The ground beneath me is soft, almost spongy as my bare feet tentatively step through the forest. My nostrils flare as I scent something sweet and head toward it. The air is rich with moisture and a sheen of wetness quickly gathers on my brow.
I blink into the darkness and for a second I hesitate, wondering why I don’t feel any fear here. I don’t recognize where I am, but for some reason it’s not the kind of darkness that suffocates and scares me.
It lives and breathes as I push through a dense bush and come into a clearing with the moon shining down on me and the magical world I’ve stepped into.
Above me, trees with obsidian bark stretch into a sky woven with violet and silver, their branches heavy with fruit that glows faintly like lanterns lighting the way.
Awe threads through my body until it nestles into my heart, and my mouth falls open as I spin around.
The air hums with energy, thick and warm against my skin.
Blossoms the color of blood and moonlight sway on the branches, releasing threads of glittering pollen into the stillness.
This place … it feels like a spot occupied by the gods themselves. Wild. Untamed. Beautiful.
I reach out and brush my fingers along a vine spiraling up a tree’s trunk. It pulses faintly beneath my touch, as if aware of me, responding in some secret language between the root and soil. Suddenly the soft grass beneath my feet lights up and follows me with each step I take.
I gasp as my eyes widen with wonder. My cheeks hurt from how wide my smile becomes as I begin to jump and dance around, testing if the light will continue to spread through the ground I touch.
It does, until I find myself dizzy and out of breath from my frolicking in the space.
Contentment warms my chest as I come to a stop and stare up into the night sky.
It was just clear and full of stars when I arrived, but now the light of the moon is beginning to become obstructed by clouds quickly rolling in.
A breeze stirs the undergrowth, carrying a scent that is sharp and clean. Rain is coming.
Suddenly a tingle runs down my neck and my gaze falls from the sky to the forest around me.
I have a gut-wrenching feeling that I’m no longer alone.
I stiffen, scanning the dense trees, heart hammering against my ribs. The vibrant colors seem to dim at the edges of my vision, as if something unseen drinks the light from the air itself.
A low rumble reverberates through the ground, vibrating up through the soles of my feet. I can’t tell if it’s thunder from the storm brewing above, or the being that has my senses on high alert.
The shadows thicken ahead, congealing into something massive moving toward me as the trees rustle and fruits drop to the ground from the disruption.
My breath catches as two slits of silver pierce the darkness, eyes watching me.
It steps closer, the shadows shaping into something both terrifying and beautiful as it comes fully into the clearing with me.
A creature forged of shadow and smoke, large wings folded tight against its sides.
A long tail coiled low to the earth snakes around, swaying from left to right behind it.
My eyes travel up its long neck to the head that cranes down to keep me in its view.
Twin horns lift from the top of its head, curling back into a small spiral at the tips.
A dragon.
That can’t be … it’s not like any I’ve ever read of in the old tales. Where are its scales and gleaming teeth dripping with saliva? Surely fire can’t exist in a belly of shadows if it chooses to attack me?
This one seems to be made of the night itself, every inch of it shifting and ethereal, as if it might dissolve into the forest if I blow on its shadows.
My legs refuse to obey my mind’s frantic commands to run. Instead, I stumble backward, heart clawing at my ribs, until my heel catches on a root and I fall hard onto the mossy ground.
The creature lets out a rumble. A deep, resonant hum that rattles my bones.
I scramble backward on my hands, panic wild in my throat as it approaches.
One massive, clawed foot sinks into the ground, easily ripping through the very real and physical world. Then another.
So it is real. It’s not just shadows that my mind is conjuring together to play a twisted joke.
I freeze as it lets out a large huff of hot air that blows against my face, taking my hair over my shoulders with it.
Without warning, it lowers its massive head and shoves it against my chest with a rumbling sigh that nearly knocks me flat.
On instinct, my hands fly to its large head to keep me from being flattened.
My eyes are wide and my body is gripped in terror and confusion as I realize I’m now touching the dragon. What do I do?
For a long, breathless moment, all I can feel is the cool ripple of shadows running along my hands as my fingers tremble on a very real and hard body that seems to lie beneath the shadows.
I don’t move. I barely breathe as I wait to see what it does next.
Yet it simply stays there, leaning its enormous snout against me, waiting.
As if it needs something from me, but what could that possibly be?
I don’t have any food on me—I am the food.
The creature lets out another low sound, a mix of a huff and a whine as it nudges harder against me, urging me to move, I think.
Could it be seeking … comfort?
I’m deranged for the thought, but slowly and cautiously I lift my hands and move one to the center of his nose.
My fingers hover inches from the dark mist of his skin, expecting them to pass through empty air as if the last time were a fluke.
Yet when I touch him, he is still solid beneath my palm.
I let out a shaky breath. “You’re real,” I whisper, the words seeming so stark against the hush of the forest.
He chirps, a short, sharp sound of approval, and nudges me more insistently. I move my hand up and down the part of his head that I can reach.
A laugh bubbles up my throat, shaky and disbelieving. I’m petting a dragon.
Suddenly he backs up and straightens his front leg and rests his head on the ground.
An invitation?
“I’m going to regret this,” I murmur, my heart thundering with fear and wonder all at once.
The dragon waits, utterly still, silver eyes watching me with a strange, unblinking patience.
I gather my courage and move toward his foot. For a second I hesitate and glance at him.
“You’re not going to eat me if I try to climb you?”
He lets out a chuff, as if I’m being ridiculous, and I take that as his approval to continue. Slowly I step up onto his leg and lower my hands to crawl up his limb until I cross over his shoulder and find a spot just behind his neck to settle into.
My heart is thudding wildly in my chest, but the fear has been swiftly replaced with excitement.
He is broad and solid beneath me as his wings unfurl with a whisper of movement, vast and glistening.
For a moment we remain still, but then suddenly he leaps into the air. The ground drops away beneath us in a rush of wind and weightlessness.
I clutch the thin tendrils of shadow that fall down his neck like the mane of a horse as we rise, the air turning colder, sharper, slicing against my cheeks.
The trees fall away, replaced by endless clouds around us.
A low rumble echoes from his chest, akin to exhilaration, and I laugh aloud as we ascend, the sound torn away by the wind.
“Same, buddy.”
Clouds swirl around us, thick and silver-tinged, but a storm brews in the oncoming ones in front of us. They’re dark gray and furious, lightning threading across the sky like veins of molten light.
He flies straight into it and I let out a scream and bury my face against his warm neck.
He’s going to kill us both.
Then the first drops of rain kiss my skin, cool and refreshing as they trace paths down my bare arms. The air crackles with energy, the world alive in a way I’ve never felt before—dangerous, wild, and breathtaking.
Slowly I gather the courage to pull my head up and look around as we fly through the storm.
The dragon weaves through the worst of it with effortless grace, dodging forks of lightning that split the sky. His wings slice through the heavy mist, each beat carrying us higher, faster, as if he is daring the storm to try to touch us.
A giddy energy coils low in my stomach.
I bury my fingers deeper into his shifting mane, my heart soaring with a freedom I’ve never known.
I should be afraid.
I should be clinging on for dear life and begging him to take us back down.
Instead, I throw my head back and close my eyes, letting the rain soak me to the bone, letting the power of the sky and the creature beneath me burn away the fear.
A crack of thunder rumbles through the sky directly above us, accompanied by lightning that is sharp and blinding.
The dragon flinches mid-flight. I feel a ripple of tension through the shadows of his body, and for one terrible second, I feel the shift in his balance.
The world tilts and my fingers scramble for a hold, clutching at the wisps of his mane.
Then I’m falling.
The wind tears the breath from my lungs as the storm swallows me whole.
Rain lashes against my skin like needles. Lightning flashes, illuminating the sky in bursts of violent white, each glimpse showing me the dragon’s form growing smaller above me. I see it reaching for me with outstretched claws of smoke that can’t quite catch.
I tumble through the clouds, weightless and screaming, though no sound escapes my throat.
I close my eyes and let the storm rage around me. At least my life will end by daring to do something magical.
The air whips around me as I fall, until a searing pain explodes across my hand, yanking me back into my body with a violence that leaves me gasping. My eyes fly open.
I jolt upright from the stone ground in my prison, the breath tearing from my throat as the world tilts violently around me. Stone walls shimmer and distort, the pulse of enchantments weaving through the air in broken, flickering patterns.
It was just a dream. A beautiful dream.
My stomach knots painfully, hollow and cramping from days of being fed only scraps of bread and sips of stale water.
The faint scent of blood and magic hangs heavy, saturating the damp air I drag into my lungs, but it’s the burning pain on my hand that draws my focus. I glance down and find a mark seared into my hand glowing faintly, silver-edged and brutally raw in the soft flesh of my palm.
Was it real?
I press my hand against my chest, curling over it, and fight through the weakness trying to drag me back to the floor.
A shout cuts through the haze of my thoughts.
A clash of steel follows, the sharp crack of magic splitting the air.
Is the castle under attack?
The thought would terrify a normal person, but instead, it fills me with a trembling, reckless surge of strength.
Rhune.
If he’s here, if he’s fighting, then maybe … maybe Enari found him in time. Maybe Serenath fought harder than I even knew.
Hope stirs in my chest, fragile but insistent, daring to spread its wings, and I cling to it. To the image of them all alive and storming these cursed halls.
I cling to the belief that I am not forgotten and discarded, left to rot in this prison. I force myself upright, teeth gritted against the scream it rips from my fatigued muscles.
The dream of soaring through storm clouds atop a dragon fades from my mind, but the feeling it left behind remains—the memory of freedom in that sky.
I will not let that feeling die. Not now.