“A warrior’s oath is to protect his people, and by your death, you fulfil that oath,” the man intoned. “May your spirit soar forever among the stars.”
He touched the blade to his forehead, then extended it for a strike that would sever Ash’s neck in one swing.
Piper called on her magic, pulsing the conflicting powers through her body as the draconian’s spell surged into her. Fiery agony burst through her as her magic devoured the daemon’s spell. Then she flung the power outward, letting it erupt out of her body in every direction.
The blast of magic hurled Hedya and the two male draconians away from her. She bolted for Ash, her eyes on the sword already in motion, flashing toward his neck. Her hands were still bound—she could cast neither spell nor shield—so she did the only thing she could.
Just before the sword reached him, she threw herself into Ash.
The blade hit her left arm first and raked across her back, catching her right arm too. Her weight slammed into Ash, ripping him out of Tiran and Eyal’s grips. Ash fell onto his back, with Piper sprawled awkwardly over his chest. She panted, stunned by the pain. Her dragon scale halter top had protected her back, but the cuts on her upper arms were deep. Hot blood ran down her skin.
“Idiot girl!” the executioner growled. A hand grabbed her hair, yanking her half off of Ash.
Then hands, with skin too hot, closed around her arms just above the elbows.
She looked down in shock. Ash was holding her arms, her blood running over his knuckles. His eyes were open, staring, glassy and sightless—and blacker than pitch.
The pressure on her scalp vanished as the executioner released her. Ash’s nostrils flared as he inhaled and, somehow, his eyes went blacker. He didn’t seem to be fully aware, but something had woken him—the smell of her blood?
He released her upper arms and in a single motion, he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her protectively against his chest. Gathering his legs under him, he stood, lifting her with him. He staggered backward, his arms suffocatingly tight, before regaining his balance.
The warriors surrounded them, weapons out and tension high. Ash didn’t pay them any heed as he crushed her tight to him.
“What did they do to you?” The words came out in a hoarse, guttural growl no louder than a whisper. The deep rage that vibrated through each word sent a shiver running down her spine.
The air around him crackled with building magic. Even though he was staring at her, his unfocused gaze was a thousand miles away. Power sizzled under his skin, sparking against Piper’s body. She gasped, struggling to breathe in his grip. He was normally so careful with his strength around her that she feared he was only half-conscious.
His eyes rose, black orbs focusing on the other draconians behind her.
“What did you do to her?” he snarled.
His wings flared out, the seaweed ties snapping. He didn’t seem to notice the broken bones or the pain that opening the wing must have caused him. His teeth were bared, rage and power radiating off him.
A few yards away, Eyal’s foot slipped on the gravel—a tiny movement and an abrupt recovery.
Black fire exploded out of Ash. The fiery tornado billowed outward like an expanding shockwave, and electric-blue flames twisted through the ebony fire like bands of northern lights through the night sky. Piper clutched Ash, terrified but safe in the eye of the storm as the explosion rushed outward.
The whirlwind of flames died twenty yards out from Ash but the fire wasn’t entirely gone. Knee-high blue and black flames danced across the ground, swirling in lazy circles around him. The same flames trailed along the last couple feet of his tail and rippled over his wings, dripping onto the ground like burning oil.
Heedless of the fire over and around him, Ash watched the draconians, downed but mostly unharmed by the explosion of power—they must have shielded. Piper hardly noticed them. She stared at Ash, unable to look away.
His eyes were no longer shaded black. Instead, they glowed with bright blue power—no whites, no pupils, just solid, glowing blue. The dark designs that swirled and coiled across his body wherever scale transitioned to skin, so much darker on him than on other draconians, glowed blue with the same power. The bright azure lines ran into his scales, emanating from the cracks between each scale as though his body were filled with blue fire trying to leak out.
Releasing Piper from the grip of one arm, he raised his hand. The draconians flinched as one. Silence pressed on the valley but for the crackle of the flames that danced around him. The draconians didn’t move, too shocked or frightened to act. Eliada, not a warrior like the others, must have been slower with her shield; she looked either stunned or unconscious.
Thirty seconds passed where no one dared to even breathe.
With loud chatters, three dragonets flew out of the darkness and landed on the ground in front of Ash. The flames rippling all around him leaped higher. Blue fire rushed over the dragonet trio’s bodies, billowing outward. The azure flames died, revealing their dragon forms. Blue fire glowed from between their scales in lines down the sides of their necks and along their backs. They snarled at the other draconians.
With Piper still pressed against his chest, Ash stepped over to their pack and slung it over his shoulder. Then he slid onto the back of the middle dragon, pulling Piper up with him. Zwi ran up and grabbed Piper’s leg, climbing up her pants and onto her back, clinging to the ropes still binding her arms against her chest.
The dragon spread its wings and jumped into the air, the other two following with snarling roars. Held tightly in Ash’s arms, Piper pressed her cheek to his shoulder and watched the draconians shrink as the dragons ascended. The figures below finally clambered to their feet but showed no signs of preparing a pursuit. They just stared up at Ash as the three dragons wheeled away into the night.
* * *
Piper kept her eyes closed, fighting increasing dizziness as the dragon flew them through the cool night. After only about twenty minutes—not nearly long enough to put a safe distance between them and the draconians—their mount switched to a glide and the swoop in her belly confirmed they were dropping quickly. A minute later, the dragon touched down, trotting a few steps before stopping.
Ash’s arm loosened around her and she opened her eyes. The eerie blue glow in his eyes, in the markings on his skin, and between his scales had faded away. Wherever they were, Periskios’s light couldn’t reach them, and she couldn’t see him in the pitch darkness.
“Ash?” she mumbled, swaying from lightheadedness.
He swung his leg over the dragon and slid to the ground, then helped her down after him. As soon as her feet touched the leafy turf, her legs shook weakly. The ground seemed to rock and shift under her. Zwi climbed down Piper’s back, her small weight almost tipping Piper over.
Ash wrapped his arm around her waist. A tiny light appeared, glowing in the palm of his hand. It lit his face from below, casting harsh shadows over his features. He tossed it into the air, where it floated just above them, illuminating the three dragons waiting near Ash. Beyond them, the black shapes of trees surrounded them; they’d landed in a forest.
He slid his fingers under the rope binding her hands and with a spark of magic, it snapped. He touched the deep cuts on the backs of her upper arms. She flinched at the nauseating pain. Tingling magic flowed into her. Sharp aches shot through her wounds, followed by a wave of heat. Then the spots went numb.
“I closed the wounds,” Ash said, his voice hoarse. “It will scar; I’m sorry. I’m not a good healer.”
She gave him a wavering smile. “As long as I’m not bleeding anymore.”
He slid the pack off his shoulder, dropping it on the ground. She had just a moment’s warning as he swayed, then he went down. She grabbed him but she was almost as feeble as he was and ended up falling beside him.
“Ash,” she gasped, scrambling onto her knees. “Are you okay?”
He lay on his back, one arm across his eyes.
His light hovered above them, just enough illumination to make out his features.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know what he did to me.”
“Who?” She swallowed hard, remembering the bizarre blue glow in his eyes. She’d seen the same blue glow emanating from another pair of eyes. “The dragon?”
He nodded. She wasn’t sure if it was just the weak light, but he looked paler than snow. She laid a hand against his forehead, above his arm. His skin was still hot, but not as feverish as before.
She swallowed again. “He said … the dragon said you were resisting.”
“Could you hear him? I wasn’t sure if his voice was just inside my head.”
“I couldn’t hear him until after he’d caught you. I don’t know what he was saying to you.”
He let out a shuddering breath. She gripped his arm, offering wordless support; she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so shaken up. The three strange dragonets, somehow transformed by the blue fire, watched them curiously.
“I don’t remember very well,” he whispered. “He said my magic had called him, that my dragon fire was powerful. Then he said … he said I was the child of dragons and I owed him my magic. He commanded me to submit to his will.”
She remembered Ash shouting “no” at the dragon in their first encounter—his first refusal to submit? “What happened when he pinned you to the ground?”
Ash shivered under her hand. “He … he somehow poured his magic into me and pulled mine away at the same time. The whole time he tried to dominate my mind with his telepathy, to force me to submit and stop resisting him. I don’t know what would have happened if I had. He wanted to control me, but I don’t understand why.”
Piper pressed her lips together as she pushed through another wave of weak dizziness. She’d lost too much blood. It was drying on her arms, making her skin feel cold and tight.
“Well, he picked the wrong draconian,” she said. “You didn’t spend a lifetime fighting Samael to cave in to the first over-sized lizard that demanded your submission.”
His lips curved in a ghost of a smile. He kept his arm over his eyes, hiding them from Piper’s view—or hiding her from his view?
She eased down to lie beside him, flinching as her burns touched the leafy ground. She reached up and took his arm, gently pulling it away from his face. He turned his head and looked at her with exhausted eyes. No, not just exhausted. Fear lurked in his gaze, shadowing his gray irises.
That’s what he hadn’t wanted her to see. He was afraid.
She wrapped her arms around his, holding it against her chest. “So the dragon forced its magic into you?” she asked gently. “Was that all the blue fire?”
“I guess,” he mumbled. “I don’t remember much after the dragon got me on the ground. Just the heat … heat inside me. I thought I would burst into flame.”
“You had a terrible fever. I didn’t want to leave you on the shore … I hope I didn’t hurt your wing more when I moved you. I didn’t know what to do, and all our gear was up the mountain …”
The muscles in his arm bunched with tension. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I would heal your burns, but I’m not—”
“It’s fine,” she soothed. “The draconians gave me some cream for the burns so they aren’t as bad anymore. They can wait until we get back to the others.” She lifted her head, looking around until she spotted Zwi curled up on Ash’s other side. “I’m more concerned about Zwi’s wings.”
His jaw tensed as he stared upward. “It’s bad. Far beyond my healing skills.”
“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered. “I made her go after the dragon with me. If we’d just waited—”
“I told Zwi to wait, but she still would have come to help me with or without you.”
Piper bit her lip. Her eyes darted to the three dragons waiting patiently in the trees. “What about them? Are they the dragonets of the other draconians?”
“No,” he mumbled, his voice going even quieter. “They’re wild dragonets.”
Her eyes narrowed but he kept staring at the sky, stubbornly evading her gaze. “But I thought only bonded dragonets can transform into larger dragons.”
“That’s what I thought too, but …”
“But what?”
He let out a sound of frustration and finally turned to look at her. Fear and uncertainty darkened his eyes and aged his face. “I don’t know, Piper. I don’t get it. I was still half in the fever sleep when I woke up. I could just—somehow I could sense them nearby. And I called them like I would have called Zwi.”
His eyes flicked down toward her arms, where the draconian’s sword had cut her, then back up to her face. “What happened?”
Apprehension slid through her at the memory of Eliada’s bizarre reaction and verdict that he needed to die.
“They tried to execute you. Because of what the dragon did to you, I think.” Her eyes darted toward the sky. Remembering Eliada’s cold determination, she didn’t doubt that the woman would be coming after Ash again. “They might try again. We need to get away from here, but … you and Zwi can’t fly, and Raum won’t come looking for us until the next eclipse at the earliest.”
He closed his eyes, exhaustion written across his face. Then he heaved a sigh and sluggishly sat up. She got up with him, wobbling on her feet as he turned toward the waiting dragons. He reached for the nearest one and rubbed its muzzle. It rumbled in a friendly way.
“They will carry us back to the camp,” he said.
“They—they will?”
He leaned down and opened their pack, digging in it. When he straightened, he held a coil of rope in his hands.
She eyed it warily. “What’s that for?”
He sighed again as he measured out a length. “I don’t know about you, but short of tying myself in place for the ride, I won’t make it the whole way back.”
A shudder ran through her as she realized she had to spend the next ten hours on a flying dragon when she was already exhausted, weak, and dizzy. Grimacing, she held her hands out for the other end of the rope.
Chapter Twelve
“Okay,” Lyre said, raking a hand through his hair. “Start again. From the beginning.”
Piper blew out a breath and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. The others in the tent waited for her to speak.
Ash lay beside her in a magically induced sleep while Shona and Seiya worked on his wing. Seiya supported the broken bone on her lap with a combination of her hands and magic while Shona performed the careful healing. Since the membrane hadn’t torn, it should be a clean, if slow, healing. In a corner of the tent, Mahala sat crossed-legged with Zwi in her lap, one of the dragonet’s wings in her hands and her brow etched with deep lines of concentration. Zwi’s wings hadn’t been as lucky.
On Piper’s other side, Lyre sat stiffly, drumming his fingers on his knee as his gaze snapped from Ash’s broken wing to Zwi to Piper’s burns, which she’d refused to let anyone heal until Ash and Zwi were taken care of. Raum crouched near the tent entrance, his stillness suggesting great tension; she suspected he would be pacing if the tent were large enough.
The flight back to the camp had been a nightmare of cold wind and nauseating exhaustion. Tied in place, she’d managed to sleep a little but it hadn’t been enough to counter the dizziness from her blood loss. They’d stopped several times to switch mounts, and the steadfast dragons had carried them without hesitation or complaint. The sky had lightened with twilight until the first sun eventually broke the horizon to cast warm light across the mountains.
The dragons had dropped them off at the other end of the valley from the camp, too wary of strangers to approach any closer. Ash had thanked each one before they’d transformed back into dragonets and flown away, heading home. The walk through the valley had almost finished her and Ash had been white as a sheet when Kiev had found them staggering through the trees.
Once they were in a tent where healing could begin for Ash and Zwi, Pip
er had managed a jumbled, emotional rendition of the events, but she wasn’t surprised they wanted to hear it again a little more coherently.
“We found the ancient city,” she began tiredly, keeping her emotions in check this time. “It was totally abandoned. In one of the dwellings, we found the remains of the draconians who’d died there centuries ago, and Ash burned their bones with dragon fire out of respect. I think that’s how the dragon found us.”
Lyre’s fingers stopped drumming and he clenched his hand into a fist as he looked again at her burns.
“It—he—was waiting outside when we came out.” She described the dragon’s approach, his first communication with Ash, and the resulting attack. Her voice trembled when she told them about confronting the dragon while he had Ash pinned under his deadly talons.
“‘Silver child,’” Lyre muttered. “Your scales aren’t silver. They’re greeny-blue.”
“I’m not silver, but the water dragons of the Overworld are. Remember the silver Lady of Seas from the legends? I don’t know how much truth there is to those stories, but I think there’s something there. How would a dragon from the Underworld know about Overworld dragons?”
“So Ash wouldn’t wake after that?” Raum said, pulling her focus back to the incident. “And he was feverish?”
She nodded.
“There are stories about the dragon taking a draconian’s magic,” Shona said, looking up from Ash’s wing, “but nothing about giving magic. I know they’re just legends, but …”
“I don’t think there was anything benevolent about it,” Piper replied darkly. “The dragon wanted to control him … to use him somehow. When he spoke to me, I could sense this great anger in his mind. Definitely not the gentle dragon king from your story.”
“There are other legends,” Shona said slowly. “Kirya told me so many but I only committed my favorites to memory. In many of the stories, it wasn’t one great dragon but a race of them—albeit with very small numbers—and the myths varied in regards to the dragons’ relationships with draconians. In some, they are powerful protectors. In others, they are deadly predators.”