She knew what he saw, what theyallsaw. More important, she knew what they didnotsee.
They did not see a dragonling.
They did not see what he was at his core—that he was dragon, just like Ashild.
They saw a child. A human.
This, she realized, was not a bad thing. Whatever else happened, her child would be safe as long as they did not recognize this truth. They would not kill what they believed to be one of their own, one of them.
A warrior pointed. “She has a child, my lord!”
Graybeard nodded. He was a man of importance, of position and power. “Aye. Careful. Do not harm the boy—”
She forgot her momentary relief and felt a flash of seething rage. They thought she would harmherson? As thoughshewas the threat to him. As thoughshewas the danger, the festering disease. Even as she knew, logically, that this belief kept him safe, she resented it. It only deepened her bloodlust for them, and she roared again, stretching out her neck, the sound murdering their ears as it bounced off the walls of the den and beyond, through the twisting tunnels of the mountain.
Her son scurried to the far wall of the den, his eyes wild, his pale chest lifting and dropping hard, ribs working visibly beneath the stretch of his skin as he gulped noiseless sobs.
She was glad he had gone from her side. Glad he was not in the way as a warrior charged her, another warrior fast behind him. Just because they did not wish the boy harm did not mean he was safe. Accidents happened, especially amid a skirmish.
She turned, swinging her tail in a swift arc, slamming the first human against the wall with a satisfying crunch and hot spray ofblood while knocking the other one off his feet. She brought her great clawed foot down on him, crushing his skull as easily as a melon beneath her weight.
One dead. One stunned and incapacitated from his collision with the wall, perhaps dead, too … eventually, if his glazed eyes were any indication.
But there were still ten of them left.
Ten too many.
They did not make the mistake of advancing one by one or in pairs again.
With battle cries, they swarmed. Too many for her, even with her strength, with her great size, but she would not go without a fight. Without inflicting damage. Perhaps before, she could have taken them. When she was younger, stronger. Not weak from lack of food. Not weak from the loss of her bond.
They overwhelmed her in one great wave, falling on her, climbing her, stabbing, plunging their swords wherever their steel blades could reach. None so grievously, though. No mortal wound. Nothing that wouldn’t heal in time.
Still roaring, she twisted, spinning around, throwing them off—until she turned directly into the thrust of a ready blade. A blade that was not steel—a blade thatcouldmortally wound her.
Thatdid.
Not steel. Not even a sword. An axe of dragon bone. The kind that had struck dragons down during the Threshing. Death had found her at last. After all these years. Penetrating deep, clanging into her breastbone. Bone meeting bone.
She froze. Her gaze locked on him, the leader, his eyes so deep and fathomless that she felt herself drowning, sinking, like a bog was dragging her down, into him, this man, her executioner.
She looked between them, at the axe wedged inside her, her blood pumping around the sucking wound. Purple shimmered around the chalky-white blade, slicking its path.
He smiled gleefully, spittle bubbling around his lips andspeckling his beard as he adjusted his grip on the handle of his axe. With an exultant grunt, he pushed the blade deeper into her chest, cracking her open, splintering her breastbone, cleaving her wide.
The rushing sound of blood filled her ears like a distant river. She looked down, watching the glimmering purple pouring out like water from a tap … from her body. She went suddenly cold. Colder than any winter she had ever faced. She opened her throat for another roar, but this time only a plaintive mewl escaped, small and weak as a trembling mouse. She panted weakly, gasping for air around the garbled sound.
The lines webbing the warrior’s eyes deepened, crinkling as his grin widened. “Your time is over. Just go ahead … and let go. Die.” Her legs gave out, crumpling—her bulk too much, too great, impossible to support. She fell where she stood with a heavy thud, the ground beneath her turning wet and spongy with her spreading blood.
He surged forward and sprang atop her back in a move surprisingly spry for a man well past his youth. Air sawed from her mouth, the pauses between each breath growing longer, shallower.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t resist.
Her body went limp. Broken. Done.
Even her eyelids felt like lead weights. She struggled to keep her eyes open as his hand came down on her head, sliding forward to grip one of the hard spikes along her frill and give it a yank, forcing her throat back, exposing that most vulnerable flesh to the air—to him. There was a tug around her neck as he wrenched her chain free. She caught a flash of the black opal Sigurd had given her. Another piece gone, lost forever.
She kept her eyes open, knowing this was it. As he said … her time was over.
