Unfamiliarbecause those eyes were wild and remote and stared straight through me without recognition, as though I did not exist—as though I was not there at all.
“Fell!” His name flowed from my lips like a banner on the wind, flapping with violent energy, flying free from me to get to him.
He heard me. Looked at me. Lookedthroughme.
I stared back, but it was like I stared into the vast emptiness of an icy-white tundra. There was nothing there. No recognition. No reaction. No emotion. No heart.
Without another glance for me, he kept at his work.
And his work happened to be blood and chaos. Death and devastation.
Soldiers shrieked. Their armor and helmets offered no protection. Some tried to flee atop their mounts. Others attempted tofutilely attack with their swords and arrows. They possessed no scale-tipped dragon bone arrows or other dragon weaponry. Stig’s influence clearly had not extended to them.
I pushed aside any remorse for them, knowing they only intended harm for me and Kerstin, knowing the destruction they would have wrought on innocent lives in Penterra. Still, it was a terrible, awesome sight to behold.
Amid the mayhem, Fell was there. Fell waseverywhere, f luid on the wind. His great winged body put them down with ease, picking warriors up hundreds of feet above the ground and then breaking them. Dropping them like discarded toys. Flinging them to the earth like they were nothing. Mere toys to an invincible god.
Kerstin’s fingers dug into my hands. Clinging to each other, we watched the carnage unfold with unblinking eyes.
“How?” I gasped.
She shook her head without tearing her gaze from the spectacle. “He must have heard something … us … them. You.”
Corpses surrounded us, but Fell was not done. Not while any of them still drew breath. He overtook a pair of riders that had almost crested a hill. Plucking them from their saddles with his taloned claws, he ascended hundreds of yards into the sky until they were specks far above—then he let go.
I gaped, watching as the bodies of the warriors plummeted through the air in a shrieking tailspin and collided with the earth in a cloud of bloody snow.
“He’s amazing,” Kerstin breathed.
I nodded jerkily, my fingers numb where they clenched her hand, my heart a wild and savage thing inside my chest.
Then it was over as suddenly as it had begun.
The slap of wings came to a halt as Fell landed amid the carnage with a ground-shuddering thud that I felt vibrate up through my body, humming along every bone to the roots of my teeth.
No more screams.
A great stillness fell over the bloodied land.
He was magnificent. All huffing breaths and silvery pearl skin stretched over animal muscle and sinew.
His name escaped me in an awed whisper. “Fell.”
He heard me, whipped his head hard in our direction, his piercing gaze fixing on me like I was his next meal.
And maybe I was.
I gave a little start, and Kerstin’s hand squeezed mine encouragingly. “He’s yours,” she whispered, and I didn’t know if she was trying to reassure me or warn me.
We held very still, clutching each other as his big body advanced upon us.
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, even as I was not certain for whose benefit I was saying those words. Mine? Or Kerstin’s?
He approached slowly, scaled hide rippling all over his powerful body. His great clawed feet crunched over the snow as those dragon eyes skimmed over Kerstin and fixed on me.
“Tamsyn?” Kerstin asked softly, a wobble to her voice. “He knows it’s us, right?”
“Of course he does.”
