Sol gasped as cold air slammed into her body. Above her stretched an endless expanse of blue—so bright, so vast, so open that her mind couldn't process it.
And below. . .
Dear Goddess!!
Below her lay a chain of mountains unlike anything she had ever seen. They rose from the ocean like the spines of sleeping giants—dozens of them, all carved hollow, all connected by bridges of black stone and rivers of gold. Towers jutted from their peaks. Courtyards sprawled across their slopes. This wasn't just a lair.
It was a kingdom.
A dragon kingdom.
Built into the bones of the earth itself.
But Sol barely had time to marvel before Pyrran climbed higher.
Higher!
The air grew thin.
Cold.
Her lungs burned.
The mountains shrank to toys, to pebbles, to nothing. The ocean became a silver mirror. The clouds approached like a floor of white silk.
She could hear Korin roaring somewhere far below—a desperate, furious sound—but it grew fainter with every wingbeat.
With her still trapped in his jaw, Pyrran burst through more clouds.
And suddenly, Sol was floating above the world.
Nothing below but white. Nothing above but dark blue. The sun burned like a distant god, and she was so high that the curve of the planet seemed visible at the edges of her vision.
She couldn't breathe correctly.
Couldn't think.
Could only feel the terrible grip of Pyrran's jaws and the weight of gravity waiting below.
And then. . . Pyrran opened his mouth and tossed her in the air.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sol screamed as she tumbled free, her body spinning through the frozen air.
Her stomach plummeted before the rest of her did—that sickening lurch of gravity claiming her, yanking her insides upward while the world rushed down. Her hair whipped violently above her head, a wild black halo against the endless blue. The cold seared her naked skin like a thousand tiny blades, burning where it should have frozen.
Tears ripped sideways from her eyes, stolen by the wind before they could fall.
For one heartbeat, she saw Pyrran's silver eyes watching her from above—cold, calculating, and utterly without mercy. His voice followed her down. "If you aretrulya dragon, then surely, you can fly?"
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
And then he laughed.
The sound was nothing like Korin's warm rumble. This laugh was cruel and crystalline, sharp as shattering ice, echoing off the clouds themselves as if the sky had learned to mock her. It rang in her ears long after it should have faded—cold, ancient, and utterly without pity.
The sound chased her as she fell.
