I run like I've never run before, my boots pounding against the cobblestones of the courtyard, then the dirt of the road, then the soft earth of the forest floor.
Behind me, I hear shouts. They've discovered the bodies. They're coming. But I'm faster. I'm fueled by rage and desperation and the burning in my veins that's growing stronger with every step.
The bond surges in my chest, that golden thread pulling taut. I can feel him now, feel the direction like a compass pointing north.
He's there. In the heart of the forest. Waiting.
Does he know I’m coming? Has he felt me through the bond all this time?
The questions fuel my rage higher. Four months he left me there.
I'm coming for you,I think, pushing the words along the bond with all the fury I possess.I'm coming, and you better be ready. You better have a damn good explanation for why you abandoned me. For why you let them take me and did nothing.
Because when I find you, I'm going to kill you too.
The bond pulses in response. Surprise, alarm, something that might be joy or fear or both.
I don't care.
I run faster, deeper into the forest, toward the dragon who was supposed to love me. Toward my reckoning. Toward whatever comes next.
The trees close in around me, and I disappear into the darkness, leaving a trail of blood and bodies and broken fairy tales behind me.
CHAPTER 12
DRAGON
The stone is cold beneath me. So cold. I can feel it through my scales, through the membrane of my wings where they're spread across the floor like broken sails. Blood pools around my neck, dark and thick, and I watch it spread with a strange detachment.
The second arrow hits my arm and the world tilts sideways. I'm falling. No… I'm already on the ground. When did that happen? My massive body crashes fully onto the stone, and the impact sends tremors through my bones. My tail lashes once, twice, smashing into a pillar. Stone cracks. Or maybe that's my ribs. I can't tell.
Adelaide.
Her name is the last thought before darkness swallows me whole.
When consciousness returns, minutes later? hours? I can feel the poison wrapping itself around my very existence. I can feel it crawling through my veins like acid, burning away my magic from the inside out. My healing, that ancient power that's kept me alive for centuries, sputters and dies like a candle in the wind.
The arrow. Still in my neck.
I reach up with one massive clawed hand, my talons scraping against stone as I move. Everything hurts. Everything burns. My scales, usually impenetrable, feel paper-thin. The arrow shaft is slick with my blood, and when I wrap my claws around it, I can feel the poison pulsing through the wood like a heartbeat.
I break the tip off and I pull. The scream that tears from my throat is pure dragon. A sound that shakes the castle walls, that sends birds fleeing from the forest for miles around. The arrow comes free in a gush of blood, and I throw it across the room with what little strength I have left. It clatters against the far wall, and I watch it fall, my vision swimming.
Poison. They poisoned me.
And Adelaide—where is Adelaide?
I try to reach for the bond, that golden thread that connects us, but it's like grasping smoke. Too far. She's too far away. The poison has severed something vital, something I need to heal, and without her proximity, without her presence, my body can't fight back.
I'm dying.
The realization should terrify me, but all I feel is a distant sort of resignation. Maybe this is what I deserve. Maybe this is justice for all the decades I kept her, all the ways I failed her.
Darkness takes me again.
Time becomes meaningless. I black out and wake, black out and wake, caught in an endless cycle of agony. Sometimes I'm aware enough to feel my body trying to heal, my magic flickering like a dying ember. Other times, there's nothing but pain and the cold stone beneath me and the terrible, aching absence where Adelaide should be.
Weeks pass. I think it's weeks. Could be days. Could be months.
