It lifts a claw, the sharp talons glinting gold as they move toward me. The crowd gives a collective gasp, reminding me that hundreds of people are watching my end. A scream is caught in my throat, too frightened to do anything except squeak along my tongue as a huge claw hovers just beside me.
It’s too much. I close my eyes. I don’t want to see it tearing me apart, to see my blood splashing onto the broken stones. Holding my breath, I feel a tear slide down my cheek, leaving a trail of sorrow and dread.
My wrist jerks.
A cry rips from my throat, and I open my eyes as one of the shackles clatters to the ground. The huge claw is almost against me, and then I feel my other wrist jolt, the second shackle falling away. The talons, though enormous and thick, are deft, so much so that the beast broke my bonds without hurting me. I stare at my wrists in amazement.
Then the talons are moving again, and I scream as I’m caught in them. The curved claws wrap around me as I’m lifted from the ground. And then I’m gone, the mighty flap of wings almost deafening as the creature shoots off the Widow’s Tower, carrying me into the night air while I scream and scream as I’m borne toward Oblivion.
Chapter
Three
LARELLIN
My cries die out as we wheel through the endless night sky. The wind is freezing, but the talons have closed around me in such a way that I’m pressed against the dragon’s—surprisingly warm—flesh. I pull my legs into the cage of talons and curl into a ball, wriggling around until the bony claws aren’t digging into my ribs.
Clenching my eyes shut, I fight against the nausea that tries to bubble up inside me, and more than anything else—I don’t look down. I can’t. If I were to see the ground so far away, dipping and swaying with the flap of the beast’s wings, I’m certain I’d vomit all over myself. Instead, I wrap my arms tightly around my middle and huddle against the warm creature. The wind still whips at me from in-between the claws, but it’s nothing like the exposed top of the Widow’s Tower.
One errant move would send me plummeting to the dark lands below, so I try to breathe slowly, evenly. I don’t want to panic, to scream, to do anything that would cause the creature to drop me.
The flight seems to go on forever, so long that sometimes I feel myself on the edge of dozing. But then I remember the peril I’min, the very real danger that I’ll be dropped, incinerated, or eaten soon, and I snap back awake. Not that there’s anything I can do about it.
I’m at the dragon’s mercy. What’s worse, Kanelden was right: no one has ever come back from the lands of Oblivion. We always assume that the Bargain prevents it, but more sinister tales undercut that notion. Grownups would whisper around the fire at night or in their bed while their children were supposed to be sleeping, telling stories of what happens to those taken by the immortals. Of all the Bargains, deals with the DragonKin are the deadliest. To be bound to them is to offer your neck to Death’s blade.
A shiver rushes through me, and the talons twitch, closing more tightly and pressing me against the warmth of the dragon flesh above and behind me. I lean into it, needing it to thaw the chill in my mind and heart. My cheek brushes against the oddly soft skin, heat transferring from the dragon to me and sending a bloom of warmth through me. No scales here, the dragon’s flesh almost akin to a cat’s paw.
I yelp when the creature banks sharply, so sharply that I roll against the hard talons, the unforgiving curve of them sending pain shooting along my back. Torches flare far below, and I can faintly see people on the ground, all of them around some sort of machine. Though difficult to see in the murky dark, it looks like some sort of wooden tower with a rope strung taut across the front of it. Something glints, and then I see what it is. A huge arrow, the rope part of a bow mechanism. When it releases, it flies straight for us.
I scream and try to wrap my arms around one of the talons as the dragon banks hard again. I’m barely holding on when thecreature roars so loudly I wonder if it might drive a fissure into the earth or the sky itself.
Then it hurtles toward the ground as I hold on, utterly helpless to do anything else. Heat pulses through it again, this time the warmth rolling over me like a wave. Then, when I’m certain we’re going to crash into the woods below, a streak of fire lights up the night in a brilliant glow of green and golden flames. Men scream, bloodcurdling and full of terror, as the beast burns everything in its path. I have to close my eyes against the heat, the seemingly unending stream of destruction that flows from the creature that has me gripped tightly in its claws.
By the time we’re sweeping up into the sky again, everything below is orange and smoky. No one screams any longer. Nothing is left. Not the trees or the structure or the enormous bow mechanism on top. How many lives were taken just now? And why would anyone try to bring down a DragonKin? They should’ve known better.
The scent of char and ash whips past me and then floats away on the frigid air as we rise farther and faster, as if the dragon is chasing down an errant star, attempting to catch it before it’s too far gone.
I’ve never been this far from home, never ventured beyond the borders of our village and the neighboring farmlands. In the tales of immortals, we were often warned that to stray far from home invites trouble. A sprite might appear and lead you to your doom or perhaps a wicked fae who offers a Bargain that will, of course, also lead to your doom. For all the fireside tales of stumbling into a grisly end, I was led straight to mine by my fellow humans. Chained up and left for the monster that bears me away from everything I’ve ever known. From my mother. It hits me again as if that giant arrow slammed right into my heart.She’s alone now. Utterly forlorn and with no one to lean on. Just like me.
Everything stops.I realize I dozed off during the journey when a softthunkwakes me. I peer around, the claw still encasing me. As if in a cage, I peer through the golden bars of my prison. We’re at the edge of a forest, though the ground beneath us is rocky and gray. The air is still chilly, the sun barely hinting at the edge of the horizon.
“Is this Oblivion?” I sit up, my body aching from the night spent in the dragon’s talons. Mist wraps through the trees and hovers in the air, yellow and blue flowers dusted in frost rise at the edge of the tree line. It’s like something from a storybook.
I gasp as the creature flaps its wings once more and flies us away from the wooded edge of the trees, along a short ridge, and into a wide cave that yawns in the rock face ahead. I can’t see much, only the outlines of a cavern as we glide into the dimness, silent as sorrow. Easing to a stop, the monster finally releases me, and I hit the stone floor on my bottom.
“Ow!” I roll to my hip and reach down, feeling my rear as if that will help. It doesn’t, the ache’s bone deep and spread evenly as I settle back down. My eyes adjust slowly to the gloom, and I find myself wishing this cavern wasn’t so open. I’m exposed in the middle of a wide expanse. The air isn’t close or dank, instead, it seems to move softly, flowing against my wind-chapped skin. It’s almost warm, as if it’s spring here already. I can sense the dragon somewhere ahead of me, but I’ve lost sight of it in the darkness despite its huge form.
A foolish urge to call out ‘hello’ rises in my chest, but I swallow it down. Drawing attention to myself is the last thing I need to do.
A tinkling sound, as if an avalanche of metal has slid free somewhere within the cavern, rushes all around me. What is that? I draw my knees up and hug them, my blood pounding. I’d give anything for a torch right now, for some way to see into the darkness. But perhaps it’s better if I don’t see my fate coming. A shiver crawls through me as I remember the dragon’s teeth, the way they shone in the moonlight.
The beast snorts, the sound echoing off the cavern walls.
I don’t know what to do. Swallowing hard, I get to my feet, my knees shaking as I put my hands out in front of me and blindly shuffle forward. The thin fabric of my shoes is already falling apart, catching on the rough floor and nearly tripping me.
Continuing forward, I once again want to speak, to ask the dragon why I’m here and what it plans to do to me.
My foot hits something solid, and it scatters ahead of me. The sound is something I know instinctually—it’s bone. I step again, and my breath catches when I kick even more bones. They rattle and scatter, and I catch the slightest glimpse of what has to be a human skull as it rolls away and becomes swallowed by the darkness.
