‘You’ll get used to it,’ she added, her tone clipped.
Without a word, Kai followed her as they stepped once more into the phoenixian desert, a land less perilous than the shifting sands of the Desert Kingdom, but vast nonetheless. Endless and exhausting.
He muttered beneath his breath, barely loud enough for her to hear, ‘I don’t think I ever will.’
…
‘It’s this way.’
‘I swear, I will turn that thick skull of yours into stone!’ Dawn snapped, hands firmly planted on her hips, her tone sharp enough to flay skin. ‘I know my directions.’
‘Clearly you don’t,’ Kai replied, not sparing her a glance as he strode forward with infuriating confidence. The jagged silhouette of a rocky mountain loomed to their left, one Kai distinctly remembered as a marker near the path to Kairus. Dawn, naturally, insisted they should head in the opposite direction, skirting around the far side of the range instead. ‘I’ve studied the terrains on maps with my brother for years.’
‘We’re going to get lost,’ she warned. ‘A stupid map doesn’t make you an expert.’
‘Wyverians do not get lost.’
Dawn rolled her eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t fall from her head. ‘Of course theydon’t. Let me guess. Wyverians are perfect, aren’t they? Never get lost, never lose a battle, never lose an argument… and probably all possess cocks the size of their egos.’
Kai gave a short, amused snort. ‘Not entirely wrong.’ He cast her a sideways look, a devilish grin tugging at his lips. ‘You seem strangely preoccupied with my anatomy, witch.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I do entertain frequent fantasies about casting a hex on it.’
Kai opened his mouth for a retort, but the sound that tore through the air silenced them both—a roar, ancient and thunderous, that reverberated through the stone beneath their feet. Without another word, he rushed to the edge of the mountain path and halted.
There, poised at the cliff’s lip, stood a dragon, its wings unfurled like banners of flame, eyes gleaming with wary intelligence. It launched into the air with a single sweep, soaring high above them in a graceful arc before descending, talons striking earth in a cloud of dust. The beast’s head turned towards them, maw parting in a silent, tooth-filled warning.
‘Kai…’
Dawn’s voice, taut with unease, drifted behind him like a breeze warning of an incoming storm. But Kai paid it no heed. He moved forward, deliberate and unshaken, extending his hand with the confidence of someone who understood danger and walked willingly towards it. The dragon sniffed the air, nostrils flaring as it caught the scent of wyverian blood. A deep-throated roar rippled through the stillness, but the beast did not strike.
Instead, its crimson gaze locked with Kai’s.
A small, triumphant smile curved his lips as his palm met the scaled ridges of its snout, armoured and ancient, hot beneath his touch. This one, he realised, was a female. A glorious dragon of orange-gold flame, smaller than the others he had seen backat the drakonian castle, delicate by comparison, yet no less lethal. Kage’s lessons returned to him unbidden: dragons were unlike wyverns. Here, the males towered in bulk and might, while the females, though slighter, were faster, keener, infinitely more precise.
‘I think we could ride her,’ Kai said, his voice soft as he stroked the creature’s crown. The dragon responded by lowering herself to the ground, folding her wings like silk across her spine.
He turned to find Dawn standing a great distance away, her arms wrapped around her middle, trembling. She looked small, stricken, as though the very air had become too sharp to breathe.
‘Come here,’ he urged.
She shook her head, eyes wide with something deeper than hesitation, something far closer to terror.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked, not unkindly. There was no jest in his voice, no sharpness. Only quiet curiosity.
Dawn stepped forward, just one step, an instinctive act of defiance perhaps, but the moment the dragon released a low growl, she recoiled, her fear breaking through like glass.
‘You’re afraid of dragons,’ Kai said, not as an accusation, but a realisation. ‘Yet your entire plan hinged on using them to defeat Hagan. How exactly did you think that would work?’
‘I hadn’t… quite thought that far ahead,’ she muttered, eyes fixed on the creature as though it might turn at any moment and devour her whole. ‘Step one: find the dragons. Step two… well, that was to be determined.’
‘Come closer,’ he said again, this time gentler.
‘No.’
‘It won’t bite.’
‘I’m not afraid of being bitten, you blasted idiot,’ she snapped, her voice raw. ‘I’m afraid it’ll burn me alive.’
