We flung ourselves forward, fire bombing around us.
I feinted left. A ball of fire slammed inches from my foot; I spun right, nearly colliding with Sinéad. I leapt over a smashed decanter of mushroom whiskey; flames guttered hungrily along the spill. Another sheet of fire arced over my head; I ducked and nearly stumbled. The narrow gap in the stone Sinéad had indicated wafted, inchoate, between phantoms of smoke—I tried to keep it locked in my vision, even as my eyes and lungs and muscles burned. Just ten more paces—
I tripped over something large on the floor, my knees giving out as I catapulted onto the slick black ground. The breath whooshed harshly from my chest; my elbows screamed where I caught my fall. Instinct forced me to my feet; I almost didn’t register what had made me fall. The exit was temptingly, tantalizingly close—
It was a…person. Panic spiked my veins—was it Irian? Wayland?
A gust of air formed and re-formed the shifting smoke, and I glimpsed straight hair the color of draig fire; lean, muscled arms curled around himself; eyes shut tight as if to block out the chaos. I reached for him. Hesitated when I remembered what I’d become.
Wayland had been able to touch me without injury. I took a chance—laid my palm on his shoulder. He flinched but did not move save for his lips, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. I lifted my hand away.
“Idris!” I shouted. That was his name—wasn’t it? Around us, bursts of fire lashed, shrieking through the air to explode near our heads. I ducked and winced, staring after Sinéad as she disappeared down the aperture. “Idris, you have to get up! There isn’t much time.”
Somewhere, the Cnoc’s supplies of oil and wine must have caught fire—muffled blasts rocked the caverns, the smoke fuming from the deeps. The walls dripped with molten silver metal, as if the mountain were weeping. I had lost count of how many young draigs bellowed and flapped and rained fire upon our heads. I prayed to gods I had reason to believe weren’t listening that my friends had found a way out of this conflagration. Sinéad, at least, was safe. Irian was a ruthless warrior who wielded a Treasure. Wayland was an obstreperous reprobate with an uncanny knack for weaseling into—and out of—trouble. Balor and the aughiskies had likely survived worse. Laoise could take care of herself.
Which meant there was only me. And Idris.
I couldn’t leave him here.
I crouched beside him, cursing myself for barely speaking to him yesterday beyond cursory introductions. The only salient thing I knew about Laoise’s brother was how he’d looked at Wayland last night in the library. Like the prionsa was something rare and forbidden—a sweetness he could hardly resist, or a poison that might linger long after the thrill.
That didn’t help me now.
“Listen,” I rasped, my voice choked by smoke. “Fear is the body’s armor. It can be a shield. But it can also chain you.”
Again, Idris’s lips moved inaudibly. My patience was as shattered as the rocks crumbling from the vaulted ceilings high above. “What?”
“Not… a… fighter. Not… strong.”
“You’re alive, Idris. That makes you a fighter,” I choked out. “You don’t need a blade in your hand to be strong. Strength comes in standing, even when fear grips you. All it takes is one step. Then another. Be your own shield. Don’t let yourself die chained to your fear.”
He uncurled. Slowly—painfully slowly. I fought with every ounce of my self-control not to harry him, hurry him. Grab him bodily by the arm and haul him toward safety.
“That’s it,” I encouraged, my voice disappearing beneath the booming blasts and crackling fire. Idris levered himself to his feet. He was surprisingly tall—I had to slant my face to look at him. Half his face was shadowed by the fall of his hair. The other half was utterly petrified.
“Go on,” I screamed, pointing toward the crevasse where Sinéad had disappeared. “I’m right behind you! I won’t let anything happen.”
He moved as if he were made of stone. But he moved. Shadows swallowed us; a few steps later, fresh air swirled around my face, sweeping fumes from my lungs in one relieved gasp. I urged Idris forward, my flame-roasted gaze dredging the darkness for scraps of light. After what felt like eternity, pale blue filtered in. Daylight. We spilled out onto the mountain.
The landscape unfolded with rugged, desolate beauty—a vast expanse of windswept dark rock and craggy mountains stretching toward the endless horizon. Sparse patches of velveteen moss clung to crevices, defying the harshness around them; pale, slender wildflowers pushed through fractured stone as if holding vigil in the solitude.
“You made it.” Sinéad had her hands planted on her knees asshe sucked in breath after breath of fresh mountain air. Behind her, the aughiskies sallied and stamped, their aquatic beauty at odds with the stark strangeness of the Barrens. “Thank the gods.”
Linn sent me a blistering image of myself, so blackened and sooty that I crisped away like ashes upon the wind.
“Missed you too, fiend,” I grumbled.
My momentary relief at having escaped the caverns faded before my mounting worry for everyone else. A huge craggy head appearing above the rise swiftly alleviated at least one fear; behind Balor were Irian and Wayland. Soot was smeared across Irian’s face, and half his tunic was burned away; Wayland was still wrestling with the baby draig.
At the sight of Wayland, or the draigling—or both—Idris shook himself from his lingering stupor.
“Hog!” he cried, holding out his arms. The baby draig launched herself at him—but instead of whatever welcome he had been expecting, she attacked him. Her little mouth spat sparks as she snapped at his face; her diamond claws raised livid scratches along his throat. He jerked back, horrified, even as Wayland reached out and recaptured his wayward charge, bundling her back into his mantle.
“She is not herself,” he said somberly.
Without warning, one side of the mountain burst open. Rocks groaned. Stones clattered. Black smoke plumed, even as a pennant of rose-gold hurtled through the opening. Vast wings snapped open, catching afternoon sunlight and glowing vermilion. I gasped—Laoise’s anam cló was astonishingly huge and impossibly graceful and exquisitely menacing. Primeval instinct seeded panic through my veins. I could not stop myself from retreating a few steps down the mountain as she flicked her tail to the sky and hurtled down, her vast form arrowing straight toward us with her shining wings outstretched.
Had Laoise fallen prey to whatever terrible force gripped the draiglings?
