Then I see a swirling cloud off to the side—is that sand? If so, we need to avoid it—the grains themselves are said to be acidic and corrosive to the touch.
But though the dragon’s wings beat faster, the cloud is closing in on us. If it catches us, we’ll both be dead! I watch in horror as it whirls with deadly intent, almost as though it was aiming right for the dragon!
I catch a foul scent on the air and quickly cover my mouth and nose with a fold of my cloak. I must not breathe in the poison fumes! But Valen has no such protection—what if he breathes them in his dragon form and dies in midair? We’ll both go plummeting to the ground!
It’s freezing cold sitting up like this, but I can’t look away. We are now in a desperate race with the cloud. I hold tight to the dragon spine in front of me with one hand and keep my cloak pressed to my lower face with the other. The dragon is straining now—his huge wings beating faster and faster and his enormous lungs pumping like bellows, but still the poison sand cloud draws ever closer.
Just as it seems certain to intercept us, the dragon turns his head and breathes an enormous jet of fire directly at it. I don’t know if his breath is strong enough to divert the storm or if he’s simply trying to burn off the poisonous gases being swept towards us by the swirling winds, but as soon as he finishes jetting flame, he folds his wings and drops like a stone.
I shriek and grip the spine with both hands. In desperation, I wrap my legs around it too. By the grace of the One True Goddess, I somehow manage not to fly off his broad back but it’s a near thing—I can feel the wind fighting to tear me away from the huge beast.
My mind is racing, and my heart is pounding. I’ve never been so frightened in my life! Is the dragon trying to kill us both? What is he doing? Where is he going? Are we going to die?
At the last possible moment just as the ground is looming up below us, his wings pop out again like sails and we transition from a dive to a glide. And then I feel a jolt that nearly knocks me off again…and realize that we’ve landed.
12
VALEN
Fuck—I barely made it! I swear it seemed like that fucking sandstorm was aimed right at us—is there some force that doesn’t want us to pass over the Poison Desert?
Whatever the case, I made it across—but not without some damage. The tiny grains of sand didn’t hurt my Drake’s hide much, but the poison winds irritated his throat.
I feel fucking weak—which I hate. I don’t know if the poison got to me or if it’s just the fact that I’ve been living mostly on bread and water with the occasional fatty, half-rotten slab of beef thrown in for almost a year. The Princess’s blood—no matter how magical—isn’t enough to sustain a beast the size of my Drake indefinitely.
I need to eat and I need to be cleaned—the poison is still all over my Drake’s underside. Which, when I take my human form again, will be my chest and the entire front of my body.
Irena will have to wash it off me. By the laws of the ring and collar, only her hands can get me clean. Wonder how she’s going to like that?
Speaking of the princess, I can feel her stirring on my Drake’s back, but I can’t hold this form any longer. Being in my Drake form takes enormous amounts of energy and I can feel that he’s at the end of his—our—strength.
With a low, pained groan, I let myself Shift back, taking human form once more. I hear her exclaim something, but the effort of changing forms drains the last of my strength.
The worlds goes dark and I know no more.
13
IRENA
The dragon begins shrinking under me, the process going in reverse as his body gets smaller and his scales are reabsorbed back into his body. His neck shortens and his head and face become human again, as does the rest of his body.
Before I know it, I’m sitting astride Valen’s bare back as he lies face down in the grass.
“Oh!” I gasp and hop off at once. We seem to have landed in a kind of clearing in the middle of a vast forest with tall trees all around, but he’s not moving, which worries me.
“Valen?” Gingerly, I take him by one broad shoulder and attempt to roll him over. It takes all my strength but at last I get his massive, muscular body turned so he’s lying on his back.
His eyes are closed but his chest is still moving up and down—that’s a relief, anyway. And the entire front of him is covered in dark brown dust—is that from the winds of the Poison Desert? If so, it needs to come off, but looking around, I don’t see a pond or a lake for him to bathe in.
What I do see is a long, winding path leading deeper into the trees. And beside it is a medium sized inn. A wooden placard hangs above the doorway picturing a severed lamb’s head leaking blood from a ragged stump of a neck. Its eyes are rolled up in its head in a horrid way and the lettering beneath says, “The Slaughtered Lamb.”
Ugh.
I don’t much like the look of the inn—though it’s certainly better than landing in the middle of the Poison Desert—but as I watch, the front door opens and out comes a woman.
She’s plump and bosomy and she’s wearing a brown homespun dress that’s stretched tight over her ample curves.
“Now then, now then!” she exclaims, hurrying up to us. She has shrewd brown eyes which flick rapidly over the two of us—me in my Court gown and Valen, naked as the day he was born. Or hatched? I don’t know the details of the Dragon People’s birth.
