A hand appeared in my face.
“C’mon,” Horace grunted.
Shock filled me as I gripped his hand and he hauled me forward into a small side tunnel I hadn’t been able to see through the smoke. The fire kept down its path, oblivious to our hiding spot, but we only took a moment to catch our breaths before Horace guided me through this subsection of the mountains with a torch in his hand.
“Never thought I’d be so happy to see you,” I said in between coughs, expelling black soot from my lungs.
“You can kiss me later,” he said dryly. “I got your sister and Lark, too.”
I closed my eyes, relief flooding my chest.
“Where’s Rose?” he added.
Distress crept back in. “I’m not sure. We got separated. I think she might be following a path to the top of the mountain.”
He nodded as we ran. “We’ll go back up once this is over. She’ll be fine, Leo. It has to end sometime.”
Sooner than I expected, pinpricks of natural light appeared in the distance, marking the bottom of the mountain. Morning sunlight streamed through the entrance of the tunnel, so bright I had to cover my eyes as we stepped onto level ground.
Something soft and furry slammed into me. Rissa’s wet nose slid along my arms in her excitement. I laughed and rubbed the backs of her ears, taking note of areas where her fur was singed, but nothing life threatening. Glancing up, I saw both Lark andHorace smiling faintly at us, the pair of them tired and covered in cinders but alive and well.
“What happened to all of you?” I asked.
“I was keeping watch outside. The fire came out of nowhere,” Horace said, crossing his arms. “Smelled it through the tunnels, but couldn’t get back to you. It was like a wall blocking me out. I traced a path around the mountain trying to find a way in when these two popped out.”
Lark bent down to scratch Rissa’s side. “I wouldn’t have made it without her. She could smell the way, even through the smoke, and led us right to Horace. What about you and Rose?”
I quickly recounted our tale after we’d left the big cave. As I spoke, I took in our surroundings, surprised to find us not at the forest where we’d entered the mountain, but on what looked like a beach. The rocky path under our feet bled into smaller and smaller pebbles until it became sand, the shoreline meeting blue waves just visible around a curve.
A strange noise punctuated the air. A beating sound that made the wind ripple.
Lark shot me a concerned look. At her side, Rissa growled, a low, ferocious rumble, her ears peeled back to her head.
I strode onto the sandy beach and turned the corner, and was met with the sight of brilliant turquoise waves crashing against white sand and birds squawking above us.
And an enormous dark beast hovering over the ground.
I halted in my tracks.
Vicious horns, a long, curved neck, teeth that shone in the sun. Four sets of claws capable of removing a head from its neck. Navy and silver scales covering a body so massive, so powerful, I had to rake my gaze upward to take it all in.
From its claws dangled a small figure, dark hair streaming in the wind as the creature set her down in the sand.
“Is that…” Lark trailed off and gasped behind me.
I took off at a sprint, Rose’s name on the tip of my tonguebefore the word fell to ash. In my next breath, the beast—thedragon—shifted.
Into Nox Duma.
Horace cursed. “That’s impossible.”
A moment later, that pit in my chest where I felt my loss of magic suddenly exploded with power. My Shifter instincts erupted so violently I could see every individual grain of sand, could hear Rose and Nox’s shaking breaths and heartbeats all the way across the beach, couldtasteher scent on my tongue.
My magic had returned.
Whirling around, I saw Lark’s shadows swirling, creeping at our feet as if they couldn’t control themselves. My sister launched herself at me and shifted midair back to her human form, then threw her arms around my neck.
“I’m never eating pheasant again,” she mumbled.
