“Stay here.” He didn’t take his eyes off her, jogging backwards through the dirt of the arena until he was nearly in the centre of it. The shouting was getting louder, but she was utterly transfixed by Keeran.
Magic shimmered in the air around him, and she just had time to see his eyes widen at something behind her before he broke into a sprint.
“Aelia!” he roared into her head.
There wasn’t time to react, one moment he was running towards her, the next he’d transformed in a ripple of magic. The scaled beast bounded towards her, wings spreading wide as it covered the distance in a few leaping strides. Its body was a hulking expanse of rippling muscle, its wingspan so wide that she couldn’t see both tips at the same time. Black scales covered its angular body like flint, but the skin of its wings was so thin it was nearly translucent.
It was on her before she could think, and she spun away from it, dropping to a crouch with her arms over her head as the columns of its front legs slammed down on either side of her, blocking out the morning light of the sun.
She peered through her eyelids, just in time to see the soldiers Keeran had spotted pouring into the arena. They froze as they came face-to-face with the monster of legends, the god of death. Her god of death.
She stood slowly, hardly coming level with the obsidian talons that pierced the dirt on either side of her. The soldiers scrambled to escape, shoving past each other as they tried to push their way back through the arched door through which their comrades were still pouring out. They all bore the red insignia of the King, and Aelia wondered how many humans they’d each captured, how many artemians they’d silenced.
Whatever their number, it would climb no higher.
Thunder rumbled in the great expanse of Keeran’s chest, his neck snaking lower.
“Do it,” she said with a nudge of her mind against his.
His jaws parted, and the thunder above her became a roar of flame, exploding from him in a column of fire no mortal could hope to survive. The stone building glowed, roasting those who lurked within it, their screams lost to the billowing flames. By the time his jaw snapped shut, there wasn’t a soul among them left living.
He stepped carefully over her, and she craned her neck back to take in the rippling black scales that passed overhead. His tail whipped over her, the black giving way to the deep crimson of fresh blood as it tapered to a fine point.
He settled into a crouch beside her, his reptilian eyes watching her with a predatory gleam she recognised all too well. This was what she’d seen lurking within him, the otherness she both feared and craved. Her lips curved in a wicked smile as she took in the violent beauty of him, and a metallic rumble rattled from deep within his chest.
She tentatively reached out to touch his nose, and the rumble intensified approvingly. She ran her hand over the smooth armour of his scales. They were almost iridescent where the sun struck them, showing the subtlest shine of red within the black that seemed to swallow all light.
The bones of his skull protruded in elegant arcs, the minute scales around his nostrils flaring slightly with each breath he took, his lips hiding the razorlike teeth he’d bared when running across the arena.
She trailed her fingers over him as she walked to his side, looking up at the mountainous expanse of muscle. The skin on his wings felt like silk under her fingers, and her eyes followed the line of them up to where they’d folded tightly to his side. They attached to his shoulders at the base of his long, graceful neck, creating a slight indentation in the otherwise perfect curve of his back.
Her lips pressed together with grim determination. He’d tucked his front leg beneath him, and she reached as high as she could to try and grip onto the angle of his foot. Her fingers hooked over it, but her arms failed her almost immediately, and her knees buckled as her feet hit the dirt.
His head lifted from the ground and snaked towards her. She climbed to her feet, her muscles still wobbling beneath her.Keeran rolled his head to the side, and she hesitantly draped herself over his muzzle. She just had time to notice the warmth of him, before she was lifted off her feet with an undignified squeak.
The ground fell away from under her as he lifted her onto his back, waiting until she had slid safely between his wings before he swung his head back around.
Aelia tried to reach him through the pair bond, but it had disappeared. The loss of it slammed into her, leaving her gasping.
Keeran began to move, standing and spreading his wings wide. She fell forwards, nestling between the prominent curve of his shoulder bones as his wings beat at the air. He lifted himself onto his back legs, rearing towards the slips of sky visible from within the crevices in the mountain. Without warning, he launched them into the air, gravity relinquishing its hold on them as they left the arena and climbed over the city.
The wind tore at her, pulling at her hair and making her eyes water. She blinked frantically, peering at the Inner City as it sprawled beneath them.
It was glorious. Waterfalls gushed down the mountainside, cascading past the palaces that climbed out of the rock. Flowers of climbing plants had burst open to greet the sun, splashing colour within the vibrant greens that crawled over the buildings.
Keeran circled over it, seeming as reluctant to leave as she was. His wings found a steady rhythm, and her body rocked with his, absorbing the movement more easily now that they were airborne.
Aelia’s stomach plummeted as Keeran rolled sharply to the side, bunching his shoulder blades to keep her firmly in place, but saving her cost him altitude. They dropped a few feet before he corrected himself, allowing Aelia a glimpse of the javelin they’d narrowly avoided. The artemians were firing at them.
Aelia sank low onto his back, swinging her head as she frantically tried to see where the javelin had come from. With a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach, she spotted the enormous machines lining the upper portion of the cavern, each being loaded with a javelin so huge it took three artemians to carry it.
Keeran must have seen them too. His bellow reverberated around the Main Chamber, loosening fragments of stone and dust from the ceiling. He beat his wings furiously, seeming to lengthen as he tore through the air towards a sliver of light in the cavern's ceiling. Aelia couldn’t breathe, fear closing her throat as the rockface loomed closer. The crevice was too narrow, just a slit in the rock. There was no way they were going to fit.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream as they barrelled towards it, certain that death was imminent. At the very last second, Keeran flattened his wings against his side, scrunched his shoulders in close to pin her in place, and pinwheeled into the gap in the rock.
Her vision flickered from dark to light as they spun through the crevice, erupting on the other side with a burst of his wings. He roared his fury to the open sky, and she felt the world beneath quake at the force of it.
But Keeran didn’t stop, didn’t turn back for revenge, despite the rage she didn’t need a pair bond to sense seething within him. He levelled out, his wings settling into a steady beat as he carried them away from Llmera, away from the Astraea.
