My head rears up, the pounding in my heart, alive and painful in my chest. Dawn is still a long way off. Getting to my taloned feet, I glance through the opening of the wall and see Dyeus’s units, looking slightly disheveled andsuddenly alert. Several are gearing up, preparing to test the wall again.
The wind rushes and I know a force is approaching me with great speed. I pull away from the wall in time to see a black-scaled dragon approach—Ozias. His amber eyes pin me and something within says I’ve betrayed him. I smother the sensation, and regard him as he regards me. He’s first to look away, to the regiment outside the walls, then up towards the sky.
My talons curl into the hard-packed floor beneath me, imagining taking off, flying in the sky, unbound and uncaring, destination unknown—simply, away. I’m in deep of something greater than anything I’ve ever known, and I don’t know how to swim in these new waters.
What happened?he asks.
I clench my jaw tight. Whatever this is with Zhoric, I’m certain I can’t let Ozias know. His trust in me is already tentative. Telling him I’m having conversations with the enemy, that there’s this feeling inside me that wants to know where Zhoric is coming from, is a betrayal I can’t let grow.
I will conceal this one thing. I need to figure out on my own how to stop going to Zhoric.
As I’m about to tell Ozias that there’s nothing to worry about, a blast pierces my ears and rubble rains down.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
OZIAS LEAPS INTO the air and I follow without a second thought, going higher than even Ozias, well above the wall. It’s the first time I’ve had the wind beneath my wings, but that’s not what steals my breath. Out in the wide open Sere, the ground is alive with the movements of hundreds of Dyeus’s men, both in their human forms and dragon. Every one of them are heading right for the Realm.
Ozias lets out a low, warning rumble.
What is this?I question, slowly drawing closer and closer to the edge of the outside wall, until a sensation of moving through water coasts over the scales of my face.
Kaisa!Ozias warns, but I realize my mistake too late.
A snarl rips from me as something latches around my long neck and pulls hard.
Ozias roars as I hurtle outside barrier.I beat my wings, but I’m unused to them, and whatever force has its grip around my throat has no intention of letting go.
From behind, Ozias wraps his body around mine. It slows us, but he doesn’t have enough strength to pull me back. Another hard jerk and together, we tumble and hit the ground on the outside.
My body wraps tight around Ozias, and my scales suddenly feel wrong, bristled and spiked. My mouth opens wide, teeth aching. I’m trembling with the effort to focus, to hold onto my mind, to stop it from going savage. I try to detach myself from Ozias and unfurl my body from his. I need to get as far away as possible. I can’t hurt him, and if I stay close, I will. The thin tether I have on my mind is slipping through my hold. The power around my neck jerks me hard and I stumble.
No,Ozias’s voice comes to my mind and he wraps himself around me tighter, pinning me to him, back onto the ground.
You have to go back,I bark.You’ll turn, too.
I won’t go without you.I give a warning snap of my teeth near his face and indignation swarms me when he huffs, his laugh deep and rasping in my mind. I snap again, my body trembling with the effort of maintaining my mind. I thrash my head, trying to loosen whatever power Dyeus has holding me.
Ozias,I think, loud and incessant.Let go.
He coils around me tighter and my muscles begin to twitch, rib cage billowing out erratic, misty breaths.
No.
I roar again, my anger swelling like a tide washing high up on shore, and no matter how much I want to fall back, to be absorbed into the waves, it keeps coming and that’s when I know I’m going to lose my hold. My vision grows hazy. Ozias stands. I’m draped over his neck.
He crouches, straining against my weight and the force of the curse pressing in. An impact from the side rocks us. Ribbons of blood ripple past my face in the wind. Ozias tips his head back in a pained roar. Wheeling around, he rips out the throat of his attacker. The dragon falls into myline of sight. In its mouth is an arm—Ozias’s arm—talons dangling limp and lifeless.
Horror and rage churn my gut. I whip my head around, but no other dragons are in range of us. Yet.
Thick swaths of crimson red streak and speckle the ground, dripping from Ozias’s wound. A snarl slides along my teeth.
Hold on,Ozias says.
But I can’t. My mind slips. My body thrashes. I am half there, and half not, my mind of reason watching, screaming as my dragon body thrashes and claws at Ozias. I need to stop, but it’s like shouting across the plains only to have my words ripped away on the wind, dampened by the siss of the dry grass.
Ozias wrangles my body, pins my thrashing limbs. A sharp pain here and there not registering in my dragon’s mindless state, but I can feel it. I’m so close, but too afraid to draw nearer to the beast itself. So I cower while she thrashes and keens. I weep while she pulls apart my seams and I catch the moment Ozias’s eyes glaze over, his lips peeling back into a fluttering snarl.
Out of the corner of my eye, the advance of Dyeus’s troops draws nearer. They’ll kill us. Or take us and use us. Probably both. If I let the beast they’ve created loose, I will lose everything. I can’t let that happen. Not when I know what it’s like to have it in my grasp. I sense something inside me break and it’s like opening up a door to the outside to let fresh air tunnel through. I let that air flow through me, taking every last bit into myself. The very ground beneath me vibrates. The troops advancing on us stand completely still.
