Without waiting for permission, I lunged forward, arms pumping, as I raced toward the lance and grabbed it.
“What are you doing?” bellowed Covington from behind me.
I didn’t have a strong enough arm to throw a killing blow at a flying dragon. Few grown men did, for that matter. Instead, I slammed the flat end of the lance into the stones at my feet.
The blue dragon bared his teeth at me, and Mirantha floated off the wall and resettled. The attacking dragon lifted higher.
“You idiot, he’s wild!” Covington shouted at me, hanging back.
I slammed the lance into the stones once more, heart turning somersaults at Covington’s words. Wild dragons had their flame. No wonder Covington wanted to kill him.
If that dragon opened his mouth and flamed us, we were dead. But the wild dragon turned his face away, circling a little higher.
Again, I beat the stone with the metal lance. Tap, tap, tap. Tap-tap.
The beat was simple but resonant, filling the space. The dragons stopped growling. The wild one cocked his head at me as I kept the beat, arm reverberating with each impact. Then, with another warning growl from Mirantha, the wild dragon screeched and darted away.
The lance clanged one last time as I dropped it and collapsed to the ground, arm tingling, mind reeling.
Covington charged toward the fallen dragon.
Heaving blue scales rose and fell as Azeron lay on his side in the center of the courtyard. Dark red dragon blood pooled on the ground, iridescent in the brightening light of day. I searched the dragon’s body for the wound. One scale was bent inward, a slice of raw flesh visible underneath.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” I said.
“We?” Uncorking a small bottle with his teeth, Rushland Covington dropped to his knees beside the dragon, sinking into the shimmering blood. He pressed a hand against one large, smooth scale and tipped the vial nearer the gushing wound. “Go. Now.”
Instead, I dove for the dragon’s neck. “I’ll hold him.”
Covington’s eyes widened as my arms slipped around the dragon’s neck just behind his head. He was strong, but he was also in pain, and my weight was only enough to hold him for a moment. The growls issuing from his throat rattled in my blood. I nodded at Covington, and without hesitation, he poured the contents onto the wound.
The dragon bucked.
I leaned my entire weight over the dragon’s neck, stroking downward on his scales and speaking calmly to him.
“Hold him!”
“I’ve got him,” I seethed through clenched teeth. The vial’s contents smelled like licorice to me, but I knew they contained wintercress, an herb with numbing properties.
After a moment, the dragon went limp against the stones. I looked over at Covington. He raked a hand through his hair, which was so damp from sweat that half of it stood up at strange angles.
“I’m going to bend the scale back into place.” He drew from his waistband a pair of dragon scale pliers. I’d seen them hanging in the lair but never seen them used. Dragon scales were thick and extremely strong, but with the proper tools, they could be bent or, in this case, straightened.
I again braced myself against the dragon’s neck. In a swift motion, Covington dug the pliers into the wound, leaned his weight into the dragon’s side, and pulled up with both hands. Azeron wailed, a high-pitched scream from deep in his lungsthat made me scream in return. Mirantha lifted from her perch and hovered over us, her claws clicking at us but missing.
Then Covington was hurling himself backward, slipping in the slick blood, pliers in hand. “Move.” His voice was sharp and commanding.
I lunged away from the dragon, sprinting without looking back.
Mirantha circled overhead, her wings as wide as the entire courtyard. I didn’t stop until I reached the nearest wall, slinging myself against it as I spun to see if the dragons were coming for us.
Azeron was on his feet, but his nose was tucked down under his wing, where he sniffed at his wound. Mirantha, meanwhile, had settled back on her perch above, orange eyes fixed on us. Somehow, I sensed there was no more anger or hostility in her gaze, almost like she was thankful. I nodded at her, startled to think that the stories were true. That people could really understand dragons if they knew them well enough.
Beside me, Covington bent forward, hands on his knees. Only then did it occur to me that he wasn’t wearing riding clothes. Rather than the thick leather pants and high-collared jackets associated with dragon riders, he wore only pleated slacks and a white shirt. He didn’t even have on riding boots. His shirt peeled slowly away from his chest, but the fabric stuck to the sweat on his back. Through the sweat-dampened fabric, the hint of a dark tattoo stood out between his shoulder blades. I’d never seen nobles with tattoos before. At his waist, a pistol’s holster peeked out from under his loose shirt hem. It was empty.
“Is there any of that wintercress left? For you?” I asked, eyeing the bloodstain on his shirt.
He angled his chin toward me. “I need you to leave. Now.”
