The need to protect him overwhelmed me, and I dove down toward them.
The cloaked thing’s voice rasped. “Send your shadow closer.” The boy's shadow dragged forward The Hut.
His mouth opened, but his scream remained trapped deep inside.
When the thing touched him, I roared.
Flames snarled up my throat, and I sent them, white-hot and screaming through the dark. My fire struck The Hut. The cloaked figure. Everything but the precious boy. Heat swelled, fire bounding from tree to tree, rabid wolves after a rabbit.
The figure slashed out with a blade, and the boy grunted.
I poured more fire, blazing it across the ground, seeking the thing. It reeled back, arms thrown up and cloak flaring.
It did not burn.
A flicker of magic, and it was gone from this place. The fire devoured what remained.
The boy fell to his knees, gripping his cheek where blood ran too bright and thick. His eyes searched the area before he leaped to his feet and ran, rushing through brambles, aiming for The Castle far in the distance.
I swept above him, keeping watch.
He never looked up, never knew I was there, my wings stretched wide enough to cut across stars. I followed him, low enough to see the blood trail across his cheek. Low enough to note that he did not cry.
His eyes shimmered though I sensed his tears came more from the shame than fear or pain. This boy’s will was a blade sharpened against the world.
Mine.
Protect.
He crossed back through the hidden door in The Castle wall.
I landed in the shadows beyond the tree line and folded my wings across my back, holding my body still. My claws dug into the soil.
Night passed.
The next.
I returned to The Hut’s remains, finding only ash and scorched earth. I searched for signs that the cloaked figure had returned, that it might rise again and reach for him. I left markings, claw gouges on the trees and scorched grass. To promise a reckoning if it dared return.
I returned to my hiding spot near the Castle, and I kept watching.
I thought the pull would never fade, that I would stay there until roots grew around and through my old bones. I did not sleep. Did not dream. I listened to the heartbeat of the world and to the echo of the boy’s footsteps, the memory of his blood surging deep inside me.
Protect.
It was a thrum of something older than me, a vow carved into scale and marrow.
One night, the urge to remain left. I rose from the earth, soaring up into the sky, flying far into the mountains.
When storms tore across the mountaintops and lightning split the sky, I remembered the dark-haired boy with angry eyes, running through darkness. Bleeding. Silent. Strong. And that same urge that once wrapped chains around my soul rose again.
That echo of need never lasted long, but it came often enough that I never truly forgot.
Protect.
And then it…andI…was gone.
Find her before it’s too late.
