When she started, she’d been looking at Svena, but by the time Amelia finished, she was staring through the portal straight at Estella. The seer’s grip tightened on Marci’s hair in response, and Marci closed her eyes, hoping against hope that the dragons would remember they had reasons to not let her die. But to her amazement, no fire came. Instead, Estella released her entirely, lifting her hands to raise a glowing barrier around herself and Marci as she ordered, “Bring her down.”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Svena obeyed. The white dragon launched into the air, leaving a blast of frost on the sand that melted immediately in Amelia’s heat. As soon as she was off the ground, Svena swung out over the sea, using the cool water to form massive spears of ice that shot from the waves as she passed. Each one moved faster than the speed of sound, creating little sonic booms as they rocketed toward Amelia’s sky darkening wings. But as the spears closed in, they began to shrink. Even at top speed, the heat was too intense, and by the time they actually reached Amelia’s feathers, the shots were little more than cold water.
“Is that the best you can do?” Amelia teased, brushing her damp feathers. “You were better than this the first time we fought.”
Svena’s answer to that was to launch another volley of ice, this time at Amelia’s head. Again, though, the shots melted before they reached her, the seawater falling harmlessly down onto the melted sand below. Amelia shook her head with a final, disgusted look and opened her massive mouth. Marci got a brief glimpse of a wall of teeth the size of support pillars before the dragon breathed a river of fire that made Justin’s green flames look like a sparkler.
If Svena hadn’t been over the water, that would have been the end. Amelia’s fire consumed the entire bay. Orange flames stretched to the horizon, covering the water from one end of the beach to the other, leaving nowhere to run. But even that much fire couldn’t boil away the sea, and that was where Svena escaped, diving below the waves seconds ahead of the fire. Seeing her retreat, Amelia stopped her flames as quickly as they’d started, her glowing eyes watching Svena’s white shadow as she darted through the water as fast as a swordfish before exploding back to the surface with her own blast of icy fire.
At first, it looked like a pretty good shot, but the exit from the water must have spoiled her aim, because Svena’s attack missed Amelia entirely, blasting into the sand below her instead. Even though she was rooting for Team Heartstriker, Marci couldn’t help feeling bad about that. Whatever magic Svena had put into that attack, it was killer, creating a spire of ice that didn’t melt even though the sand around it had long since turned to sticky, black glass. If Svena was upset about the loss, though, she didn’t let it show. She just turned around and breathed on herself next, coating her scales in a protective shell of that same, unmelting ice, much to Amelia’s amusement.
“Are you sure you want to waste that much cold?” she said, her voice booming over the waves as she swooped down to tap her claw against the pillar of frozen water below her. “That ice comes from your own life’s fire, White Witch. We both know you can only make so much, and the fight’s barely started.”
Svena’s answer to that was to attack again, breathing a plume of white fire at Amelia’s claws. Again, though, she missed by miles. Amelia didn’t even have to dodge as the ice flew under her to crash harmlessly into the smoldering trees at the beach’s edge. But while this attack was just as ineffectual as the others, Amelia was no longer amused.
“What are you doing?”
When Svena didn’t answer, Amelia flapped her sky spanning wings, sending out a wave of super-heated air that hit Svena like a wall, throwing her down into the surf. Amelia was on top of her the second she hit, pinning the smaller dragon into crashing waves with her claws.
“What are you doing?” Amelia snarled, sparks flying from her mouth as she bent low over her pinned enemy. “You’re better than this, I know you are. The White Witch doesn’t waste her life’s magic on missed shots. What has she done to you?”
Her eyes flicked to Estella as she said this, but the seer wasn’t the one who answered. Instead, Svena hauled back and breathed fire straight into Amelia’s face.
This time, the attack actually got through. Amelia jerked back, shaking her head as ice coated her red feathers. She raked her claws down Svena’s body at the same time, and the white dragon screamed, the first sound she’d made since she’d arrived. But though the wounds looked horrible, Svena was already pushing back on her feet, ignoring the blood that ran down her scales as she advanced on Amelia again.
“Stop this,” Amelia hissed, melting the ice from her face with a smoky huff as she retreated up the beach. “Stop, Svena. You’re killing yourself.”
But the bloody dragon didn’t stop. She just kept pushing forward, and Amelia, clearly unwilling to injure her any further, had no choice but to keep moving back. “Have you gone as insane as your sister?” she growled. “You’re not in your right mind. You always were a good enemy, Svena. That’s almost the same as being friends. Don’t make me do this. I refuse to slaughter you when you can’t fight back.”
Again, though, the dragon didn’t stop, and Amelia’s glare turned murderous. “Last warning,” she said, planting her enormous clawed feet in the blackened sand. “Backdown.”
With every word she spoke, the air grew hotter. Even through the portal, it burned Marci’s skin. She had no idea how Svena could stand being in front of that, but just as she was bracing for what was clearly going to be the end, Estella said, “Now.”
The word rang like a bell across the battlefield, and Svena’s body jerked. That was the only warning they got before Amelia’s rising heat was buried under an avalanche of cold.
Marci had felt dragon magic plenty of times before, but this was another level entirely. Just standing near it made her feel like claws of ice were stabbing into her stomach. But though it felt horrible, Marci still didn’t understand what it was supposed to do. There was no blast of white fire, no attack. Amelia didn’t even seem to be in pain. But then, when Marci was wondering if Svena had just lost control for good, it happened.
All over the beach, all the chunks of unmelting ice Svena had thrown around during the fight began to hum. The eerie sound was enough to make even Amelia look alarmed, but it wasn’t until the enormous dragon actually turned around that Marci finally figured out what was going on. All of those times where Svena’s attacks had missed hadn’t been misses at all. The failed shots had fallen around the bay in a wide circle, and Amelia was now standing directly at its center.
Amelia must have noticed this just a hair faster than Marci, because she was already launching into the air, but still not fast enough. Her claws had barely left the sand before the humming ice exploded in a massive cloud of frozen crystals that caught her mid-flight. Amelia turned and breathed fire at once, but this time, even that wasn’t enough. Though the beach outside the circle was still smoldering, the inside was so cold, the air itself didn’t move. Only the ice kept spreading, and by the time Svena pushed herself back to her feet again, Amelia was frozen from her claws to her wings.
“You can’t keep this up forever!” she roared, breathing another wave of scorching fire over her icy prison. “You idiot, this is your life’s magic! You’re going to kill yourself trying to hold me down, and for what? You can’t even hurt me in the time it’ll take me to break free.” As she said this, the ice holding one of her wings shattered, and Amelia bared her teeth in triumph. “You feel that? I’ll be out in less than a minute!”
“But a minute is all we need.”
Marci jumped. She’d been so transfixed on the epic battle going down on the other side of the portal, she’d forgotten that Estella was still standing right beside her. Now, though, the seer stepped forward, raising her hand to point at the sky overhead.
Marci looked before she could think better of it, squinting into the glare of the setting sun. She was starting to wonder if the seer was bluffing them when she spotted it.
It was a plane. Not a passenger jet or an island jumper, either, but one of those massive, long haul cargo planes, and it was going down. Had been for a while if the smoke pouring from its four engines was any sign, but between all the fire and magic, no one had noticed. No one, that was, except Estella.
“Right on time.”
“You’ve got to bekiddingme,” Amelia roared, slamming the full weight of her body against the icy prison, but it was no use. Fast as her heat was melting it, it wasn’t fast enough. Marci was still watching her struggle in horror when Estella turned and pressed something flat and papery-feeling into her hands.
“For Brohomir,” the seer said sweetly. “A parting gift.”
“Wha—” Marci began, but the dragon was already walking away, dispersing her shimmering barrier with a careless flick of her hand as she stepped through the portal and onto the blackened beach. Like she was just taking a stroll on the beach, Estella walked to her sister’s side, throwing up another, much thicker barrier just as Amelia cracked the ice holding her second wing. But though the huge dragon was now more than halfway free, it was far too late. The crashing cargo plane was nearly on top of her. She barely had time to put her newly-freed wings up as a shield before the jet slammed into her, crushing the dragon under six hundred thousand pounds of flaming steel.
